Believe in Bristol Opens Downtown Entrepreneur Ideaspace

  

Believe in Bristol’s Downtown Entrepreneur’s Ideaspace

While caught up in the details of drafting board by-laws, choosing downtown bench designs, training volunteers or coordinating downtown merchant coffee hours, it is easy for Main Street board and committee members and staff to forget that the primary goal of the Main Street organization is the economic redevelopment and revitalization of the local historic commercial district.

That probably won’t be a problem for the folks at Believe in Bristol (BiB). BiB recently opened a new office/Downtown Entrepreneur’s Ideaspace. The ideaspace will provide downtown entrepreneurs access to technology, meeting space and training to help them establish and grow new businesses downtown. To celebrate the opening of the ideaspace, BiB provided a free entrepreneur basics workshop (taught by People, Inc.) and a mobile marketing workshop (taught by the Virginia Deptartment of Business Assistance).  Believe in Bristol’s new small business resource center was funded, in part, by a $20,000 Virginia Enterprise Initiative (VEI) Innovation Grant. Last year’s Innovation Grants also funded downtown business development initiatives in the Main Street communities of Staunton (including an innovative hours exchange program) and Waynesboro (which is developing the Waynesboro Innovative Student Entrepreneur Competition, which will help fill empty storefronts along Main Street). VEI Innovation Grant applications will be accepted in January 2013.

Winchester’s Main Street agriculture event was a success, as expected!

On Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, Winchester’s downtown walking mall was filled with excitement for local farms. Farm Bureau, in partnership with the Winchester Old Town Development Board, Winchester Main Street Foundation and Virginia Main Street program, produced an extraordinary community event, Winchester’s Main Street Agriculture, held on the historic Loudon Street Pedestrian Mall.

The partnership was a natural fit. “There is a Farm Bureau and a Main Street in every state,” said Dee Cook, membership development specialist with Virginia Farm Bureau. Winchester is one of 25 Virginia communities designated as Virginia Main Street communities. Cook said that she hopes Frederick County’s successful Main Street Agriculture event will lead to similar events all over Virginia in the near future. “This has been the pilot,” she said. “We hope to roll it out statewide next year,” Cook added.

More than 20 vendors set up booths to sell their farm products and provide interactive, educational activities for the public. There were also many educational demonstrations including a hydroponics display, grape crushing, a live beehive and farm-to-table cooking demonstrations, along with others.

photo credit: lancasterfarming.com 2012

Here is a nice article from LancasterFarming.com about the event, Taking the Farm to the City.

Seven Keys to Stronger Community

Scott Doyon, a partner with Place Makers, recently posted Seven Keys to Stronger Community as a response to the question: “Where do we start?” This is not an exhaustive list, and he actually encourages readers to make suggestions for expanding,and they have. There is a good diaolgue in the comments section of his post. He states, “If you are looking to bulk up the strength of your community, especially in these times of limited resources, these are the areas that provide the greatest returns.”

1.  Good governance

2.  Walkable, connected, mixed-use character

3.  Parks and gardens

4.  Partnerships

5.  Programming

6.  Neighborhood-responsive schools

7.  Tree culture

Photo: Believe in Bristol

Kain Benfield’s wrote an article analyzing Doyon’s seven points. He said, “Scott has given us a good list. Mark Holland’s eight pillars of a sustainable community would add a healthy food system and economic development to the list.”

Does all this sound familiar? There is significant overlap with the Main Street approach and its guiding principles. These are proven concepts for building and maintaining strong communities. Thinking of your community, its strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats, what would you add to this list?

Fixing Up Public Spaces On The Cheap

Photo credit: http://indiecrafts.craftgossip.com/2010/09/17/international-parking-day/

The renovation of large public spaces requires the investment of financial and human resources that may not be possible in all communities or justified for all public spaces. However, the “lighter, quicker and cheaper” approach advocated by the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is an affordable way to start bringing life back to neglected public spaces, with a great example being “The Porch” outside of Philadelphia’s train station.

The strategic placement of some free, moveable seating, where people can gather to chat, play a game of cards, eat lunch or people watch, may be a good starting point.

This might not strike you as an intellectual bombshell,” William H. Whyte liked to say, “but people like to sit where there are places for them to sit.”

