Lighting ceremony illuminates downtown, and its desire to rise up

By Ben Felder
Editor & Publisher 12/08/2008

What a difference some lights, hot chocolate, and Christmas carols can make for a downtown community that has suffered from neglect and apathy for nearly two decades.

Last week a few hundred Raytown citizens gathered on a chilly December evening to celebrate the city’s second annual pocket park lighting ceremony and to take in the sights of several businesses decorated in lights and storefronts fitted with Holiday themed displays.

“It’s a big deal,” said Mayor David Bower about the event, “people are taking their downtown back again and the citizens of this community are sending a clear message.” That clear message is that for many people in the community a lifeless downtown is no longer acceptable. For one local resident sending that message meant trying to bring some holiday cheer to downtown.

“I just didn’t want downtown to be so dark during Christmas,” said Cindy McPherrin who helped lead a charge to encourage downtown businesses to decorate their buildings with lights. The result of McPherrin and other citizen’s efforts was a downtown filled with several participating businesses including decorated storefronts in the nearly abandoned Park Plaza.

“There is still a ways to go,” McPherrin said as she watched hundreds of residents admire the lights, “but considering how far we have come I think this is great.” For Raytown resident Michael Hawkins just the fact that people are gathered in downtown is a step in the right direction. “I have lived here for two years now and really wanted to see our downtown become the type of downtown you see in other communities,” Hawkins said, “hopefully this shows we have the people to have a great downtown.”

The process of bringing downtown “back to life” has been a challenging one. For each success story of a new business moving in it seems there are just as many steps back. The city’s work on redeveloping sections of the district has been painfully slow at times and promises by businesses to move downtown have often been unfulfilled, but when it comes to the energy of the people to see downtown grow there isn’t a shortage.

“This has been a frustrating and slow process,” Bower said about downtown redevelopment following the lighting ceremony, “but while the city has to do its part, and businesses have to do their part, the citizens have to do their part and that’s exactly what we are seeing.”

It can often seem that for every great community that has demonstrated an ability to attract new business and redevelopment it is said that it’s the people that make the different. If that’s true then Raytown doesn’t appear to be lacking when it comes to the spirit of its people and their desire to see downtown once again become the community’s economic hub. “Its just so great to see light and life in downtown,” Bower remarked about a downtown that is working hard to see to it that the “light and life” soon becomes a year round experience.