From city Communications Director Av Harris:
Mayor Joe Ganim today is welcoming National Arts supply superstore Artists and Craftsman Supply to downtown Bridgeport. The store opened just its second branch in Connecticut yesterday with an official ribbon cutting at its location on 1001 Main Street. Artists and Craftsman supply is committed to serving an underserved urban population and revitalizing cities across the United States. The store has one other branch in Connecticut out of some thirty nationwide locations.
“This is a tremendous boost to the arts in downtown Bridgeport,” said Mayor Ganim. “The people who will help lead the comeback for Bridgeport will be the artists, architects and craftspeople who will all be customers of this store. Welcome to Bridgeport and I urge anyone interested in everything from making posters to sculpture, scenery or drafting to come check out Artist and Craftsman supply on Main Street!”
Will Iannuzzi, manager of Artist and Craftsman Supply in Bridgeport, said, “One of our major goals is to serve urban areas that are not served by the box stores that tend to go out to the suburbs. We want to help develop urban communities and reinvigorate urban living. I want to thank everybody in the community for the warmth they have shown us, I know that we are going to do great things together, and we love being in Bridgeport.”
Definitely a significant positive for the downtown. But will the city kill it with its idiotic parking policy/parking meters? The first thing that needs to happen for downtown to become business-friendly is for people to not be discouraged to go there by the lack of convenient parking and by being punished with parking-meter fines if they can’t accomplish their business with stopwatch timing.
If I were Mr. Iannuzzi, I would schedule a meeting with the Mayor’s Office and downtown special services to carve out some free, business-hours parking for Artists and Craftman’s Supply customers.
This store really could be a winner for the city. There is a dearth of artist supply outlets in this area. Someone might be able to get a nice artsy coffee shop up and running by locating in close proximity to this business. But again; the city can’t be stupid with its parking policy or with providing security measures if it wants to nurture downtown businesses.
This is indeed encouraging. It’s been a very long time since there was any business like this downtown.
With all the Bullshit Artists in town, the store should do very well.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=jBpQEDaG7Cg
Wow, Ganim welcomes a business. What’s he doing about the ongoing gang dispute that left one 18-year-old dead, several others injured and one in jail on a murder charge? You’re getting soft, Grimaldi. Not many people really give a rat’s ass about the Mickey Mouse politics in Bridgeport beyond the small group of malcontents who regularly contribute to OIB.