Saline Main Street Group Celebrates Selection

The Route 12 to Main Street is complete.

A group of about 40 people gathered at Tuesday night to celebrate the formal announcement of the city’s selection for a program they hope energizes and improves downtown Saline.

In February, the approval Saline’s application to be a select-level member of the Michigan Main Street program. Tuesday night, the staff from the Michigan Main Street office made it official with a press conference.

Mayor Gretchen Driskell said she thinks Main Street will help the city take a good thing and make it better.

“I think this is a great development for Saline. Main Street a proven methodology for how to take downtown to the next level. We could stay the way we are right now, which isn’t bad. I think our downtown is doing well. But we have an opportunity to be better,” said Driskell.  

Tuesday’s conference was more celebration than press conference, as people sipped wine and ate cake from Benny’s and posed for pictures with the new Saline Main Street signs. Main Street officials said they were impressed by the Saline’s people-power when a diverse group of 62 supporters arrived in Lansing to participate in a presentation required as part of the application process.

“The 62 people who showed up broke a record,” said Joe Borgstrom, Director of the Downtown and Community Services Division for the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, of which Main Street is a part.

Borgstrom also noted that the Saline presentation was the first to include livestock—the Rentschler Farm Museum’s chicken, Henrietta, who wandered from the farm to downtown one day last year.

As a full-fledged Michigan Main Street community, Saline will receive five years of intensive technical assistance, through the Michigan Main Street program, with a focus on revitalization strategies designed to attract new residents, business investment, economic growth and job creation to their central business district.

Locally, the Main Street program will be governed by a board of directors outside of the city structure and managed by a full-time director who will be in place by June. The program is being supported by a $200,000 pledge from the city’s Economic Development Committee.

Driskell said having a full-time employee dedicated to downtown Saline will be beneficial.

“I think we’re going to be able to take it up a notch,” Driskell said.

Cindy Czubko is president of Saline Main Street board, which also includes Karen Ragland, Jill Durnen, Shelley Rankin, Rebecca Schneider, and Dr. Dave Sharp. City Manager Todd Campbell and Downtown Director Art Trapp are also on the board.

Czubko said that the 62 people who went up to Lansing and the 40 in attendance Tuesday shows that the community recognizes the importance of downtown.

“This isn’t only for business owners. People in the city and the townships see downtown as a hub of the community,” Czubko said.

Durnen, who lives in York Township and works downtown, agreed.

“I live out in the country. But Saline is my city and it’s my downtown and I have a vested interest in making it a great place for us to come to and others to come to,” said Durnen.

With the announcements out of the way, Saline’s Main Street team now begins learning the model.

Borgstrom said Main Street staff will visit Saline monthly and even more so in the early stages. The next step is training the Saline Main Street board. In April, Main Street will bring in a national expert to do a baseline assessment of Saline to see where the community can begin building work plans based on the city’s strengths and assets.

“We want to identify the strengths of Saline and develop a work plan that asks ‘Who does what, by when and how much is it going to cost?’” Borgstrom said.

He said it’s a gradual process. The first year will be about identifying volunteers and figuring out “who wants to do what” as Main Street builds the local network of people who will drive the organization.

“This is incremental. Downtowns didn’t get in the state they are in overnight, and they are not all going to come back overnight either,” Borgstrom said. “It’s baseball season, and this is a game of singles and doubles instead of home runs.”

Borgstrom said by the second and third year or the program, people should notice more businesses coming in.

State Rep. Mark Ouimet, R-Scio Twp., said the Main Street program has survived leaner state budgets because it focuses on nuturing small businesses.

“It’s our LLC-type businesses in our small communities that are starting to lead us out of this economic challenge,” Ouimet said. “We’ve lowered the unemployment rate two percentage points in the last year. Median income is up for the first time in a decade. A lot of this comes from the small businesses in our communities.”

Borgstrom said in 2011 Main Street communities, as a whole, had one of their worst years for investment. Still, he said, those communities saw an 18-to-1 return on investment. Borgstrom pointed to longtime Main Street members, Portland and Grand Haven, which had vacancy rates of about 20 percent when Main Street came to town.

“Right now, they each have one storefront that is vacant—in the worst decade in Michigan’s economic history,” he said.

The Michigan Main Street website states that since 2003, 210 new businesses were created, 141 businesses were expanded, 928 full-time jobs were created, 530 facades were revamped, and over $58 million has been invested in Main Street downtowns.

Borgstrom is careful not to take all the credit for Main Street.

“It really the communities that are doing it. Main Street gives them the tools and they come back to us and say it works, let’s keep doing this,” Borgstrom. “At the end of the day, we’re government. We don’t create a single job. But we try to provide the communities the tools and the services they need to bring those jobs to their downtown.”

In the coming weeks, the Main Street board will begin searching for a director.

The city will eliminate the downtown director’s position currently employed by Art Trapp. Trapp is expected to apply for the Main Street position.