Progress is a big deal in Main Street from the first façade renovation and new businesses opening downtown to being recognized for your local Main Street organization’s preservation-based economic development efforts. This year, two local Main Street organizations have been recognized for their accomplishments in implementing the Main Street Approach™ through progressing to the next tier in the Missouri Main Street Connection (MMSC) tier system. MMSC is proud to recognize Downtown Joplin Alliance and Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization for their achievement of Accredited and Associate tier placement respectively.

The Downtown Joplin Alliance achieved national and state accreditation from both Main Street America (MSA) and MMSC. Accreditation is the highest level a Main Street program can achieve and indicates that Downtown Joplin Alliance is exceeding in implementing the Main Street criteria impacting their local district in big ways. The National and State designation of accreditation came after Norma Ramirez de Miess, MSA, and Keith Winge, MMSC, completed an on-site review of the organization’s implementation of the Main Street criteria. Reaching this benchmark does not mean revitalization ends as it is equally important to maintain the accreditation status once earned.

In 2021, Downtown Joplin Alliance, through their program’s strong historic preservation ethic, active Board of Directors and committees, as well as other technical aspects that help the program function at a high-level, saw public and private investment of over $45 million in the historic district from 36 projects. The district saw a net gain of 19 new business and 54 new jobs. Additionally, volunteers for Downtown Joplin Alliance donated 1,425 hours of their time. Downtown Joplin Alliance celebrated this accomplishment with a cake from the City of Joplin and said,

“This would not have been reached without our staff, our board, our committee members, our other fabulous volunteers, and all of our fantastic partners, such as Joplin City Government, the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, and Connect2Culture amongst many others.”

The Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization was selected as a new Associate tiered Main Street program with Missouri Main Street Connection (MMSC) following a program review by MMSC.  Associate designation is recognized by MMSC as a way to distinguish communities that are working toward being recognized as a national and state Accredited Main Street program.  As a stepping stone on the path to full accreditation, this benchmark highlights communities that are seeing an increase in the economic value of the downtown and is making progress to achieve an active and vibrant downtown revitalization organization.

During 2021, Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization continued to implement historic preservation-based economic development in uptown Jackson that cultivated $461,382 total investment in downtown, 22 net new jobs, and 2,272 volunteer hours. Their impact has created a place for people to gather, live, and work in uptown Jackson

You can read the press releases written by MMSC staff through the link below:

www.momainstreet.org/press-releases/

The Main Street Approach™ is a time-tested economic development and historic preservation-based approach utilized successfully over the past 40+ years by over 40 coordinating programs and 1,200 neighborhoods and communities nationally. Missouri Main Street Connection’s program’s purpose is to implement this approach in creating vibrant communities across the state. The current Main Street criteria that is used to gauge the effectiveness of how a Main Street Program in implementing the Main Street Approach™ is based on over 40 years of successful downtown revitalization and demonstrates that empowering individuals to develop their downtown motivates high achievement, creates a place people will want to live, work and invest, and makes our state economically stronger. The goal of the National Main Street Center and Missouri Main Street Connection is to encourage preservation-based economic development through the Main Street Approach™.

Missouri Main Street Connection Inc. (MMSC) partnered with the Missouri Humanities Council in awarding $5,000 grants to 12 selected communities through a competitive process to fund projects focused on strengthening heritage and cultural tourism in rural Missouri. The grant helped each community implement a project and market itself to prospective visitors. These projects added heritage tourism to the economies in each community through a range of projects from murals to walking tours to new monuments and building plaques that all highlight each respective community’s history for residents and visitors. One of the Marketing Heritage and Cultural Tourism grant was awarded to Charleston Revitalization Movement (CHARM) in March of 2022 with the project completed in September of 2022.

Charleston Revitalization Movement (CHARM) is a newer Main Street community in the Community Empowerment Grant program but their history and local significance runs deep. From being the lifelong residence of the 46th Governor of Missouri, Warren E. Hearnes, who was the first person in Missouri history to serve in all three branches of the state government to their high school basketball team’s, the Bluejay, twelve state championship titles, the community has a variety of heritage and history to celebrate. It is this deep, rich history that would be on display with a 24’ mural in a welcoming pocket park following the transformation of an overgrown vacant lot left after a building was removed.  

Charleston Revitalization Movement’s (CHARM) overall project is broken up into two phases with phase one being the mural and intial development of the pocket park. During phase one, the first step was to address the condition of the space for the pocket park by removing a tree and overgrown brush and poison ivy.

