Since being selected to participate in the 2010 DREAM Initiative, Monett residents and business owners have launched a citywide effort to identify opportunities for downtown expansion in the growing community
The Downtown Revitalization and Economic Assistance for Missouri Initiative is a three-year planning process led by the Missouri Department of Economic Development, Missouri Development Finance Board and Missouri Housing Development Commission to assist communities in developing and revitalizing their downtown areas.
Monett City Manager Dennis Pyle said a kick-off meeting last month has community interest high.
“Virtually all of the people in attendance were business owners, most of them from downtown,” Pyle said.
Patrick Hanlon, project manager for the Monett DREAM project and senior project manager with Missouri engineering firm Peckham Guyton Albers & Viets Inc., said the project’s success is dependent on the community being vocal about their overall downtown vision.
“Our job is to try and make sure we can put together a plan to make that vision a reality and try to put together the financial tools, historic preservation tools, rehabilitation, financial programs and things like that at the local level, state level and federal level,” Hanlon said. “Not to lessen their vision or make their goals any less lofty, but just to make them more achievable.”
The state pays for 80 percent of PGAV’s cost through the DREAM Initiative, while the community provides a 20 percent match.
Pyle said Monett’s DREAM program budget is $211,168, with the city providing $40,234 of the total amount.
The DREAM Initiative comes on the heels of Vision 2030, a downtown revitalization plan spearheaded by Drury University students in coordination with the city of Monett and the Monett Chamber of Commerce. Pyle said the vision plan was instrumental in securing Monett as a DREAM community.
The city’s ultimate goal, Pyle said, is to encourage significant business growth downtown to match the commercial development on high-traffic Highway 60.
“Downtown is still the heart of most cities,” Pyle said, noting additional help from the Main Street program, a revitalization project under Branson-based Missouri Main Street Connection. “We want to maintain the viability of downtown, expand it. Maybe in the past people have just thought of it as strictly small-business retail,” he added. “We want to expand it – not only housing opportunities downtown but other types of development downtown: educational, institutional, those types of improvements.”
Among those steps to improvement is an evaluation of Monett’s floodplains through a survey conducted by Springfield engineering and design firm Olsson Associates Inc., paid for with a $10,000 grant received through DREAM. Pyle said the study is expected to be completed in July.
Meshing progress and history While economic restructuring has been the focus of downtown renovation plans, Pyle said aesthetic improvements to reflect Monett’s heritage also are on the table.
“What we have now is a lot of different remodels through the years, reflecting different generations,” said Suzy McElmurry, executive director of the Monett Chamber of Commerce. “I think making those more uniform – not necessarily exactly alike, but more uniform – would be very appealing (to) a shopper or someone visiting our community. It would just have more of that hometown feel.”
Hanlon said PGAV works closely with communities to establish an environment that reflects both progress and the town’s history.
“What we try and start with is the history of the community, the majority of the buildings, when they were built and the character of those buildings,” Hanlon said. “We get a lot of information from the chamber and the city upfront.”
Hanlon said PGAV gains an understanding of the community through interviews with city officials, talking with residents and conducting an organizational structure review.
“We look at all the organizations as well as all those out there that have yet to really buy in to the revitalization effort,” Hanlon said. “We make some recommendations on how they could be structured better to be more efficient.”
On the shoulders of business While the Monett community is in the early stages of change, some past DREAM communities are finding their footing after setbacks.
Tony Stonecypher, city manager of Aurora, which was selected as a DREAM community in 2007, said revitalization progress was delayed due to some misunderstandings of DREAM’s purpose.
“A lot of people thought that there was going to be a lot of money for individuals within the community to get low-interest loans and grants and that type of thing to help their individual businesses. They didn’t realize all the perimeters of what DREAM was meant to do,” Stonecypher said. “I think the biggest shortcoming was just a lack of communication.”
Stonecypher said Aurora is currently developing a downtown retail project in accordance with DREAM objectives.
Shaun Bennett, owner of Denali Dreams, an art gallery and coffee shop in downtown Monett, said it will be up to the community as a whole to ensure success through DREAM.
“If people expect the DREAM Initiative to do it for us, it’s not going to happen. The store owners, business owners as well as the city need to buy into it,” Bennett said.
“It’s going to happen because businesses move in, businesses fix up their building, people come down and start shopping downtown and people decide they want to spend their money locally,” Bennett added.[[In-content Ad]]
There is unlimited potential in downtown Springfield, and it’s all coming together right now. That’s the assessment of Rusty Worley, executive director of the Downtown Springfield Association, as he considers the many projects that are now coalescing around the city’s center.