Buy a few affordable tables and chairs and maybe an umbrella or two at the local hardware store, and give some thought to the caveats listed by PPS in its “A Primer on Seating.” Locate seating within view of the action, but out of the way of the flow of pedestrian traffic; cluster it near amenities that attract people and activity; provide a choice of seating options; and know how to minimize vandalism. Do all of this with the goal of creating a socially comfortable space that facilitates spontaneous social interactions and activities.

Do you want to test this idea and bring some creativity to your Main Street at the same time? Sept. 21 is PARK(ing) Day, an annual worldwide event where artists, designers and everyday folks transform metered parking spots into temporary public spaces. “The mission of PARK(ing) Day is to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated and to improve the quality of urban human habitat, at least until the meter runs out! Check out the PARK(ing) Day website. It could be a fun event for your Main Street.

Winchester’s Main Street Agriculture – Save the Date!

On Saturday, Oct. 6, Winchester’s downtown walking mall will be filled with excitement for local farms.

Farm Bureau is partnering with the Winchester Old Town Development Board, Winchester Main Street Foundation and Virginia Main Street program to produce an extraordinary community event promoting Frederick County agriculture and a renaissance in community life!

The purpose of the event is to educate and promote the importance of agriculture to Winchester/Frederick County residents while building community relationships that produce quality community life and local prosperity for farmers, businesses and residents.

The day will highlight Frederick County agriculture with farmers and vendors providing local foods, educational displays and activities for children. Look for downtown restaurants to offer “local plates,” meals featuring fresh, local produce, meats and dairy products. There will be cooking demonstrations, advice for gardeners and live animals. The George Washington Hotel will host a wine garden, and of course, there will be lots of fun for all!

For more information, visit Winchester’s Main Street Agriculture’s Facebook page.

Main Street Communities Partnering for Entrepreneur Development

This past spring, DHCD’s Virginia Enterprise Initiative awarded six innovation grants to help develop new and innovative techniques for cultivating and assisting micro-entrepreneurs. Three of the awardees (Bristol, Staunton and Waynesboro) are specifically targeting micro-entrepreneur development in their local Main Street districts.

Staunton Creative Community Fund, in Staunton, will continue to build off of its strong record of innovative entrepreneur development initiatives like Ignite Staunton and “Confessions of an Entrepreneur” by developing a local Hours Exchange Program, a networked community kitchen incubator and an online platform for sharing local Kickstarter projects.

Community Investment Collaborative (CIC) in Charlottesville will offer two 14-week entrepreneur development classes and will begin offering micro-financing to training graduates who want to start or expand their businesses.

United Virginia is expanding its micro-entrepreneur development services to southern Virginia. United Virginia will offer four 10-week entrepreneur development classes and will coordinate micro-financing for new or expanding businesses in southern Virginia.

Total Action Against Poverty (TAP) and its affiliate Business Seed Capital, Inc. (BSCI), working in the Roanoke region, is going to develop Virginia’s first solidarity lending program based on the Grameen Bank model. If successful, TAP and BSCI hope to establish the Virginia Chapter of Grameen America.

Believe in Bristol (BIB), Bristol’s Main Street organization, is going to develop and coordinate a micro-entrepreneur training and technical assistance program to encourage new businesses to fill up empty store fronts in Bristol’s Main Street district. The entrepreneur development program will be housed in BIB’s new offices.

The City of Waynesboro will work with nearby colleges and universities to develop a business competition program for new business graduates interested in starting a business in an empty store front in Waynesboro’s Main Street district. In addition to training and assistance in business start-up and micro-financing, the Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc. will help the three winners of the competition work with downtown landlords to find available rental space for their new businesses.

Incentives

Economic Development incentives are a component of economic development policy to encourage growth in traditionally impoverished or underdeveloped areas in the United States.

Virginia offers a variety of performance-based incentives. From tax credits to tax exemptions, Virginia continues to demonstrate its willingness to invest in those who invest and reinvest in the commonwealth.

While economic development incentives have proven useful in many communities, there exists various unintended consequences of these programs; the most obstructive being their complexity.  For example, the financing structure of a real estate project utilizing tax credits can get very complex, and it is generally recommended that a knowledgeable consultant be retained to structure the deal.

Another challenge is identifying the various incentives available, their deadlines and how to apply.  There are many resources available that provide this information, but there is generally no central database as these programs are administered by various levels of government.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership, through its Ally Information Exchange, provides a list of existing economic development incentives. The Virginia Department of Taxation’s website provides a list of tax credits available to businesses and individuals in Virginia.

