Groups launch downtown development effort
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
A group of business owners are assembling a growth and development blueprint they hope will eventually change the face of Maryville’s central commercial and retail district. Working with Missouri Main Street Connection, the Maryville Downtown Improvement Organization plans to pursue a four-tier strategy that embraces organization, promotion, appearance and preservation, and economic restructuring and investment.
Members of the newly formed Maryville Downtown Improvement Organization met late in 2014 with Keith Winge, state community development coordinator for Missouri Main Street Connection, a consulting agency that is working to assist MDIO in coming up with an action plan for revitalizing the city’s central commercial district.
Over the summer, the city of Maryville provided MDIO with the $9,600 required to bring Missouri Main Street on board. The private, non-profit agency — formerly a part of the Missouri Department of Economic Development — specializes in providing information, research, technical assistance and organizational expertise geared specifically toward downtown revival efforts.
The meeting with Winge, which was also attended by Josh McKim, executive director of Nodaway County Economic Development, and Jordyn Swalley, executive director of the Greater Maryville Chamber of Commerce, included a discussion of the timeline and expectations for the program over the next two years.
MDIO President Matt Gaarder, who owns an ink and toner cartridge business on North Main Street, said the group “shared what we saw as opportunities” for downtown and also talked about potential problem areas.
Gaarder said the group’s next organizational move will be to appoint members to four standing committees titled Organization, Economic Restructuring, Design, and Promotion.
The Organization panel will be primarily concerned with MDIO administration, Gaarder said, while the Economic Restructuring Group is to analyze current downtown market conditions with an eye toward developing “long-term solutions” that both support existing businesses and attract new ones.
Design Committee members will be tasked with envisioning a “look” for downtown, an effort that Gaarder said is to include everything from storefront awnings and signage to historic preservation, which he described as a “a big part of the Main Street philosophy.”
The purpose of the Promotion Committee will be to organize special events and attractions intended to draw more people to the courthouse square and surrounding blocks in order to increase customer traffic and improve the area’s status as a commercial, retail and entertainment destination.
MDIO has already begun to move forward on this front by sponsoring a storefront scarecrow contest in October and an ongoing shop-downtown Christmas drawing.
A total of 22 businesses are participating in the holiday promotion, during which shoppers have been registering for $800 worth of prizes and merchandise to be awarded at 10 a.m. Monday at Carson’s Sports Grille on the square.
Looking beyond these efforts, Gaarder said MDIO’s next major undertaking will likely be a town hall-style meeting, open to the public, to introduce the Main Street project to the community at large and gather ideas for action on the part of the standing committees.
The meeting will be followed this summer with work-plan training and development for MDIO members and exploration of funding and fundraising options in order to put the work-plan into effect.
While the first year of the MDIO/Missouri Main Street partnership will be largely given over to planning and development, it is hoped those activities will lay the groundwork for concrete changes in the downtown district, which officially stretches south to north from Jenkins Street to Franklin Park and east to west from Vine to Fillmore.
Overall, Missouri Main Street plans to pursue a four-tier strategy in Maryville embracing organization, promotion, appearance and preservation, and economic restructuring and investment.
Now that the partnership is formalized, MDIO has embarked on the second of those tiers, which Missouri Main Street calls its affiliate level, a stage that embraces the meetings and training described above.
Subsequent levels — associate and accredited — would be achieved sometime beyond the two-year framework covered by MDIO’s initial $9,600 investment.