After clearing the lot, the concrete pad of the old building was exposed allowing for CHARM to preserve it with safety modifications for its new use. As the work was being done on this project CHARM said,

“On more than one occasion, visitors to the area stopped by to see what was taking place as well as offer encouraging words of how much they enjoy visiting our town and how beautiful the architecture and the atmosphere is.”

Next, a 10’ concrete ramp was installed for ADA accessibility and benches placed for locals and visitors to enjoy. The mural was then installed in the park. It is a digitized collage of artwork from three local artist that is printed on weatherproof materials depicting the Mississippi County Courthouse surrounded by beautiful dogwoods and azaleas, the Old Train Depot, a farming scene, a tribute to Charleston High School’s Bluejay Basketball team, and a portrait of Governor Warren E. Hearnes. Lastly, CHARM brought in planters and botanicals to spruce up and soften the space with nature and greenery.

The Marketing Heritage and Cultural Tourism grant has mobilized Charleston Revitalization Movement (CHARM) into action to address a void in their community and by doing so created the perfect environment for people to come together as CHARM wrote in their final report,

“This project has allowed local organizations and city leaders to join forces for the common good of the community. Local business owners have pitched in and contributed in-kind donations of their employee’s labor to help get the larger tasks completed. The community is pulling together and healing from the impact of the past few years.”

With the collaboration between CHARM board members and volunteers as well as Charleston community members in transforming the overgrown property, this space will be able to be used by the community for years to come. The excitement from the development of this space in Charleston has created a buzz for the locals and has sparked excitement in the community resulting in “people signing up to get involved in not only this project but future projects as well.”

Now that phase one has been completed, Charleston Revitalization Movement (CHARM) is waiting for the winter season to pass before moving forward with phase two which will include an elaborate selection of botanicals planted for year-round enjoyment. They also planned to bring additional enhancements to the pocket park in the spring of 2023 for the annual Dogwood-Azalea Festival in April. CHARM had heard many visitors express that they plan to return to see the finished project. Now that the pocket park and mural are ready to greet visitors, CHARM will share their story online to bring back visitors who saw this project in the works as well as new visitors to see what is unique and special about this town and its Main Street.

Missouri Main Street Connection awarded the Marketing Heritage & Cultural Tourism Grants in partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council and the National Endowment for Humanities through the American Rescue Plan Act.

The Downtown Strong: Building Resilient Economies grant is a grant provided by the U.S. Economic Development Administration through Missouri Main Street Connection (MMSC) that continues to impact Missouri communities.

Main Street Kirksville is home to the Moonshine and Lace Boutique owned by sisters Laura Harvey and Michele Thurlo. These sisters took a risk in becoming entrepreneurs in 2017 by starting the Moonshine and Lace Boutique as a mobile boutique traveling to fairs, festivals, and events. They primarily utilized Facebook for their advertising and developed a good following. At the urging of their customers, they opened a storefront in downtown Kirksville in October 2019. Following the opening of their brick and mortar location, they were excited about the traffic and sales they were generating. Laura and Michele were looking forward to the 2020 spring and summer season on the downtown square with the desire to participate in the many neighborhood events, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything.

As a result of the pandemic, they had to temporarily close their newly-opened storefront in March of 2020 even after using safe precautions and implementing regulations. With their storefront closed, they relied on their website and Facebook page for continued sales. Customers that made purchase online and on Facebook were offered porch pickup. However, their sales were low as they felt the impact of the difficulty of receiving inventory, supply chain issues, and inability to work directly with models and customers.

Months after closing in June of 2020, Moonshine and Lace Boutique was able to reopen, but the entire Kirksville downtown area struggled with low traffic. Laura and Michele worked with other downtown businesses to create some small events to help increase traffic, but they knew they needed more. They applied for the Downtown Strong Grant to help them increase their online sales and expand their business promotions.

Moonshine and Lace Boutique was awarded the Downtown Strong Grant and worked with Dana Thomas from BOLD Marketing, who reviewed their existing ecommerce website platform. As a result, BOLD did extensive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work and training. BOLD updated and provided support for the boutique’s Google My Business profile, connected accounts to Google Shop and Facebook, and developed and launched a 2-month Google search ad campaign that helped identify best practices for their audience’s shopping habits.

To enhance their business promotion, BOLD provided Facebook support and ad designs, reviewed Moonshine and Lace’s email platform, and designed email assets to use for customer engagement. They reviewed their existing referral program and made recommendations for an improved platform. In addition, Dana helped them develop ways for getting their message out on a local level and ideas for downtown events where they could partner with other businesses on the downtown square.

