I too admire your passion and time and effort for trying to fix up downtown Laconia. When I was a young kid in the 60's spending summers on Lake Winnisquam getting a chance to go downtown was a special event. My mom, after getting and making sure that we had all the groceries for the week would always budget some time to go downtown. When the Belknap Mall came in that was probably one of the first reasons we stopped going, but probably one of the bigger reasons we stopped going was when they reconfigured all the roads downtown. It just made going to the mall more convenient. As mentioned I admire your passion for trying to do something better. Every once in a while I'll take a ride downtown for just the memories, but I rarely stop anywhere or go into any shops, usually by the time I have gotten there I'm discouraged. Not because it's not the way I remember it, but mostly because it is such a *****-H_le of a ride coming in from the south. The drive from the Belmont town line to Downtown has been one of the worst stretches of road for years and years and anything fixed always seems half-ass and needs more repairs a few years after. No wonder everyone takes the by-pass and goes to other places. In the photos from the weirsbeach.com site there is a photo of a sign that reads "Laconia Welcomes You" they need to prove it. Without going on any further I hope that things go well for you. But IMHO you could build the Emerald City there and it won't make any difference if the City of Laconia does not do a better job fixing up the infrastructure that leads to downtown and making it more appealing to just enter the city. On the bright side, it seems some folks are doing well despite all of Laconia's problems and that's great to see. Downtown Laconia so much potential .... but ???
Good Luck.
Urban renewal gone horribly wrong.
http://lostnewengland.com/2016/07/ma...-laconia-nh-2/
Some old photos of downtown Laconia.
http://www.weirsbeach.com/Largejpgs/...wnlaconia.html