Commercial Revitalization and Business Retention

• Business Recruitment and Merchandizing for Participating Main Street Businesses
• Transforming White Elephant Buildings
• Economic Restructuring strengthens a community's existing economic assets while expanding and diversifying its economic base. Social, political, physical, and economic needs must all be addressed.
• We need to create an environment that cultivates and supports innovative new businesses. We need to offer training, peer-to-peer mentoring, seed capital, financing, and the market research needed to help independent businesses get established and grow.
• We need 24/7 districts—and that means we need housing. We need eyes on the street—people keeping an eye and ear on what’s happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• We need to think beyond retail. Unlike a shopping mall, where 100 percent of the space is devoted to retail, less than 20 percent of the space in a fully occupied Main Street district is actually used for retail businesses—and that’s good. The rest of the space is employed for housing, offices, government functions, entertainment, religion, and, increasingly, small-scale industries. These activities give Main Street districts economic buoyancy and market diversity—and their employees become customers of community- serving retail businesses on the ground floor.
• Entertainment needs to be a stronger component of Main Streets—whether it’s a theater, a spontaneous street performance, or a farmers market. People are starved for things to do besides watching television and going shopping.
• We need to place greater emphasis on the environment.
• We need to place greater emphasis on history. America’s history was made on its Main Streets—celebrations, protests, and festivals.