Starting — or Reviving — a Main Street Program: The Critical Elements

I have started up and restarted more than one downtown organization over the years, and I can tell you that bringing a dormant Main Street program back to life has a few real differences from starting one from scratch. With a brand-new program, you get all that wonderful first-year enthusiasm — "Our" Main Street, lots of time, talent, and treasure, everybody pulling in the same direction. With a dormant one, you may be working against a memory. Folks may not remember what happened to the program, or they remember the program that fizzled, the board that burned out, the events that got smaller every year. Before you can build anything, you have to deal with what's so.

In a previous article, I made the case that everything a Main Street organization does is economic development. This is the companion piece: not why you want one, but how you start one — or bring one back when it has gone quiet.

First, be honest about why it died

If you are restarting a program, be honest about why it died. Dormant programs almost never die from a single cause. In my experience, it is some combination of the same handful of things, and you ignore them at your peril:

• Volunteer burnout. The same five people did everything until they couldn't anymore.
• The drift from "Our" Main Street to "those folks at Main Street." Once an "us and them" mentality sets in between the organization and the city, the partnership quietly stops being a partnership.
• The city started treating it as a line item — or worse, a nuisance that wants its fees waived — instead of a contractor delivering economic development. The worst case is when the city withdraws its financial support, which is critical to the whole approach.
• No clear reason for being. The organization became a calendar of events rather than a methodology for revitalizing the downtown.
• The program turned exclusive. I always say that if you find yourself stiff-arming a stakeholder or a stakeholder group, you are not doing Main Street. Main Street is inclusive, not exclusive.

I am not raising these to assign blame. Being right about whose fault it was is its own kind of trap, and the cost of being right is usually a downtown that stays stuck. I raise them because you cannot fix what you will not name.

Start with "Organization," not with an event

The temptation is to announce a big festival and hope the champions — or the energy — come back. Resist it. The "Main Street 4-Point Approach" — Economic Vitality, Promotion, Design, and Organization — exists precisely so you don't lead with promotion. Whether you are starting from scratch or restarting, Organization is the point that matters first.

That starts with finding your champions. Before anything moves forward, the idea of starting or restarting the program needs people who will own it. In a recent community I served, two historic commercial districts both needed a Main Street program. The historic downtown had run one back in the 1980s, and a group of champions was dedicated and determined to bring it back — they succeeded. The other district had plenty of folks who believed "somebody should" start a program, but no one stepping forward to say they would make it happen — and some insisting that only property owners should be involved, which is not the Main Street approach. Consequently, there is no program there today.

Getting organized also means getting the right people around the table: a board that genuinely represents everyone with something at stake in the downtown — residents, employees, merchants, property owners, retirees — plus liaisons to the organizations whose buy-in the program needs: the city, the CRA, the chamber, the merchants' association, the historical society. Those liaison directors are critical to success. Main Street is not a merchants' or property owners' association; it is "us," organized for revitalization, alongside the partner organizations already working to improve the community. It means a 501(c)(3) whose sole reason for being is the success of the downtown, independent of the city, the chamber, and the merchants' association. And it means a clear, written work plan, so the organization is a methodology again and not just a string of events.

Find the champions and give them a real win

When you find your champions, give them something achievable to point to in the first ninety days — a cleaned-up block, a small but well-run stroll, a façade that gets fixed. Small, visible wins build the credibility a new program needs to earn, and rebuild the credibility a dormant one has lost. Big master plans can come once people believe again.

Rebuild the city partnership on purpose

This is the one I feel most strongly about, because I have watched it sink good organizations. The city and Main Street are partners in redevelopment and economic development. It makes no sense for a city to contract with a Main Street program to do economic development — including putting on special events — and then turn around and charge the program to put on those events. It is like hiring someone to clean the carpet and then renting them the vacuum. If you are the city, decide up front that the Main Street organization is your partner: provide the venue, the support staff, the materials, and let the program organize the volunteers, the vendors, the sponsors. Together, everything gets covered. Apart, you get a program that spends its energy fundraising to pay you back. The city is not making a donation to a nonprofit; it is leveraging limited resources for a larger return by contracting with the organization that specializes in the success of downtown.

Be patient, and let the "shoulds" go

A revived downtown is measured in years, not quarters. The property owner "should" have kept up their building; the merchants "should" market themselves better; the last board "should" not have let the program lapse. All of that may be true, and none of it moves a single thing forward. The communities that bring their Main Street back are the ones willing to let go of who "should" do what, deal with the reality in front of them, and get committed — city and organization together — to the success of the downtown.

Bring the structure back first, give people a reason to believe again, and protect the partnership like it matters. Because it does.

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This piece is part of a larger field guide on downtown redevelopment for Florida communities.