The author wrote this while an intern at
the Virginia Main Street Program with the Department of Housing
and Community Development. He was pursuing a master’s
degree in urban and regional planning. He is now with the
Timmons Group.
1. Life on the Streets—24/7
Downtown housing is starting to increase,
which has led to an increase in foot traffic and purchasing on
Main Streets before and after work hours. While each new
downtown employee spends between $2,500
and $3,500 downtown each year, each new downtown resident spends anywhere between $7,500 and $14,000 annually in the downtown. Therefore, local government strategy for economic development should include attracting residents to downtown in addition to recruiting new businesses to downtown. Residents living downtown help encourage neighborhood oriented development like commercial services and retail.
and $3,500 downtown each year, each new downtown resident spends anywhere between $7,500 and $14,000 annually in the downtown. Therefore, local government strategy for economic development should include attracting residents to downtown in addition to recruiting new businesses to downtown. Residents living downtown help encourage neighborhood oriented development like commercial services and retail.
Communities are seeing a growth in upscale
upper story housing, and retirement and assisted living housing
is also slowly opening up in downtowns. Movie theaters are
making a comeback to Main Street. Theaters that show movies in
the evening help increase the number of customers and energy in
downtowns. Catering to working professionals, small retail
businesses are increasingly open during evening hours.
Kennedy Smith mentioned an exciting new
addition to the federal HUD program, HOPE VI, that will likely
bring more housing to downtowns in the coming years. The HOPE
VI program was created in the early 1990s, with significant
input from the Congress for the New Urbanism. The
program’s sole focus has been to provide funds to
demolish substandard public housing and replace it with mixed
income, mixed use communities. The results have generally been
very positive. However, because HOPE VI is directly tied to
existing public housing, smaller cities, which generally do not
have either public housing or a public housing authority, have
not been able to take advantage of the program.
A new “Main Street” provision
has been added to the regulations that will fulfill the intent
of HOPE VI, by providing high quality affordable housing
(“affordable” housing could also include housing
for the elderly, artists, et al.) in a mixed use environment.
This is a departure from the way HOPE VI has worked in the past
in that it will allow smaller cities to use HOPE VI funds to
create affordable housing in existing buildings, such as upper
floors, in downtowns. This means that HOPE VI could be used
under the new “Main Street” provision even
ocal
government officials should be happy to hear that Main Streets
are making a come back. According to Kennedy Lawson Smith,
Director of the National Main Street Center, at a recent presentation
for the Virginia Main Street Program, “there are some
threats to downtowns, but also some of the best signs
I’ve seen in over 20 years of working at the National
Main Street Center.” Healthy downtowns generate more
sales, property and other tax revenue for local governments
than a deteriorated and vacant downtown and provide an
important place for people to live, work and enjoy.
The Virginia Main Street Program, managed
by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community
Development, hosted Kennedy Smith’s presentation on the
latest downtown revitalization trends because of her recognized
expertise and experience in downtown revitalization. Virginia
Main Street works to revitalize the state’s historic
downtowns by providing training and technical support
to help Main Street communities improve and beautify their downtowns and encourage private investment, business development, and tourism.
to help Main Street communities improve and beautify their downtowns and encourage private investment, business development, and tourism.
She began her presentation by outlining
the Main Street “circle of investment:” (1) the
first step in the circle is to help businesses sell more; (2)
businesses can then afford higher rents; (3) this leads
property owners to rehabilitate their buildings; (4) the
district then looks more attractive; (5) more people visit the district,
and then the cycle starts over again. Here’s what Kennedy
Smith sees for the future of historic downtowns:
