{"id":473516,"date":"2026-09-23T22:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/473516\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T22:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:28:11","slug":"are-parking-and-prices-keeping-business-out-of-downtown-fresno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/473516\/","title":{"rendered":"Are parking and prices keeping business out of downtown Fresno?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Important space in downtown Fresno\u2019s core has gone up for sale or lease this year<\/a>, but one longtime area advocate and businessman says many of the listed prices \u2014 which are in the multi-millions \u2014 are likely too high to succeed in the current market.<\/p>\n

John Ostlund, owner of One Putt Broadcasting on Fulton Street, says property owners are now setting prices that bet on revitalization that the area has been waiting decades for. He said a continued lack of parking space and vacancies also pose a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the stuff I see, they want tomorrow\u2019s price today, and they still haven\u2019t resolved some of the challenges,\u201d said Ostlund, who has now worked in downtown for half a century.<\/p>\n

Mayor Jerry Dyer says the prices property owners are asking reflect the value added by investments developers and the city have made in recent years. The city over the past three years has been using $250 million awarded by the state<\/a> to upgrade downtown\u2019s infrastructure and loan money to builders in hopes of spurring a downtown population boom.<\/p>\n

Progress became more apparent this year as construction began on a long-stalled Fulton Street apartment project<\/a> and also two new downtown parking structures meant to accommodate new housing primarily. But various area buildings that have been listed online repeatedly or for an extended period have yet to sell or lease.<\/p>\n

That includes the nine-story former Radisson hotel<\/a> and the former Club One Casino on Van Ness Avenue<\/a>. The historic T.W. Patterson building on Fulton Street also was momentarily listed for sale<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Currently, four buildings are listed on Fulton Street \u2014 mostly at the intersection with Mariposa Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where the potential is,\u201d Ostlund said. \u201cDowntown needs to fill that spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A A business inside the Kress Building is not open on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. Many buildings in the downtown area are available for sale or lease and a property owner says the market there is really good. But a lot of work is needed: more parking, more engagement between the city and businesses that could open locations in those spaces. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com New garages not enough for downtown Fresno?<\/p>\n

Parking has been difficult this year in downtown Fresno as the city has taken over parking operations<\/a> and as construction blocked spaces<\/a> in front of small businesses.<\/p>\n

Apart from building prices, parking is also a main issue for selling commercial space on the Fulton Street corridor, Ostlund said.<\/p>\n

New parking the city is building downtown includes more than 600 spaces at Tuolumne and Broadway streets, and more than 900 at H and Inyo Streets. But those garages don\u2019t do much for potential shopping at Fulton and Mariposa streets, Ostlund said.<\/p>\n

Elliott Balch, president of the Downtown Fresno Partnership, said the new operating system in the adjacent underground parking garage also is not the best for business. It now requires drivers to prepay for the time they plan to spend there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to be somewhere, and you\u2019re not sure how long, it\u2019s just less easy to refer people to that structure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dyer acknowledged there are not yet enough parking spaces, but said more will be built as the arrival of downtown\u2019s promised high-speed rail station nears.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are making our way toward where we need to be,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n

\"Boarded Boarded up windows are shown on the former Newberry’s department store on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. Many buildings in the downtown area are available for sale or lease and a property owner says the market there is really good. But a lot of work is needed: more parking, more engagement between the city and businesses that could open locations in those spaces. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com How to fill Fresno\u2019s Fulton Street with business?<\/p>\n

Balch said retail developments thrive when tenants work together to drive customer traffic. Coordination can be difficult downtown because different spaces have different owners, he said. Now, the downtown partnership is trying to collaborate \u201cat a block scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The area this year has been hit with multiple restaurant closures, a problem that is not unique to downtown Fresno. But at least one owner of a shuttered restaurant \u2014 Des Washington of the Take 3 x Grumpy Burger Lady\u2019s \u2014 mentioned a lack of support from the downtown partnership when her restaurant closed in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Balch said the partnership has tried to support businesses with social media promotion, but added that the organization is not as well-resourced as similar districts in major metropolitan areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognize more could and should be done,\u201d he said, \u201cbut there should be more resources to be able to do more. We work within the reality of the resources that are available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ostlund said the city needs to help fill the empty space near the Chicken Shack restaurant on Fulton and Mariposa streets. He called for Dyer to negotiate with restaurants, perhaps Me-n-Ed\u2019s, to open up a shop there.<\/p>\n

Dyer said he talks to business owners often about coming downtown and has \u201crecruited a significant number of restaurants\u201d to the area. But the mayor added that some have told him they need to see thousands of new rooftops downtown before they decide to move there.<\/p>\n

\u201cInfrastructure is needed to support housing, housing is needed to support business,\u201d Dyer said. “Once the businesses open, you\u2019re going to see more and more people who are shopping downtown and eating downtown \u2014 because they live there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The The building that currently houses The Chicken Shack restaurant stands at Renoir Corner on downtown Fresno’s Fulton Street where Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s famous washer woman sculpture is also located. Many buildings in the downtown area are available for sale or lease and a property owner says the market there is really good. But a lot of work is needed: more parking, more engagement between the city and businesses that could open locations in those spaces. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com \"Pedestrians Pedestrians walk past B-Maxx on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. Many buildings in the downtown area are available for sale or lease and a property owner says the market there is really good. But a lot of work is needed: more parking, more engagement between the city and businesses that could open locations in those spaces. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com \"A A cyclist rides by the RH Christian Center on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. Many buildings in the downtown area are available for sale or lease and a property owner says the market there is really good. But a lot of work is needed: more parking, more engagement between the city and businesses that could open locations in those spaces. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com <\/p>\n

This story was originally published September 23, 2026 at 2:19 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Erik Galicia<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea\u2019s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Important space in downtown Fresno\u2019s core has gone up for sale or lease this year, but one longtime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-473516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}