Route '12 to Main Street

We are planning a ‘Main Street Mob’ night tonight at Dan’s Downtown Tavern in celebration of the Governor’s recent announcement that Saline has been accepted into the Michigan Main Street community.  Come join in the fun if you can!

A formal Announcement Party will be scheduled in March by the Michigan Main Street Center…as soon as we confirm a date, we will share the news with you!

Hope to see you tonight!  Come for dinner, or come after!  We’ll be there starting around 7 PM.

Our community did it!  Thank you to all who helped in any way towards this effort!!!  We are SO excited to get started!  Interested in joining us? 

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/governor-snyder-announces-michigan-main-street-community-designation-for-saline-139978883.html

One of the greatest benefits of ‘Main Street’ is how it can bring people together for a common purpose… to build a better community.  This was never more evident than it was at last week’s presentation to the Michigan Main Street Advisory Committee in Lansing.  It was the final step in an almost 2-year journey to become a Select Level Michigan Main Street program.

In order to tell our story,  fourteen volunteers brainstormed the night of our site visit on January 17th, and decided to show the Advisory Committee our community through partnerships that are possible if a Main Street program was in place. Our theme, “Parade of Partnerships”,  came from ideas stemming from the great people and organizations in our community, and our love for our hometown parade!

Sticking with the ‘Route ’12 to Main Street’ theme, we decided on identifying 12 groups representative of our community that would help to tell our story.  Each group was tasked with creating a ‘float’ utilizing some type of ‘vehicle’ like a wagon, and creating a puzzle piece that would also represent their group.  They were asked to develop a 90 second speech to talk about their role in the community and how they believe Main Street could partner with their ‘group’ to  benefit our community.  Laurie Dawson created a large 7′ wide puzzle board that the puzzle pieces would be placed on after each group finished with their ‘speech’.  As each group finished  their presentation their puzzle piece would be added to the puzzle board.  When all of the groups finished presenting, there would still be a very important ‘piece’ missing right in the center of the puzzle.  The final piece would be passed through the crowd of volunteers and placed in the center of the puzzle to complete the puzzle.  That piece was a picture of our Downtown with the Michigan Main Street logo.  It represented our need for a full-time Downtown Revitalization organization utilizing the tools provided by the Michigan Main Street Center.

Over 62 members of our community, floats in tow and puzzle pieces ready, made the trip !  It was an amazing site to see !!  Their ‘float’, puzzle piece and speeches were creative, interesting and full of pride for the role they play in our community. No matter what happens, it was a very memorable day for all of us and we each learned a little more about our community, our people, and the spirit of Main Street!

We will be informed of the committee’s decision by February 20th.  If our community is selected into the Michigan Main Street program, Governor Snyder will make the announcement next week.  Keep your fingers crossed!

The site visit conducted by the Michigan Main Street Center on January 17th went very well!  A group of 13 volunteers and City representatives gave up a better part of their day to join three members of the Michigan Main Street Center staff to review the application our community submitted to become a Select level Main Street community.  Once the application review was completed,  the group conducted a walking tour of our Downtown.  The Main Street representatives were in our community from 10 AM until 3 PM.

The next step on our ‘Route ’12 to Main Street’ campaign  is to create a 45 minute presentation to approximately 20 members of the Advisory Board and the Michigan Main Street Center. This presentation is scheduled  on February 8th at 2:30 pm in Lansing, Michigan.  Our presentation will give them a glimpse into life in Saline and share with them why we believe the Main Street program would be beneficial to our community.  It is the final step in the application process.

We are currently working on the presentation and want to include as much representation from our community as possible.  If you are interested in joining us, we will be happy to include you! Our next planning meeting is on Tuesday, January 31st at 7 pm at the Liberty Media Center.  Come and join in the fun and be a part of creating a community driven organization that will focus on preserving, protecting and enhancing the heart of our community!

What happens after the presentation?  The Advisory Committee will meet and determine if Saline is ready to move up from the Associate Level to the Select Level and officially become ‘Saline Main Street’.  If we are ‘Selected’, the announcement will be made by February 20, 2012 and the announcement party will be the week of March 5th in our community.  Let’s hope we’ll be celebrating soon!

