It’s
pretty early on a Thursday night — just 10:30 p.m. — but East Avenue at
Alexander Street is already jumping. People are everywhere: The Old Toad, BarFly, Whiskey, Coyote Joe’s. By midnight, elbowroom at
the hottest spots and any hope of decent parking are long gone.
           Cross over to the other side of
downtown to the High Falls entertainment district. Inside the new Keys Martini
and Piano Bar, a disco ball spins tiny white lights around a room that, like
McFadden’s nearby, is practically empty.
           People come here in droves for the
piano shows that run from 7 to 11 p.m., says operations manager Elaine Henry,
but “at midnight, it’s like they all get on the same bus.”
           Just down the street from Keys is
Jillian’s. The parent company for the all-in-one entertainment chain recently
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and entered purchase agreements to sell 30 of
its 33 clubs. The Rochester location, which is still open, wasn’t included in
the deal because, according to news reports, it’s not making enough money.
           Between the city and the state,
nearly $20 million in public money has been spent on High Falls. We’ve
redeveloped the terrace approaching the Pont De Rennes bridge, built the High Falls Parking Garage,
embarked on costly demolitions, and converted the historic buildings at 60
Browns Race into a museum and entertainment complex.
           Just last year, the city signed a
five-year deal that pays the Baltimore-based Cordish
Company $2.4 million to operate and serve as a consultant for the nightclubs at
60 Browns Race, now known as McFadden’s and Tiki
Bob’s.
           Cordish
has a proven track record when it comes to successful downtown entertainment
districts. They’ve done them in Baltimore, Houston, Charleston, and Louisville. But High Falls
presents its own particular set of challenges.
“The city can
pour money in here all they want,” says Keys’ Elaine Henry. “We don’t have
residential.”
           Most people who call to inquire
about Keys need directions, she says, because they have no idea how to get to
High Falls.
           Unlike the Upper East End, High
Falls doesn’t benefit from nearby housing for the young and affluent
demographic hitting the bars. It also offers fewer options.
           There are roughly a dozen bars or
bar-restaurants in the Upper East End: the Alexander Street Pub, Old Toad, Blue
Room, Coyote Joe’s, BarFly, Karma, Tonic, Mex, Whiskey, Jungle, Veneto, and Pearl. Your options in
High Falls include McFaddens, Tiki
Bob’s, Triphammer Grill, Keys Martini and Piano Bar, Brü, Jillians, Jimmy Mac’s.
           “I just think they’ve got a lot
going for them over there in terms of critical mass, in terms of being one
after the other,” says Assistant Deputy Mayor Mitch Rowe. “[Bar owners] created
an energy over there, to their credit. We’re not a
growing community in terms of population right now, so there’s
a finite number of people going out. And it’s incumbent on the different
places around town to try and market to them. Right now — and this is
certainly not a knock on High Falls — the Upper East End seems to be where
young people want to go.”
           Ask people hanging out at the bars
along Alexander and East why they chose that area over High Falls, and answers
range from cheap drinks to the presence of other friends, to the locally owned
scene.
           “High Falls is too polished for
me,” says Chris Amoroso, 28, who’s chosen to relax at the Blue Room.
“This [area] is more locally owned. [High Falls] seems like a tourist
trap.”
Rowe’s
perspective on High Falls is unique. He recently bought an old three-story building
at the corner of State and Lyell that he plans to
rehab into an upscale coffeehouse called the Flatiron Café.
           But it’s his years of work as a city
employee that have given Rowe a special understanding of High Falls’ evolution.
           He remembers coming to work for the
city 20 years ago and parking on Commercial Street “because it was free, and
the vast majority of buildings over there were abandoned.”
           He credits former Mayor Tom Ryan and
former Deputy Mayor Chris Lindley for “creating the notion” of restoring the
historic High Falls area.
           That team, Rowe says, worked to
procure the state funding that turned High Falls into an urban cultural park
whose primary focus was the Center at High Falls, a museum of Rochester’s
industrial history.
           “So the city, for better or worse,
when they accepted that money more than a decade ago, had some obligations to
keep that [cultural park] going,” Rowe says.
           And between the laser light shows
and the museum, Rowe estimates the city was spending nearly $1 million a year.
           When Mayor Bill Johnson and Deputy
Mayor Jeff Carlson took office, Rowe says, “they were looking at the subsidy
the city was putting in basically to have an urban cultural park, and they
wanted to think of ways to turn that around and move the city out from
underneath these operating subsidies.”
           By the end of the city’s five-year
deal with Cordish, “there will no longer be any
operating subsidies at High Falls.”
           That, along with the fact that
companies like Entercom and Roberts Communications
are now located in High Falls is, to Rowe, a sign of success.
Involving Cordish in High Falls wasn’t the plan initially, Rowe
says.
           The city first asked the company to consider
vying for the rights to develop the Charlotte waterfront. But Cordish eventually decided that it was much more interested
in High Falls.
           “When you have a national developer
who’s done big-time stuff in the harbor at Baltimore and he wants to come to
your town, the natural instinct is just to say ‘come on down,'” Rowe says.
           When it comes to turning High Falls
into a vital entertainment destination, Rochester is giving Cordish
some unique hurdles.
           For one, because of the state
funding, it has to keep the museum open. “I think Cordish
might think there’s a better use for that space,” Rowe says.
           It also has to adapt to the added
scrutiny that comes with having the city as your landlord.
           “I think Cordish
has found things to be a little different in Rochester than some other places
they’ve been,” Rowe says. “There were a couple of incidents with over-under
nights — apparently some fights and under-age drinking. And the city
basically said, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So they stopped. It was a big
part of their concept. They do it everywhere else. But they had to rethink
their approach here in Rochester.”
           Of course, some people, like
22-year-old Ryan Smith, prefer the age requirement.
           “It’s classier [at High
Falls],” he says. “There’s less underage stuff [than at Alexander
Street].”
Marketplace
aside, there may be some changes in store for the Upper East End and High Falls.
           Some of the East-Alexander club
owners have been talking about doing, among other things, a New Year’s Eve
celebration with a Times Square-type ball dropping, Rowe says. In High Falls,
the future could involve hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Really.
           A newly formed public-private
partnership is trying to get federal and state money for a feasibility study to
create a “hydrogen village” in High Falls that would use the power of the falls
to drive fuel-cell technology, Rowe says. The fuel cells could power the
city-owned buildings and provide a clean, cheap source of energy to renew the
laser shows, “which cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year in
electricity when the city was doing them,” Rowe says.
           “A lot of times I hear people
asking, ‘Why put all that money in High Falls?'” says Rowe. “Well, it’s all
about our history. That’s where our city started. So many of our historic
buildings have been demolished in this town; it’s really kinda
sad. But I think if all goes well over the balance of the Cordish
agreement, then we have succeeded in getting High Falls out from under these
operating subsidies. If High Falls is turned into a hydrogen village, then
we’ve found a way to make it more attractive, and we’ll be able to do more for
less money. It won’t ever be about competing with East End.”
This article appears in Jun 2-8, 2004.
