Downtown Bellingham; Not Catered to Bulk of Population
Being a college student all I want to do on my weekends when I don’t have classes is to go unwind in a place away from campus where I’m not reminded of my academic responsibilities. To do this I head downtown where I expect to see at least some catering towards the college students since we do make up a substantial portion of the Bellingham population. However, whenever I go I am disappointed to find a lack of activities and places to hang out for people my age. Sure, there’s a nice farmer’s market that I have pictured below but they cut back their hours of operation drastically in the winter months to only being open during the 3rd Saturday of every month (“Bellingham Farmer’s Market”). There’s a music record store, some clothing stores, coffee shops, and a surplus of restaurants, but there’s nowhere that us students can go to sit back and attend a good quality event, such as listening to music. It’s a sad truth that the purposes of the buildings that line the streets of East Holly St. and Railroad Ave. is never to meet new people and socialize.
You may think of a surplus of restaurants as a positive thing, which it can be, but when you’re a college student and you’ve already spent a large chunk of money on a meal plan there isn’t much desire to spend more money on off campus food since the dining hall is so easily at our disposal. Sure every once in awhile eating at a restaurant with your friends for a night out is nice, but with the insane amount of eateries present in downtown, and the limited budget of your average college student, I know I will never get the chance to eat at every location, which leads me to think that business owners may be better off investing in a new venue or hang out spot rather than another restaurant.
When I interviewed my roommate, she explained that there are only four hang out spots that come to her mind when she thinks of what there is to do in downtown. “I know the club, ‘The Underground’ has 18+ nights on Wednesday nights sometimes which is nice that they have the college freshman/sophomore customer in mind, but Wednesday is a school night, so it may be more well attended if it was on a weekend. There’s a bowling alley which I haven’t been to, although I hear its hours of operation are college student friendly; it’s open late into the night. There’s also a hookah lounge if you’re into that kind of thing, but I hear it’s expensive, and then there’s ‘The Wild Buffalo’ which is a music and performance venue.”
The fact that there’s only one known music venue is what concerns me the most because being the stereotyped college students we are, we’d rather spend our money on an experience than a tangible object that is only good one or two times before it’s time to throw it away. You’d think that since this venue could be a good hub for gatherings that Western students would flock to it, but I haven’t heard of any of my friends ever attending an event at this location, in fact when I looked at the schedule posted online I didn’t recognize a single musical guest coming in the next two months (“Events Archive). If they were to bring in a well known artist and market the show well then people my age would definitely attend, bringing in a revenue for the venue, as well as good publicity, but unfortunately they’ve yet to bring in an act that sounds tempting.
Overall downtown does have some things to offer people my age, but the customer type that downtown caters to is very limited, and if you’re not into shopping organic, or eating (what at times can be expensive), local food you may feel like there’s absolutely nothing for you to do in downtown Bellingham.
Sources Cited-
BBJ Staff. “Bellingham Farmers Market Ready for Second Winter Opening.” BBJ Today. Sounds Publishing Inc., 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.
“Events Archive — The Wild Buffalo.” The Wild Buffalo. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.
“Bellingham Farmer’s Market.” Bellingham Farmers Market Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.
