Helping Main Street

FIRST AND FOREMOST…GET INVOLVED!

1. Hold a town meeting. Figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your town.
2. Set some goals.
3. Start raising money or support for specific projects.
4. Ask more downtown merchants to become involved in the revitalization process.
5. Develop a good relationship with your local news media.
6. Publish a newsletter or write a regular column for your newspaper to keep your community informed.
7.  Get on the Main Street Arkansas mailing list to find out what’s happening in other cities.
8. Ask for help from the chamber of commerce, the regional planning commission, local colleges or vo-tech schools, the Co-operative Extension Service, the Small Business Development Center, utility companies and others.
9. Work with your local financial institutions. Ask them to make a commitment to downtown revitalization.
10. Apply for status as a Certified Local Government through the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. CLG status can provide funding for projects to enhance the downtown.
11. Visit downtowns with Main Street programs to find out what others are doing.
12. Stop complaining and start doing.
13. Develop a slide show about your downtown. Take it to civic clubs, schools, the chamber of commerce, and the city council.
14. Develop a program to encourage small physical improvements to downtown buildings such as new or repaired signs, paint, or awnings.
15. Look for a building that can be dramatically improved with a relatively small cash outlay. Repair or remove torn awnings, fix broken windows, and repair broken signs.
16. Deal with the parking issue: Count your parking spaces. Add signs to your public parking lots. Develop a voluntary contract to get business owners and employees to agree to leave prime parking places for the customers.
17. Take “before” photos and develop “after” drawings of buildings to encourage renovation.
18. Encourage building rehabilitation that respects the heritage of each building and the downtown. 
19. Work with property owners to clean and maintain vacant buildings. Nobody will rent a building filled with junk if any other alternatives exist. Ask community groups to install and change displays in vacant windows.
20. Pretend you are a visitor; really look at your downtown. What do you see?
21. Take into account handicapped access to your sidewalks, public buildings, and stores.
22. Is your street lighting adequate? Encourage merchants to light their windows as a low cost advertisement to passers-by.
23. See business owners on the importance of attractive window displays. Ask a creative person to work with merchants monthly to change window displays.
24. Hold a downtown clean up. Repeat it quarterly.
25. Buy or build good quality trash receptacles. Put them where the trash is and empty them regularly.
26. Keep sidewalks and alleys free of trash. Plant and water flowers, pull or cut weeds. 
27. Replace hand-lettered signs with professional graphics.
28. Invent a retail promotion (that’s not a sale).
29. Organize a festival. Have food, music, something for children, a free souvenir, and overlapping events.
30. Prepare a promotion calendar that allows plenty of time to plan for promotions and name a separate chairman for each promotion activity.
31. Make it easy for things to happen downtown and encourage community groups to plan their activities downtown.
32. Develop a downtown logo and use it on stationery, newspaper ads, shopping bags, posters, and flyers.
33. Promote your downtown history through a walking tour, a brochure, or school programs. Hold an architectural treasure hunt.
34. Work with the schools to display student’s artwork or awards inside downtown businesses. Today’s children are tomorrow’s customers. 
35. Develop a business directory that lists the kinds of goods and services available and shows where to park. Distribute the directory through the chamber of commerce, the utility companies, and motels.
36. Talk about what’s good in your downtown.
37. Develop a downtown slogan and encourage all downtown businesses to use it.
38. Survey your downtown businesses to find out what they sell and to whom.
39. Identify customer needs that aren’t being met. These are business opportunities.
40. Complete a building inventory that includes size, ownership, cost of rent or lease, and availability.
41. Gather census information on your community and trade area.
42. Learn what superior customer service means in today’s market and stress its importance downtown. Encourage your downtown merchants to visit stores in the area and learn from the competition.
43. Learn about your downtown’s zoning regulations.
44. Count how many people work downtown. Downtown is one your town’s biggest employers. 
45. Renovate upper floors and recruit services or professional businesses. Upper floor housing increases downtown’s customer base.
46. Hold an advertising and marketing seminar.
47. Hold regular get-acquainted coffees for merchants hosted by a different store each month.
48. Ask the city how it is working to strengthen the downtown. Ask local industries how they feel about downtown. Discuss the results with others interested in downtown revitalization.
49. Calculate financial projections on vacant buildings. Rental costs will determine how much can be spent on building rehabilitation.
50. Be informed about free or low-cost business assistance that could benefit your downtown merchants.
51. Establish uniform hours for downtown stores. Make it convenient for your customers to shop on their way home from work.
52. Recognize that downtown businesses are important. Let the owners know it

Reprinted from http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/main-street/get-involved/