Sparkling sidewalks, vibrant flower baskets and fresh-painted storefronts. Cottage Grove’s Downtown Historic District officially has a new look.

Several dozen people gathered in the new event plaza during the city’s grand re-opening of Main Street on Saturday, exploring the newly renovated roadways and the South Valley Farmer’s Market. Downtown Cottage Grove has been under construction for years as part of the Main Street revitalization project that was approved by city council in 2015. The project included street and sidewalk repaving and leveling, ADA curb upgrades, street tree plantings, new lighting installations, new water and storm sewer utilities and water fountain placements.

To commemorate the culmination of more than a decade of efforts, Cottage Grove officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony that featured city councilors, Mayor Candace Solesbee, city employees and community partners.

“This has been a huge labor of love for the city of Cottage Grove,” Solesbee told The Register-Guard. “The crew that worked down here was just exceptional and made sure that it was as painless as it could possibly be. It’s growing pain for sure, but it means the world to this community.

“It really shows what can happen when people believe in their community and come together. That’s exactly what you see today,” she said.

The project was made possible through a $5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The city contributed $1.25 million.

Faye Stewart, public works director for Cottage Grove, has participated in the project since the start as a Lane County commissioner and then as a city of Cottage Grove employee. Stewart grew up in Cottage Grove and remembered the days when Main Street was the heart of the city — before more shopping areas became popular.

Over the decades, he said, the street infrastructure began to fall apart. Old tree roots had broken up the sidewalks and the street itself had crowned to make navigation difficult, especially for wheelchair users, he said.

In recent years, parking along Main Street became impossible. You couldn’t park a car on the street and open the passenger-side door without knocking it into the curb, Stewart said.

“It had gotten to the point where it really wasn’t pedestrian friendly for people to come down here,” he said. “With these improvements, we’re already seeing more people downtown. … We’re hoping the excitement will just continue, more businesses will locate downtown, and more people will spend their time down there.”

A friend of Stewart’s who lives in South Eugene recently told the county commissioner he’s visited Cottage Grove more in the past three months than he has in his entire life — a promising sign for the community.

Solesbee was excited about what the new-and-improved downtown area means for Cottage Grove and local businesses. As a business owner herself, Solesbee said there’s already been a “tremendous” impact in the number of patrons. Solesbee owns 5 Flying Monkeys Antique at the corner of Main and Fifth streets. She said there’s even been increased traffic in the evening hours due to the improved lighting. This summer will be the true indicator of how successful the revitalization project has been, she said.

Solesbee said Cottage Grove has big plans for 2027.

In August 2027, The Walldogs are coming to Cottage Grove for one week to paint 15 murals denoting the history of the town. Walldogs is a collective of muralists who travel the world to paint communities. In addition to the Walldogs’ visit, 2027 will also mark the 50th anniversary of the filming of “National Lampoon’s Animal House” on Main Street. It served as the setting of the climactic homecoming parade that ends the movie.

Solesbee said it will make for a joint celebration with the inaugural Music, Arts and Cinema Festival. She hopes the event will continue, reprising every summer.

“It’s going to be massive,” she said.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in The Register-Guard and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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The creator of the nation-wide Main Street Program is checking in on Portland’s Alberta Main Street after its inaugural year of service.

Representatives from the National Trust of Historic Preservation will be in Portland June 21-23. They will conduct focus groups and interviews with community stakeholders to find out how successful the Main Street Program has been the first year and how it should develop in the coming years.

The visit will conclude on June 22 at 6:30 p.m., when the group will give a public presentation at St. Andrew Catholic Church, 806 N.E. Alberta St. The presentation will focus on how the Main Street approach to historic commercial district revitalization has been used across the country and how it can help the Alberta program in the future.

In addition to a candid written assessment of the opportunities and issues facing the Alberta Main Street program, the team will also put together a 12-24 month implementation strategy that the program can follow moving forward.

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Two commercial buildings on Northeast Alberta Street have been selected by – an economic development non-profit – to receive $5,000 each from for sustainable façade improvements.

After seven building owners applied for the organization’s inaugural Façade Improvements Program – asking for a total of $30,000 – Alberta Main Street‘s board selected two buildings: 1700-1726 N.E. Alberta St. and 2734-2738 N.E. Alberta St. Tenants in the first building include the Community Cycling Center, All Teased Up Hair Salon, Mimosa Studio and Earl’s Barbershop. Al Forno Ferruzza Pizzeria and Six Days Art are tenants in the second building.

