[Clock tower chimes]
>> Liz Hayden: The downtown had basically slowly turned
into a ghost town.
Hamilton was extremely lucky that a lot of its urban
bones were still here in the early 2000s.
They were starting to decay, but we had things to work with.
>> Vanessa Cannon: When I first moved here there
wasn't any momentum.
Like, stores were shuttered and badly maintained.
Like, boards on windows and nobody had a vision for what
the city could be.
>> Liz Hayden: We were trying to achieve the work,
live, play goal that you hear in every community.
The first things that popped up in downtown Hamilton
about five years ago were some retail and
restaurant options.
But it really, you know, needed a little bit more to
get -- to really jump start.
And that really was the Mercantile Lofts.
The Mercantile Lofts Apartments was the first
market-rate project in downtown Hamilton in decades.
>> Steve Coon: The driving force behind an economic
revival are people living downtown.
And I thought the only way this is going to come back
and the only way it's going to work is if people
actually live downtown.
And so we changed it all over to housing.
And we have some retail space on the first floor but
everything else is housing.
>> Joy Nix: To be able to tell people that I live here
and that I'm helping not only develop the economy
through my business but through my purchases,
and through the time that I spend in my leisure hours,
and being able to get to know everybody within the
community and the small town I think that that has
advantages in my personal life but also advantages in
my professional life.
There are so many cool things going on downtown
with the library across the way, and with the grocery
store that's coming in, and all of the local cafes that
are walking distance that the ability to not have to
use a car in town was really attractive to me.
>> Liz Hayden: In 2011, there was a two-percent
occupancy rate on the block that the Mercantile Lofts is on.
And in 2015, it has 100-percent occupancy.
It's changed completely.
>> Steve Coon: People are taking a chance on store
fronts now that they wouldn't just five
or six years ago.
It was just vacant buildings.
And now I don't think there's a vacant building
down on the strip.
There's construction going on everywhere.
And people are believing in what's going on downtown.
>> Vanessa Cannon: We wanted to be in the middle
of where the action was, and that's what this place is
for us.
At first it was slow, you know?
Like, we were the only people really open at night.
We were the only people open in the morning.
But now a lot of businesses have popped up and have
allowed us to kind of have a community.
>> Female Speaker: We do a lot of re-purposed things,
so --
>> Customer: [affirmative]
>> Sara Vallandingham: Sara's House is a home decor
and gift shop.
But what makes us unique is that we really try to use
repurposed items.
And on a broader scale we feel like that's what
Hamilton is doing.
>> Dave Vallandingham: Bringing the family here,
having a shop here, I guess it's a reflection back on
the way it used to be: the shop owner lived above the shop.
>> Sara Vallandingham: This is the American dream.
We own our building, and we get to live in this city and
have just a front row seat to watching it transform itself.
>> Liz Hayden: Hamilton is moving forward by preserving
its past.
We have diversity.
We have walkability.
[ballet music]
We have all kinds of amenities.
It was about getting people back and believing in it.
And so we're able to create this authentic Hamilton
that's real and that's how we're leveraging to build
a better future.
[music ends]