A representative from Main Street America will be spending most of the week in Juneau meeting with various stakeholders to draft a downtown revitalization plan. Her first stop: City Hall.
Kathy La Plante, a senior program officer for the downtown bolstering nonprofit, spoke to about 20 city officials in the Assembly Chambers Tuesday afternoon, about the importance of having a healthy downtown.
“The health of your downtown is the symbol of the health of the economy of your city,” she told various city department heads and Assembly members, later adding that “the biggest benefactor of the Main Street program is the municipality itself.”
According to Main Street’s data, each city that buys into Main Street sees gets about $26.52 for every one dollar it invests in the program. Much of that hefty return comes from the economic development the Main Street has spurred in the 2,000-plus cities that have made use of the program since it started 35 years ago, La Plante said.
If this turns out to be true for Juneau, the audience of Tuesday’s meeting will be certainly be happy given that the city has invested $4,500 in the program. By La Plante’s estimate, that should eventually turn into about $120,000.
In early September the Assembly Finance Committee decided to invest in the project using a portion of the unencumbered $15,000 in the municipality’s Better Capital City Fund. The Assembly did so at the request of the Downtown Business Association, which itself invested about $6,500 in the Main Street Program, DBA board member Evelyn Rousso told the Empire in mid-August.
“It really is about breathing new life into your downtown,” La Plante said. “And it’s not just about organizations like the DBA; it’s the city and all of the stakeholders working together.”
La Plante met with community members Tuesday evening at the Red Dog Saloon, and she will be meeting with downtown business owners throughout the day today in order to draft a plan of attack for rejuvenating Juneau’s downtown.
As of Tuesday afternoon, La Plante didn’t yet know what her plan for downtown Juneau might entail. It will depend largely on what community members and business leaders say needs to be fixed.
According to the results of a preliminary survey La Plante presented during her meeting Tuesday afternoon, some of downtown Juneau’s biggest challenges include its lack of parking, “drunk people” and “homelessness.” Those results came from 85 anonymous respondents who answered the survey sent out by the DBA.
La Plante said the program will connect Juneau with a network of municipalities that might have already addressed similar problems.
“Somewhere someone has done what you’re trying to do in your downtown,” she said.
• Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.
