“It’s like a wall”: Downtown Terre Haute partners with ISU to break down barriers between communities
The barista at the Starbuck’s in Indiana State University’s bookstore sends out an order. The student picks up their hot, caffeinated drink from the counter and hurries into the blistering cold, heading back toward campus. With plenty of tables around, it’s shocking that so few students stay to enjoy the hospitality provided to them.
This scene in the Barnes and Noble café is an issue not only for this business but most businesses in the downtown Terre Haute area. It is a problem that concerns business owners and university staff alike, which is why they are working together to attempt to solve the problem.
Barbie Fox is the café manager at Barnes and Noble. As a Terre Haute native, she has a special connection to the area and to the downtown community.
“Growing up in Terre Haute was a very positive experience for me and helped me to know that I could achieve great things in life,” she says. “The first movie I saw in a theater was Forest Gump at the Indiana Theater [downtown] and my jaw dropped when I saw the grandeur of the theater even as a kid. I also remember coming to story time at the Vigo County Public Library as a kid and sitting in the yellow kangaroo rockers listening to story tellers.”
Hired to work specifically with community relations, part of Fox’s job is to coordinate those partnerships with other businesses and the university. One of the main initiatives she works with is the First Friday program.
Fox is a former manager of Blondie’s Cookies, a former store in Honey Creek Mall, which she says gives her the practical experience necessary to meet the challenges of large events held downtown.
First Friday is a monthly event held on the first Friday of every month that showcases the various downtown businesses. The primary target group is the ISU student population but First Friday events continue to take place over the summer and target families and Terre Haute residents as well. Fox sees these events as playing a crucial role in developing the downtown community.
“It’s important for students to understand that downtown Terre Haute is their home,” Fox says. “ISU campus does not stop on Cherry Street. We are a part of their community, some [students] just don’t know it yet.”
Fox’s connection with Indiana State goes back to her childhood just like her connection to downtown Terre Haute does. She attended the Upward Bound Program for three years as a teenager and says this was a great experience to help prepare her for role now as she works more closely with students and the university.
Fox was recently appointed as the president of the First Friday committee. She uses her role with that committee and Barnes & Noble café to create what she calls a “portal” to downtown Terre Haute.
“If we can get students here, we can get them into downtown,” she says.
To get students to the bookstore, Fox works with the university and the office of Campus Life to co-sponsor First Friday events at the bookstore. Campus Life’s Associate Director of Weekend Programming Ellen Malito is heavily involved from the university’s side in First Friday events and Fox’s work.
“[The downtown partnership] is something we saw as a natural fit,” Malito says. “It only made sense when I was invited to my first First Friday committee meeting.”
Malito attends those monthly meetings with approximately 15 other business owners and stakeholders to plan First Friday events and other downtown initiatives.
Another initiative Malito hopes to launch soon is creating Dine Downtown to encourage students to eat at local restaurants rather than on campus.
“A student could buy a ticket for a specific restaurant and buy certain things off that menu,” Malito says. “Campus Life would subsidize that cost.”
The Dine Downtown idea came from another university that ISU administrators visited and hope to bring to Terre Haute soon. Fox and Malito both recognize that downtown Terre Haute is struggling and lacks the university support that exists in other communities, even one an hour down the road.
“Eventually we will be at the point that Bloomington has with Indiana University,” Fox says. “That’s something that’s on everyone’s mind.”
The biggest difference between IU and ISU, according to both Malito and Fox, is ISU students don’t know it’s okay to “cross Cherry Street” and they don’t know what they can do once they do cross over into downtown.
“It’s like a wall,” Fox says. “ISU students think there is a wall between campus and downtown.”
Breaking that wall and blending the downtown businesses with students’ daily lives is the main goal of Fox, Malito and others in the downtown community.
The First Friday committee includes more than just the bookstore and university representatives. In March, the Vigo County Public Library joined Barnes and Noble for a First Friday event to bring awareness of the library and its services to ISU students.
Elizabeth Scamihorn, the library’s public relations specialist, is invested in this event and partnership to bring more exposure to the library. She serves on the First Friday committee and helped plan the March event.
Scamihorn says the event was designed to be a “fun and engaging way to connect students and families with the Wabash Valley Community Read [program].” Attendees could enjoy building cabins from pretzel sticks and candies while sampling pioneer recipes, based on the book True Grit by Charles Portis.
“The things we try to do at Barnes & Noble we try to make attractive to both families and students,” Malito says. “Sometimes it’s a bit challenging to strike up the right mix.”
Finding that sweet spot between student- and family-targeted events is key for all involved. Attendance at the First Friday events leaves room for improvement, but the stakeholders are impressed with the progress made so far.
The university’s relationship with downtown has improved over the past few years, according Malito who is a 2006 alumnus of Indiana State University. She says the university’s past relationship was virtually non-existent and the area has been cleaned up quite a bit over the years.
“If past initiatives were existent, I would say they were not successful because I feel like I had a pretty good pulse on what was going on,” Malito recalls.
Malito sees the recent increase of collaboration with downtown as a grassroots effort, which is continuing to expand. Fox accredits this new effort to everyone being more focused on downtown Terre Haute and on communication with each other.
“I think ISU wants it and the community wants it and we’re finding more ways to make that happen now as opposed to the past,” Fox says.
University and downtown officials are completely focused on getting students downtown, but it is unclear if students are equally committed to exploring downtown Terre Haute businesses. One of the issues students have shared, according to online polls and focus groups, is the lack of attractive options downtown.
“They don’t just want somewhere to eat, they don’t just want somewhere to see a movie,” Fox says, who has been involved in those student focus groups. “They want a comedy club or a name of a restaurant they know. They want some stuff we don’t have yet.”
Shelly Klingerman, representative of Downtown Terre Haute, has also worked with focus groups and had conversations with students. She is working full time to bring in businesses that students will visit in the downtown area. Primarily, students would like to see a convenience store, more pubs and restaurants, and under 21 entertainment.
All of these ideas from students will hopefully become a reality, especially with new retail locations being developed and opening in a few months. Fox, Malito and everyone involved with the downtown community are excited for the university-leased student apartments at 500 Wabash Avenue. The university will be housing students there in the upcoming fall semester and those residents will be right in the middle of downtown Terre Haute.
“I think it’s going to be a huge boost that we don’t have to work that hard for,” Fox says. “It’s just going to happen for us which we’re all very excited about.”
The first floor of the apartment building will house retail businesses, which will hopefully draw in some new businesses that students want. It is unknown what exactly will move in to these spaces, but there is plenty of speculation.
“I think they are looking to put some sort of chain that may help to have name recognition to drive people there,” Malito says.
With students moving in downtown in the coming months and the various stakeholders planning events to draw in more students, there is hope that the downtown community will be buzzing with activity. The main problem of exposure and knowledge still exists, so the result of the business and university collaboration remains to be seen.
