Shoppers are looking for free parking and more comfort in towns where they spend their money.
And Nebraska City is fertile territory for such "conveniences", as we like to call them.
Retail business people have a pretty good idea what shoppers want in the way of merchandise and our communities do a bang-up job of filling the shelves with quality.
But we are all taking a back seat to what's happening.
Like it or not (as far as the city dollar operations go) shoppers are becoming pleasantly accustomed to hard-surfaced, lighted and free parking lots.
They don't seem to mind parking in the rain and snow as long as they can scamper inside the nearest store and do the day's shopping without much weather disturbance.
Atchison, Kansas, has attempted to bolster its shopping district with a mall that is very pleasing to the eye. The mall was constructed about six years ago after the town experienced heavy river flooding.
Atchison and Nebraska City are parallel in many respects. We are both river towns and we have large cities with fancy all indoor shopping centers fairly close.
The Kansas town has two and a half blocks of mall. I saw only one block (and was told of two others) where there are parking meters.
Behind the two blocks, the alleys were left as is. But the rest of the half blocks to the streets (with exceptions for a few major buildings) were leveled and built into roomy parking lots. I took a quick count and came up with 500 parking spaces in the project.
Entrances to all stores on the mall are either at the parking lot side or along the mall - most have both.
A series of colored slides from Bill Carroll at Jessup's which will be available soon will illustrate what the town has done to keep the dollars at home.
Grand Junction, Colorado, one of my favorite towns, has a goofy-looking mall system with a zig-zag design, but I understand it's very popular with the community.
Nebraska City already has several sketches of mall ideas and there is a favorite that would be sort of a semi-mall. It could be built for a small cost in a one-block area on Central Avenue, just to try it out.
William F. Davis, chairman of the City Planning commission, has several sketches on file.
I get all wrapped up with such things as city remodeling when I start thinking that someone else is going to do it first.
So, my question is, what's keeping us from at least trying out something? Dollars? You bet, but for the sake of finding out whether it will work and whether it is practical, someone's design should be implemented.
Perhaps we can't compete with costly projects just yet because we don't have the right parking system. That may change, thanks to Harry Novak, once the Novak buildings on Central are razed and parking spaces provided.
But we ought to get going.
The observation that sticks with me after visiting Atchison, are the store fronts. Except for general painting and some remodeling, the Atchison store fronts are the same. Take a look down Central Avenue at the awnings.
Atchison has the same thing, only they are a single fancy desugn and they're made of concrete. The real meat is the free parking behind the stores and the tree-planted sidewalks that stretch the width of the street for two and a half blocks.
I also visited the newspaper office. Among those who greeted me were a friendly man who likes Nebraska City and its shopping district. Charles Spencer is the father of Phil Spencer, Senior High teacher. Charles has been with the Atchison Globe for 25 years. He is farm and area editor.