The building owners will now get together with the organization’s architect, Brian Emerick of the Portland-based , in order to design the façade improvements. The money can be used for sustainable improvements to the building’s façade, signage or awnings. The only stipulation is that improvements must be to areas visible from the public way.

Alberta is one of three areas – the other two being St. John’s and Hillsdale – selected by the city last year to take part in Portland’s Main Street Program. The program is a four-point strategy to neighborhood commercial district revitalization developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Façade improvements on Northeast Alberta Street are expected to get underway on June 15, with a tentative completion date set for the end of August. Building owners are required to at least match the funds provided by the organization.

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The Oregon City Main Street program is going to live to see another day.

The Oregon City City Council this week approved a new economic improvement district that will tax downtown property owners to help pay for the successful downtown revitalization program. Through the economic improvement district, the 79 properties in it are charged 1 percent of their assessed value, capped at $1,950.

Program officials need the money to keep operating once the program’s annual allotment of $50,000 runs out at the end of the year.

The four-year district should raise as much as $99,000 annually to help fund the program. The program, which is a product of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, helps fund things like downtown streetscape improvements, beautification grants and marketing initiatives.

Main Street Program officials had initially asked for a five-year district that would raise approximately $135,000 annually, but that was shot down because more than 33 percent of the property owners in the district opposed it. Under state law, city officials are only allowed to create an economic improvement district if two thirds or more of the affected property owners approve it. The new district received a property owner approval rating of just under 90 percent.

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Kelly Haverkate has a grand vision for the tiny stretch of Main Street in Dayton, where she owns a business. She wants to see the street become a hub for healthy, farm-to-table dining where visitors can try local fare and wine.

Oregon’s Main Street program, only two years old, may help realize that dream.

Since 2008, 67 cities have joined the state’s , which provides resources to help revitalize historic commercial districts. Among the six cities at the top – or “performing” – level, 29 new businesses moved into the Main Street areas. They created 120 jobs and netted more than $2 million in private spending on building revitalization.

“It’s a combination of three things that make this program successful here in Oregon,” said Sheri Stuart, the coordinator of the state program. She cited “an interest in making and implementing downtown revitalization strategies, an increased awareness of culture and history, and an increased (focus) on sustainability.”

Stuart has been involved with Main Street programs for 20 years, mostly in Washington state. But she has never seen effectiveness like in Oregon in the last year, she said.

The program is based on four key points that lead to economic revitalization: organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring. The program offers technical and financial support to the business community for public beautification projects, town events and historic building revitalization projects.

Haverkate teamed up with several other Dayton business people to start a Main Street program last year. As the manager, Haverkate has spent most of the past year raising money for the revitalization.

“It’s been a great program because we’ve been getting so much support at both the state level (and) from nearby towns that use the program,” she said.

One of those cities is McMinnville, which was one of the state’s first Main Street program participants. The city has been an official member for only two years, but its business community has been using the Main Street approach for nearly 25 years, said Kris Gullo, manager of the program in McMinnville.

“We’re functioning very well as a Main Street and it’s because we’ve become very good at leveraging partnerships,” Gullo said. “The property owners themselves started this program, which has been the reason it’s been so strong.”

The property owners approved creation of an economic improvement district, to collect property taxes to pay half of program costs; the other half came from the city. Gullo said she doesn’t need to focus on fundraising and instead can work on projects.

Through the program McMinnville purchased and installed historic-looking streetlights with hanging baskets, started a facade improvements grant and began hosting events.

Dayton is trying to establish the same sort of leverage. Haverkate recently held a design charrette so that local business people could discuss facade improvements for several downtown buildings. The move, Haverkate said, gives business and property owners a vested interest in downtown improvements.

Oregon City‘s Main Street program has been around since October 2008. Since its inception, more than 24 businesses have joined the Main Street area. The program has leveraged $1.2 million of private investments for building revitalization as well as nearly $4 million in public money for infrastructure improvements.

“We’ve focused a lot of attention on marketing downtown as a place to do business,” said Lloyd Purdy, manager of Oregon City’s Main Street program. “That combined with coordinating the efforts for downtown improvements has really helped energize this program.”