Laura and Michele are grateful for the Downtown Strong Grant opportunity and commented  that they felt that learning about SEO has been huge for them. They said, “They started with no knowledge of it at all and now have direction.” The energetic and willing-to-implement attitude of the owners combined with BOLD Marketing’s expertise and support has given Moonshine and Lace Boutique the tools they needed to help navigate the challenges of opening a storefront just prior to the pandemic.

The services included in this article were prepared by Missouri Main Street Connection, Inc. using Federal funds under award 05-79-06056 from Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Administration or the U.S. Department of Commerce.

There are countless decisions that Main Streets have to make throughout the year such as should we continue doing an event or how do we communicate the impact that this event has on the community and its businesses. Analyzing the effectiveness and impact of an event can be tricky because it requires the right data for Main Street’s board and staff to make informed decisions. Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street utilized geofencing to garner valuable data on the attendees of their largest event as their free technical service through Missouri Main Street Connection available to Accredited Main Street programs in Missouri.

Geofencing uses GPS or RFID technology to create a virtual geographic boundary enabling software to collect data when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular area.  Since geofencing is coming from cellphone data, it does not register anyone that is not carrying a cellphone or has GPS location services off.  In Main Street applications, geofencing is used to create a boundary around the Main Street district or specific area of downtown to gather information about those visiting the district. This is a technological upgrade from zip code surveys where Main Street businesses and Main Street event volunteers ask visitors for their zip codes in order to track where visitors are from. Geofencing now allows this to be done in the background.  While geofencing registers mobile devices that enter or leave the selected area, it only denotes general information from the mobile device, but not any identifying data. Instead demographic information is viewed from primary trade areas that represent areas where a significant number of attendees visited from. 

Missouri Main Street Connection worked with Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street to gather demographic information with a third-party company on those that attended one of their largest events, Downtown Days.  This is a three-day event that the Main Street leadership believed attracted thousands of attendees, however they never had a good way to measure if it was true.  They also thought they knew what cities many of the attendees were from, but it was only a guess. Through the use of geofencing they would have solid data to turn there guesses into an understanding of the demographic profile of those in attendance and to measure the number of attendees to better measure the impact of this event.

The third-party company collected the information from a map and boundary of the festival grounds that they determined with Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street.  The company also collected data from the weekend following the festival from the determined boundary to include in the data set to compare to a standard three-day period for reference. 

From the data collected during Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street’s Downtown Days, almost 65,000 people attended the festival. The geofencing company used the criterion “register devices that have remained in the geofenced area for seven or more minutes” to ensure that the data collected was an accurate reflection of event attendance and not simply people driving through the map. Below is a heat map showing where people gathered within the festival grounds once they entered the festival. 

The map below is a visual reorientation of the data collected based on attendee’s location of origin that shows the Downtown Days event draws people from as far away as Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, and Nebraska. St. Louis, Des Moines, and Springfield were three metro areas that also showed a high volume of attendees that originated from there.   Of course, most of the attendees were from the Kansas City metro area. This information will help determine marketing and advertising for the event in future years. 

The two charts below showed what times garnered the most traffic and how long people stayed within the festival grounds, which was on average 116 minutes.  

The data goes on to share demographic and market information for the typical attendee based upon where they are from.  This information provides an insight into the spending habits and purchasing power of this group.  The data dives into median household size, household income, age, gender, and race/ethnicity.  All the information that was provided through this geofencing technical service will provide a guide for Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street to better understand the attendees for their event, help determine future programming and advertising for the event, inform vendors about traffic counts that allow them to stock enough product, and to manage public safety procedures for the crowd size. 

If you are interested in geofencing your Main Street district or festival grounds, please reach out to Keith Winge, Missouri Main Street Connection’s State Community Development Director for more information.  

Winter can be one of the hardest seasons on an historic building, especially in Missouri. The constant freezing and thawing can warp building materials and cause damage if not properly prepared for or dealt with quickly. Building owners need to be diligent in protecting historic buildings during the harsh winter months. Here are some helpful suggestions to alleviate problems before they occur:

-Check weather stripping around windows and doors. Install to prevent air filtration (1 hour, depending on type)

-If applicable, install interior storm windows for winter (2 hours)

-Caulk any gaps in wood for a temporary water tight seal (30 min)

-Inspect basement or crawl space for excessive water during wet weather (30 min)

-Sweep debris from flat or low sloping roofs (30 min)