Presque Isle eyes ways to improve Main Street

PRESQUE ISLE – Touting an image of what the downtown could look like with a little money and elbow grease, a group of local volunteers is working at a breakneck pace to bring Main Street back to life.

The Downtown Revitalization Committee, which formed three months ago with the goal of reinvigorating Main Street in Presque Isle, unveiled this week one of its latest efforts – a “what if” visual conception of Main Street.

“Sometimes you need a visual to get people to see what you’re talking about,” Cathy Beaulieu, president of the

committee, said Wednesday.

The committee enlisted the help of Stantec Inc., a design firm based in Macon, Ga., with an office in Presque Isle, to draw the concept, and Jan Murchison, a committee member and Stantec employee, provided its first public viewing during a City Council meeting on Monday night.

Murchison presented two large drawings of Main Street – an east side and a west side view – from Academy Street to State Street. Each showed what Main Street looks like now and what it could look like with minor improvements meant to unify the downtown’s appearance, such as paint, facade changes, parapet additions, and trees.

Murchison and Beaulieu have said that the concept is “very open,” and that while they hope it will spark conversation in the community and get new ideas flowing, it is not the final design.

“We want as many people to see them as possible,” Beaulieu said. “We want people to say, ‘This isn’t going to work, but here’s another idea.’ or ‘How about this?’ Their ideas are invaluable because they’re the ones who live, eat, breathe and work on Main Street.”

The images can be viewed at city hall now and will be displayed in various locations in the coming weeks.

Beaulieu said that some of the ideas included in the visual concept came from the community. In early July, committee members visited nearly 200 businesses and community members to explain the committee’s goals and to ask them what their biggest wishes were for the downtown.

“The response was overwhelming,” Beaulieu said. “Everybody had some ideas of what could be done.”

While the images are the most visual use of that information, officials also are using it to move forward on several other projects, including efforts to find a tenant who will reopen the Braden Theatre. The movie theater shut down about 10 years ago after a multiplex cinema moved to town. It since has been gutted of its seats and equipment and, with the multiplex gone, left the city with no movie theater. Beaulieu said that bringing the theater back would do a lot for Main Street.

“It would add an evening element to our downtown and it would bring families in. Businesses would do better because the movement toward Main Street would be extended,” she said.

Several people are interested in reopening the theater and officials are working to make the venture as economically feasible as possible, Beaulieu said.

As a new group, committee members realize they have a lot to learn about establishing a successful downtown program, but they’re hoping a visit next week from someone with a few years of experience will help.

Linda Matychowiak is the downtown manager of Gardiner Main Street – one of eight downtown revitalization projects funded by the Maine Development Foundation. She will be in Presque Isle on Wednesday evening for a round-table discussion with the committee and will speak to the community on Thursday during an Eggs and Issues breakfast at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

“She’s here to show how what she’s doing translates into economic growth,” Beaulieu said. “If you can just hear someone speak who’s ahead of us and what we’re doing, you can see how much value there is when you have just a little bit of energy coming from everybody.”

The Eggs and Issues breakfast will be held at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 17, at UMPI’s Campus Center. Cost is $8. For more information, contact the Presque Isle Chamber of Commerce at 764-6561.