We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday season.  We certainly did!  It was nice to take a much-needed break after the many hours and volunteers it took to pull the Main Street application together and get it submitted by the December 2nd deadline.  The binder was thick, 2.5 inches and many pages were letters of support from members of our community.  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts…it is a great start!  We will continue to be visible in the community, hold block parties in the neighborhoods (would you like to host one for us?) do presentations around town and anything else we can to educate and inform everyone about the importance of a strong downtown organization!

We heard great news!!  The Michigan Main Street Center staff will be conducting a site visit on January 17th from 10 AM until approximately 2 PM.  They will meet with many of the volunteers that helped put the application together including representatives from the City and other organizations.  They will talk with us about our application and then do a walking tour of Downtown Saline (weather permitting).  We are excited to show them around!  Help us give them a warm welcome.  If you happen to be downtown during that time and see us walking around, don’t be afraid to welcome them and tell them how you feel about Saline’s efforts to become a Main Street community.

If we make it through the site visit, and they like what they see, we will be invited to do a presentation in front of the Selection Committee in Lansing. We will be competing against up to six communities throughout Michigan.  The Selection committee will choose up to 3 qualifying communities.

If you are interested in helping out with developing the presentation, we will be meeting on January 17th at 6 PM at the Saline Area Chamber offices.  The purpose of the presentation is to show the Michigan Main Street Center Selection committee why we believe we need the Main Street program.  (www.michiganmainstreetcenter.com, www.preservationnation.org/mainstreet)   This is exciting times for our community!

We would like to welcome a new volunteer to our organization!  Laurie Dawson will be serving on the Promotions Team and just recently helped us create a window display of all of our supporters and volunteers to date.  Check it out at the T & M building on North Ann Arbor Street, just north of the parking lot behind Oxygen Plus.

Happy New Year from all of us at Route ’12 to Main Street!

Beginning with a community presentation last December by the Michigan Main Street Center and the support of the City of Saline City Council, we embarked on a mission to educate the community. We went on tour and made presentations about the benefits to become a Main Street community to all of the adjacent Townships, the Washtenaw County Commissioners, the Saline School Board, the Saline Historical Society, the Saline Rotary, the Saline Area Chamber, the Coalition for a Quality Community, the Fifth Corner, the Saline High Senior Capstone Class, the Saline Youth Council, the Saline Downtown Merchants Association, Saline Kiwanis Club,  the Senior Center,and  the Saline Economic Development Council.  We set up tables at the Farmer’s Market, Summerfest, Harvest of the Arts, School Open Houses and held a Business and Property Owners Information Meeting.   There have been a lot of individual meetings along the way, and recently we had our first neighborhood block party which was a lot of fun and very successful.  Our goal was to reach as many residents, businesses and organizations that we could to share our excitement about how ‘Main Street’ can help us to protect, preserve and continue to improve our downtown so that it is vibrant, economically healthy, beautiful and the place for family and friends to gather and make memories for years to come.

During this past year, we created a non-profit organization to host the new downtown revitalization organization and developed the ‘Route ’12 to Main Street’ campaign.  We are now working diligently on the extensive application that is due on December 2nd.  Our main challenge is to prove that our community supports this effort and we have the ability to fund the program.  The Michigan Main Street Center will evaluate the applications, and if our application makes it past the first step, they will schedule a ‘site visit’ to see our community for themselves.  If we pass that inspection, we will then be invited to make our case in Lansing.  In the end, they will choose up to 3 communities in 2012, and the announcement will be made some time in March.  If we are fortunate enough to be ‘Selected’ as a Main Street community, the name of our organization will be Saline Main Street!  Training of our Board, committees, and Manager will begin immediately and we will be on our way to building an organization based on a proven strategy for successful downtown revitalization. 

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we want to thank all of you who have stepped up, emailed, signed a letter of support (we’re still collecting them!) and contributed so far (the pledge campaign is still on too!), and especially the volunteers who have been working on this application for months to get us to this point. We also want to thank the City of Saline Council and staff members, who have supported this effort from the start.  We are taking pictures of our supporters as fast as we can and posting them to this site as well as our Facebook site. We want to continue to build momentum and keep that flywheel turning!  If you are interested in helping us to build and maintain a GREAT community, please take a look at the information on this site.  Thank you.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Our last example of a Michigan Main Street community is Old Town Lansing.  Old Town Lansing was named one of five of the 2011 Great American Main Street Program’s in the nation!

