Main street makeover strategy

Elizabeth Chase, executive director of the Nebraska Main Street program, stopped in Sidney Wednesday morning to give community members information about the program she heads up.

The event was held at Serenity Cafe in downtown Sidney.

A small group of locals stopped by for a casual presentation and discussion with Chase.

The Nebraska Main Street program is a nonprofit organization that began in 1994 to serve as the state coordinator for Nebraska's nationally accredited statewide Main Street program. The Main Street program is a national model designed to educated communities about place based downtown revitalization and using historic preservation as the basis.

Better educated communities brings jobs, investment and people to small towns and commercial districts. Local Main Street programs leverage their own private investment and capitalize on the unique appeal of traditional commercial business districts. The result is one of the most successful economic revitalization strategies in the country.

Sidney is one of seven cities designated by Main Street Nebraska as a participating community in the program. There are also associate and rural associate communities participating.

According to Chase, there is a four-point approach as well as eight guiding principles that encourages the development on each Main Street. They include: design, economic restructuring, promotion and organization.

"The reason why these communities are involved with Main Street, is because they want to create an environment in their downtowns that allows businesses to grow and thrive and allows the businesses in the community be a part of the community," Chase said. "The first step is figuring out a vision and what you want your downtown to be and look like. If you don't know who you want to be in the future, it's hard to keep plugging away at projects that aren't going to go anywhere. If you know what you want to be in the future, then that's the basis to get things started."

Successful application of the four points is guided by the eight principles that include: comprehensive, incremental, self-help, partnerships, identifying and capitalizing on existing assets, quality, change and implementation.

"A lot of communities have struggled, because it's hard for them to find volunteers and the easiest way to fix that is to find projects that people are interested in," Chase said. "We provide the skills to the communities and those board of directors and folks that are working on those projects. We don't help individual businesses, but be able to help you to help the businesses in your own communities."

One of the main issues discussed included how Sidney will attract people off of the interstate to visit the historic downtown area.

"Main Street exists to solve these problems," Chase said. "It takes a dedicated full time effort to have a successful downtown. It's identifying the businesses that need help and putting businesses that are relevant to drawing people downtown in those buildings. This is a marathon and not a sprint, so we have to reeducate people about the changing trends."