The National Comedy Center is an important project for Jamestown’s west end.

If the project lives up to its advanced billing, the tourists the comedy center brings downtown could be the catalyst needed to repopulate storefronts that suffer from a lack of foot traffic. The state’s investment of millions of dollars in the project makes sense for that reason.

Downtown’s needs are great, as we have seen with three recent building collapses and the empty storefronts that just can’t stay filled for one reason or another. It would not be wise to put too much of the DRI money into one project — no matter how wonderful that project is. That could happen, however, if the last meeting of the Jamestown Downtown Revitalization Initiative Local Planning Committee is any indication.

The National Comedy Center made the list of the final 15 projects under consideration for funding twice — once for gap funding for the project and again for construction of a building that would connect the center with the Northwest Arena. The connector building is designed to provide gift shop space and a place to eat for visitors to the attraction. Concerns include questions about utilities along West Second Street between the two facilities. Also, whether there is a need to provide everything in one location for comedy center visitors, with the hope of encouraging visitors to visit other downtown locations.

Members of the planning committee need to trim between $12 and $15 million from the current list of 15 projects. It would seem the connector building is one project that could be trimmed from the list until alternative funding sources are found or if the project is even feasible. As things stand now, there are simply too many unknowns and too many needs to justify building another building for the National Comedy Center.