Downtown is the place for stripping ...

There may be nothing sexier in downtown development that a good old fashioned striptease.  You heard me.  Before you proceed, click the link for the music just to get you in the mood:

Downtown development is a process and sometimes stripping down to your roots is the best way to get that process started.  Here in Georgia, we average one building rehabilitation completed in our Main Street cities everyday of the year.  It's just plain exciting to watch.  It takes a willing eye to imagine what is underneath those layers of paint, tin, fiberglass, stucco, and slipcovers that have adorned our downtown buildings since the 1960s.  Today we see buildings like this (the old Belk Matthews in Milledgeville, Georgia):

become buildings like this:



The hard work and close eye to detail by developers like Frank Pendergast made this project possible.  Using our Downtown Design Studio in Athens, Frank and Milledgeville saw the reclamation of this downtown eyesore into a centerpiece for mid-block rejuvenation.  Now home to lofts, an interior courtyard and reclaimed retail space that includes a restaurant, the building houses students from Georgia College & State University, and even a family with two young children.  This strip job was gorgeous!

In many towns around our nation, we see this:  

Imagine the time and energy that went into planning buildings so that the daytime light could be used to benefit the space inside.  Then generations later, we forgot the need of daylight when we forgot that second and third floors could be valuable and useful space instead of something that we just cover up.

Thanks to the hard work of groups like the Kirbo Charitable Trust and Main Street Bainbridge, Georgia, this property got a face life that included reclaiming it's original assets.  Our Downtown Design Studio staff provided a plan for renovation and restoration and now this space has life on multiple floors again:

Who thinks closing down Main Street permanently is a great idea?  The federal government did when they provided grants to Toccoa, Georgia to convert their downtown into a pedestrian mall.  Concrete canopies lined what use to be the streetscape.  Not too many years later, the stores were gone, the customers were gone, but the concrete stood.  Thanks to the leadership of Toccoa and its Main Street Program, the canopies came down and the façades were restored.  It's amazing to see this city today!

Finally, in the town I call home, Canton, Georgia, the County sold its abandoned administrative office complex downtown to a developer to remove metal awnings and stucco.  The past is being revealed one piece at a time and it's so exciting to see what's going to happen here.

If you want your downtown to improve, sometimes the best way to catch the public eye is a sexy façade striptease!

A Day and a Discussion for Common Sense and Community

You have 2 seconds and one word to answer the following question or your status as the local expert on downtown development will be permanently revoked!  Are you ready?

What is the #1 perceived issue that keeps people from coming downtown to shop?

So collectively the National Main Street choir chimes in in the key of E-flat, "PARKING!"  That's right, you've got it.  The number one issue that we constantly hear as we go across our state is that parking is the perceived problem downtown.  I'm sure you, too, have heard this chorus before ... "It's too hard to find parking downtown," or "You have to park a mile away from where you are going," or better yet, "It's just too hard to park on the street!"

In my best North Georgia twang, "Bless their ever-loving hearts!"

Parking may seem like an issue for the customer that wants to come downtown, but for many communities we know that there is a hearty supply of parking if the customers were only more knowledgeable.  In a world where the majority wants their drive-through meals supersized, superfast and super cheap, downtown seems like an inconvenience. In the world of mega parking lots, I see the often too familiar scene as I drive around our highways:



Asphaltandia:  The place where even the animals stay away.

We've allowed our nation to become a barren wasteland of parking lots to support the possibility of major holiday rushes of customers only to see the big-box move away to set up camp elsewhere in only a few years.  And even when there is a crowd at the store, this clip most suits what many drivers face:

 

 

 

I know how anxious I get about parking in a crowded lot.  Given the value of time these days, if you do need to go to the "box" store, chances are you're picking up one specific thing or just wasting your money.  It's probably one of many stops you need to make ... perhaps you need toilet paper in an un-Godly ultrasized pack that won't even fit in the trunk ... there's a store or two for that.  You've probably got to make stops at the post office, the pharmacy, the hardware store, grab a bite to eat, pick up a good book, and visit the farmers market.  You're just like Kathy Bates, with so many things to do and not enough time, yet you still circle the lot for 20 minutes to get a space five feet closer to the door.  Parking in these lots is a competition ... and you are almost assured to be the loser.

So why is parking downtown such an issue?  Perhaps its because we've gotten so attuned to the big-box style of parking in one lot for one store.  When we get downtown, we expect that store to provide our parking needs.  This is the basic difference between Main Street and Wally World ... downtown is a community where we share while the big box is the mega corporation that just wants what's in your wallet.  We collectively own downtown and so no one person controls all the parking.  The big box controls everything you do and the way you do it when you touch their property.  Downtown is where we interact with neighbors.  The big box is where shopping carts are necessary because we buy things we don't need because EVERYONE there is loaded to the hilt, too.

 

In downtowns like Woodstock, Georgia, parking on the street isn't difficult and you can park once and go to the pharmacy, hardware store, restaurants, book store, art galleries, jewelry store, and more.  When I worked in this particular town, I always challenged the complainers to be cognizant of what they do at the big box.  I told them to start the timer when they pull in off the highway.  See how long it takes to get from the road to the space and to the front door.  I ask them to count the number of steps they take from car to cash register in that big box.  Chances are, if they do the same in a downtown, downtown will always win.  Parking isn't always curbside to your original downtown destination, but its that stroll through the community that brings more to your life.  (DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE MALL!)

