Main Street Organizations are Revitalizing the Heart of Northeast Indiana Communities

By: INPUT

If small towns are the heartbeat of America, then their downtown Main Street organizations are the lifeblood running through their veins. Working feverishly behind the scenes to bring in new art sculptures, create nightlife and culture, attract new businesses and lift up existing ones, Main Street organizations are crucial to the communities they serve.

Heather Cruz is the executive director of Manchester Alive: Main Street Chamber Alliance. She works to maintain a vibrant downtown community, helps small businesses, and hosts community events within the agriculture town, which sits on the Eel River.

“North Manchester has a population just under 6,000 right now,” Cruz says. “It’s home to a university, two retirement communities, and several manufacturing businesses. It used to have a big railroad presence, so it was quite the booming town at one time. We’re really working to bring some of that vibrant activity back down to the historic downtown area.”

In 2019, Manchester Main Street and North Manchester Chamber of Commerce merged their two entities into Manchester Alive: Main Street Chamber Alliance.

“A lot of the goals are the same,” Cruz says. “We want to support our local businesses. We want to bring our community together. We want to fill our empty storefronts. It’s worked well for us, and we’ve enjoyed being combined.”

In support of the Main Street approach, one of the current projects they’re working on is a small business incubator. The Coop, a 4400 square foot space, located inside the Manchester Alive’s office, is nearing the final stages of construction. The incubator will have seven individual retail units showcasing local entrepreneurs, and provide support services to grow their business.

“The goal is to get entrepreneurs on their feet here, and are able to move into another vacant building in town and grow our local economy,” she says. “That’s something that not a lot of Main Street organizations do, but we really just want to make a bold impact here in North Manchester.”

One of North Manchester’s popular events is 2nd Fridays & More, from June to August. The free event brings traffic downtown, has kids activities, vendors, live music, and more.

Moving back to her hometown, Cruz says she’s seen a lot of change in the area. There are no empty storefronts, broken windows, or bad sidewalks. She enjoys the well-maintained downtown buildings and picturesque streetscape of the walkable area. Promoting the community in which she lives and loves is a rewarding job.

The organization’s work is multi-faceted, ranging from promoting an architectural salvage store or a soap company, working with local new leaders and entrepreneurs to grow the economy, and partnering with high schools and the university on their entrepreneurial programs to help address population declines.

There’s also the historic element of preserving the unique character of the town’s homes and businesses.

“It’s really nice to have people that value our history and where we came from, who want to honor it and restore it  — while also adding the tools and ability to grow and move forward into the next chapter,” Cruz says.

Just south of North Manchester in Wabash, Kristen Petruniw serves as the executive director at Downtown Wabash Inc. This Main Street organization is one of 16 that are nationally accredited in the state of Indiana. Since 1981, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit has been working to create a vibrant and lively downtown district.

“Wabash has a 2.5-mile perimeter of walkable terrain, filled with a world-class performing arts center, miles of community bike trails, numerous public art pieces, and new housing developments and boutiques,” Petruniw says. “At Downtown Wabash Inc., we work to provide free events for the public in our community in our downtown district that highlight the businesses, arts and culture around the town, and lively events.”

Main Street America is a nationally recognized program that has worked to revitalize older and historic commercial districts for the past 35 years. There are more than 1600 rural and urban communities that are part of the organization, sharing a commitment to building stronger communities and creating a sense of place.

Petruniw says Main Street follows four pillars: design, economic vitality, organization, and promotion. Working with the Main Street program helped Wabash become a cultural district, as designated by the Indiana Arts Commission in 2021. Downtown Wabash Inc. also works to cultivate a strong and collaborative economic base, recruits businesses to the downtown area, and helps lift up current stores and restaurants.

“We help market and promote all of our businesses in our district for free, we are not a membership-based organization,” Petruniw says. “We are strictly a donor-level, 501(c)(3) so we run mainly on donations. We help champion all of our downtown businesses with marketing, advertisement, and social media content.”

