A string of abrupt downtown Greensboro business closings has touched off an unusually public bout of anxiety and media coverage regarding the state of Greensboro’s center city – and it has also produced a predictable response from city leaders: a reassuring press release.

On Thursday night, February 6, the City of Greensboro sent out a press release announcing that the Greensboro Police Department had “increased downtown patrol presence” through its Center City Resource Team – the unit that’s assigned to downtown.

City leaders said the team consists of two patrol squads with 18 officers who rotate schedules for a near-constant presence in downtown Greensboro, and also that GPD added three more officers to the team recently to enhance visibility and maintain a consistent presence.

Two days earlier, business owners and residents used the public comment portion of a virtual Greensboro City Council meeting to complain that downtown has become much harder to navigate, as well as harder to enjoy.

Many people don’t want to go downtown because of things like the traffic patterns that are complicated enough without detours all over the place due to road construction and repair.  Others don’t feel safe due to the number of homeless people.  Others don’t like the fact that finding a good legal parking place on a busy day is like winning the lottery.

The complaints are loud enough that they are getting a good deal of play on local media.

In a report on the meeting, public radio station WFDD noted that speakers echoed all of these concerns about parking, safety, and homeless people. Downtown business owner Kim-Grimsley-Ritchy stated: “Marketing is not the problem, and it never has been,” she said. “People know where downtown is. They are choosing not to go because the experience no longer works for them. Marketing may bring people once; conditions determine whether they return.”

On Tuesday, Feb. 10, a group of downtown business owners and City Council members went on a walking tour of downtown and discussed ideas..

The highly public complaints come in the wake of high-profile business closures that have hit downtown hard – particularly since several of the businesses were long-running fixtures.

M’Coul’s Public House – a downtown staple for nearly a quarter of a century, closed in late January. Dame’s Chicken & Waffles announced the closure of its downtown Greensboro location, which happened January 26.

Liberty Oak, a 46-year-old restaurant that had long been part of downtown Greensboro’s core identity, also closed.

Liberty Oak’s shutdown came on the heels of other recent closures, and nearby business owners are more and more describing downtown as increasingly difficult for small businesses to operate.

Those closures were followed almost immediately by a public narrative that Greensboro’s downtown is slipping in desirability.

The complaints have clustered around a few recurring themes: fewer people downtown during the workweek, higher costs, winter storms that disrupted the end of January, and a big set of local irritants that make downtown feel like it was becoming more trouble than it should be.

Parking, like safety, keeps coming up; it’s often the first thing people complain about.

In a February 3 news report, ABC 45 described business owners complaining that new paid parking changes on city-owned surface lots near Elm Street have created confusion for customers and cut into foot traffic. That report noted that some nearby lots shifted from free public parking to paid parking during weekday business hours at the beginning of 2026, while weekend parking remains free.

The ABC 45 story also described a complaint that paid parking signs indicate enforcement until 6 p.m. – while some business advocates say ticketing often stops earlier, leaving paid spaces sitting empty during early evening hours.

 That’s a prime time for dining and shopping.

Speakers to the Greensboro City Council grouped safety complaints together with parking and homelessness – not necessarily as separate issues, but as components of an overall downtown experience that some residents say has deteriorated in recent years.

Downtown Greensboro has had a well-reported homeless problem for years and recent parking deck closures and new construction projects have gobbled up parking spaces like Pac-Man eating rows of dots.

Downtown Greensboro Inc. President and CEO Zack Matheny, when interviewed by WXII News, said there’s no one single reason for recent business closures.

He said one factor could be food and alcohol costs.

Whether the underlying causes are part of a national economic trend, a local trend or some mix of both along with other problems, the combined effect is that downtown leaders want to see the problems addressed.

The city’s February 6 press release regarding police presence in downtown didn’t cite crime statistics, specific incidents or a new initiative beyond the addition of three officers to the Center City Resource Team. It only emphasized visibility, consistency, proactive patrol, and collaboration with community partners – and it stated that the move “further solidifies the City of Greensboro’s commitment to the downtown community.”

That message sent out by the city was meant to beef up confidence in going downtown but what needs addressing are the problems of customers who’ve decided it’s just easier to eat elsewhere, the older patrons who don’t want to risk a ticket because they can’t figure out the parking signs or they don’t have a smart phone with an app that can pay, and the multitude of concerns of business owners who are watching too many “closed” signs go up in too short a period.

If Rhino Times readers have ideas on how to help downtown, they should include them in the comments below.

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