Discover Downtown Middlesboro Receives 2014 National Main Street Accreditation

Members of the DDM Design Committee in front of the Elks Home which they are working to restore.

Middlesborough, Kentucky (June 24, 2014) – Discover Downtown Middlesboro  has been designated as an accredited National Main Street Program for meeting the commercial district revitalization performance standards set by the National Main Street Center®, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Each year, the National Main Street Center and its partners announce the list of accredited Main Street® programs in recognition of their exemplary commitment to historic preservation and community revitalization through the Main Street Four Point Approach®.

“We congratulate this year’s nationally accredited Main Street programs for their outstanding accomplishment in meeting the National Main Street Center’s performance standards,” says Patrice Frey, President & CEO of the National Main Street Center. “Accredited Main Street programs create vibrant communities by using a comprehensive strategy to preserve their historic character and revitalize their commercial districts, which helps make these great places to work, live, play and visit.”

The organization’s performance is annually evaluated by the Kentucky Main Street Program, which works in partnership with the National Main Street Center to identify the local programs that meet ten performance standards. These standards set the benchmarks for measuring an individual Main Street program’s application of the Main Street Four Point Approach® to commercial district revitalization. Evaluation criteria determines the communities that are building comprehensive and sustainable revitalization efforts and include standards such fostering strong public-private partnerships, securing an operating budget, tracking programmatic progress and actively preserving historic buildings.

Certificate recognizing DDM as a nationally certified Main Street program.

In 2013 Discover Downtown Middlesboro reported $2.7 million of investment downtown, 13 new businesses created, and over 100 new jobs. During that same period of time the organization managed to attract over $150,000 in grants to carry out a strategic planning process, to build a trail connecting the downtown with the National Park, and to assist with pre-development work on the Elks Home which the organization has owned since December 2012. These accomplishments were recognized at the National Main Streets Conference in Detroit this past May when Middlesboro was one of two communities nationally named “Ones to Watch.”

Discover Downtown Middlesboro is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that was founded in 2006. Since that time the organization has worked to spearhead revitalization of the downtown area. This is accomplished through coordinating grassroots action by volunteers on four committees - Organization, Promotion, Design, and Economic Restructuring. Some recent DDM projects include organizing the Christmas Parade and decoration of the downtown, addition of four fountains and seating at Cumberland Avenue and 20th Street, and encouraging the restoration of several buildings downtown.

Established by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1980, the National Main Street Center helps communities of all sizes revitalize their older and historic commercial districts. Working in more than 2,200 downtowns and urban neighborhoods over the last 34 years, the Main Street program has leveraged more than $59.6 billion in new public and private investment. Participating communities have created 502,728 net new jobs and 115,381 net new businesses, and rehabilitated more than 246,158 buildings, leveraging an average of $33.28 in new investment for every dollar spent on their Main Street district revitalization efforts.

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