University of North Alabama - Diorama Yearbook (Florence, AL)

Page 26 text:

A typical day on Court Street means a lack of empty parking places. The construction of a parking deck downtown is expected to relieve some of the congestion in the parking situation. 22

Page 25 text:

As the doors open, excited shoppers pour into the mall. Merchants esti- mated that between 20,000 and 40,000 people came through the mall on opening day. With so many students going to work at Regency Square, there is a short- age of workers on campus, as evi- denced by this help wanted sign in Friday ' s in the SUB. Mall 21

Page 27 text:

Regency Square. . . The Sears building downtown stands deserted because of the move to Regency Square, but Mar- tin Industries plans to move into the building. r I. It is inevitable that a shop- ping complex of such great size would have an impact on the stores which chose to re- main downtown rather than make the move to Regency Square. Most of the downtown stores, however, seem to feel that the effect of the mall on the downtown commercial area has been kept to a mini- mum. Most of the stores had the foresight to plan for the effect that Regency Square would have upon them. Howard Hall, general merchan- dise manager for Rogers Department store on Court Street, is especially opti- mistic about the future of the downtown commercial area. He made special mention of the close tie that exists between UNA and downtown Florence as one deciding factor in preventing the complete desertion of Court Street as a shopping area. Perhaps the most definite evidence that Regency Square does not mean the death of downtown Florence could be said to be parking conditions downtown: on the day of the grand opening of Regency Square, it was still impos- sible to park easily on Court Street. Some shoppers still choose to shop downtown as well as at Regency. Mall 23