Hate to break it to you but Boston Avenue was never a good location for the type of retail store you operate. Downtown is far from dead, but just like every downtown it has a variety of users and a variety of areas. Every downtown (yes even places like Chicago, San Fran, NYC, etc.) is like this... go to Wall Street/Lower Manhattan area on a Saturday night and guess what - it's "dead" too. Yet at noon Monday-Friday it's one of the busier places in Manhattan. Financial districts are not conducive to retail like your store - same reason that parts of Manhattan has and still does struggle keeping many types of retail places open, outside of what caters to business services. Last time I was in NYC and went past the 9/11 Memorial Hermes and most of those store were closed on the weekends and the Westfield /Brookfield centers were ghost towns. Go there anytime during a weekday between sunrise and early evening it's not. Does that mean Lower Manhattan is a failure and "dead"? No. It gets a little old seeing people repeat narratives about Tulsa that are true of cities 10x our size that are supposedly poster childs for what you think 4th & Boston is supposed to be when it reality it's not much different.
There was never enough retail space that could be built out in that area to ever get a critical mass going... the pop up shops were great but it was never going to be permanent and it's unfortunate some people were mislead about the reality of what types of retail would survive in that area of downtown. Your store would have done much better near Guthrie Green and that's about the only part of downtown inside the IDL that's remotely close to any sort of critical mass of similar retail spaces and has enough events to support your type of retail. A street like 11th was always going to be a far better location given it's far easier to see your store, easier to park near it, far more traffic goes past your store now, and there's a critical mass of similar types of retail developing now. While Boston Avenue has far more sq. ft. of buildings than 11th ever would, 11th has far more street level space that can be retail than Boston Avenue ever will. The finite amount of retail space on Boston and near it will always be more valuable to Jimmy Johns type of services than it ever will for other types of retail like a clothing store, etc. and in a capitalist system they are going to be the ones landlords rent to because they pay more rent.
Downtown is not dead, and it's more than ok that different parts of the city and different parts of downtown function differently on different days and times. Frankly, you are still in downtown now you're just not in "the IDL" which isn't 100% of downtown - your store is less than 2,000 feet from being inside the IDL. I remember you saying you never want the IDL removed and ironically that is a huge mental and physical barrier to ever getting more types of retail like your store to be successful downtown for a variety of reasons. In order for retail to be more viable you do need more visibility/accessibility - no one can shop at your store when they drive by on freeways. People in Midtown have Brookside, Utica Square, Cherry Street, and now 11th Street/Route 66 are all accessible long before they'd ever get to stores in the IDL. What anchor is in the IDL to get them there? None really, so your type of retail is going to survive essentially off event type traffic which is why some have been somewhat successful in the Arts District north of the railroad tracks. Until something like say the Pavilions in Denver type of development is built on a parking lot or two inside the IDL to get a critical mass, some types of retail are just not going to exist downtown and that doesn't mean downtown is a failure the Pearl, 11th, Cherry Street, Uptown, etc. are all part of downtown and part of it's 'ecosystem' but are far more conducive to your type of retail. It's not realistic to think that every part of downtown should be packed from sunrise to 2am... it never will be and that's a false realization of what an urban city is, because yes even Paris, London, etc. have large swaths of their financial districts and other urban parts that are "dead" just like 4th & Boston on weekends and weekday evenings.
We should stop referring to inside the IDL as only downtown because downtown goes beyond the IDL boundaries. Everyone considers Automobile Alley & the area around St. Anthony's in OKC 'downtown' but it's the same distance from Devon Tower that your store now is from Williams/BOK Tower there's just not a massive highway loop that creates a barrier between them.
You are correct on many points. but I am not sure that our store would have done much better in the Arts District either. When we were doing ok on Boston Ave. it was because we got tourists, office workers, and people coming down for the other restaurants and shops. As the other shops left, our sales went down. But in the Arts district, and even the Blue Dome, I hear from other retailers and galleries, that even though there are a lot of people during events and going out to eat... they aren't shopping. There aren't enough shops there and in a concentration, to make it a retail destination. And though you occasionally get a lot of foot traffic in the stores, they are there as an "aside" before or after they go to an event or to eat/go to the bars, etc.
When we were doing our best in that Downton spot there was Okie Crowe, Bison & Bear, Made Indie Emporium, a couple of other small shops, plus the Gelato place right across the street from us and we were promoting our Tulsa Art Deco Museum across the street which by itself brought in 14,000 visitors/customers per year. And of course Elote and the other restaurants were nearby and Mayfest helped as well.
But rather than go in the direction of putting in more shops, the property owners started booting them out and putting in ground floor office/service type entities. Course then covid hit and put the nail in the coffin for that area as the office workers vanished.
Again, we did look at places in the Arts District and Blue Dome but we would have lost the large amount of office workers. There was no place to do our museum there. And the evening crowd was not a retail buying crowd but rather a dining/bar crowd.
The best mix for retail is about 70% shops, 25% restaurants/bars 5% service. And that's the approximate ratio for both malls and main streets.
Someone on another post on here mentioned... If there were more residential in the Deco District that would make retail viable.
Thats not how it works. Perhaps for a grocery store, for people have to eat every day.
Brookside, Cherry Street, the Mall, don't just serve the people who live in the area, they serve people throughout the city and even the suburbs to some extent. And even then Brookside and Cherry Street are not the best spots for retail.
Where we are now is not the best spot but its doing ok. So far averaging over 1,000 "orders" (that's not customers or #of items sold, nor yet the big holiday shopping season) per month. What helps us is
1. Our past customers knowing about us and visiting us.
2. New customers finding us because we are on a main arterial.
3. Tourists finding us because we are listed as a local "attraction" (including the museum component) and because we are on Route 66 and next to Buck Atoms another attraction.
Take any of those away and we would suffer.
But we do suffer because we are again not in a shopping/Main Street type district. I cringe as the shop spaces around us fill up and someone comes in to introduce themselves... Hey we are moving in across the way and putting in an insurance company, or another hair salon, etc. lol. Great for them, but hurts my potential sales. Would be better if there were more shops or even more restaurants. But I can't control that any more than I could downtown. (though I did manage to convince a friend to open the gallery next door and the property owner to hold out for a restaurant in the end space of our building which thankfully they did) You roll the dice and do your best in Tulsa as there is no "Main Street" type zoning like they have in downtown Denver for instance.
IF the shop does well this Christmas and next year, then I hope to finally buy enough land and get some investors to build my own Main Street and Attractions so that I don't have to put up with the random bullpucky, but can instead control every aspect of every detail. I will show you a Downtown DECOPOLIS that is busy morning till night every single day.