Here are some pictures from the city of Newark and the finished Downtown Newark Revitalization Project.  There has been significant investment in Downtown Newark over the last 3-4 years.  The city spent millions of dollars upgrading sewer, street, sidewalk, landscaping and renovations of property on the historic square.  Needless to say, Newark is growing and experiencing a restaurant and entertainment boom it has never seen before.  Thanks for visiting this page!! 

 

Downtown Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brand New Canal Market District in Downtown Newark:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few more images:

 

 

I've never been to Newark, but I have to say, I'm very impressed with it every time I see pictures of it! It's amazing how nice their Downtown looks ever since they started investing in it. Especially considering it's not a big city. I think other small cities in Ohio should try to replicate this success to some extent. 

Very nice!

wow, the new streetscaping designs look great. not surprised at the upgrade efforts, its a heck of lot more metro columbus that it used to be.

 

Got to check out downtown Newark myself yesterday, though without the aid of the aerial drones for sweeping panoramics that @OhioFinest apparently has at his disposal.

 

Started charging my car at the Park National Bank tower just northwest of downtown, and glad to see that downtown Newark now has EV charging, even if paid (and a little slow even for an L2 charger, though maybe it's not like that all the time):

 

 

Walked from there down to the courthouse square and stopped in at McKenna's Market, which has a definite throwback vibe and also a decent selection of local wines (also grabbed a few boxes of Girl Scout cookies from the entrepreneurial young women spending a Saturday evening hawking them from the courthouse lawn, sort of near the black bench in the near corner of the courthouse lawn in the second picture):

 

 

 

 

 

Found these two old friends on a bench by the courthouse, told them it looked like they often sat there all night and asked them how downtown now felt after dark, but they ignored me:

 

 

Couldn't get my phone to take any good shots of the marquee at this Midland Theater, but it was alternating between a message stating the "blackout" date (I assume meaning the date when the place had to close due to the pandemic), which IIRC was 3/13/20, and a message stating "We will be back!"

 

 

The Courthouse dominates the town square and makes the whole square in general remind me a lot of Medina, Ohio, which also has a really inviting and walkable downtown (and, also like Newark, a comparatively tiny one, mostly just focused on that square and maybe a block in any direction):

 

Snapped a few more pictures looking up and down the street from the front of the courthouse, by the "Newark" arch:

 

 

Had a cocktail and a high-end BBQ burger at the Barrel & Boar (and officially shocked that a restaurant at that price point can exist in Newark ... Ribeye on the menu was $43, even some of the burgers were close to $20):

 

 

Headed back to my car circling the block in the other direction from the one I arrived from.  Found a much grittier shopping arcade entrance, the "Arcade Shops," locked (also seems to have another deserted-looking arcade-style entrance closer to the square itself, this one was off a driveway, maybe a service drive, behind a parking lot):

 

 

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All in all, a worthwhile side trip after a visit to my parents in Kirkersville.  I think my last trip to downtown Newark before yesterday was in 2000.