Those who visited downtown Everett in the 1960s saw what city planners and residents hope for again: a thriving business district.

Department stores filled large spaces in a time before shopping malls, pedestrians filled sidewalks and Colby Avenue was a popular evening spot for cruising teenagers. Soda fountains, hardware stores and clothing shops filled the storefronts.

“Downtown was the center of Everett,” said Mike Deller, one of many longtime residents who harbor fond memories of downtown’s last heyday. “You had everything you wanted to do. It was a busy place; it was a people place.”

The Bank of Everett’s headquarters along Colby, where Deller is president, once housed JC Penney.

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Changing times hit hard in the 1970s. As the city’s neighborhoods expanded south, more businesses moved to Evergreen Way and to the area around the new Everett Mall. The Boeing Co. sold fewer airplanes, and the economy struggled all over.

Karen Staniford opened her first restaurant in the mid-1970s along Hewitt Avenue, where she still owns the Vintage Cafe. Though businesses had begun leaving downtown by then, she said there still was enough traffic to support most merchants and restaurants.

“There was shopping, and everyone did their Christmas shopping here. Stores were open ‘til 9 o’clock at night. Everything was going on downtown in those days,” she said.

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By the early 1980s, however, the department stores had all moved out, another recession hit, and police and merchants began frowning on the cruising teenagers. Downtown wasn’t attracting new investment.

“It just died,” Staniford said, adding she’s gone broke twice at her location. Her business turned to the bar crowd to make it through the ’80s and ’90s.

The city and merchants considered several ideas to drum up business, including turning Colby into a pedestrian mall. Other, less radical proposals were tried to little avail. Instead, storefronts sat empty and became run-down, street sign posts and traffic light poles rusted and business owners complained of rising crime.

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The Skotdal family was among the few developers who put new money into downtown during the 1980s and ’90s. Another big player was the JDH Group, led by Harry Dean and David Mandley, which built the Everett Mutual Tower in the mid-1990s and renovated the Monte Cristo Hotel. That period, when Naval Station Everett rose on the city’s waterfront, saw an interest in renewing downtown.

While bank offices and other businesses filled up new buildings, shops and restaurants were slower to return to the city’s core blocks. After workers left their offices between 5 and 6 p.m., the business district was largely empty.

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The Everett Events Center has helped convince people to linger downtown or come back in the evenings. New restaurants and bars have opened to cater to that crowd.

“There’s more restaurants than there’s been in decades,” Deller said.

Societal trends, which helped spur the exodus from downtown 30 years ago, also have swung in favor of the city again. High housing prices and gridlocked traffic have encouraged higher-density condominium, townhouse and apartment living in urban centers, which is expected to fuel downtown’s development in the coming years.

“We’re in an environment where everything’s ripe, and I think Everett’s positioned so well,” Deller said. “The ingredients are here.”

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.