The Gaslight District one year along: 'We're just getting started'

For Scott Higgins one recent event encapsulated the first-year success of the Gaslight District — an impromptu kid’s soccer game in the square. The game wasn’t organized, just children kicking the ball around and, Higgins observed, they were comfortable using the space. “I was like, OK, perfect.

Now they’re starting to get to the next layer of this thing, which is: it’s your square, it’s public realm. How do you want to use it? How do you want to come down and have some fun? It was cool,” said the president of HIP Developments, which built the Gaslight District. The 1800s-era industrial building has been much more than just a soccer pitch since its grand opening weekend in July last year with concerts headlined by Big Wreck and Walk Off The Earth.

The square, with its huge video screen, regularly hosts family movies and sporting events, as well as concerts, car shows and a summer market. That was Higgins vision when he “dreamt up” the Gaslight District. “It wasn’t really about a residential condo project,” Higgins said.

“For me, it was about trying to take a piece of history and turn it into, perhaps, the next chapter.” Once the world became “digitalized,” he said, the days of gathering at the bowling alley, the corner store or church functions were gone. So, he wanted to build a space to bring the community back together.

“We’re just finishing off everything, and then I think it will be another year or two to really get it humming. It is.