Staying positive

By Robert Barron, Staff Writer

April 07, 2008 05:27 pm

— One of Main Street’s supporters recently told Executive Director Lindy Chambers that Main Street is growing the city.
Chambers told the story about supporter Lew Ward. She asked Ward why he thought the program was important. Ward reportedly told Chambers he thought Main Street is growing the city and when finances were cut back by the city, he thought it was important to step up.
Since the Enid City Commission decided not to renew the Main Street organization as conference center management, which cut their income from $70,000 to $37,000, the organization has had to regroup and refocus on their goal for Enid.
Main Street’s goal is to revitalize the downtown business area through a four-point approach: Promotion, design, economic restructuring and organization.
The design committee successfully worked to place the downtown area on the National Register of Historic Places, which Chambers said makes it a destination point for tourism and gives them another tool to market the downtown.
Main Street has also sponsored events that focus on downtown, the Oktoberfest, Enid Lights Up the Plains, and the Jazz Stroll — which is coming up. This year the Oktoberfest was the most successful ever, but Chambers said the Main Street committee is considering eliminating the event because of the budget cuts.
“We’ve had three events a year and now we may just have two,” Chambers said.
The final decision has not been made, but she said it is being considered.
When Main Street began, the city funded it $37,000. Part of the Main Street charter calls for support from the city to show it has public support.
Since the budget cuts Main Street has downsized its office and moved into 122 W. Randolph, in the Cansler-Burke-McGugin insurance building.
“We’re trying to remain a positive force in downtown like we have in the 14 years we had the program,” she said.
Since the budget cuts, Main Street has shifted its focus and returned to its original mission of being an advocate for downtown business and keeping the central business district vital.
“We are still vital. Downtown has become the center for fine dining, for the arts with the symphony and Gaslight Theater, for kids with Leonardo’s and for sports with the David Allen Ballpark. All of those are set against the backdrop of historic downtown which is built around a square,” she said.
Main Street is about quality of life, she said, but beyond that they want to build economic restructuring and finding ways to use historical buildings.
“We don’t want to have a bunch of historic empty buildings. We want to find ways to keep businesses in them and to use these institutional buildings,” she said.
Chambers believes in the Main Street mission. The organization has leveraged the money given to it by the city to apply for more grants and increase membership.
Grants are a very competitive process and we still want to be a very vital Main Street.

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