The Downtown Curmudgeon

N. David Milder, founder and president of DANTH, Inc. is a nationally recognized authority on downtown revitalization and a leading proponent of developing market niches. He has more than 35 years of experience utilizing market research and management skills to help revitalize business centers.

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Bryant Park: Part 3: a comparison to other entertainment venues on annual expenditures and annual expenditures per visitor

Posted on November 26, 2014 by DANTH

Posted by N. David Milder

Introduction

Part 1 of this article focused on describing Bryant Park as a model informal downtown entertainment venue through its performance of three key functions:

Providing visitors with a pleasant, green refuge from a downtown’s hustle and bustle
Offering opportunities for visitors to actively engage in fun activities, with their resulting performances entertaining nearby people watchers
Holding entertaining events for park visitors that are performed al fresco, often on multi-tasked locations within the park, using temporary infrastructure, e.g., stages, movie …
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Some More Thoughts on the Economic Revitalization of Small Town Downtowns: Financial Tools

Posted on October 20, 2014 by DANTH

Posted by: N. David Milder, DANTH, Inc. and Andrew Dane, Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc.

Introduction

In April 2013, we published our article, “Some Thoughts on the Economic Revitalization of Small Town Downtowns” (1). We’ve been most pleased by its reception and republication. Since then, we have completed additional projects, gathered more data and visited other revitalized small town downtowns. Consequently, we decided to write a follow-up series of articles to share what we have learned. This is our first in that series. It focuses …

Bryant Park Part 2: a comparison to other entertainment venues on attracting tourists, user frictions and costs to create or significantly renovate

Posted on September 27, 2014 by DANTH

Posted by N. David Milder

Introduction

Part 1 of this article focused on showing how Bryant Park is a model informal downtown entertainment venue. That entailed describing how it performed three key functions:

Providing visitors with a pleasant, green refuge from a downtown’s hustle and bustle
Offering opportunities for visitors to engage in fun activities, with their resulting performances entertaining nearby people watchers
Holding entertaining events for park visitors that are performed al fresco, often on “flexible use” locations within the park, using impermanent infrastructure, …
Read More...

Bryant Park: The Quintessential Downtown Informal Entertainment Venue – Part 1

Posted on August 19, 2014 by DANTH

Introduction

Informal Entertainments in Public Spaces. A major goal of this series of articles on downtown entertainment venues is to demonstrate that great public spaces and third places can be very strong components of the entertainment niches that are now critical to the magnetism, health and well-being of our downtowns. Too often, when downtown leaders want to create or strengthen their entertainment niche, they look only at formal entertainment venues such as PACs, museums, concert halls, theaters, arenas, etc. Ignored are …

DOWNTOWN FORMAL ENTERTAINMENT VENUES PART 4: MOVIE THEATERS

Posted on May 25, 2014 by DANTH

By N. David Milder

Introduction

The importance of downtown movie theaters. One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the “new normal” for our downtowns is the importance of having strong Central Social District (CSD) functions. Dynamic downtown entertainment niches contribute mightily to having a strong CSD. Movie theaters will play important roles in many of these entertainment niches, often serving as niche cornerstones in many smaller and medium-sized communities. Movie theaters usually differ from other downtown formal entertainment venues, such as theatres, …

N. David Milder at DANTH, Inc.

Downtown Revitalization Specialist

The Downtown Curmudgeon

Some More Thoughts on the Economic Revitalization of Small Town Downtowns: Financial Tools