Old Town’s History ( from The ‘Main Street’ Difference….written by Kelly Larson, Main Street Architect, State Historic Preservation Office):  About 20 years or so ago, the traditional commercial district known as “North Lansing” or “Old Town” was a scary place that most people avoided.  Crime was high and buildings were boarded up and deteriorating. That changed in the 1990s when a few dedicated and hard-working people realize that nobody else was going to come in and fix Old Town so they were going to have to do it themselves.  In 1996, the Old Town Commercial Association adopted the Main Street Four-Point Approach and began using historic preservation as one of their key economic development tools.  A strong volunteer force started painting buildings, cleaning-up streets and parks and organizing new festivals to bring people into the district.  Today, crime rates are among the lowest in the city and vacancy rates are less than 10 percent.  Old Town is now filled with shops, art galleries, festivals, and residents.

Old Town Today:  (Excerpt from 2010 Main Street Report …an official Main Street community since 2006):   Old Town is known for its many festivals and events, but Old Town Scrapfest has redefined festivals, art and healthy competition in the capital city.  Now in its second year, Scrapfest  celebrates Old Town’s oldest business, which has specialized in scrap metal recycling for three generations.  Fifteen teams of artists had one hour to collect up to 500 lbs of scrap and two weeks to build a masterpiece.  Sculptures vary from eight foot eagles made of entirely silverware to a fully functioning chess board inviting festival-goers to challenge a friend.  The event raises money for the Old Town Main Street program, but more importantly, the event has garnered national attention and re-secured Old Town’s position as the epicenter of arts in Lansing.

Old Town celebrated not one, but 13 new business to the community in 2009.  While other neighborhoods struggled to hold on to businesses in the economic downturn, Old Town enjoyed a rush of new businesses.  Many of the new businesses were retail and many more were creative service based, giving Old Town the title of having one of the highest concentration of creative businesses in Michigan.

Old Town’s Main Street statistics 2006-2010:
Total Volunteer Hours – 21,488
Net New Businesses – 27
Existing Business Expansions – 25
Net new FTE jobs – 195
Total Number of Facade Rehabilitation – 63
Building Rehab Investments – $4,518,700
Total Private and Public Investment 0 $5,646,339

Old Town’s success can be attributed to the utilization of the Main Street Four-Point Approach, great leadership and hundreds of volunteers who care about their district.

Over the past 30 years, the Main Street movement has transformed the way communities think about the revitalization and management of their  downtown districts.  Cities and towns across the nation have come to see that a prosperous, sustainable community is only as healthy as its core.  The Michigan Main Street Center provides training and assistance to teach communities how to use the Main Street Four-Point Approach over a 5 year period to help build a strong, sustainable organization that will focus on the improvement and maintenance of Downtown for many years to come.  Up to 3 communities are chosen through a competitive application process.  Applications are due December 2nd.  If you are interested in helping by completing a Letter of Support, please see the tab on the top of this page.  Thank you!

Our third example of a Michigan Main Street community, Howell, is similar in size to Saline, and has been in the Michigan Main Street program since 2005.   Today, due to their volunteer efforts and partnerships with the City and other local organizations,  they are a Nationally accredited Main Street Community!  Here’s a snapshot of what has been happening in Howell…

Howell Main Street had been looking for opportunities for public art in the downtown for over a year, when a glass artist moved into a downtown loft that was owned by a member of the design committee.  The loft owner lost no time in recruiting the artist to partner with the design committee to procure a series of slumped glass panels representing the ‘Spirit of Howell.’  The panels depict popular community events, like the farmers’ market, Melon Festival, Balloon Festival, and Concerts at the Courthouse.  Next, a sculpture artist was recruited by the design committee to make a twisted steel wire sculpture in the form of  a bent-limb Indian Tree that was well known in the community and recently cut down due to disease.  Corporate sponsors were secured for 50 percent of the investment, and the remaining investment was covered by a grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.  The installations will be installed as part of a $1.3 million public parking lot makeover, and will be installed within landscaped areas with up lighting.

