Four new shops and an active group of merchants — could the City of Tonawanda’s downtown business district come back to life after years of neglect?

Main Street’s merchants and City of Tonawanda Mayor Ron Pilozzi won’t explicitly say so, but they also can’t hide signs of veiled optimism.

“We’re starting to get more walkers and new people,” said Sue Arts, owner of the Tropical Moose Cafe at 47 Main St., which opened in October but hasn’t been as successful as Arts originally hoped.

A new antiques store is set to open soon next to the Tropical Moose, while on the cafe’s other side is an existing antiques store, The Mulberry Tree, a newly opened art gallery, Gallery Sixty One and another new antiques store, Sweet Briar Antiques. A new greeting cards store is set to open across the street from the Tropical Moose.

The merchants have also revived the idea of a merchant’s association and fashioned it with a new name, the Swiftwater Merchants Association. They don’t seem quite sure yet how to use the association to their advantage, but they’re determined to figure it out.

“We’re going to be try and get the mayor to do the right thing,” said Shannon Barlow, owner of the Twisted Tiki, a tattoo parlor at 23 Main St. “And we’re going to see what it takes in bringing more of a louder bang.”

Barlow is a veritable fountain of ideas when it comes to revitalizing Main Street, including attracting strong restaurant franchises and creating a night life which, right now, doesn’t exist.

“You have to have eye candy, something you can relate to,” he said. “People come down here (for different summer events), and they’re not from Tonawanda, and if they see something’s happening they’ll say ‘yeah, let’s get off here. Let’s go to Tonawanda.’ ”

But what about right now?

“It’s boring down here,” Barlow said. “That’s the whole point. We’re sitting on the canal and sitting on the river, but people raised here don’t look at it like it’s beautiful. It needs more liveliness.”

For the Main Street merchants, business is a matter of perception. So where they see possibilities, they see others who could care less.

Arts recalled the story of a city resident who stopped by the other day and related surprise there was a coffee shop downtown. The lady said she hadn’t been down Main Street in five years.

“We get people coming in and saying, ‘geez, when’d you open?’ ” Arts said. “I say, ‘how could you not see me since September?”

The mini-boon of four new shops won’t erase the eyesore of abandoned ones. Dan Sturner of Dan Sturner’s Keyboard Studio at 43 Main St. said he wished various owners of the storefronts down Main Street would be more selective when it comes to tenants.

“The business needs to be defined and attractive,” he said. Though Sturner’s business isn’t retail, he said it is dependent on the visibility that comes with foot traffic.

Pilozzi credited the merchants for organizing an association, and said they have his full support. He mentioned the city’s Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2002, which calls for the closing of Young Street to force more traffic down Main Street.

“It’s important,” Pilozzi said of Main Street’s well-being. “Your business district is the district that pretty much highlights what you have to offer in terms of business and services to the community.”

He pledged to look at changing archaic municipal codes which ban sidewalk sales, and said he’s directed the code enforcement officer to target properties on Main Street which aren’t “up to snuff.”

“This seems like a very interested group of individuals who want to succeed in Tonawanda,” Pilozzi said. “My plan is to work with them and hopefully help them thrive and grow.

Success breeds success.”