To the editor:

Wow, what a dream, described by a recent letter to the editor, to have a beautiful outdoor pedestrian area to enjoy entertainment, art galleries, and great shopping all downtown! It sounds like it could be a very special place. The good news is that we already have a beautiful outdoor space lined with trees and lovely plantings. There is lots of pedestrian traffic, entertainment, art offerings and many restaurants and bars — but our retail shops are disappearing.

For years, outside city planning consultants have shown that Lawrence is overbuilt in retail by at least 24 percent. Our city population simply cannot support all of the retail offerings. Retail business needs customers as well as reasonable profits. Outlying retail presently has the advantage of large parking lots, no parking fees, and low cost rental space. Big-box chains also have huge volumes of merchandise. Did we really need another Wal-Mart? What incentives do we have for downtown merchants?

Let’s address the roots of our downtown retail struggles, instead of covering them up with window dressing. Creating a downtown Disneyland cannot fix this problem.