Macon Magazine

56 maconmagazine.com | August/September 2024 W H A T D O E S I T M E A N T O B E A G R E A T A M E R I C A N M A I N S T R E E T ? Learn more about this innovative program and how we've implemented it in Macon at the highest levels. BY MM STAFF community for revitalizing their downtown district. And that's really special. To make it to that point is very hard. Only about 100 communities have won this award since they started." Hopkins pointed to harbingers of a great future which now stretch to the edges of downtown and beyond to include an amphitheater, the largest indoor pickleball facility in the nation, and soon, the Otis Redding Foundation facility and Georgia's first National Park. "Macon is still a community where you can come and be prosperous," she said. "We definitely need population growth. We want people in Macon and need tourists and visitors to come and support our businesses. The question is, how do you preserve and scale what you have in a way that the sense of place isn't lost? I do believe that if anybody can figure that out – if there is any community can figure that out – it's Macon." Follow @maconmagazine and @downtownmaconga on social media to stay up-to-date on revitalization stories, upcoming events, and ways to get involved. ABOVE Just some of the players that make Macon a Great American Main Street posing inside the Dannenberg, including Peyton Anderson Foundation's Karen Lambert, Mercer leaders Kirby Godsey and William Underwood, Mayor Lester Miller, and the staff and board from NewTown Macon and Macon-Bibb County. I f you're a fan of public playgrounds, live music, bike trails, coffee shops, and maker's markets in the center of your community, the Main Street Approach may be for you. Or, as their acolytes say, "Main Streets are for everyone." Urban sprawl gripped American hearts and wallets in the 1960s and 1970s. Giant parking lots with neatly painted white rows as far as the eye could see popped up as the average family became car-bound. What was once a full day of shopping, walking past shade trees and quaint buildings, could be completed in one neat trip to huge, climate- controlled buildings with labeled departments and escalators. The more these far-flung new spaces thrived, formerly bustling town centers started to wither and die. The "dead downtown" effect was so pronounced across the country that in 1977, the National Trust for Historic Preservation decided to confront the crisis. What started as the "Main Street Project" for three Midwestern communities to drive foot traffic and revitalize empty buildings has now turned into a network of over 2,000 communities dedicated to thoughtful community planning. The heart of this work is called the "Main Street Approach." This trademarked idea is an adaptable roadmap anchored by transforming spaces with four points: economic vitality, design, promotion, and organization. The four points are meant to, for example, celebrate historic character or catalyze new investments. A community might use the Main Street Approach to add streetlights to encourage dining and nightlife, to install wayfinding signs showing where visitors can access the nearest trail or museum, or to plant fruit trees in a pocket park. Communities committed to the Main Street Approach can apply to be accredited Main Street communities, which involves meeting stringent requirements each year. Macon officially became a Main Street community in 2011 as part of the city government's Economic and Community

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