FALL RIVER — Once considered Fall River’s second downtown, with bustling long strip of Pleasant Street with shops and restaurants, the Flint neighborhood has certainly seen better days.
But now with the help of an infusion of $1.66 million in federal funding, there is an effort to revitalize the Flint neighborhood into a walkable economic engine for the city with the city’s planned streetscape project.
On Tuesday, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, one of the area’s federal delegates who secured the funding, visited the Flint with other elected officials to take a look at the Flint’s “before” picture.
Speaking to a crowd inside Gilbert’s Jewelers, a business that is participating in the Community Development Agency’s storefront improvement project in the Flint, Auchincloss said the post-war way of handling infrastructure, that was entirely predicated on the car, has over time “hollowed out our downtowns to make way for the automobile."
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“One, it’s been bad for the environment, two, it's been bad for our downtowns and the walkability of our downtowns, and three, it hurt our local businesses and retail,” said Auchincloss, who is a member of Congress’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
With Mayor Paul Coogan’s initiative to revitalize the Flint, Auchincloss said he sees the project as a way “to put the pedestrian and the small business owner front and center.”
“And stop putting the vehicle front and center. That way we can help knit together our communities again and create more foot traffic for our business owners. We can create safer streets, because more feet on the street is a safer street,” said Auchincloss before Coogan took him on a walking tour of Pleasant Street.
Officials tour the Flint
Among the multitude of empty storefronts and shuttered buildings along Pleasant Street, there are signs of improvements to the Flint neighborhood.
Coogan pointed up St. Joseph Street where the former Notre Dame de Lourdes School, built in 1899, was redeveloped into a 47-unit market-rate housing complex.
“There are handicap-accessible units on the first floor for wheelchair-bound tenants. It’s been an abandoned school for a long time. I just toured it last week and it's gorgeous,” Coogan said.
Passing by a quaint spot called the Brasil Coffee Shop on Pleasant Street, a man acknowledges Coogan and the dozen or so elected officials and media on the tour.
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“We love to see you out here, just want you to know that,” said the man.
State Rep. Carole Fiola said as she entered the coffee shop, which also sells several Brazilian products, that “these are the hidden gems in Fall River.”
The group also popped into Neto Insurance and met Vice President Stephen Neto.
“It’s nice seeing you guys walking the streets,” said Neto, whose business has been a staple of the Flint for more than three decades.
‘Make Pleasant Street pleasant again’
Neto said it's good to see some of the properties along Pleasant Street coming to life again and noted that the empty building across the street has been sold and may be redeveloped into a storage facility.
“From what I hear, he is pretty gun ho. Since it's been transferred they’ve been doing a lot of work in there. So that’s what we need to see,” Neto said.
“Ya, activity for sure,” Coogan said.
Fiola credited Auchincloss for being aggressive with getting funding for the needs of the city and projects that can show some results such as improvements to storefronts, lighting and sidewalks.
Neto agreed.
“Let’s make Pleasant Street pleasant again,” quipped Neto, getting a laugh from the group.
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