In that case, at least a mural would be nice.

Just the other night, Mike Kopp tweeted me: "Looks like you may soon have two new neighbors. We have some action from the art scene. Opening April 1st." He attached this nifty artist's depiction of what the Commercial Building might look like, if only ....

Below is the Commercial Building (pre-recent-permanent-dull-primer-paint job) at the corner of bank and Elm, as seen in November, 2011. These days, the Stylin' Irish salon occupies space in the middle, and Dragon King's Daughter apparently is about to open on the Elm Street side.

Unfortunately, the artist's depiction at top is a vision, only. Mike says, "I wasn't able to convince them of that look but some changes beside the paint and removal of the grids are on the way."

Verily, perhaps anything's better than the way it was before, as it means the owner is doing something. You look at the building and those two parking lots, and you think: What could be, with a little imagination and some money. Unfortunately, the city's bicentennial-year curse is that we possess even less of the former than the latter.