Both the federal and state tax historic preservation tax credit programs are administered in Virginia through the Department of Historic Resources. Information and assistance with tax-credit projects may be requested from DHR’s Richmond office. Contact Elizabeth Tune at (804) 367-2323, ext. 110 or Julie Langan at (804) 367-2323, ext. 155. Also, for more information about the federal tax-credit, visit their Technical Preservation Services website.

The Virginia Tourism Corporation provides several grants and funding sources.

North Carolina State University has created a national database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.

Please contact us if you have any questions about a particular incentive or to share your experiences with working through any of these programs.

Gentlemen of the Road stopover in Bristol

Bristol, TN/VA is a unique place.  “Two States; One State of Mind” is their motto, but navigating two sets of  building regulations, garbage pickups, tax codes and general government type operations can get a bit confusing.

Famous Bristol Sign Across State Street

However, Christina Blevins, executive director of Believe in Bristol, Bristol’s Main Street organization, bridges the gaps everyday in a positive, energetic and infectious manner.

Her coalition’s building skills recently paid off when Mumford & Sons were looking at communities  in which to hold their traveling Gentlemen of the Road music festival.

Already known worldwide for the Rhythm & Roots Reunion and as the Birthplace of Country Music, Bristol had an inate attraction for the band.  However, the ability to coordinate the many moving parts that an all day outdoor festival requires, in addition to the evenings music selections across the street (and consequently across the state line), Bristol cinched the deal.

Already, Bristol is getting tons of press about this event, but the real lesson is to be prepared when opportunity knocks.  Keep building relationships, offer value to all of your partners, understand the needs of your stakeholders, offer assistance without reservation and become indespensible.

Read more about the festival here, here, here, here and here.  Discounted tickets are on sale June 1.

Entrepreneurs. Better with age?

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the economy. They’re innovators, experimenters and risk takers, the driving force behind capitalism’s “perennial gale of creative destruction,” in economist Joseph Schumpeter’s evocative metaphor.

So says Chris Farrell in this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek.

But Mr. Farrell goes on to remind us that entrepreneurs are not only young, brash, rule breakers.  They also include older, more seasoned innovators.  Fully 20.9% of all new entrepreneurial ventures are started by people 55-64 years old.

These entrepreneurs may be forming enterprises because they finally have the security to follow their dream, or maybe they were laid off and found finding a new, challenging job toward the end of their career arc to be difficult.  Others may be looking for a little more control of their work-life balance as they make a 20- or 30-year transition to retirement.

Regardless of their reasons, there businesses may be well suited to the scale of your downtown.

Well-wired Winchester is as close to Dulles Airport, in terms of travel time, as downtown D.C. and is better hooked into the Ashburn “home” of the Internet than almost any place in the world.  A transitioning entrepreneur might find the housing, rent and tax rates beneficial, while cherishing the more relaxed lifestyle that a pedestrian-oriented comercial district, closely abutted by historic residential neighborhoods, can provide.

USAToday printed a similar article last month, and Slate published one as far back as 2010, detailing reasons why older entrepreneurs may be more successful, not the least of which is access to capital.

Farrell, too, gives several reasons that older entrepreneurs may have a leg up on their younger competition, but a successful community could use both.  Making sure you are providing the necessary tools and amenities for all entrepreneurs is vital.

New life for an old general store

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a good story on the revival of the Draper Mercantile and Trading Company. The story will be one that is familiar to many on Main Street. The once thriving general store, the place where everyone once shopped, picked up the mail, chatted with neighbors and friends, doesn’t survive the coming of the mall, the collapse of the primary employment industry or the passing of the original owner. After lying dormant for years, a visionary sees the building’s potential and makes the substantial investment necessary to bring the building back to life by adding a new retailer (like The General Store and Inn in Altavista), a new restaurant (like The Union Station Restaurant and Bar in Harrisonburg ), an entertainment venue (like Lynchburg’s Historic Academy of Music Theatre) or a place to live (like Winchester’s Solenberger Hall).

Building on a community’s existing assets, no matter how shabby they may appear to be, is what Main Street is all about. Behind the chipped paint, broken windows and forgotten boxes could be a gem just waiting to once again shine.