One of the most successful projects stemming from the program was the creation of an online marketing video called Blue Collar Creative. The video, which received a national production award, targets creative entrepreneurs and shows the benefits of working in Oregon City.

Haverkate said Dayton could do something similar, but with an emphasis on the local food industry. She is working with the city, the state and local colleges to create an incubator so that restaurateurs can start out in shared spaces and then eventually move into vacant spaces along Main Street.

“The successful programs have been the ones that have branded themselves right, and that’s what we want to do,” she said. “That vested interest is a brand.”

Nationally, about 20 percent of the participants withdraw from the program after two years. Stuart said the successful ones follow the models developed by cities like McMinnville and Oregon City.

“You need to build that momentum and the resources in the first few years, and it really seems like Dayton is doing that,” Stuart said. “If they keep it up, and other towns follow, this program can be a success across the state.”

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Beaverton is the 67^th town in Oregon to be given the Main Street designation to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street program.

Mayor Denny Doyle kicked off the announcement by providing $15,000 in grant money to the program to be used for community inspired projects in downtown.

The Main Street program uses locally driven historic revitalization to promote economic development in commercial districts. While the majority of funding comes from local sources, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and officials with Oregon Main Street provide technical assistance to those that use the program.

“Our main reason for starting this program is that we haven’t had a downtown association in nearly 20 years,” said Holly Thompson, a program manager with the city of Beaverton who will oversee the program. “We thought this would help us kick start an effort to get one started.”

Beaverton is considered part of the exploration phase of the program, which is the first tier of it. There are 15 downtown areas in the transforming phase and only seven in the performing phase across the entire state.

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The has become an effective revitalization tool for downtown districts and historic neighborhoods. But cities around Oregon and across the country are being challenged to secure money needed to maintain operations.

Some municipalities and program organizers are considering whether to initiate property tax overlay districts to supplement funding. And in Portland, where three Main Street programs kicked off this year, organizers admit some sort of taxing district is a real possibility.

The started the Main Street program with the goal of helping revitalize commercial districts through historic preservation. The trust offers technical, marketing and financial support to participating cities and states, which then target historic commercial districts.

But while Main Street programs receive some start-up money from state and city sources, coordinators also are required to raise money to help pay for an executive director and operational costs.

“With these programs, like most nonprofits, fundraising is an ongoing battle,” said Sara Wittenberg, a nonprofit consultant hired as the executive director of the Main Street program in Alberta, one of three participating districts in Portland. “We had 102 pledges to get our initial start-up money, with donations ranging from $20 to $5,000.”

The state has seven programs that operate in a similar fashion to those in the three Portland districts; 60 others are in the application process. One of the seven programs is in Oregon City.

The city of Oregon City started its program three years ago. Organizers have since created the award-winning Blue Collar Creative economic revitalization video that promotes downtown, and written grant proposals for more than $3 million. Also, 18 businesses have since relocated to downtown Oregon City.

But the program’s success doesn’t pay the bills.

“It’s a great program and has worked really well here in Oregon City,” said Lloyd Purdy, the manager of the Main Street Oregon City program. “But you need a sustainable funding stream, and that’s what Oregon City is looking for.”

So Purdy is working with the city to create an overlay property tax for the 90 businesses in the downtown core. The tax is being proposed at 1 percent of a property’s assessed value with a cap of $3,000. It would raise $194,000 to $240,000 and help supplement the annual $50,000 the city has allotted for the program over the next three years.

“There comes a time in these programs where the businesses and property owners that take advantage of the benefits should at least look into helping support it,” said Purdy, who managed a Main Street program in Cortland, N.Y., for three years before coming to Oregon City. “The successful programs are the ones that are supported by everyone involved.”

When managing the Main Street program in Cortland, Purdy and the city discussed the possibility of introducing the same type of funding mechanism.

And even in Portland, program organizers are looking into alternative resources to help maintain the program.

“We know we need to start thinking about long-term stability but for the time being we are focused on getting the programs off the ground,” said Kate Deane, a project manager with the Portland Development Commission, one of the main public forces driving the program.

The city has $500,000 budgeted for the program. Each district gets $30,000 from the city and has to match that with $30,000 raised by the coordinators. After the first year, the program coordinators will have to raise an additional $30,000 to cover operating expenses.

