How do you think being accepted into the Main Street Program will help Mount Vernon?
MV accepted into Main Street Program
By George Breithaupt
March 18, 2009
Mount Vernon, along with Painesville and Lebanon, has been accepted into the Ohio Main Street Program administered by Heritage Ohio.
13 Responses to “ How do you think being accepted into the Main Street Program will help Mount Vernon?”
Old people eh? They are called elderly, where are your manners? They have just as much right to an opinion as anyone else! Maybe something should be done with downtown, but please don’t attack the elderly in this community.
Like they say downtown is dead. Let it stay that way. Whats the use of having something done to it, when all you get is the old people just complain and bitch about everything.
Like Dennis said, have it all leveled and build a mall.
I am in my early 40’s and I couldn’t care less anymore what old people complain about. Lets do something so our kids can enjoy
As some has said downtown Mt. Vernon is dead. As for what i ‘m gonna say i know its gonna make some people mad and really don’t care. The best thing that could happen would be to level the whole downtown area a put one big mall in its place. I used to be one of the so called cruisers that rode up and mainstreet back in the 80’s. We would cruise up and down for so long and some of us would pull off in parking lots and gather around and talk. Then it got to be we would be ran out of places because the older people were complaining. Merchants were complaining and so on till it got to the point were all of us finally gave up and quit going downtown. Guess thats what everyone wanted then but look at it now. I’m now in my 40’s and i sure won’t shop down there. I could care less what happens to them let’em all fold.
Downtown Mt. Vernon is dead. Why throw good money away on a lost cause.
I think it is a little late for hoping this is going to turn around things downtown. Where was all the work on getting this help in the midst of downtown dying to begin with? This is something that was needed a few years ago! Regardless, I will watch with interest as to what is suggested, etc. and hope for the best! We definitely need something other than festivals or First Fridays to revive the area!
It’s a waste of time energy and resources. Downtowns in most small communties are dead… Look around people, when you have super stores within minutes form your home, your not going to waste time going downtown. Yes, it’s great to walk around when local street fairs or car shows are going on, but that’s about the only time you’ll see that many people going downtown. I am not!! saying it’s not, a good thing I’m just saying it’s not gonna change anything. I used to cruise on friday and saturday nights for hours and enjoyed the sites downtown, but that was back in the 80’s. The decline will continue…
This sounds like a wonderful opportunity for the city of Mt. Vernon. I am new to the community and in the short time I have been here, I have seen one shop after the other go out of business. I always thought downtown had so much charm but It is looking more like a college campus with too many empty shops. I think it is important that the old charm somehow be enhanced and keep the wonderful old buildings that are it’s history and charm. I don’t think specialty dress shops will survive. Prices are usually too high.
We need a second movie theater to bring all ages in town. More places to eat after or before a movie. Antique shops go with the charm and still are an interest and draw from out of towners. An ice cream store like Baskin Robins would be an idea. Most importantly is to keep that old town charm.
Congrats to Mount Vernon for receiving this designation. I know that the Heritage Centre Association has worked long and hard to get to this point–and has followed the principals of the program for years. Anyone over 40 can remember what downtown Mount Vernon used to be like. We had at least 3 department stores, a movie theater, restaurants and so many other places to shop and have fun. As a kid, I could walk downtown on my own(no minivan required) to do errands, shop or see a movie. In light of the current economic situation, I find it amazing that anyone could blame downtown for not being like Wal-Mart when you consider the serious costs of embracing the big-box model: job losses, downward-spiraling wages, and the probably irreversible loss of the heart of so many towns across America. Sure, the current mix of businesses may not please enough people, but as Duncan so accurately pointed out, the large warehouses of Chinese-made junk do not include adaptive reuse of old buildings in their business plans. The best way to have avoided the “crisis” we are now in would have been to support family-owned businesses and insure that American factories stayed in production. If downtowns are dead, we are all to blame. It is sad to think of entire generations of kids who don’t know what it is like to have a “real” hometown and simply think it is normal to go to Wal-Mart. Shame on us.
