Iron Mountain Main Street learns from Detroit

Iron Mountain Main Street is on a road trip this week.

Members of the organization, along with other Main Street communities across the state are invading Detroit this week. They'll be joined by more than 1,300 downtown development professionals, volunteers and thinkers from communities throughout the country. For four days, they'll attend 60 educational sessions in Cobo Hall, as well as travel to 15 areas in Metro Detroit for mobile workshops. They'll tour Ferndale. They'll party at Eastern Market. For the first time, Detroit is hosting the annual National Main Street Conference.

Why does that matter to Iron Mountain? Because over the last 30 years, the National Main Street Center has tracked $59.6 billion in reinvestment in physical improvements from both public and private sources in their communities, with a net gain of 115,381 businesses and 502,728 jobs. In 2013, every dollar invested in Main Street communities resulted in $33.28 of economic impact, making it the most effective downtown revitalization effort in the country--and Iron Mountain has contributed to those great statistics.

Official Main Street communities such as Iron Mountain use the National Main Street Center's Four Point Approach, an organizational technique to revitalize historic downtowns. The concept centers on taking a comprehensive approach to a range of common downtown development issues simultaneously--all driven by volunteers.

"The main thing that inspired Iron Mountain to join the program," says Iron Mountain Main Street's new manager Rebecca Grider, "was a group of committed people who love this community saw there was a need to better support our business we have and support and maintain the historic preservation of our downtown."

Iron Mountain Main Street officially joined the program in 2006, and the organization has found leveraging volunteers to tackle all aspects of downtown development--promotions, organization, business development and design--has made all the difference for downtown.

"The physical environment is an area that people have really become really engaged in, with downtown flowers and bike racks," says Grider. "That's the very visible and tangible impact that people can take ownership of."

Of course, quite a bit has changed downtown over past several years. The preservation of historic buildings, streetscape improvements and the growth of events like the Italian Festival serve as testimony to the impact of Main Street.

"Those things have helped downtown as a whole," says Grider. "We now have a full calendar of year-round events that have provided entertainment to the community."

Among the many services available to Iron Mountain Main Street, including training and free design, marketing and branding services from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority's Michigan Main Street Center, Grider says one of the biggest benefits to being a part of the nationwide movement is the networking and support from other communities--especially when getting oriented to her new job.

"I've experienced being welcomed to the Main Street community by other managers," she says. "It creates an atmosphere of camaraderie and makes it that much easier as a new manager to say,'How did you guys do this?' or, 'Do you have any ideas on this problem?'"

That networking will go into hyperdrive this week during the National Main Street Conference. While the annual event has been hosted in such cities as Des Moines, Baltimore and Oklahoma City, Detroit is an especially apt location for this year's event.

"There is so much innovation happening in the neighborhoods of Detroit," says Patrice Frey, president and CEO of the National Main Street Center. "People are working to bring business back, and bring housing back, and that is exciting. There is a lot of excitement and commonality between some of the things Detroit's neighborhoods struggle with and what our communities struggle with."

What's more, though there are currently no official Main Street organizations within Detroit, Michigan itself is home to two state coordinating bodies, the Michigan Main Street Center and Oakland County's Main Street Oakland County, and more than 30 local programs throughout the state. And, not to brag, but Michigan communities have left three of the last four National Main Street Conferences with coveted Great American Main Street Awards.

"We are seeing a lot of Michigan communities really standing out," Frey says. "Michigan Main Street and Oakland County have a really strong track record of working with and investing in communities. But it comes back down to the people on the ground."

Those people on the ground, ready to roll up their sleeves to make a better community are what Main Street communities have in common more than anything else, making the theme of this year's conference, "Works in Progress," appropriate.

"There might be a lot of work ahead for areas in Detroit, but we're a city on the rise and on the comeback," says Main Street Community Downtown Ferndale's Cristina Sheppard-Decius. "We have a lot of great lessons people can learn from that."

Fortunately, the Chicago-based National Main Street Center recognized that, and believed in Detroit enough to bring their popular conference to a city with so much to share.

"Nobody knows better than Detroiters the power of a community-driven approach to revitalization," write Frey and National Main Street Center Board Chair Barbara Sidway in the conference program.

And after this week, Iron Mountain Main Street and others will be bringing that knowledge and experience back from Detroit to the benefit of our area, just as Detroit will be left with some Iron Mountain wisdom to fold into the revitalization efforts happening there.

Want to see what's happening in Main Street communities throughout Michigan? Check out the eight other Issue Media Group Publications this week to learn how Main Street and this week's conference is making an impact from Iron Mountain to Saline.

This story is part of a placemaking series that is underwritten by the Michigan State Housing and Development Authority.