 

One of the great stories of the past several years is Park-ing Day.  Communities across the nation take a parking space downtown and convert it into a greenspace for the day.  The idea is for the public to see that this one space doesn't impact the flow of commerce and can even bring an awareness to the over-asphalting of our lives.  In Woodstock, the GROW (Green Reaps Opportunities for Woodstock) committee of Main Street works with the local Elm Street Arts Center, elementary school and master gardeners to build something beautiful.  In 2012, the groups focused on Alice in Wonderland to build an upcycled Mad Hatter Tea Party:

 

 

It was beautiful, highlighted the arts, GROW, and donations rolled in from landscapers and local merchants to make it all possible.  Its also a great opportunity to give those that stop by a map of all your downtown parking ... even those off Main Street.  To start the conversation about parking and the need to be more conservative with our asphalt-happy developers, perhaps your community should think about Park-ing Day, Friday, September 20th.  For more information, visit http://parkingday.org/

The Friday Story ...

It's not hard to imagine.  It's a storyline that is seen weekly across the Main Streets of our nation.  I call it "The Friday Story."  Write the script, change the town, change the entrepreneur, change the season of year, change the race, change the gender, change all you will to make it fit your locale, but The Friday Story is true and its gut-wrenching and its painful to watch.  It's a story of struggle, of dedication, of courage and of perseverance.  It's the story of Main Street.

The Cases', owners of DressUp.

I know all too well the feel of The Friday Story.  I've had the pleasure of working for small businesses for a good portion of my high school and college life.  We had a florist in the family and I got the chance to learn a trade with my aunt Sarah and grandmother Lois in downtown Summerville, Georgia.  Floral business is hard work and can either be hectic or slow ... it seems there is no in-between.  For many small businesses, this concept of Feast or Famine can be daunting.  This is a premier character of The Friday Story.  Another adventure in small business came when I left for college.  Needing work to help pay the rent, I took up with a group of golden girls at Pittypat Junction Florist on South Lumpkin Street in Athens, Georgia.  Again, that trade skill paid off in a weekly check, but the theme of small business life continued.

Owning a small business and working for one are two very different things.  When my mother and two of her sisters decided to buy a restaurant in my hometown and offer up country cooking (which was delicious!), I saw even more of this Friday Story.  Having an understanding of its impact, particularly for those that work in downtowns, will become the basis of your professional success.  It will give you insight into the emotions, it will give you a glimpse of entrepreneurship, and most importantly it will reaffirm your dedication to the idea that moms and pops matter in the context of the place you are making.

The Friday Story is nothing more than this: small businesses work hard all week to make it and Friday is the day of decision for that business and its owner.   With each decision comes a cataclysmic crash of human resources, debt management, investment, and business growth.  Friday is payroll and account reconciliation day for most small businesses.  As an entrepreneur, this is the day that you decide if you can take home a paycheck for that week or not.  It also becomes the day that you decide the need for employees, the opportunity for business reinvestment and how to manage company debt. 

I love to tell people that the biggest difference between Downtown Development and Industrial Development is sustainability.  While it can be wonderful for a community to see a major industry land within its borders, often the job decisions related to that investment are not made locally.  Sometimes meetings in boardrooms in other states or countries will impact the livelihood of your neighbors and job cuts can come at tough times.  Downtown development is geared on Small Business Economic Development.  I have seen firsthand that entrepreneurs take the jobs of their employees to heart and to the wallet personally.  These employees are more than ID numbers in a system.  The businesses are run through the work of friends, family and neighbors.  In small business the employee matters.  There were many times that after the lunch shift on Friday (a biggie for small downtown restaurants) my Aunt would rush to the bank to make a deposit.  For a while, I thought it was to make sure that we didn't have too much cash on hand for the weekend.  While this might have been the case some weeks mostly it was because of something more too common for entrepreneurs.  She wanted to make sure there was enough cash in the account to cover payroll and expenses.  Checks were handwritten to employees every Friday, but never given out until after the close of the shift.  If it was a bad week for business, it didn't mean the employees felt the pain ... it meant the owners didn't take home any pay for themselves.  It meant that a vendor might have to wait an extra week for payment.  It meant that the terms of service with vendors might be jeopardized.  It meant more than just snap decisions. 

Friday's Story occurs everywhere.  Our small businesses work hard all week and are sometimes successful but sometimes fall further behind.  It would be easy to point them back to a business plan, advise them to personally invest more into the company or to liquidate some assets.  However, I can tell you that Friday is the day that you as a downtown professional will see the biggest swing in moods within your merchants.  The couple that is taking their staff out for a drink had a good week.  The owner of the shop down the street that sits in her car a few extra minutes after locking the door probably did not.  It's during these times that Main Street has to be aware of The Friday Story.  We have to celebrate the success of the week and encourage those that missed their mark.  We also need to be cognizant of the fact that many entrepreneurs may put on a good face, but struggle dearly to make it work.  Small business is a huge investment by entrepreneurs and their families.  I have seen failures result in foreclosed homes, bitterness, divorce, and even death.  We have to be able to read the face of the Friday Story and develop the personal approach to help entrepreneurs cope.  Here's a simple list of things to remember:

1.  Friday is not the day to ask for donations from businesses. In fact, it's not the day to bother most entrepreneurs.  They too are looking forward to the weekend, and this day is hectic enough.  Try communicating on a Tuesday instead.

2. Make sure local officials (particularly city council members, the city administrator, and other leadership) understand the dynamics of the downtown business community.  You can be a better help to entrepreneurs when those officials understand the downtown impact.  Know the number of employees, businesses, and property digest data for your downtown.

3. Never underestimate the power of a face to face visit.  You should see each business owner in your district at least once a quarter, but preferably on a monthly basis.

4. Make your business owners human.  It is easy to see the business when you see the person.   Try to get in their shoes.  Learn about their families, their hobbies, their dreams.  This will make you a better advocate for them.