Want New Shopping in Elizabethton? Shop Local Now.

I hear a lot from citizens who ask me to bring in a particular retailer or restaurant. Right after the ask comes this comment, “If I want to shop/eat at that type of establishment I have to go to Johnson City or Bristol!” Let me tell you, I understand! There are times that I find myself going to Johnson City to eat or shop verses a local business. Sometimes it’s due to convenience (I’m already over there for another reason) while other times it’s intentional (I really want a big steak from Texas Roadhouse).

The concerning part is that new retailers and restaurants look at and gather information about how much money is spent in a community before they locate there. For example, if we were recruiting a Ruby Tuesday’s or Cheddar’s and we met all of their site requirements (population size, household income, available property, average age, traffic counts, etc), they would ask some of the existing businesses like Applebee’s, Fatz, and Beef O’Brady’s how business was and how, say, the Elizabethton Applebee’s compared to the other Applebee’s in Northeast Tennessee (did they have more sales than most, how many customers did they have on average, what was the most popular food item, etc). If Applebee’s here responded saying they are below the average for sales compared to the rest of Northeast Tennessee and Fatz says the same thing, that would cause Ruby Tuesday’s or Cheddar’s to seriously reconsider whether they want to location here in Elizabethton.

This story became a reality when a little over a year ago when we were trying to recruit an off-price department store. They were interested in coming into Elizabethton and felt that it would be a good market for this particular brand. Upon my final contact with the real estate manager, she had some concerns regarding information she had received from Peebles and Burkes regarding their sales verses what they anticipated them to be. With the closing of the Rue21 in Elizabethton and with the company having a sister brand located in Johnson City, they ultimately decided not to locate in Elizabethton at this time. Hopefully they will give us another look in a year!

This is one known example. I know that Peebles and Burkes may not have everything we all want, but all I ask is that you give local businesses a first shot. After all, you likely have to drive near or right past downtown or the West Elk commercial area to get to Johnson City! The same goes for our local restaurants. It’s fine to go to Johnson City or Bristol to celebrate an anniversary or maybe a birthday, but if you’re just short on time one Friday evening try to go to Fatz, Jiggy Rays, or Primo’s rather than Smokey Bones, Main Street Pizza, or Olive Garden in Johnson City. The more we spend in Elizabethton, the more we help Elizabethton grow. Let’s talk about it!

It's Time to Bring Main Street back to Elizabethton

You may have read a month ago about a meeting with the National Main Street and Tennessee Main Street Directors here in Elizabethton. This was the first meeting of a group of folks comprised of downtown businesses and significant stakeholders. We currently have this small group looking at the benefits, ramifications, and costs associated with bringing Elizabethton back into the Main Street program (we were once members back in the 90s) to help make downtown more cohesive and attractive for new business.

For those who are unfamiliar with the program, the Main Street program is a nation-wide program that helps communities revitalize their downtowns and other commercial districts using a four-point approach -- economic vitality, design, promotion, and organization. A committee is assigned to each of these four "pillars" as they are called. The committee is charged with working within the district to promote and develop their specific pillar. Additionally, a Main Street Director (paid position) must also be appointed to oversee the organization and implement the four pillars within the downtown district. The best way to describe this program is to use the idea of a mall. A mall is essentially a commercial "district" comprising of many separate and privately-owned businesses. Just like a mall has a company that manages the design or look, economic balance, and promotion and public perception of the mall, so too is the role of the Main Street Director and the Main Street board.

The Main Street program is a proven model that has been used across the country by hundreds of city and communities. The best part is the same model is proven for both small cities such as Jonesborough and larger cities like Murfreesboro or Kingsport. Because of the hundreds of cities that utilize the program nation-wide, joining the Main Street program gives us access to all those communities to discover what works and what doesn't work without having to try and find out ourselves. A small benefit of becoming a Main Street community is being able to obtain additional grants for downtown programs.

For Elizabethton, becoming a Main Street community provides an outlet for interested citizens to get involved in the success of downtown, a point person for downtown businesses wanting to develop a new festival or promotional event, and a group solely dedicated to seeing downtown grow and succeed. Just as successful malls have great management companies, the same applies to great downtowns. As our group moves forward to consider bringing this program to Elizabethton, we ask for your support and your involvement. After all, it's your downtown. Let's talk about it!

Steps to Creating a Revitalized Downtown

Downtown redevelopment/revitalization has been a hot topic in Elizabethton since I’ve been doing planning in Elizabethton – 9 years. I have talked extensively about the different aspects or steps we need to take, but not a lot about the big picture plan. How do we even get to the point of talking about creating housing for downtown, or recruiting new businesses when we don’t even have buildings ready to be renovated? Let’s look at that today.

One of the first steps we need to take is to develop a unified vision for downtown. Ideally this would be in the form of a plan, but simply writing some goals or characteristics down about the image we all have in our heads is enough to get started. As a part of this step, we must ensure that the City Council, Planning Commission, Business Owners, Property Owners, and our citizens all (or mostly) agree on what that image looks like so that we can move forward.

After we’ve developed the “picture” for downtown, we need to organize. Structure and groups of the different stakeholders need to be created or encouraged. There is a lot of work that will need to be done in the aesthetics, economy, and property development in downtown and it’s something that no one interest group can do solo.

Somewhat simultaneous with the previous action, all parties must work to save and improve the quality of our downtown buildings. It is hard to recruit a new business or start-up business to purchase or lease a building that has a leaky roof, old carpets, outdated electrical, etc. After all, downtown building owners are realistically competing against clean, newer, plain-vanilla-shell spaces on the west side of the city. This can be very expensive and will likely require incentives and assistance for building owners, but the payoff could be great.

The next two steps – pedestrian friendliness and placemaking – are somewhat the same. There is a saying used in the urban planning world that if you want a street to be friendly for pedestrians, design it so a 7-year-old or 70-year-old can comfortably walk across by themselves. Sure, it is not exactly a scientific formula, but we need to evaluate our roads in downtown against this concept. Would you allow your 7-year-old to cross the 3 lanes of Elk Avenue traffic by themselves in downtown? Placemaking similarly encourages pedestrians and people to congregate and often improve the aesthetics and usability of an area.

Lastly, successfully completing the previous steps will result in higher demand for businesses and ultimately housing. We need to ensure quality housing options are available in and immediately around the downtown area. This could include condos, townhouses, single-family homes, or apartments, but a good mix is optimal. This will help generate additional pedestrian activity in downtown and additional revenues for the businesses there.

The most important thing we need to keep in mind during all of this, is that revitalization won’t happen overnight, but over multiple years or even a decade. Asheville has been working on their downtown since the 70s, Jonesborough since the 80s, Greenville, SC since the 70s, Johnson City since the 90s. Small and sustainable incremental change, I believe, will prove to be best for downtown and best for the city overall. The important part is that we start. Let’s talk about it!