Why Downtown Wilkes-Barre matters for everyone

Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square and the surrounding blocks — what everyone calls Downtown Wilkes-Barre — comprise a relatively small part of the city, and certainly an even smaller part of Luzerne County.

Downtown’s land area — from North Street to Academy Street, and the Susquehanna River to the railroad tracks — is smaller than 300 acres.

But the ongoing success of that small geography is paramount to our entire region.

Downtown Wilkes-Barre matters to all of us.

It matters because the downtown is the city’s major job center — the work location for 44% of all Wilkes-Barre residents who work within city limits. As recently as 2019, prior to the pandemic, Downtown Wilkes-Barre was the number one work location for every single city neighborhood –—from Miners Mills to Goose Island.

Downtown Wilkes-Barre matters because it is the primary economic engine bringing dollars from the region and beyond into the City of Wilkes-Barre. In 2019, 51% of all jobs located within city limits were in Downtown Wilkes-Barre, and the downtown was the work location for 7,800 Luzerne County residents, including 6,500 who lived outside the city.

In addition, 93% of the people who visited Downtown Wilkes-Barre for some reason other than employment — for example, to go shopping, to dine, or go to a show — lived outside the City of Wilkes-Barre. In 2019, that was a total of more than 600,000 people. The discretionary spending of all these non-city residents — whether workers, shoppers, show-goers, diners, or visitors — flows into the cash registers of city enterprises, and ultimately into the city’s tax coffers.

Downtown Wilkes-Barre matters because it’s the city’s fastest-growing residential neighborhood. The population of Wilkes-Barre’s downtown core — Census Tract 2001, from North Street to South Street, increased by 1,093 residents from 2010 to 2020. That’s a 38% population increase within a single decade. At the same time, the City of Wilkes-Barre’s population increased by 2,860 residents from 2010 to 2020 – a seven percent population increase.

Put simply, new residents in the downtown core amounted to almost 40% of Wilkes-Barre City’s total population growth during this past decade.

Downtown Wilkes-Barre matters because it’s the image that the Wyoming Valley presents to the rest of the world, whether as a backdrop for news stories or a destination for visitors to our community.

Need more reasons why the success of Downtown Wilkes-Barre is important to all of Luzerne County? Well, as my friend Gerry O’Donnell wrote in a Downtown Rebound column earlier this year: Wilkes-Barre is home to county government, including the Luzerne County Courthouse and its annexes, Penn Place, and other county offices.

But Downtown Wilkes-Barre also hosts all manner of public and nonprofit facilities that serve people throughout the county and beyond: the King’s College and Wilkes University campuses; the Max Rosenn Federal Courthouse and an array of non-judicial federal offices; regional offices for multiple state agencies; religious institutions; and nonprofit social assistance organizations helping those in need. The Luzerne County Library System is based at the Osterhout Free Library on South Franklin Street, and the downtown campus of Luzerne County Community College is located on Public Square.

City fire, police, and emergency medical services protect and serve all these regional assets, which are accessed via a street network maintained by the city’s Department of Public Works.

Very well stated, Gerry, and very true.

The pandemic has been difficult for all; however, it has particularly affected Downtown Wilkes-Barre. We’ve lost a significant number of workers who have yet to return to their downtown offices. Businesses have struggled and closed. And this decrease in daily traffic has made the issue of homelessness more prevalent.

Challenging times, though, are when we all need to step up for a better tomorrow.

The larger circumstances that created this crisis are beyond our control – but we do have control over how we respond. Downtown Wilkes-Barre, like other city centers, has changed many times during its history, but one factor has always remained true: when we cultivate a downtown environment where people want to spend time, the result is new vitality and economic activity.

That’s DCP’s mission, and we will continue to work with city and county government, the Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber, area agencies and organizations, and others to rebound our downtown so that it continues to be a vibrant, clean, and safe center of business, education, and recreation, and a great place to live and visit.

Keep watching for more news about that reinvention — and we hope to see you soon in Downtown Wilkes-Barre!