Madison becomes Main Street Aspiring Town, looks to boost downtown

MADISON – The city of Madison is looking to boost economic development in historic downtown by officially becoming an Aspiring Main Street Alabama Town.

Main Street Alabama is part of the national organization Main Street America that provides economic development services to towns and business districts. A representative from Main Street Alabama gave a presentation in July to Madison residents and businessowners to gauge interest in the program.

State Coordinator Mary Wirth and Assistant State Coordinator Trisha Black gave a second public presentation last week where they shared that Madison is now officially an Aspiring Main Street town.

As an Aspiring town, Madison’s historic downtown will be subject to Main Street’s four point plan that includes branding, event planning, and marketing services for a year. These services will be overseen and executed by com- mittees and a part-time Main Street Director.

The Aspiring designation comes at the cost to the city of $2,500 for the year-long program. Once the year-long program is finished, the city will have the option to continue with Main Street and become a Designated town and receive more services and resources and full-time staff.

Aspiring Main Street towns are by invite-only from Main Street Alabama. Wirth explained what made Madison Aspiring material: “From the first meeting, there was a lot of interest. There were a lot of businesses there. So, we have that side of it. And the city was interested as well. So, typically, when we go into a community, if we see just city and we don’t see merchants, or vice versa: you see merchants and no city, that’s not great, but when you see the two coming together that’s a good way to look at how you get a Main Street program going.”

Black explained that the Aspiring designation was not sudden but that Madison has been in the introductory level of the Main Street program, called Network, and has been attending Main Street trainings for several years already, “We want communities to be a Network first, which Madison has been a Network [town] for at least five or six [years].”

The program may also come with assistance for finding a solution to recent issues with trains blocking entrances to the downtown area and hurting local businesses.

Wirth mentioned that at the national level, the Main Street organization is working with the Department of Transportation and may be able to include Madison’s train troubles in talks with the federal government. Participation in Main Street also comes with a cooperative network of other Alabama cities facing similar issues, though a solution to the prolonged train stoppages was not identified or guaranteed.

Several neighboring towns and districts including Athens, Florence, and South Huntsville have used the Main Street program. As a new Aspiring town, Madison will be hiring a part-time director in the next months to kick off Main Street’s economic development of the downtown area. For more information about the Main Street program visit mainstreetalabama. org.