And even if each district comes up with the necessary money, the city isn’t promising that it will continue to provide money in the future.

“The city has it budgeted this year, but with the economic situation at hand, there can’t be any guarantees of what the funding will look like next year or a few years down the road,” Deane said.

Wittenberg and Alberta program organizers are aware of this, but are nevertheless moving forward.

“Getting the funds each year is going to be a task; there’s no doubt about that,” Wittenberg said. “But those challenges are outweighed by the benefits of the program. It brings the community together and lets the community members themselves tell the story of the area and plan out the future of development in it.”

A tax, however, is not the only option.

Albany has a contract in which downtown parking revenues go to its Main Street program. And Boston, which has had a program for nearly 30 years, relies on a real estate portfolio for subsidies.

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When the Portland Development Commission decided to create a Portland Main Street program last year, one of the four stipulations was that applying areas couldn’t also be located in one of the city’s urban renewal areas. But bad timing could let two of the program’s three inaugural districts double-dip into the PDC’s economic development resources.

The Portland Main Street program was launched last year by the city and the PDC. The program model, designed and driven by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, pools public and private resources to encourage economic development in a specific area by creating a unified theme and preserving its historic properties. Similar city-driven Main Street programs have been created successfully in Boston, Baltimore, Orlando, Fla., and Washington, D.C.

After a five-month application process, Mayor Sam Adams announced last week that in addition to a portion of the Hillsdale area, the Main Street program will include a 15-block section of Northeast Alberta Street and a portion of the St. Johns neighborhood. But those latter two areas also recently were recommended by a citizens advisory committee for inclusion in an existing urban renewal area in Portland.

The overlap was the result of two separate planning processes. While the city was selecting areas for the Main Street program, the PDC was making a push to reassess the boundaries of the Interstate Corridor urban renewal area, now 10 years into its 20-year lifespan. The 21-member citizens advisory committee leading the reassessment recommended expanding the Interstate URA to include five additional areas. Two of these areas were 28 acres around Northeast Alberta Street and 84 acres surrounding the St. Johns Town Center, the same two areas designated as Main Street districts.

According to the documents handed out at the application meeting for the Main Street program, only areas outside of Portland’s urban renewal areas were to be considered for the inaugural year of the Main Street Program in order to make economic development a citywide activity. Claudia Plaza, Portland Main Street coordinator, said the overlapping of economic development resources was a product of poor timing.

“The decision to expand the Interstate URA wasn’t decided yet when the application process was started, so we decided to let anyone that could be included in the URA go ahead with the application anyways,” she said. “We decided these groups shouldn’t be penalized because what if they didn’t get included in the URA?”

It might stand to reason, then, that the St. Johns Town Center properties and the Alberta Street properties, already included in the local Main Street program, wouldn’t be part of the PDC’s final vote next month on the expansion of the Interstate URA. However, that isn’t necessarily the case, Plaza said.

“I don’t think these areas will be taken out of contention for the URA,” she said. “There is a potential that both areas could be involved in both programs.”

Shawn Uhlman, spokesman for the PDC, also confirmed that the two areas would still be considered for expansion into the Interstate Corridor urban renewal area when the PDC reviews the issue next month.

While being included in both an urban renewal area and the Main Street program goes against original guidelines for the latter, using the two together can be beneficial, said Doug Loesher, director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“In Baltimore and Boston they decided to strategically interject the program into areas that have already received help in order to create model areas other parts of town could look towards,” he said.

Loesher added that not many cities have so robust a URA program as Portland. That was the reason Portland initially decided to stay away from those areas and give other districts a chance, he said.

Randy Bonella, president of the Multnomah Village Bloc Initiative, a finalist that wasn’t selected for the program, shared that thinking.

“I wasn’t aware of the expanded URA, but I will be asking around about it and getting answers,” he said. “Getting into a URA would be great, but I don’t think areas should be able to do both.”

Meanwhile, people representing St. Johns and Northeast Alberta Street are rejoicing.

“I know there is a perception that we are doing great up here on Alberta because of all the recent development and the possible inclusion in the URA,” said Stacey Matney, co-president of the Alberta Business Association. “But it hasn’t happened in a cohesive way, and this program will really help us accomplish that.”

