KELLY HOGAN
“ create a void in the market. “I knew someone would come fill our original space, and so I took a risk a block over.” The risk paid off. Today, The Fashion shares a smartly restored building with Chartreuse Pear, a company that sells gifts and home décor. The interior spaces are sleek, cool and crisply modern, just the kinds of boutique spaces you’d find in a much larger community. That even a single space such as this exists in a town the size of Ruston would be remarkable, were it not for the presence of dozens more, just like it. Hogan thinks she knows what attracts people to downtown Ruston in particular, and it’s a bit convenience, a bit nostalgia and a whole lot of unique. Community support plays a huge role in the success or failure of any retail district, and in Ruston, that support goes both ways. “We’re involved in these peoples’ lives. It’s not just selling clothes,” Hogan says. “We’re consoling them when they lose a family member, looking at baby pictures when they have a grandchild. We really feel that connection, and I don’t get that feeling in a strip mall.” David Hedgepeth enjoys a slightly more circumspect vision of downtown’s development – its history and its future. He started his career more than thirty years ago, as an interior designer in downtown Ruston, working for Rogers Furniture, a family-owned furniture store. Situated on the corner of Trenton and Mississippi streets, the Rogers Furniture building is one of the more prominent storefronts in the retail district. When Rogers Furniture closed three years ago, Hedgepeth and his partner, Julie Mays, opened their own store in the space. It is from this corner Hedgepeth has watched Ruston grow and blossom into a thriving, hip retail and lifestyles destination. “We’ve always been a really strong downtown because there has always been a lot of smaller shops,” Hedgepeth says. “You get a lot of personal service, and there’s more of a boutique shop feel downtown – more so now than even a couple of years ago.” That boutique feel is what draws shoppers into the area. Extrawide, pedestrian-friendly streets invite strolling from shop to shop. Restaurants and coffee shops place tables on the sidewalk, lending
THE FASHION OF RUSTON
I’m crazy passionate about our downtown because, honestly, I’ve lived other places and have seen what it could be. It was easy for us to recognize the potential here.”
a continental feel to the area. Hedgepeth says there’s something for everyone in the area. In addition to owning a business downtown, Hedgepeth has been involved in the planning and development efforts for the retail and business district. In addition to working with the Downtown Merchants Association and Main Street, Hedgepeth served on the Ruston City Council, a position that gave him a bit more perspective on the importance of cooperation and community support. It also afforded him the opportunity to see how other towns and cities had faired. “If you go to a lot of larger cities, Jackson, Dallas, Baton Rouge, they have big malls with national retailers,” he says. “But those concepts are dying away. What developers are doing now is building shopping centers that look like a downtown – with unique architecture, wide sidewalks, outdoor dining – the kind of place where you can park and walk from store to store.” In other words, what they’re doing in big cities is copying exactly what already exists Ruston. Though downtown lacks big anchor stores, it’s filled with unique shops and local people running local businesses for a local clientele. Urban planning has also played a role in the continued health of downtown. In other towns and cities, when major highway developments came through, the practice was to route traffic around downtowns to the outskirts, to spur development there. The result was catastrophic for so many downtown regions, because that traffic is what drove commerce. Ruston avoided that. Drive from Alexandria to El Dorado on Highway 167, and you’ll pass right through downtown Ruston and its timeless charm. Ruston has an additional resource driving business downtown: a nationally recognized university sits just blocks away. The city government, Louisiana Tech administrators and merchants all recognized the potential the campus represented, so they’ve worked together for decades to strengthen the ties between downtown and the campus, both figuratively and literally. WWW.BAYOULIFEMAG.COM | APRIL 2018 43