Main Streets Get A Fresher Look
Published Mar 16, 2009
Paris has a Festival of Pumpkins that draws 10,000 people, plus Holiday in Paris with carriage rides, an art walk and performances.
Mt. Vernon, about one-tenth the size of Paris with 2,500 residents, has seven museums, just added decorative trash bins that match its benches and installed a $17,000 sign that welcomes visitors to the historic downtown.
Both Ark-Tex spots are designated Texas Main Street Communities, as are Mt. Pleasant, Clarksville and Texarkana. The program helps communities capitalize on their historic assets by providing design assistance and economic development training.
“The idea is to give each community the tools to make its Main Street program unique and attract private and local investment,” says Texas Main Street coordinator Debra Farst.
Paris has been at it since 1997. To date, more than $5 million in private investment has poured into downtown, creating loft residences, renovating commercial buildings and opening new shops.
Because a fire destroyed most of downtown in 1916, the city has a strong concentration of Prairie-style architecture, says Bethany Golden, Main Street manager. “We have a beautiful downtown,” Golden says. “It is very unique.”
The program works with other agencies that get improvement grants, including money used to outline the tops of the buildings downtown with LED lights in late 2008.
The next phase, Golden says, is to light trees around the Culbertson Fountain, a focal point in the city’s downtown historic district. Another goal is restoration of the Grand Theater, starting with raising money to restore the façade and light the neon sign.
Mt. Vernon is home to another long-standing Main Street program. “The city is very proactive,” says Teresia Wims, the city’s economic development director and Main Street manager. “It helps you get things done.”
In 2008, the city passed a preservation ordinance. A 10-year tax freeze on significant renovations to historical properties is in the works, too, Wims says.
Mt. Vernon has an abundance of museums. The old jail has soft-sculpture inmates in the cells and three galleries of art. The Franklin County Historical Association’s Fire Station Museum has an exhibit of bird eggs, including three from extinct species, on the second floor and memorabilia from Don Meredith, a Mt. Vernon native, Dallas Cowboy great and “Monday Night Football” announcing legend, on the first.
Since 1993, a 20-block region of downtown Mt. Pleasant has seen more than $7.6 million in private investment. Nita May, city planner and Main Street manager, says a downtown preservation ordinance “is high on our list,” as are sessions in 2009 to help downtown businesses better use the Internet to boost their sales.
In 2008, the town moved its annual Christmas parade to later in the day and coordinated with downtown shops to stay open, May says. Fund-raisers put holiday decorations and lights downtown, which also has a new tower that is home to a bell that used to be atop the courthouse.
“Main Street cities in Texas are just as unique as the various regions of the state in which they are situated,” Farst says. “The character of our historic towns still reflects their beginnings and the cultures of the people who settled them.”
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