Kansas Main Street Program is working in communities like Belleville

The Kansas Main Street program is a proven leader not only in Kansas, but also throughout the nation, in producing cutting edge techniques to improve communities’ success rates. One area is market analysis and economic enhancement strategies implementation.

Kansas Main Street believes it is absolutely necessary for Main Street communities to begin there quest for downtown revitalization with a thorough understanding of their current conditions, how they got there, and where they want to be five years down the road.

Belleville Main Street has learned there is potential for growth of 7,000 – 10,000 square feet of additional retail space within the downtown district by the year 2008. Downtown Belleville should be enhanced to include specialty and convenience retail that is complemented by food, arts, and entertainment. How does Belleville Main Street achieve this? The document is complete with action agendas for economic restructuring, design, and promotion, with specific activities and steps to take in each category.

The Belleville Economic Restructuring committee took the advice of the Economic Enhancement Strategy document provided by Kansas Main Street and created a work plan for a Farmer’s Market. The Market called “Belleville Main Street Market” has met with the approval of local shoppers who said they couldn’t remember when so many people were in downtown Belleville. With 18 vendors, the market will run for 9 weeks. Vendors sold everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, to baked goods, honey, handmade soaps, garden stepping stones, jewelry, wooden lawn furniture, metal lawn ornaments, limestone rock are, quilts and more. The vendors are very happy with their sales. Main Street provides entertainment that has featured a polka band, Belleville High School Jazz band and the Shrine Clowns. This market has been a huge boost to downtown Belleville and has been the talk of the town. This will run again all of this season and is expected to draw huge crowds!

Great things can be achieved when you have a good foundation laid, a vision for the future, committed volunteers, and on-going technical assistance from Kansas Main Street. For more information about the Kansas Main Street program call (785) 296-3485.