(Spencer)– Leadership from Main Street America paid a visit to Spencer earlier this week to assess that city’s Main Street program. Nancy Naeve of Spencer Main Street says Jackie Swihart, Program Officer for Revitalization Services with the National Main Street Program, met with city leaders, business owners and others during her visit…
“Main Street America has always been in charge of how we get accredited. Well they’re changing those standards to really drill down and make them more specific. They just want to make sure that we’re all doing what we’re supposed to be doing with the four point approach and making sure we are using our best practices to have the most successful downtown. So our visit was on Tuesday. Jackie was here all day long. It was a great, great, visit. The first thing she said to me when she rolled into the office was, Wow! You have a really vibrant downtown. And I said I know! Isn’t it great? And we worked really hard for that and we’ve got such great entrepreneurs and developers and we’re really proud to show it off.”
Naeve says the visit is part of the accreditation process with the Main Street program…
“With Main Street Iowa, if you do not get accredited for three years in a row, meaning you are not meeting those standards, you get kicked out of the program. Iowa is very strict on that because they know that if you are going to carry the Main Street name, you better be doing what you’re supposed to be doing. So it is very important that we are doing everything that they want us to do to make sure we have a vibrant downtown. So there’s definitely some areas we need to work on a little bit. We’ve got different committees, we’ve got design, economic vitality, promotion, organization. And because we are on a highway, the city of Spencer ends up doing quite a bit of the committee work that we don’t have to do, so we’re so lucky in Spencer. But that also means that we maybe need to pick the ball up and work a little harder in some of the other areas.”
Naeve says having the Main Street America accreditation makes it possible for Spencer to utilize a number of valuable tools…
“We do have the challenge grant, we have Open For Business, we have the Catalyst Grant, we have design assistance, so we get to use all of the tools that Main Street Iowa provides for us. A lot of the states don’t have grants like Iowa does, so we’re really fortunate to be a part of this program and to be able to not only apply but be awarded some of those grants.”
The Spencer Main Street Program has received accreditation since 1987.
