In 2015, the small city of Wheeling, West Virginia launched a “Main Street” program to revitalize its downtown core where the vacancy rate stood at 32 percent. The community, like so many in North America, was hurting. Once upon a time, more than a century ago, Wheeling was the richest city per capita in the United States but time was not kind. After the local steel mill cut employment, people began leaving. The population dropped from 48,000 in 1970 to just 27,000 over the space of 40 years.
The community, though, began fighting back with a downtown revitalization plan that leveraged its historic assets, supported local businesses, and created an energetic shopping, dining and cultural scene where a former department store, for example, was turned into multifamily apartments.
The transformation began to pay dividends. In 2019, Wheeling won the “Great American Main Street Award” for turning “their once blighted downtown into an economic engine for the community” where in the space of only four years “they have generated $50 million in total investment, rehabbed 124 buildings, and lowered their downtown’s vacancy rate from 32 percent to 15 percent.” Success built upon success.
In September of 2022, the state Governor Jim Justice kicked off a project to beautify Wheeling’s downtown that included widening sidewalks, adding decorative brickwork and planting trees.
In April of 2023, the geography website, WorldAtlas, included Wheeling in an article entitled, “8 Towns in West Virginia That Have the Best Main Streets.”
It is a remarkable and uplifting story. I’m not suggesting Wheeling’s formula can be repeated everywhere. But there is a lesson here: don’t give up on revitalizing your own downtown. It is a crucial step to re-energizing your whole community.
In December of 2020, as Wheeling was garnering accolades, the Brookings Institute investigated the city’s success along with two others (Laramie, Wyo. and Emporia, Kan.) for a report entitled “Why Main Streets are a key driver of equitable economic recovery in rural America.”
It concluded that “rural downtown revitalization—when anchored by strong place governance structures, deep knowledge of community priorities, and robust public and private partnerships—are critical homegrown solutions for building rural resilience.”
Those three words are so important: “building rural resilience.”
Too often when people talk about downtown revitalization they are thinking of large cities. Of course, major centres need to revamp and renew their cores. Downtown cores in big urban centres are often busy during the day but hollow out at night, becoming urban ghost towns.
Smart cities are revamping their cores to build sporting arenas, incorporating more housing, more restaurants and more social spaces.
My own city of Edmonton developed what’s called the Ice District with a new hockey arena for and a 356-room hotel with 30 floors of residential condos above it along with new high-rise office towers, a public plaza and an array of restaurants and bars. The City of Calgary is starting on its own similar revitalization project.
The challenge for rural communities is that their downtowns don’t even have a daytime influx of workers. And they certainly don’t have the tax base of a large city.
Too often that means rural communities are reluctant to take the plunge into revamping their downtowns. Residents are afraid their taxes will be increased, that money will be wasted on a lost cause, that shops and businesses hanging on by their fingernails will be forced to close or will lose customers because of construction.
All of those obstacles can be overcome.
Virtually every jurisdiction in North America has money for economic development. Wheeling received money from the state. Crucially, though, the community also set up a non-profit agency called Wheeling Heritage that has recruited volunteers and raises money through charity events to “improve the quality of life in Wheeling by preserving and investing in our city, collaborating with others, and engaging the citizens of Wheeling in our work.”
One of the key elements to a successful revitalization project is getting residents involved. It is an exciting opportunity. I have spoken to numerous rural communities across North America about the challenges and rewards about re-energizing their downtown cores. It is a way to attract newcomers and businesses. Many rural communities also have a proud history that includes historic buildings spared front the kind of sweeping development that bulldozed similar structures in larger centres.
Odds are your community can take advantage a beautiful, character-rich, and historic downtown by growing the number of restaurants, lounges, social activities in its core, and its strong sense of community,
It takes courage and hard work to turn things around.
Becoming complacent or even defeatist is an easy trap to fall into. But allowing yourself to wallow in that trap is to ensure things will just get worse.
Some residents might think it’s a waste of money to plant trees downtown or widen the sidewalks but you’d be surprised by how much traction you can get from beautifying your downtown.
As for construction problems, a manageable plan with input from residents can avoid headaches.
As I have said many times, communities need to keep moving to not only survive but thrive. Standing still means going backwards.
Communities like Wheeling are a wonderful example of what is possible when you put things in motion
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