How many vacant spaces are in your Main Street district? Where is there room to add more housing, businesses, and gathering spaces? Answering these questions is key to unlocking the potential of your built environment. A building inventory is essential for a thorough understanding of the physical and economic makeup of your commercial district. Creating … More Build a Better Building Inventory
Spanning seven years and seven blocks, St. Paul finally completed its comprehensive downtown infrastructure project in 2019. Lead by the town, with input from St. Paul Tomorrow’s Design Committee in the early stages, this $16 million project reconstructed the stormwater system, sidewalks, curbing, roadways, crosswalks, water lines and sanitary sewer lines. The need for upgrading … More 2020 Best Public Improvement Project: St. Paul
Due to the COVID-19 limitations, the spring Rev Ups will now be a free, two-part webinar series airing on April 22 and 29, 11 a.m.-noon. Check out details and registration below. A Virginia Main Street Webinar Series Upper Story Housing Development Part 1: Understand the Field – April 22 Part 2: Explore the Opportunities – … More Spring Rev Ups now a two-part webinar series
A vacant building at the heart of downtown Norton once considered for demolition has gotten a second lease on life. Recent renovations have transformed it into Southwest Virginia’s first cidery. Watch the video to learn more about the project from start to finish! The project to reimagine the former auto repair shop began in 2016 … More Norton’s Cider Success
There are currently 45 designated enterprise zones across Virginia and included in those are 12 designated Virginia Main Street communities, as well as numerous affiliate communities. Over the past several years, we have seen the overlap of these two revitalization tools to transform many of our downtowns and commercial districts throughout the commonwealth. The Enterprise … More Enterprise Zones and Commercial District Revitalization
The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) has developed a Small Business Resource Guide that provides information on many of the items that new or expanding small businesses and entrepreneurs need. This includes financing programs, grant programs, business development resources and training opportunities, as well as university entrepreneurship programs that are available to the … More Small Business Resource Guide now available
The Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) Community Development Division will be holding how-to-apply workshops across the commonwealth in January as several grant programs will open for application submissions on January 2, 2019. DHCD’s grant programs offer flexible resources that allows communities and local/regional organizations do more to create vibrant communities. The workshops will … More How To Apply Workshops coming in January!
At the 2018 Downtown Intersections in Harrisonburg, we continued the tradition of acknowledging outstanding achievements in comprehensive downtown revitalization efforts through Merit Awards. They recognize the hard work, dedication and success of Virginia’s Main Street communities and their achievements across the four points of the Main Street Approach®. This is the fourth in a blog … More Recognizing the Hard Work on Main Street: Western Front Hotel
From South Boston to Winchester, St. Paul to Norfolk, many of our Virginia communities have seen significant revitalization as a result of the Federal Historic Tax Credits (HTC). In many cases, if not most cases, rehabilitation of historic structures counts on this funding to make those projects work – and the credits are slated for elimination … More Tax Reform and Downtown Rehabilitation
While you were busy making a difference in your home town, you might have missed these thought-provoking posts: Holiday Customer Service: 7 Tips Retailers Should Not Ignore – Retail Minded Craft Beer’s Big Impact on Small Towns and Forgotten Neighborhoods – Curbed 6 Urban Projects Built Thanks to Online Civic Engagement – CitizenLab How to … More The District Digest Vol. 2 – Downtown Ideas to Put to Work
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