Santa Fe - New Mexico MainStreet, a program of the New Mexico Economic Development Department, announced today Raton MainStreet and the City of Raton are the first recipients of the "Great Blocks on MainStreet Design Initiative" award. The first-annual competition was open to MainStreet and Arts & Cultural Districts to help develop an innovative, intensive-design demonstration project within the district. Raton MainStreet and the City of Raton will be provided a professional team of landscape architects, architects, and design professionals worth $50,000, to revitalize a section of Historic First Street within their MainStreet and their Arts & Cultural District boundary.

"We received many great proposals from communities across the state, however Raton MainStreet's proposal received the highest ranking for integrating principles and practices of urban design, landscape architecture, architecture, preservation and public art," said Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela. "The Great Blocks assistance is a big boost for the City of Raton and we look forward to working with them in revitalizing their historic downtown."

Communities submitted their Great Blocks project proposals demonstrating how their design initiative would dramatically upgrade the site increasing economic vitality and engaging the commercial properties, businesses and the pedestrian and street environments. Great Blocks is an outgrowth of more targeted design interventions provided by New Mexico MainStreet through its "tactical urbanism," "facade squads," and "placemaking" initiatives. "It's like one of our targeted initiatives on steroids," said Rich Williams, Director of New Mexico MainStreet.

Qualified applicants had to be from an existing MainStreet and/or Arts & Cultural District affiliate in good standing. The project proposal needed to demonstrate how its implementation would have positive economic impact on the site within the district. Qualifying projects needed to be on the adopted MainStreet District Master Plan or Metropolitan Redevelopment Plan or an adopted Arts & Cultural District's municipally adopted Cultural Economic Development Plan. Bonus points were awarded if the specific project was part of the organization's annual work plan and if it was on the municipality's ICIP priority plan (Infrastructure and Capital Improvement Plan).

Other areas of the review by the committee which ranked applicant proposals were; letters of public and private sector support from stakeholders within the proposed site, demonstrated partnerships with other organizations to do the proposed project, preservation-based elements within the proposal, and identified funding sources to implement the design project.

New Mexico MainStreet is a grassroots economic development program of the New Mexico Economic Development Department. For more information about New Mexico MainStreet visit http://gonm.biz/Mainstreet.aspx or http://nmmainstreet.org/.