Walking down Main Street, Walla Walla doesn’t exactly look like a college town. Although there are some shops and cafes which attract students, the number of wine tasting rooms and expensive restaurants suggests that students are not the focus of retail in Walla Walla. The recent closure of several businesses popular with students, including Luscious by Nature and Verve Coffeehouse, has left some Whitties feeling that downtown doesn’t meet their needs.

“I’m traumatized about Luscious,” said senior Amelia Gallaher. She feels that many of the restaurants in Walla Walla don’t do a good job of catering to students.

“It’s frustrating when a lot of restaurants are closed on Sundays. A lot of places close really early,” Gallaher said.

Both the City Council and the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation believe that developing student-friendly businesses is crucial to Walla Walla’s economy due to the large number of college students in and around Walla Walla.

“Our emphasis is to approach retailers that handle retail and clothing for young people,” said Elio Agostini, the Executive Director for the Foundation. According to him, the Foundation is a non-profit which works on issues relating to business and commerce in downtown Walla Walla.

City Councilmember Jim Barrow agreed that businesses which appeal to students should be a priority.

“The city wants to bring in new businesses: student-friendly, certainly,” he said.

Barrow thinks most students want a place to congregate that has a nice atmosphere, citing Starbucks as an example of this type of business.

“Places like that are definitely being encouraged,” he said. Such places also appeal to Walla Walla residents, in his view.

“I’m not sure where your interests and mine would be all that different,” Barrow said.

The reality of development is somewhat different, given the limited control the City Council has over which businesses come to Walla Walla.

“The city council itself does not develop the properties downtown,” said Barrow. “We do facilitate that.”

Agostini agreed that encouraging businesses to cater to students can be difficult. “How much influence can you have when you don’t own the buildings?” he asked. “Property owners sometimes might take what’s easiest.”

Targeting Walla Walla’s tourism industry is often what’s easiest for businesses, according to Agostini.

“Many businesses claim tourists are 25 to 50 percent of their income. They would not say that about [students]. [Students] don’t have that kind of money,” he said.

This attitude is reflected in the city’s most recent Comprehensive Development Plan, updated in 2008. The plan has 18 pages about retail in Walla Walla, with four specifically devoted to retail in the downtown area. Although the plan contains numerous references to downtown’s importance as “the community’s business center” and as a “center for tourism and visitor economy,” there are no references to the student population of Walla Walla.

“I don’t feel like restaurants very often are catering to Whitman students,” said senior Megan Bush. “They’re catering to the wine industry.”

Some businesses, such as Colville St. Patisserie, do attract students. Co-owner Tiffany Cain attributes this to the fact that many Whitman students have been exposed to things like gelato and French pastries before, either through travel or living in bigger cities.

“Sometimes we wait and put out a certain [gelato] flavor because we know the students are coming back,” Cain said. “They’re more adventurous than the summer eaters.”

Cain believes that if Walla Walla wants to see student-friendly business develop, students need to be encouraged to come downtown more often.

Agostini agreed that this was important.

“If we make it an experience for people to come downtown, we’ll get more shoppers,” Agostini said. “We depend on the success and progress of our retail. It’s priority number one.”