For small business owner Kathy Klein, there is no place like Main Street. Four years ago, she opened her first business, Carousel – a children’s clothing store on High Street in Westerly’s historic downtown. Last month she opened her second store on Main Street in East Greenwich.
”When you look around Main Streets you see architecture and charm,” she said. “They have a small town appeal that allows you to really get to know your customers.”
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Just over a decade ago the future of Main Streets around the state looked grim, as strip-malls and large shopping plazas began popping up along stretches of open acreage on the outskirts of towns, drawing many people away from what was long considered the central shopping district.
But today, Main Street storefronts that are once again filling with merchandise displays.
”There is no doubt about it, Main Streets are coming alive again,” said Patricia Hval, owner of Fine Consignments also located on High Street. “Westerly, like a lot of areas went through a hard period of empty storefronts. But now they are filled with interesting shops. It’s going back to the way it was before.”
No one knows the potential of Main Streets better than Kirsten Means, executive director of Main Street Rhode Island. The organization, which just completed its first fiscal year, is part of a nationwide program created to help revitalize historic downtowns in small communities.
”Rhode Island has a good number of historic downtown areas,” she said. “We don’t just want to save them, we want to make them viable. By revitalizing them and creating a place for business we feel like we marry the practical application with what we already have.”
The national program, present in more than 1,400 communities nationwide boasts that for every dollar spent by the average Main Street program, $35.53 is reinvested in the community. Since the program’s inception, the number of new businesses generated by Main Street activities exceeds 47,000 and new business and business expansions have created more than 174,000 new jobs.
And with the majority of Main Street’s businesses being small companies, Means said the program has excellent odds for success in Rhode Island – where almost 90 percent of the state’s businesses are companies that employ less than 500.
”The future of the Rhode Island economy is small business,” she said, “the growth of existing business and the creation of new small business. Those kinds of businesses are born on Main Streets.”
The Main Street program is successful in commercial districts serving towns from a few hundred to a few million. Still, Means said the program’s prosperity depends heavily on the willingness of the community, and state to participate in the program.
”We can’t write a prescription for what a district should look like,” she said. “It has to be what they want it to be. Neighboring communities can have very different downtowns. It can vary greatly from business center to business center.”
Currently there are six project areas involved with Main Street Rhode Island: Downtown East Greenwich; Broadway District, Newport; Chepachet Village, Gloucester; Centredale, North Providence; Downtown Warren; Westerly-Pawcatuck Project, Westerly; Broad Street/Southside Neighborhood Providence, and Downtown Woonsocket.
Woonsocket and Providence have been selected as mentor communities, having more experience and resources at their disposal and requiring less technical support from Main Street Rhode Island.
“Some areas need our expertise and resources more than others,” Means said. “We use those successful programs as guides for our new members.”
According to Means, districts are selected based on an application process. And though in its first year, the organization was able to approve six communities, in its second year, Means said, the group is expected to select only two.
“We anticipate getting five to eight applications,” she said. “But we can only afford to fund two. The entire program takes ideally three years to complete, so the six communities that we approved in the first year, are also approved for the second and third.”
According to Means, the second year is the hardest.
”The first year we can kind of barter for services,” she said. “The second year we get into market analysis and it gets really difficult. The third year, the area becomes a full-service member and is pretty much able to stand on its own, though the area is still in the start-up stages.”
Means said areas are selected based on a number of factors, including their financial commitment to the program, organization, physical location, need, historical value, and public sector involvement.
Main Street programs are designed to use a variety of funding sources including local and state government, local stakeholders, individual memberships, business memberships, and corporate sponsorship. The group’s annual budget is just above $300,000 Means said.
Though much of the organization’s work can’t be quantified until next year, Means said things have already been put in place to monitor all the work that is being done.
”There is no gray area,” she said. “From the very beginning everything has to be objective; it has to be measurable. We will always track their progress.”
And like Means, many Main Street storeowners, are confident that the booming business along Rhode Island’s historic downtown areas will continue.
”People are tired of going to a mall and seeing the same stores,” Hval said. “The idea of supporting a local business is becoming much more widespread. People want individuality and familiarity at the same time. They are finding it on Main Street.”