To start with downtown is empty. There is nothing there but empty stores and shops of old trash. If the buildings were updated with specialty stores worth visiting and more fine dinners. As far as the first Fridays they can be moved to a different park in town where they don’t block main street traffic and 36. First Fridays was designed to bring people to downtown but there is nothing there to see or do far as your stores. the owners of the building needs to be more picky about who the rent out to, By renting to a scale of business that is inviting not the business of selling old items its more of a flea market seen. just my thought.
I believe that the best use of our downtown area is when there are activities and festivals there. This is the only time when the streets are bustling and business is good, it would be nice if it were this way more often. Maybe if main street south of the square was closed to traffic permanently and this part of town became a permanent pedestrian shopping area (sort of like an outside mall) with street vendors and activities all throughout the year it would be more of a regular attraction. As for regular shopping it’s not a convenient place, it needs something to attract people into spending more time and going out of their way and away from the convenience of places like Wal-Mart.
Hopefully the opportunity won’t be squandered. Unfortunately, Mike’s comment above displays the typical sentiment toward any downtown. “Limited parking” is a myth, however. There’s plenty of parking; I’m never at a loss to find a space a few blocks away from where I’m going. And if you think about it, the distance you walk from you car several blocks in the downtown area is probably similar to the distance Wal*Mart (or other big-box retail store) patrons walk from their cars to the front door in that huge parking lot. It’s not accomplishing anything to perpetuate the myth of insufficient parking. Downtown inconvenient? I don’t think so. It’s much more of a pain for me to get to the Coshocton Avenue businesses. It seems there’s more traffic and more ridiculous traffic patterns. Now, I will agree with Mike that the type of stores downtown are more service and want-based, rather than need-based. It would be fantastic to get a department store to come back to downtown, but that’s not their business model any more. And perhaps instead of viewing that as a problem, view it as a symptom of the larger economic and social faux pas – allowing businesses to build ugly, throw-away buildings set as far away from the road as possible (heck, even requiring set-backs through legislation!) on sprawling, unsustainable tracts of land, ultimately reducing the pedestrian from a necessity for business to an annoyance for motorists. It’s unconscionable what we’ve done to ourselves.
Maybe the Main Street Program can get a real “retail incubator” program going in our downtown. There are real solutions to the problems identified by Mike, but many seem to care very little or think it’s impossible to improve it. Don’t give up; downtown Mount Vernon can be a great place.
This economy has been tough on downtown Mount Vernon, as well as other small towns’ downtown areas. Yet, I think out Mayor and Council have done a good job upkeeping the town and surrounding area. They seem to take a pro-active approach, as opposed to one of reaction – after a town is already in a downward spiral. Yes, we are losing some storefronts to vacancy; but, the occupancy rate downtown seems to eclipse others I have visited.
Downtown will never be a shopping destination such as WalMart brings, but that is not what downtown is for. The First Friday’s in summer, Farmer’s Market and Dan Emmitt Festival, to name a few, bring in people from all over the county, as well as the surrounding areas. I always see and hear the camraderie of those walking by the street rods or sitting in lawn chairs listening to the music group in the square and it feels as though this is a place where you still have ‘community’.
I think Mount Vernon has been fairly successful at redefining ‘downtown’ to keep it attractive and a viable community asset. When I drive through Delaware with it’s huge growth numbers over the last decade, and I note their downtown isn’t….well, just isn’t that pretty, nor does it draw you in; I realize that downtown Mount Vernon is a ‘value add’ that our county should be proud of and our citizens willing to support and enhance. Being accepted into the Ohio Main Street Program will allow us to draw on others’ experience and knowledge going forward.
I think it’s Great… But will have no effect what so ever on Mt Vernon’s economic value. Parking is too limited, shops are too small, it’s too inconvenient, we as American’s want to get to what we want and fast. It would only be of benefit when there is scheduled street fairs and cars shows that would allow greater access to downtown Mt Vernon. Any monies spent on downtown to get more shoppers is a waste of money, other than keeping it from being a run down part of Mt Vernon… Look how empty downtown buildings are now.