A downtown Howell book store owner loved Halloween so much that she started the Legend of Sleepy Howell in 2002.  What started as  a few kids dressing up and coming to downtown stores for some candy, turned into an event with a $10,000 budget, organized and run by the Howell Main Street promotion committee.  This free event that is held the Saturday before Halloween every year has become the best family-friendly Halloween event in Livingston County.  Those in attendance (estimated to have increased by 50 percent to 12,000 last year) are treated to the ‘Not Yet Dead Band.’ 20 candy stations stocked with 50,000 pieces of candy, inflatables, booths by local businesses with kids’ games, hay rides, a hay maze, hay climbing mountain, spooky theater, a haunted alley, s’mores and costume contest.  The promotions committee has partnered with the recreation authority to bring the ‘Headless Horseman’ 5k/10k race to the event, where an actual headless horseman leads the runners on the course!

As part of the Main Street program, Howell has experienced many successes including:

Total Volunteer Hours – 16, 708
Net new business created – 15
Existing businesses expanded – 5
New new FTE jobs – 45
Total building renovations – 70
Total building rehab investments- $1,786,819
Total private investment – $5,528,172
Total public investment – $299,800

*Source: Michigan Main Street Center 2010 Report

Volunteers utilize the Main Street Four-Point Approach to continually focus on making Howell alive with year-round activity, full of fun and diverse businesses and maintain an attractive downtown.  The next and final community we will highlight in this series is this year’s Great American Main Street Award winner, Old Town Lansing.  One of five Main Street programs to be designated in the entire country, Old Town overcame many challenges to get where they are today!

Learn more about our ‘Route ’12 to Main Street’ campaign at www.downtownsaline.org.  We are currently preparing our application to become a Michigan Main Street community. November will be a very busy month.  The application is due December 2nd and we need your support to show our community cares about our Downtown.  Please go to the ‘Letter of Support’ tab and join us!

Marshall celebrates the Blues!

We continue our 4-part series about Main Street communities throughout Michigan.  This time, we take a look at Marshall’s success.

In June 2003, Marshall’s already successful downtown took an important step forward toward a vision of comprehensive revitalization with its new Michigan Main Street designation. One of only four communities in the State to receive the competitive grant selection in 2003, Marshall’s downtown and its businesses received three years of training and technical assistance to accomplish their revitalization goals.  They have been in the program ever since and are now a Master Level community and reached accreditation through the National Main Street Center.

Marshall’s Story  (Michigan Main Street 2010 Report)

Marshall Main Street continues to make progress in revitalizing and sustaining long-term economic stability for Marshall’s central business district.  This year, the design committee identified a ‘Top Ten’ of downtown buildings needing design services and facade improvements.  Working with Michigan’s state historic preservation office and the Michigan Main Street Center, their design committee met with several of the ‘Top Ten’ building owners and they now have two buildings taking advantage of the design services offered by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office and Michigan Main Street.

The promotions and organization committees partnered to take their signature special event – the Marshall Blues Festival-to the next level and evolved it into a fundraiser for the Main Street program.  Using Michigan Main Street’s technical/training services for an educational workshop on sponsorships, organization committee members launched a sponsorship program for the Blues Festival. A successful first-year campaign raised $7,000 in cash sponsorships, and an additional $3,000 of in-kind sponsorships.  This resulted in a profitable festival that raised a net $5,000 for downtown programs; and an event that brought an estimated 7,000 people to downtown Marshall for a memorable blues experience.

The economic restructuring committee partnered with a community bank to offer special low-interest loan programs for downtown building acquisitions and/or rehabilitation projects.  With the backing of businesses and residents, volunteers and financial supporters, Marshall Main Street celebrates their accomplishments and the promise of more good things to come. Learn more about Marshall’s Main Street program at: www.marshallmainstreet.com.

Since Marshall has been in the Main Street program they have:

• accumulated over 13,267 volunteer hours
• Created 15 new businesses
• Expanded 6 existing businesses
• Created 35 new full-time jobs
• Improved 49 building facades
• private investment totaling $759,164
• public investment of $735,023
• total of $1,494, 187 in downtown investment

(Resource provided by the Michigan Main Street Center.  www.michiganmainstreetcenter.com)

The Michigan Main Street Center is a program of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority and contracts with the National Main Street Center based in Washington D.C.    The National Main Street Center began in 1980 in three communities and has grown to over 2000 communities in 43 states.  Michigan started the Main Street program in 2003 and in eight short years has quickly grown into one of the most highly respected and successful programs in the Nation!

Interested in helping Saline become a Michigan Main Street community?  Click on the ‘Join Us’ tab!