PORTSMOUTH, N.H.

GREG DERR/The Patriot Ledger

Portsmouth narrowed its streets, widened its sidewalks and took aluminum siding off some of its historic buildings to make an attractive and pedestrian-friendly village square.

This reborn tourist mecca found that looks are the key to success

By the early 1970s, several historic buildings in downtown Portsmouth were covered with aluminum siding and neon signs. A wide, busy road sliced through the city center, making it difficult for pedestrians to maneuver.

The downtown offered a mix of stores, but no one knew how long the traditional commercial center would sustain itself. Malls across the country were already stealing shops and customers from similar communities, and Portsmouth was beginning to see vacant storefronts and struggling businesses.

Robert Thoresen had a vision.

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Thoresen, the city’s planning director from 1971 to 1977, imagined a New England village that showcased history and offered visitors unique shops, restaurants and other attractions. In other words, a city that didn’t compete with malls, but offered an alternative.

More than 30 years later, that vision is a reality. Portsmouth teems with activity on a recent weekday afternoon, as business people, visitors and residents stroll in and out coffee shops, chic boutiques and the 40 or so eclectic eateries. A lively arts and entertainment community has also flourished, and the Strawbery Banke Museum draws people interested in learning about the region’s past.

Like Waltham and other cities that successfully transformed themselves, Portsmouth adjusted zoning to allow for more housing and developed new parking strategies. But if Portsmouth offers a valuable lesson, it is this: The importance of appearance cannot be overstated.

The process began with small steps. Thoresen convinced some business owners to strip away siding to expose the historic buildings that hid beneath. He hired a municipal architect and offered free design services to property owners willing to restore their storefronts.

“Interest went pretty slowly,” he said. “Then a couple of people started doing it and people said, ‘That looks great.’ That began to turn the tide.”

In some ways the city got lucky. In 1970, James Haller, then a recent transplant from New York City, took a chance and opened the Blue Strawberry restaurant in an old warehouse along the Piscataqua River in the city’s downtown.

The trendy Blue Strawberry, which is no longer open, soon attracted customers from Boston and as far away as New York. It would help put Portsmouth on the map as a dining destination and prompt other upscale restaurants to open in the up-and-coming downtown, proving that success breeds success.

Perhaps the most significant physical change in Portsmouth’s downtown was the creation of a public, pedestrian-friendly space called Market Square. Before work began, the area that is now home to wide brick sidewalks, outdoor cafes, benches, a visitors’ information booth and other attractions was “a huge asphalt lot” with wide streets jutting through, Thoresen said.

The result is a vibrant heart for Portsmouth. It is proof that communities that want to invigorate a downtown need to be innovative and should not simply assume streets, parking, parks and other components of an urban center must stay where they are.

“This is often called the city’s living room,” Thoresen, who now owns a planning and real estate advising company, said as he sat drinking coffee in Market Square one day last month. “It’s extremely popular when it gets warm. On weekend nights in the summer it’s loaded with people who come out to get dessert, stores are open.”

- KAREN ESCHBACHER