Including representatives from Owosso Main Street, 1,300 downtown professionals are learning from Detroit this week, and sharing what Detroit can learn from them.
Owosso Main Street is on a road trip this week.
Members of the organization, along with other area Main Street communities, are invading Detroit this week. With it will be more than 1,300 downtown development professionals, volunteers and thinkers from Main Street communities throughout the country. For four days, they'll attend dozens of educational sessions in Cobo Hall, as well as travel to 15 areas in Metro Detroit for mobile workshops. They'll tour Ferndale. They'll party at Eastern Market. For the first time, Detroit is hosting the annual National Main Street Conference.
Why does that matter to Owosso? Because over the last 30 years, the National Main Street Center has tracked $59.6 billion in reinvestment in physical improvements from both public and private sources in their communities, with a net gain of 115,381 businesses and 502,728 jobs. In 2013, every dollar invested in Main Street communities resulted in $33.28 of economic impact, making it the most effective downtown revitalization effort in the country --and Owosso's downtown has contributed to those great statistics.
Main Street communities such as Owosso use the National Main Street Center's Four Point Approach, an organizational technique to revitalize historic downtowns. The concept centers on a comprehensive strategy that addresses a range of common downtown development issues simultaneously--all driven by volunteers.
"Main Street crates an outlet where the stakeholders and the local residents can be a part of the process," says
Owosso Main Street Manager Josh Adams. "I believe that creating that ownership is what's so wonderful about the Main Street program."
When Owosso Main Street officially joined the program in 2009, they'd already been operating as a downtown development authority for several years. What the organization has found is leveraging volunteers to tackle all aspects of downtown development--promotions, organization, business development, and design--has made all the difference for downtown Owosso.
"The big difference is through the Main Street program we are offered many different tools and resources to further assist those efforts," says Adams. "From grants to creating downtown festivals, to additional historical preservation education, we have benefited in many different ways."
Simply looking at downtown Owosso is a testimony to the impact of Main Street. Now with more than 300 volunteers, Owosso Main Street has one of the largest downtown flower programs and the second largest outdoor farmers market in the state. Their Glow Owosso holiday event draws more than 3,000 people to downtown, and at least six façade improvements have recently occurred there through the help of their grants.
Among the many services available to Owosso Main Street, including training and free design, marketing and branding services from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority's
Michigan Main Street Center, Adams says one of the biggest benefits to being a part of the nationwide movement is the networking and support from other communities.
"The Michigan Main Street organization, along with all of the associated Michigan Main Streets are amazing," he says. "They are always there to share all of their tools and resources, all of their experiences and knowledge. As a new manager this has been extremely helpful. Actually, it's been priceless."
That networking will go into hyperdrive this week during the National Main Street Conference. While the annual event has been hosted in such cities as Des Moines, Baltimore and Oklahoma City, Adams finds Detroit to be an especially apt location for this year's event.
"I think it's wonderful that the conference is in Detroit this year," he says. "I think downtown Detroit is a great example of, not only revitalization, but the fact that it can be done without losing the historical integrity of a downtown."
What's more, though there are currently no official Main Street organizations within Detroit, Michigan itself is home to two state coordinating bodies, the Michigan Main Street Center and Oakland County's
Main Street Oakland County, and more than 30 local programs throughout the state. And, not to brag, but Michigan communities have left three of the last four National Main Street Conferences with coveted Great American Main Street Awards.
"We are seeing a lot of Michigan communities really standing out," says Patrice Frey, president and CEO of the National Main Street Center. "Michigan Main Street and Oakland County have a really strong track record of working with and investing in communities. But it comes back down to the people on the ground."
Those people on the ground, ready to lend a hand to make a better community are what Main Street communities have in common more than anything else, making the theme of this year's conference, "Works in Progress," appropriate.
"There might be a lot of work ahead for areas in Detroit, but we're a city on the rise and on the comeback," says Main Street Community Downtown Ferndale's Cristina Sheppard-Decius. "We have a lot of great lessons people can learn from that."
Fortunately, the Chicago-based National Main Street Center recognized that, and believed in Detroit enough to bring their popular conference to a city with so much to share.
"Nobody knows better than Detroiters the power of a community-driven approach to revitalization," write Frey and National Main Street Center Board Chair Barbara Sidway in the conference program.
And after this week, Owosso Main Street and others will be bringing that knowledge and experience back from Detroit to the benefit of our area, just as Detroit will be left with some Owosso wisdom to fold into the revitalization efforts happening there.
Want to see what's happening in Main Street communities throughout Michigan? Check out the eight other Issue Media Group Publications this week to learn how Main Street and this week's conference is making an impact from Iron Mountain to Saline.
This story is part of a placemaking series that is underwritten by the Michigan State Housing and Development Authority.