Panel, merchants to envision downtown revival

PRESQUE ISLE – If thinking as a unit works for malls, why can’t it work for Main Street merchants?

That’s the question the Downtown Revitalization Committee will pose to downtown merchants when committee officials host a luncheon meeting at noon Wednesday at the Northeastland Hotel to discuss plans for bringing the city’s Main Street back to life.

Committee officials will discuss the research they have done and the plans they have formed since speaking this summer with more than 200 business and community members about the changes they’d like to see in their downtown.

“This is a chance for us to say, ‘This is what we came up with. What do you think of it? Where should we go with it? Are we on the right page?'” Cathy Beaulieu, president of the Downtown Revitalization Committee and a downtown merchant herself, said last week. “We’re now looking for the support of the downtown. … They’re the ones who live, eat and breathe here. We have to know we’re on the same page as them.”

The Downtown Revitalization Committee, a subcommittee of the Presque Isle Area Chamber of Commerce, was created this spring by local merchants and residents in an effort to re-establish the downtown as the city’s business center.

So far, committee officials have unveiled “what if” drawings of what the thoroughfare could look like with minor improvements and brought in a downtown expert to learn how they can implement a productive plan for economic growth.

In the past few months, committee officials have been implementing the Main Street Four-Point Approach within their group, dividing their focus into four areas – organization, design, promotion and economic restructuring.

Each group has created a proposed action list. For example, the promotions committee’s plans include branding and image development, and developing signature events for the downtown, such as a Music in the Park or Alive After Five events.

The design committee has plans to improve parking lots, signage and facade design as well as to consider a gazebo or amphitheater.

The economic restructuring committee’s plans include reopening the movie theater, creating marketing packets with incentives for new businesses and encouraging growth along the waterfront.

Finally, the organization committee has plans to attain nonprofit status by 2007 and obtain a downtown executive director by 2009.

The downtown committee also has conducted an analysis focusing on the downtown’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Officials see downtown teamwork as an important opportunity.

“This is the crux of everything,” Beaulieu said. “One of our biggest things is to get Main Street to think as a unit. Malls hire managers. They have collective advertising campaigns, and they manage everything from shoe stores to hardware stores and get them to think as a unit. That’s a really important thing for the downtown. It gives a cohesiveness to the look and a recognizable presence when people enter Main Street.”

Beaulieu said these methods have been successfully implemented in about 2,500 towns throughout the nation and that the committee is hoping to adopt them with the support of downtown merchants.

“The hope is that we get a grassroots effort, for them to buy into this concept, because we all have to work together as a team,” Beaulieu said.

Officials have invited about 120 people to the Nov. 15 meeting, and while that is not the entire list of Main Street merchants, it’s a start.

“We’re starting at the corner of State and Main [streets] and working our way out,” Beaulieu said. “Our Main Street stretches from UMPI [the University of Maine at Presque Isle] to the mall, so we’re taking it one bite at a time.”

Beaulieu said anyone interested in attending the luncheon – invited or not – is welcome.