Although Downtown Wabash Inc. is busy behind the scenes, they also host visible events that are popular within the community too.

“In Wabash, we do a First Friday event which is a free public event for the community,” Petruniw says. “We have different things like live music and food trucks. The stores are open late, and people can shop, eat, and check out entertainment.”

There is also a Downtown Farmers Market every Saturday from May to September, bringing homegrown products to the district for shoppers to browse and purchase.

Coming from Indianapolis, Petruniw says what she enjoys most about the move to a smaller town is that sense of pride.

“I find small-town cities appealing because they are very giving, they have a sense of care and pride in their community,” she says. “I have seen Wabash take off since 2011 when I moved here, and we have grown. I think that is in part by the Main Street organization here, helping to breathe new life into the community, bring new things, art pieces, opportunities, and events.”

Having a vibrant successful downtown requires a certain level of commitment from proud residents who donate their time and resources to help grow the district. But it’s not just residents who have pride and enjoyment of their town, visitors are impressed too.

“It’s interesting living here and seeing people from out of town who have never been here,” she says. “They are shocked at how great of a small town we have.”

Christine Flohr is the executive director of tourism for Visit Wabash County. She oversees operations and execution of the operational and strategic planning goals of the convention and visitors bureau. She works to drive the mission of Wabash County forward.

“Visit Wabash County is the chief marketing office and organization for Wabash County as a whole,” Flohr says. “We put on a multitude of key events that drive tourism and prospect relocation interest to Wabash County. In addition to your traditional destination guides, maps, and visitor resources, we also program trolley tours 10 times a year with our 34-passenger trolley.”

Visit Wabash County also puts on the Wabash Run the River in June, Bluegrass at Hopewell in July, the Dam to Dam bike ride in September, as well as a run club and a bike club throughout the spring and summer months.

Flohr says their organization is a bit different from its 501(c)(3) Main Street counterparts and is a 501(c)(4) funded through an innkeeper tax. They also don’t focus solely on a defined radius, but help to support the entire county. Although their scopes can range a bit, their overall missions tend to overlap, leading to collaborative, joint efforts.

“Not only do Main Street organizations support local business, but they offer community engagement events that are centralized in those very concentrated areas of focus,” Flohr says. “By organizing those community events such as farmers markets and street festivals, they’re creating lively and engaging programming that attracts people near and far. Not only does it provide value for those who live here, but it also is an assistance to where we’re also drawing visitors in.”

By working hand-in-hand, Flohr says Main Street organizations and Visit Wabash County can provide development tools for foundational success, as well as bring more shoppers and patrons from surrounding towns, cities, and states to help those businesses grow.

Flohr says each of the Main Street organizations in Wabash, Roann, and North Manchester all reflect their own individual communities’ unique heritage, culture, and flavors.

“That’s the beauty of a Main Street program,” she says. “They’re preserving that local flavor, and nobody is trying to be the other. In tandem, collectively, we can raise all of our small communities and strengthen them through the interest of economic investment and business diversification that allows each of those communities to strengthen, which in turn strengthens the county as a whole. That’s the beauty in it.”

In fact, if you take a look around at many historic downtown districts, there is a lot of beauty. From the historic buildings, the streets themselves, the vintage light posts, at every turn, there seems to be a charming characteristic from yesteryear. Part of many Main Street organizations is maintaining and showcasing that historic charm.

“Main street organizations are continuing to generate awareness of the importance and value of downtown sectors that generally tend to be aging. The buildings are aging, and they’re much more expensive to invest in and maintain,” Flohr says. “Without our Main Street organizations, the historic downtowns throughout Wabash County, and the work they do, we would fall to the plight of urban sprawl. They are truly focused on the economic vitality of the structures that are part of our cultural heritage of where we were, who we were, and what made our communities even become communities.”

Wabash is the focus of our Partner City series underwritten by Visit Wabash County. This series captures the story of talent, creativity, investment, innovation, and emerging assets shaping the future of Wabash County, about an hour Southwest of Fort Wayne.