Working on ‘Main Street’

Portland went through a downtown planning process with Ball State University students.

The city then undertook a more formal effort with R&B Architects to develop a revitalization plan that was approved in March.

With those steps complete, there was a need for a group to help facilitate some of the initiatives and goals that have been outlined.

Enter Portland Main Street Connect.

The group was formed in June and has been working on developing its structure, goals, budget and bylaws in an effort to hit the ground running in 2020. It has also been developing its work plan to submit for approval through the state’s Office of Community and Rural Affairs Indiana Main Street program.

“Our focus is the downtown because that’s the national model and it’s proven to work,” said Jay County community development director Ami Huffman, noting that the state program is built off of the Main Street America model.

A group of local business owners and others interested in improving the downtown, including Reda Theurer-Miller, Kayla Darby, Rusty Inman, Jenae Blasdel, Matt Glentzer, Jane Ann Runyon, John Boggs and Huffman, settled on a mission “to breathe new life into the economy, appearance and image of downtown Portland.”

Over the last six months, they have used the Main Street America program as their outline and also looked at community plans for places like Fort Recovery, Wabash and Greenville, Ohio. Inman attended the Main Street America national conference in Seattle, and Huffman went to the regional conference in South Bend.

Members of the group also undertook a walking tour of downtown Portland to evaluate both what is in place and what isn’t. They took inventory, including how man trash cans, benches, trees, planters and other features are in place and where they might need to be added, and to evaluate the overall downtown aesthetic.

What did they learn?

“It’s loud,” said Inman, executive director of John Jay Center for Learning. “We were in a small little group. You couldn’t hear each other talk until the semis went by. That was eye-opening to me.”

“I think a lot of times people are moving so quickly through the downtown area that they’re not paying attention really to what everything looks like,” added Darby, who owns Deer Park Boutique on Main Street.

Portland Main Street Connect hopes to start with the visual. To that end, they met last month with Kyle Cook of Cook’s Nursery to discuss options for the downtown area.

Should new trees be planted to replace those that have been removed? Should the city instead opt for flowers or grasses? Could new benches be incorporated along with the them?

Those are the kinds of questions the group is asking and working to answer.

The group’s first effort was a relatively simple one — passing out flags to local businesses to be displayed on Independence Day. The idea was to have everyone in the downtown showing their patriotism as a group, rather than individual efforts that might not be as cohesive.

In the future, Portland Main Street Connect members could work on projects involving downtown decorations, an art plan and banners. They also hope to work on events to try to draw more activity to the downtown area.

“We want to create the sense of something happening and excitement in the downtown,” said Huffman.

“And as one, everything uniform, so it looks like everybody is working together, not just everyone doing their own thing,” added Darby.

In addition to seeking approval from the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to be part of the Indiana Main Street program — the state currently has 134 participating communities, including Dunkirk — one of the next steps will be to seek funding, with plans to approach Portland Redevelopment Commission.

Portland Main Street Connect hopes to work as a committee under the umbrella of the city initially with the possibility of becoming an independent non-profit organization in the future.

Regardless of structure, though, the group’s goal is to keep the process moving forward on making Portland’s downtown area a better place to work and visit.

“Having a nicer area to come to, I just feel like that’s going to draw more people in,” said Darby. “I think if we started making changes to our downtown, it would draw people to our downtown area. And it would benefit all of the small businesses downtown that a lot of people don’t even know about.”