While reviewing some of the great action movie stunts of all times, I was steered (get it: steered?) to this short film by French New Wave auteur Claude Lelouch. While you probably don’t want to recreate this famous and wildly reckless driving scene, take eight minutes to focus on the beauty and layout of Parisian streets. … More How to lay out a city…in eight and one half minutes
Forty-five community leaders and volunteers attended the latest Virginia Main Street (VMS) training at Cally’s Restaurant and Brewing Co. in downtown Harrisonburg May 27, 2009. This year’s VMS Spring Feature focused on the public realm in downtown, the space between buildings which includes all public spaces, streets, alleys, sidewalks, parks, and open space. The theme … More Recapping Spring Feature Training in Harrisonburg
Those of you who made it to the “Livable Downtowns” training held in Harrisonburg a couple of weeks ago know that just building upper story housing or rehabbing an old warehouse into loft apartments is not quite enough to get people living downtown. It is important to have the amenities people need (dry cleaning, corner … More How to attract Gen “Y”
The Sunday, April 5 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch had several articles of note about Virginia Main Street communities. First was an article about Abingdon’s latest downtown promotion, then an article about Page County’s (including Luray) attempt to be designated as the “Cabin Capital of Virginia.” Then yet another article, this one talking about the … More Virginia’s Main Street in the news
While the Virginia Main Street staff was unable to travel to Chicago for the 2009 National Main Streets Conference, Becoming Main Street 2.0, Jessie Chase from Harrisonburg was able to attend and reported back that it was fun, interesting and worthwhile. We returned from the Chicago National Main Street conference on Wednesday evening tired and … More Report from the Main Street 2.0 conference
Did you know that you could receive a credit on your income taxes if you rehabilitate a historic building? If your rehabilitation meets certain requirements, you could claim 20 percent of your qualified rehabilitation expenses as a credit on your federal income taxes. And, you could claim 25 percent of your qualified rehabilitation expenses as … More Historic building rehabilitation tax credits: 101
Virginia Main Street 