The Gilroy Downtown Business Association’s Manager Nancy Maciel attended the Main Street America Institute’s “Community Transformation Workshop” held in Laramie, Wyo. from Sept. 13-16.
Main Street America has been instrumental in helping revitalize older and historic commercial districts for more than 40 years through preservation-based economic development. Main Street America is a program of the nonprofit National Main Street Center, Inc., a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The GDBA board members were briefed at their September board meeting about the workshop and topics covered, which included:
• Using the Main Street Approach to develop a revitalization strategy
• Understanding local market conditions to refine transformational strategies
• Aligning the organization’s work to impact downtown’s economic vitality
• Entrepreneurial ecosystems/placemaking strategies for Main Street economic development
• How commercial district revitalization can support downtown small businesses
• How to develop place-based revitalization initiatives
• Developing an organizational structure to support strategy-driven planning and implementation
• Creating strategies to foster community engagement and partnerships
Maciel previously completed classes covering Economic Vitality, Quality Design, Effective Promotion and Organization Sustainability. The Laramie workshop was the final workshop in her three-year quest to obtain the Main Street America Revitalization Professional credential, the highest credential available through MSAI.
“We are proud of Nancy’s effort to achieve her professional designation as a Downtown Manager,” Board President Gary Walton said. “We look forward to her applying her new knowledge to help the GDBA board, committees and volunteers to bring many positive changes to the downtown.”
