You need more people living downtown with a large entertainment district within walking distance of their housing. Once that happens, more people will visit an already busy downtown nightlife. That’s easier said than done though.

As nice as having the river is, I think it’s been part of the reason for the slow growth of downtown. There are entertainment areas on both sides of the river but it’s not really walkable to go from one to another and none of the entertainment areas are all that big. The monorail was and continues to be a disaster, but perhaps expanding it to connect the various entertainment areas in downtown and the surrounding areas might go a long way to helping the situation and turning a useless asset into something that could actually be profitable. I have no idea how economically viable the monorail is, I just have to imagine it doesn’t currently turn a profit.

Ideally, I’d like to see the jail relocated out of downtown and to convert that spot into more nightlife and/or high rise housing. In conjunction with the shipyards development, you’d have a strip of bars/restaurants/housing going from the stadium and almost getting over to the Landing which should be enough to make downtown consistently busy at night and entice further housing developments downtown. The shipyards getting done is going to be the catalyst for anything else getting done, however.

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