Overlooked and Under-utilized

Lewis Street is the most under-utilized potential commercial and retail success existing in the city today.

Instead of endlessly trying to dream up plans that will re-start the downtown, why not concentrate efforts on the busiest part of Lewis Street where business is abundant, where there are very few vacancies, and where there is a steady flow of humanity all day everyday?

Lewis Street the way it is today has the core of a great success already born and very much alive and growing.

Presently, Lewish Street caters to the city’s poor and mostly mixed race ethnics. It is largely shunned by white shoppers.

With a little bit of planning, sprucing up, redoing of storefronts, special lighting, and forgive us for suggesting angle parking on one side of the street, Lewis Street has the potential to become a downtown Chelsea.

Lynners often laugh at the specter of Broadway Chelsea or of any part of Chelsea but the reality is that downtown Chelsea, the Marketbasket mall and the Home Depot Mall are bustling with new business and an expanding marketplace and new housing.

Chelsea economic activity given its size puts downtown Lynn to shame.

Bottom line, Lewis Street has a buzz to it. It is alive while the remainder of the downtown is dead on arrival.

We urge city development officials to take a closer look at what’s happening on Lewis Street.

With a few strategically placed additions, Lewis Street could become the reason for a new downtown to exist and to grow – and wouldn’t that be nice?