For Danielle Blount, a Buffalo business owner who recently decided against a downtown location, the internet model just makes more sense. Blount and her sister Melissa run Lily and Grey, which curates gift boxes for weddings and other events.

While the pair like the area – they completed a two-month pop-up there in December – they couldn’t justify the cost of a storefront, Blount said.

“Overall, it was a great experience,” Blount said. “But we didn’t see enough [business] to say, ‘let’s quit our jobs and open a brick-and-mortar location.’ ”

Rethinking retail

Such calculations don’t necessarily doom downtown retail – but they do suggest the businesses that rebuild the neighborhood will differ from the ones that first built it. Gone are the glory days of Kobacker’s, Kleinhans, Hengerer’s and AM&A’s, their storefronts long since demolished or converted to hotels, restaurants, salons and offices.

Those sorts of businesses fuel the neighborhood today, said Mike Schmand, the director of BuffaloPlace, a nonprofit organization. They have also replaced old-school retailers as the bedrock of other resurgent downtowns, said Huntoon, a principal consultant with the retail site-selection firm Intalytics.