Silver City MainStreet Receives 2021 National MainStreet Accreditation

Category: Community News Community News
Published: 27 May 2021 27 May 2021

Silver City MainStreet has been designated as an accredited Main Street™ program for meeting rigorous performance standards. Each year, Main Street America and its partners announce the list of accredited programs to recognize their exceptional commitment to preservation-based economic development and community revitalization through the Main Street Approach™.

“We are proud to recognize this year’s 889 nationally accredited Main Street programs that have worked tirelessly to advance economic vitality and quality of life in their downtowns and commercial districts,” said Patrice Frey, President & CEO of Main Street America. “During an incredibly challenging year, these programs demonstrated the power of the Main Street movement to drive impressive local recovery efforts, champion small businesses, and foster vibrant downtown districts. I am inspired by their hard work and confident that these accredited communities will continue to help their downtowns flourish in the next stages of recovery.”

In 2020, Main Street America programs generated $4.14 billion in local reinvestment, helped open 4,356 net new businesses, generated 14,988 net new jobs, catalyzed the rehabilitation of 8,488 historic buildings, and clocked 983,702 volunteer hours.  

Silver City MainStreet’s performance is annually evaluated by New Mexico MainStreet, which works in partnership with Main Street America to identify the local programs that meet 10 national performance standards. Evaluation criteria determines the communities that are building meaningful and sustainable revitalization programs and include standards such as, fostering strong public-private partnerships, documenting programmatic progress, and actively preserving historic buildings.

In the past year, Silver City MainStreet has responded to the COVID pandemic by serving as a vital clearing house of information for merchants to connect them to resources. We ran a gift certificate promotion to encourage take out dining, ran social media posts and radio ads encouraging shopping local, implemented the Small Business Assistance Program, a forgivable loan program that has funded 43 projects that keep businesses open and help their recovery, utilized NM MainStreet revitalization specialists to assist with fundraising training including graphic design work for a GoFundLocal program and they helped merchants get websites and facebook pages going, conducted cash mobs, and we have kept in daily contact with businesses. 

We also continued our regular programming online with the Urban Challenge Fun Run, Merchant Window Decorating Contest, and continue to maintain the brochure rack program. These are just some of our ongoing projects and programs. 

Silver City MainStreet celebrates 36 years of service this year and is one of the states oldest and most successful programs in the state, winning a Great American MainStreet Award in 2011, the only NM MainStreet program to win the award.  Only three MainStreet programs from across the country are awarded this honor each year.

ABOUT MAIN STREET AMERICA

Main Street America has been helping revitalize older and historic commercial districts for 40 years. Today, it is a network of more than 1,600 neighborhoods and communities, rural and urban, who share both a commitment to place and to building stronger communities through preservation-based economic development Since 1980, communities participating in the program have leveraged more than $89.57 billion in new public and private investment, generated 687,321 net new jobs and 154,435 net new businesses, and rehabilitated more than 303,836 buildings. Main Street America is a program of the nonprofit National Main Street Center, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For more information, visit www.mainstreet.org. 

The mission of Silver City MainStreet is "To encourage a vibrant, historic downtown Silver City which is recognized as the heart of our diverse community." Please visit our website, www.silvercitymainstreet.com to learn more.

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