Brookings: Model Downtown Development

It's not just our big-city neighbors in Sioux Falls who know how to make Main Street all fancy. Our friends in Brookings also recognize the importance of maintaining an attractive, vibrant downtown corridor of economic and cultural activity. Chuck Cecil reports on the upcoming Downtown Improvement Project planned for Brookings starting next spring [Chuck Cecil, "Main Street's Been Same for 100 Years, But Just Wait," Brookings Register, 2007.08.24]. Brookings's Main Street is already a visual treat, with lots of trees and flowers out in front of a lively stretch of retail, restaurant, and recreation establishments. Among the improvements coming next spring are the return of a public drinking fountain at 4th and Main and a sculpture on the bumpout opposite the Ram.

These improvements may not sound like money makers, but they reflect the efforts of the very energetic Downtown Brookings organization to keep the heart of Brookings alive, beautiful, and profitable in the face of retail competition from the Super Wal-Mart and the sprawling commercial complex out by I-29. Downtown Brookings offers some more details about the planning for its streetscaping project in its August 2007 newsletter. The newsletter and Cecil both point out one element of the project that may be key to the success Downtown Brookings is having: its openness and active solicitation of ideas and participation from downtown businesspeople and the general public. Cecil notes that the Downtown Brookings Design committee is looking for ideas from the public on themes and possible funding sources for more sculpture projects. That kind of openness to community ideas gives everyone a better sense of ownership of and pride in the final project.

The good people of Madison can only hope that the city commission's rejection of the Chamber of Commerce's request for more funding won't stand in the way of our fair city putting some of Sascha Albrecht's and Prairie Roots' ideas for downtown revitalization into action.