March 29, 2024

Newton Main Street marks one-year anniversary

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February marked the one-year anniversary of the Newton Main Street program. Additionally, Andrew Bassman will be acknowledged for his first full year as executive director of the program in May. These celebrations are well-earned as the program has strived to make a difference in the community.

For example, since May of last year, downtown businesses have an additional 25 net new full-time jobs, building owners have invested $58,180 in nine building improvement projects and volunteers have contributed 1,539 hours of their time to Main Street activities thanks to the workings of Newton Main Street.

The program relies only on donations from individuals, businesses, institutions and civic entities to fulfill its mission: to preserve the history, invest in the future and develop pride in Newton’s downtown district through community involvement, volunteerism and private-public partnerships within the Main Street district, the heart of Newton. Bassman said the organization is making a difference.

“Each day when I go home I feel better, like we made progress. Each day we are doing something better than the day before. I always feel like we are moving in the right direction,” Bassman said.

As a whole, Newton Main Street accomplished a lot in 2014. For instance, the organization applied to become a stand-alone 501(c)3 sooner than expected. The program planned future building improvement projects with Main Street Iowa architects and seven building owners while also helping these building owners apply for grants and tax credits. The organization prepared the “Shop Small” Holiday Retail Promotion to acknowledge Small Business Saturday and held the Magnetic Main Street fundraiser which included 251 prize package donations from Newton businesses. Newton Main Street also teamed up with the Centre for Arts and Artists to produce a pop-up art show which featured more than 20 local artists selling items from $7 to $850.

“To have these few events is huge for us. Although they are smaller, it lets the community know we are going in the right direction,” Bassman said.

Although Newton Main Street’s mission is vital to the organization’s success, it revolves around the four point approach established by Main Street Iowa — a program that has been essential to improving communities all across Iowa. In fact, Bassman said there are 52 Main Street programs in the state with a few more being added this year. Newton’s Director of Planning and Zoning, Erin Chambers, is excited Newton joined with Main Street Iowa.

“The Main Street program has a proven track record for bringing and keeping vitality in downtown areas. Following the 2012 adoption of the comprehensive plan, Newton worked toward achieving the designation through a focus on historic preservation and building community support for the effort. Those efforts paid off in February 2014 with the announcement by Gov. Brandstad that Newton was selected as a Main Street community,” Chambers said.

The four-point approach of Main Street Iowa includes the following components: organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring. Each piece is important to the success of every Main Street program, which is why Newton’s Main Street program, divides the four components into different committees. Bassman said each committee contains five to 10 members while the board of directors has 11 members. Bassman also understands the importance of volunteers in the organization.

“Newton Main Street is all volunteer driven. I’m the figure head. They do all the work. We couldn’t get by without them. That’s why these programs work,” Bassman said. “It’s really important for the volunteers to have a meaningful experience. We don’t want to waste their time. We try to keep meetings under an hour while being focused and to the point. We could always use a few more volunteers.”

The plans for this year are all divided among the committees.

Organization

The organization committee has developing a quarterly newsletter that is featured in the Newton Daily News. The committee is focused on generating continuous content for the newsletter. This group is also in charge of public relations, fundraising and human resources to ensure things get done in relation to strengthening the commercial district.

Promotion

The promotion committee has a few goals this year. The first one being to return the farmers’ market back to downtown, which was approved by the city last month. Additionally, the committee hopes to have one retail event, one special event and one image development campaign. The retail event is a day for people to shop in downtown Newton. The hope is the event will be a big sale for businesses and promote visibility to the downtown area. The special event is held to advertise downtown Newton as a good place to visit for people to have fun. As for the event’s activities, the committee is still brainstorming on possible ideas.

The last goal of the promotion committee is to host an image development campaign which is also supposed to improve the image of downtown by marketing the best things about Newton or what makes the town unique.

Design

The design committee will also be very busy this year. The group has been assigned money for a streetscape study which highlights public space improvements for downtown like streetlights, landscaping, transportation and parking amenities.

This study will give Newton Main Street a possible vision for public space downtown. The design committee will also be involved in partnering with the City of Newton in creating a building façade improvement grant which will focus on renovating historically appropriate buildings to reflect Newton’s downtown environment. Lastly, the committee hopes to work on a building that focuses on the appreciation of historic preservation ethics. The main goal being to educate people on the quality design and why historic preservation is important.

The economic restructuring committee has a goal this year to conduct a market analysis which will hopefully provide the committee possible directions. The market analysis will focus on businesses that can flourish and the best ideas to promote downtown Newton. The end result will produce a lot of information, but the market analysis should benefit Newton Main Street and downtown in the long run. Another goal the economic restructuring committee has is to provide more housing in the downtown area as it would produce great cash flow for building owners. Bassman said the city has also identified these vacant second floor spaces in downtown as part of their strategic plan. The first site visit is scheduled for Feb. 25, when consultants will talk with the committee.

Bassman knows Newton Main Street has come a long way since last year, but he still strives to make the program and the downtown of Newton better.

“We have all the accomplishments of last year as a new program. Anything we did last year to build positive momentum is fantastic. It positions us well to do things ahead. We are starting from scratch and transitioning to a program that gets more things done and on a bigger scale. We want to build on those successes and move forward,” Bassman said.

Contact Scott Thenhaus at 641-792-3121 or newsroom@newtondailynews.com