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The city of Portland today announced the three inaugural districts for Portland’s new Main Street Program, a neighborhood commercial district program meant to revitalize historic business districts.

The three organizations that will have their districts included in the program are the St. John’s Main Streets Coalition, N.E. Alberta Main Street Program and Hillsdale Community Foundation. Each of the selected areas will receive financial and technical assistance from the city budget as well as training from the .

Multnomah Village Bloc and the 42^nd Avenue Main Street Collaborative were also among the five final applicants but were not selected.

The Main Street Center is a national organization run by the National Center for Historic Preservation meant to revitalize downtown and neighborhood business districts throughout the U.S. through a community-driven, comprehensive strategy. The organization uses a four-point approach to revitalize historic districts. These include organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring.

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Transportation officials preparing for the project to repair the distinctive arch bridge between Oregon City and West Linn looked for similar projects to guide them. They couldn’t find any.

The bridge’s unusual construction has suited it: The project set to begin this summer will be the first major repair in the bridge’s 88-year history. That longevity comes in part from the bridge’s skin.

Original bridge architect Conde McCullough, looking at the corrosive pollution spewing from nearby mills, decided that a typical paint coating wouldn’t be enough to protect the bridge, according to an Oregon Department of Transportation history. He decided to encase the exposed steel in a sprayed-on concrete called gunite.

When state and federal transportation officials reviewed the project, they observed that this system has lasted from 1922 to the present, while a paint system would need to be replaced every 20 to 25 years. “The gunite used on the Oregon City Bridge is a very unusual and innovative system for its time,” the review concluded.

Now, all that gunite needs to come off and be replaced with its modern cousin, shotcrete. Work crews will have to keep the gunite from contaminating the Willamette River, said Susan Hanson, an ODOT project spokeswoman.

“We’ll have barges in the river,” Hanson said. “Part of that is to keep all the concrete from going in the river.”

Repairs to the bridge can change only so much, Hanson said. Historic standards prohibit altering its appearance too much. Adding a pedestrian or bicycle lane on the other side of the railing, for example, wouldn’t fly.

The biggest challenge for the contractor will be to maneuver in the tight work space, Hanson said. “Because the bridge is narrow to begin with, the staging of equipment to do the work is going to take up the entire space,” she said.

At times, the sidewalks on the bridge will be removed to provide more room. “It does require specialized equipment and contractors to accommodate the fact that it’s a tight work space,” Hanson said.

ODOT is now accepting project proposals from potential contractors and will evaluate them on three criteria: price, technical qualifications and techniques, and proposed schedule. Bids are due April 20.

Because of the tight work space, the contractor won’t have the option of keeping a lane open on the bridge. The planned two-year closure of the bridge, scheduled to start in early 2011, worries Oregon City businesspeople.

Lloyd Purdy, downtown manager with the nonprofit organization Main Street Oregon City, called the two-year closure extreme, but said that downtown advocates are trying to stay optimistic.

The project’s delay helps, Purdy said. The closure had been planned to start earlier this year. “At this point, a closure in 2011 gives downtown another year to create special events,” such as festivals, car shows and art walks.

“It gives us more energy and momentum behind our economic development projects downtown.”

Still, the reality is that Oregon City probably won’t convince new retail businesses to set up shop next to the bridge during the closure period. The detour, which takes drivers onto Interstate 205, probably will scare many away.

“The detour is not a long one in actual distance,” Purdy said. “But anytime someone has to cross the river, get on and get off the highway, with all the driving stress, that’s one more disincentive to make a quick trip into downtown for dinner.”

Already, three blocks of downtown have lost tenants, Purdy said, and other property owners have struggled to fill storefronts.

The impending bridge closure has forced downtown advocates to look at new strategies for keeping the area vibrant. The area is also undergoing an ODOT-funded traffic circulation study and could get a $3 million grant for sidewalk improvements.

Pushing office rentals could be one way to keep people downtown, Purdy said. “Because we’re losing potential traffic flow, we’re focusing our attention on attracting professional offices downtown,” he said.

“Whereas a retailer needs traffic, professionals can be located there and not need the traffic,” Purdy said. The increased job activity would then, he hopes, support the remaining retail businesses.

“When people work downtown, they shop and eat downtown,” he said.

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