Rick Atkin rarely visited downtown St. George as a kid in the 1980s and ’90s, even though he lived just a few miles away. When his family ate out, they usually headed to strip malls full of chain restaurants along the I-15 corridor on the outskirts of town.

In the mid-1970s, a few years before Atkin was born, his parents ditched the old adobe brick buildings of St. George and joined other young families flocking to fresh homes in Bloomington, one of many new suburbs popping up throughout southwest Utah.

Before that, though, Atkin’s family lived in the historic city center for generations. His ancestors were part of the first two Mormon handcart companies that colonized the area in the 1860s, and his family remained there for a century.

“With my dad’s generation — he’s 82 — downtown was

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