Multitude of ‘Pokestops’ turns Warren’s Courthouse Square into night time destination

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

For years, Warren officials have hoped to find something that would drive people to the downtown.

Little did they know that the game Pokemon GO would do it for them.

Since the game launched a couple of weeks ago, people have started to show up in Courthouse Square and other nearby landmarks because the creators of the game, Niantic, chose such spots to be “Pokestops” – places where players can play the game.

Players say the square, David Grohl Alley and several locations on Mahoning Avenue are Pokestops.

One downtown businessman says downtown Warren has 17 such stops.

The hugely successful game – analysts say 21 million Americans are playing it every day – has caused daytime pedestrian traffic in the park to increase dramatically.

But the most shocking news has been the transformation that has taken place at night. The usually sleepy downtown night scene has exploded.

Where the last workers leaving downtown at 6 p.m. might have seen a few cars parked around the square, there were maybe 20 or 30 on a recent night. Roughly 50 people could be seen wandering around the park, playing Pokemon GO.

And at 11 p.m., nearly every parking space around the square was occupied – about 80 spaces, And people filled the park, usually in groups of two or three, sometimes in motion, looking down at their cell phones or talking, children playing and following an adult player. An estimate of the number of people in the park is over 100.

Jesse Mansell, 27, of Niles, who was in the park Monday evening with his sister, Becca Mansell, 21, of Niles and Chalsey Freeman, 21, of Warren, said other popular Pokestops include the McKinley Memorial in Niles, YSU and Boardman Park.

Though it is probably true that the game has the highest concentration among young people, Mansell said his parents are just as interested in it as he is.

“My parents are 67 and 58, and they are obsessed by it,” he said. “They are out here playing it as much as me.”

Greg Bartholomew, owner of All-American Comics, which has a store on West Market Street on Courthouse Square and one in Boardman, said Courthouse Square appears to be the busiest Pokestop in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

People who come to his Boardman store have come to see the Warren store for the first time in recent weeks just because of the popularity of the Courthouse Square Pokestops, he said.

The influx of traffic has been ideal for him as a businessman and exciting as a former Warren councilman and downtown resident.

“We’re selling pop and candy bars, energy drinks,” he said of the mostly young adults who have flooded the area.

“It’s my demographic – 15 to 25,” he said. “It gives a lot of free exposure to all of the businesses,” he said, adding that it may also be a building block in the effort to make people excited about coming to downtown Warren again.

“It’s bringing a lot of kids from the suburbs who probably wouldn’t have come down here otherwise,” he said. Bartholomew said he has stayed open later several nights than he normally would.

“I’ll get more business for this than any festival this year,” he said.

Down the street, Clint Elston, owner of Beautiful Whirl’d, a store in The Shortcut from Courthouse Square to David Grohl Alley, has started offering discounts to Pokemon players that involves taking a “screen shot” of the inside of the store on the game and collecting discount points by playing the game.

The store sells smoothies, wraps and other items.

Brandy Manners of Warren has visited Courthouse Square every night since July 11 when she downloaded the game. She was there Monday night with her husband, Joey Neely, her son, Owen, 3, and Neely’s aunt, Cindy Buydos of Howland.

Manners said the reason people come out at night is because it’s cooler and more comfortable then.

The game is fun and better than staying at home, she said. In the summertime, it’s better to be outside, she said.