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It seems a peculiar contradiction: At a time when unprecedented numbers of relatively affluent people are setting up residence in downtown Columbus, retail stores in the central business district are fading and fleeing and folding. Or are long gone.

City Center, once the crown jewel of downtown retail, is but a shadow of itself, more meeting space and charter school than merchandising and charge-card shopping.

With Macy's down to a single anchor store from three in its heyday, and with an occupancy rate perhaps below 50 percent, many feel the handwriting is on the wall for the urban mall.

This is in spite of a tax abatement-fueled spate of loft and condo conversion projects that have created about 4,000 new dwelling units, some of them going for handsome prices, in the past four years.

What's up with that?

"We believe that retail is among the most nimble of industries, and that it follows people," offered Michael S. Brown, press secretary to Mayor Michael B. Coleman. "Thus our focus on bringing people back to downtown as a priority of the business plan. In just three years, we've seen the construction or development of 4,000 housing units, and are bringing more than 2,300 jobs downtown. This is a great start and we believe, as the population density and jobs increase, retail will stabilize and grow again.

"That said, we don't necessarily see downtown ever being a retail giant around City Center as it was many years ago."

That's a conclusion with which Christopher D. Boring agrees wholeheartedly.

Boring is the president of Boulevard Strategies. His economic development consulting firm, based in Columbus, specializes in retail development.

"You're just going to have to be patient," Boring said in a recent interview.

He pointed out that 4,000 new dwelling units in downtown hardly represents "critical mass" in terms of attracting shop owners to the area.

If the trend of more and more loft, condo and apartment development continues, Boring anticipates some degree of turnaround for downtown, but doubts it will ever be the "retail giant" it once was.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, the retail analyst indicated.

Michael Wilkos concurred.

"It's only one of multiple reasons people live downtown," said Wilkos, a one-time urban planner who is now director of neighborhood development for United Way of Central Ohio.

Wilkos moved to downtown Columbus 11 years ago and as such, can remember a time when the urban streetscape was dotted with shoe retailers, clothing stores, bookshops and jewelers.

"It is odd that we had so much more thriving retail 10 years ago than we do today," he admitted.

Still, for downtown dwellers, places such as dry cleaning establishments, coffee shops and a full-service grocery store are much more important than the kind of spending opportunities represented by a thriving mall, according to Wilkos.

If having a shopping mall within walking distance is a major reason for deciding where to live, Wilkos pointed out, then hundreds would have taken up residence in downtown Columbus when City Center opened in 1989, and that certainly didn't happen.

However, he added, if the rate of growth in downtown housing continues over the next decade, that's almost bound to bring about some rebirth of retail trade.

Likewise, retail analyst Boring predicted that down the road, there will be more stores opening in downtown Columbus, possibly "off-price fashion retail" outlets. Boring expressed some surprise that no office-supply chain has taken the plunge to open a downtown store and predicted that the Macy's department store in City Center could remain "viable."

"I think it still has a chance, especially during the holiday season, to attract the office workers," Boring said.