A Main Line facelift

ARDMORE - In one of the Main Line's most prosperous boroughs, a stretch of downtown stores is struggling to attract the clientele they know surrounds them.

Store vacancies are rampant on a half-mile stretch of Lancaster Avenue, a highly traveled thoroughfare that seems caught in a retail quagmire.

"Ardmore has been established for 100 years, but it may need to reinvent itself. It's like Old York Road [in the northern suburbs]. These streets are no 'miracle miles,'" said Steven H. Gartner, chief operating officer at Michael Salove Co. Commercial Real Estate in Bala Cynwyd.

This is not news to the Ardmore Business Association, a coalition of local businesses.

In recent months, it has spent more than $1 million on a streetscaping project designed to make the retail stretch more appealing. Sidewalks will be widened, trees planted and street parking added.

Some on the street complain that the beautification project, which has had much of the street torn up for the past three months, has in itself made it harder for businesses to survive. The project, which was to be completed in August, has dragged on into the fall.

Kevin Murphy, a retail broker who is active in the Ardmore Business Association, said he hears it from retailers all the time.

"[Retailers] couldn't see the pot of gold. It's a temporary inconvenience for a better end," he said.

Ardmore's main thoroughfare, Lancaster Avenue, is made up of mostly independent retailers, but some chains. The mix ranges from a Manhattan Bagel to a Philadelphia Sports Club to Indian and Italian restaurants to used record shops to small, familyowned boutiques.

Not far away, also in Ardmore but seemingly in another world, the Suburban Square lifestyle mall glitters with Williams Sonoma, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Starbucks and a nearly finished Trader Joe's gourmet grocery.

Most in Ardmore think the two shopping areas can co-exist, with one offering highend chain stores and the other providing...