If there is one certain lesson from last week's unfortunate news that the magnet high school will not be built downtown is that New London can't depend on any one big project to continue successful redevelopment.

This time last year it looked like the magnet high school, a bold project to combine the Garde Arts Center and an arts-oriented high school, and the National Coast Guard Museum were going to create blockbuster change and usher in a new prosperous era downtown.

Last week, the school-theater deal rattled apart, with school officials taking their funding and announcing plans for a new school on the existing northern, more suburban high school campus instead.

The museum, too, looks much less certain a year later, with questions raised about the suitability of the flood-prone site and lackluster fundraising.

These are both reminders that for New London to achieve its next level of success, to become the hip little city you know who predicted back at the turn of the century, it will have to continue happening organically — small developments that combine to become important.

I would call this the Charlotte Factor, after Charlotte Hennegan, who, with her Thames Greenery and associated businesses, has set the bar high for improving the civic environment by doing.

I remember when Hennegan's original shop on lower State Street once seemed just like the twinkle of urban renewal in someone's eye.

Those were some of the darkest days of downtown.

Remember when State Street was a failed pedestrian mall, no cars and no people walking by the empty storefronts?

But Hennegan has been joined by other enterprising and hardworking business owners who, over the years, successfully have breathed life back into the downtown.

There may still be a long way to go, but when you consider the progress of the last 30 years, the arc is encouraging.

The new Parade in front of Union Station was a great improvement.

Largely because of Hennegan's involvement, the downtown blooms with beautiful flowers all summer.

Some investments in downtown buildings recently have been made.

The Capitol Theater, a downtown anchor building, which at the end of its run was showing X-rated movies, has been sold to someone who has ideas about breathing new life into it.

The downtown post office, another architectural landmark, has been saved from a threatened closure and is being restored.

Two interesting new restaurants have opened on Bank Street in the last few weeks, adding to an already healthy collection of restaurants and nightclubs.

Little by little, business by business, building by building and tenant by tenant, downtown New London gets better every year.

So far, these improvements have all come by way of the Charlotte Factor, individual building and business owners, who, concentrating on their own projects, collectively make the place more vital and appealing.

Today downtown you can bank, shop for gifts and art, get your hair cut or styled, buy prescription glasses, shop for organic groceries, eat, dance, catch a train or a ferry or listen to music.

When the road ahead looks daunting, think how far New London's downtown has come.

It wouldn't hurt to have some big thing generate new investment and traffic.

But in the end, it will probably be the little steps, the block by block improvements, the Charlotte Factor, that will finish New London's transformation into a hip little city.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com