A little more than a year after a series of Chilkat Valley News articles put a spotlight on downtown decay, two shuttered buildings have re-opened, a new, 50-room hotel is operating and the Haines Brewing Company is constructing a new building on Main Street.

But advocates of revitalizing the core this week said there’s still much work to be done in improving downtown’s look and preserving the town’s retail sector. They pointed to the loss of a Main Street gift boutique, an insurance agency, and a fabric store in the past year, and to the still-shuttered Coliseum Theater building at the center of town.

Rhona Nelson owned and operated Material Girls on Main Street for seven years, hiring two workers. For the first three years business was good, including from cruise passengers seeking Alaska patterns. But a quilt shop closer to the cruise dock cut into summer sales and although the new hotel and brewery gave her some hope, expenses swamped income and she closed last winter.

“I was putting my own money into it and couldn’t hold on any longer. I think everybody hopes Main Street will bring in the people, but I was starting to feel like Haines was just dying. Maybe it won’t die. I hope it doesn’t,” Nelson said.

Joanie Wagner opened Skipping Stone Studios on Main Street, a gallery that in February filled a space vacated by Buckshot and Bobby Pins, a gift boutique that moved to Skagway. Wagner, who for three summers managed her daughter’s art gallery in Skagway, said opening a store here was mostly about getting back to Haines.

“I’m feeling confident and excited,” Wagner said last week. “The shop is paying for itself. I’m reluctant to take money out of it because I want to build up (savings) before I start paying myself. I’m over one-quarter the way to my yearly sales goal.”

Wagner said positive feedback from residents makes her optimistic about her venture, while acknowledging that she knows that “we don’t have much of an economy.” She said she was also encouraged to learn that new tenants are planned for the Haisler Building, where Haisler’s Hardware store is expected to close.

Wagner said she’d like to see the Coliseum Theater building occupied, maybe with a late-night coffeehouse. “Back in the 70s, I worked at one. They had musicians. It was fun.”

Chris Thorgesen, a chiropractor who moved here just two years ago, may be downtown’s biggest champion. He made an offer on the Ellingen Building, looked at the Coliseum, then bought the former Elks Lodge he recently reopened as a health club.

In terms of buying buildings “my options are always open,” he said.

Thorgesen said he’s “very optimistic” about the town’s future and expressed faith in a kind of momentum for downtown. “If people show some interest and buy up a few of these empty buildings, other people will generally do the same, and that will gradually turn downtown around.”

The town is in transition, he believes, like his former home of Salida, Colo., which he says is now booming. “People have always wanted to come here. It’s just a matter of creating the circumstances in which they can do that.”

Whether the town will grow will depend on assembly and planning commission decisions, Thorgesen said.

A relocation of Lynn Canal Counseling reopened Main Street’s Ellingen Building last summer. That was partly the work of Lenise Henderson Fontenot, a member of the counseling service’s board who also recently served as chair of the Haines Borough’s Downtown Revitalization Committee.

Although the revitalization committee sometimes has come under criticism, even by supporters, for being ineffective, Henderson Fontenot disagrees.

“The (news) articles, the meetings, and just getting the word out there makes a difference. Having a (revitalization) committee is a good idea. It gets our word out there. And things we supported happened: the Aspen, the brewery, moving new people into the Main Street buildings… There’s still a lot of momentum.”

But the group kept “hitting walls” on questions of creating incentives for downtown investment, she said. Henderson Fontenot and other committee members also last year were frustrated to be told by borough officials that their role was visioning and that even the group’s small actions, like writing letters, would have to go through borough channels.

The committee had previously been an informal group of downtown business owners. “I think we were a bunch of doers who felt awkward with the borough format. I don’t thrive in a government setting,” Henderson Fontenot said.

Henderson Fontenot said she recently notified Mayor Jan Hill that she’ll be stepping down as group chair, as she’ll be out of town traveling after October. “I hope the committee continues in some form. It’s good to keep that issue out there.”

Henderson Fontenot credits Carol Tuynman of the Alaska Arts Confluence for much of the improved look of Main Street. Tuynman led an effort to redesign storefront windows with locally made art and handiworks. Her group last year netted a $217,000 grant for art, much that will go to art projects in Fort Seward.

Tuynman said her message to city hall is clear: “Economic vitality is not incompatible with aesthetic qualities.” She was optimistic about Main Street in a recent interview.

“I think things are looking up. The Aspen (Hotel) is built and the Haines Brewing Company is going up and AT&T painted what was an ugly building and cut their grass. And now there’s Thor’s Fitness Center (in the former Elks Lodge),” Tuynman said.

She calls the boarded-up Coliseum a “multi-purpose, downtown historic treasure” that should be restored as a historic theater. For Tuynman, improvements like art and aesthetics are entwined in the town’s economy.

“It’s about keeping people feeling good about their community. That’s what it’s really all about. When people like their downtowns, they like being there, at the libraries, the parks and the shops,” she said.

What happens next downtown and who will lead future efforts is unclear. Revitalization committee member and Haines Chamber of Commerce executive director Debra Schnabel, who as assembly member pushed to have the group under the borough planning commission, said she’d like the commission to give the group guidance. “I’d tell the planning commission, ‘This is your baby.’”

With properties like the Coliseum, Schnabel said, the solution may be “a serious engagement of the borough to buy out property owners and offer them for sale… under certain terms and uses for social and economic benefit that build community and contribute to the economy.”

The Arts Confluence’s Tuynman, however, said the borough’s structure for the group needs tweaking. “(Henderson Fontenot) and people who know how to make businesses successful need to be listened to, and they need to have some authority. They can’t be tasked with just discussing issues ad nauseum.”

Schnabel expressed confidence in the borough committee model, while noting that Tuynman was able to make a big contribution by working outside the borough’s process.

“Downtown still needs attention. But anymore I’m gaining an appreciation for anyone who does anything. I wanted policy, programs and incentives and tax rebates to stimulate investment. But that will come,” Schnabel said. “If somebody just wants to plant flowers, that’s good, too.”