Pandemic leads to ups, downs for Main Street communities

There might be nothing more American than Main Street.

Main Streets nationwide highlight local flavor, spotlighting tastes, needs and products. They’re also hard-working centers of business, playing host to hundreds of stores, restaurants and offices.  

During the pandemic, individual Main Street communities in the region have faced a host of challenges —namely, getting people to come, shop and stay awhile. Despite that, they’ve continued to bolster the businesses in their areas through a variety of efforts, from driving restaurant takeout traffic to encouraging online sales to shifting to host small-scale events. A glance at three Main Street communities in the region highlight some of the key strategies. 

Main Street Bartow

Main Street Bartow Executive Director Linda Holcomb remains focused on economic development for the Polk County downtown, in addition to beautification, recruiting new businesses and helping existing businesses increase sales. In a key way, though, the pandemic has had big impacts on Main Street Bartow’s work. “Where COVID-19 has affected us is the events that we do to bring people to the downtown,” Holcomb says.

Main Street Bartow had to cancel several events, from Friday Fest in March, April and May to an antiques market. “This is new to all of us,” she says. “No one knows exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s very hard when you can’t do your events — the things that bring the community down to your businesses. You feel like your hands are tied in so many ways. As hard as you try to help your businesses, you think, ‘Is there more I could be doing?’”

With less customer traffic, Main Street Bartow helped restaurants by adding tables and chairs outside. That helped restaurants that had to contend with indoor capacity restrictions for several months. Main Street Bartow’s operations and initiatives are funded through Bartow’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the city of Bartow, event revenue and local business and resident investment.

To further help its businesses, Main Street Bartow increased the number of social media posts it published. It also worked on a downtown bingo promotion that encouraged customers to patronize member restaurants. When a customer ate a particular restaurant, the eatery marked a spot on the card. If a customer filled his or her bingo card, that person was entered into a drawing to win a prize. “It got people to go out to visit the different businesses,” Holcomb says. “We’re just trying to come up with ways to help our businesses and promote them and get people into their locations.”

On the retail side, Main Street Bartow hosted a scaled down fall festival. Vendors at the event were spaced out, and hand sanitizer and masks were at the ready for guests. “It was kind of like a test event to see how things went,” Holcomb says. The festival was well attended, she says, and people kept their distance. Retail businesses did well, and the event drove business to the area’s restaurants. “We’re slowly starting to resume some normal activities,” she says.

In the coming months, Main Street Bartow anticipates hosting some additional modified events. A city committee will weigh in about resuming events, but Holcomb is still thinking ahead. “I’m planning that it’s going to happen,” she says. “It’s easier to cancel something at the last minute than it is to plan something at the last minute.”

Venice MainStreet

Like Holcomb, Venice MainStreet CEO Kara Morgan says her organization has done a lot of shifting during the pandemic. One of the first tasks it accomplished was a major website overhaul. Especially during the pandemic, the website is a crucial resource to tell people about businesses in the area and upcoming events. Venice MainStreet has more than 350 business partners and 70 community partners, with around 100 retail stores and 30 restaurants.

A key effort during the pandemic was conveying to the public the coronavirus-related measures businesses were taking. “One of the major goals is to boost confidence in consumers,” Morgan says. Venice MainStreet worked on a COVID-19 business plan that shops and restaurants posted as a visual in their doors and windows. It told customers in an instant the business was in compliance with a plan to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. The effort aimed to provide some peace of mind to worried patrons.

Venice MainStreet, funded through annual memberships, partnerships, event income and grants, also produced a COVID-19 reopening checklist for businesses, with advice about how to reopen businesses safely. The organization also promoted the fact that many restaurants offer outdoor seating. And a beautification project in 2019 led to a benefit that’s paid off big time during the pandemic — expanded sidewalks. 

Morgan says it’s too early to speculate on how the roughly 20-block Venice MainStreet area and its businesses are doing overall and how they’ll come out of the pandemic. A few are doing better in September 2020 than they did in September 2019, while others report declines of 50%. 

In a regular year, Venice MainStreet usually hosts more than 50 events. The pandemic has put a damper on that, but the organization has adapted some events for current conditions. In September, it put on a smaller shopping promotion event than it usually does, for instance. And in October, it’s hosting Classic Evenings on the Avenues. “The city of Venice is helping us to formulate a set of criteria for anyone receiving an event permit within the city limits,” Morgan says. “We certainly want to encourage some activities, so people have something to do again and something that keeps the charm.”

Venice MainStreet hasn’t been alone in its efforts to promote area businesses during the pandemic. Individual businesses were hard at work, too, boosting their websites to facilitate online shopping, providing carryout and meal delivery and thinking up other ways to drum up business. “I think the businesses in Venice absolutely took a leadership position and absolutely stepped up to meet demand of consumers during these really epic changes,” Morgan says. “Just because a global pandemic happened doesn’t mean business stopped at Venice MainStreet.”

Grand Central District

In St. Petersburg, Grand Central District Executive Director David Foote says the pandemic has brought challenges for retail stores, restaurants and bars in particular. He’s working with struggling businesses on an individual basis, providing personalized support for the district, just west of downtown St. Pete, which has more than 370 businesses.

‘People want to shop. They want to spend money — it’s just tapping into that in a comfortable way.’ — David Foote, Grand Central District

Although there are struggles, some businesses are doing OK — and several new ones are opening up. In a move counter to the pandemic, there are about three times as many businesses announcing openings than closings, Foote says. 

“I do have some retail that is doing quite well,” he says. “Whatever they have is unique, and they do a good job getting it out on social media.” For instance, the owner of a store that sells vintage items, furniture and housewares told him she had the best July she’s had in years. “People want to shop. They want to spend money — it’s just tapping into that in a comfortable way,” Foote says.

To promote area businesses, Grand Central District opened its online directory to all businesses, not just members. Foote also distributed business card-size directories with a QR code to encourage customers to pull up the directory on their phones.

The Grand Central District, funded by grants from the city and money raised through events and memberships, is also launching a website specifically for the district’s breweries. The seven breweries, all within walking distance, are cross-promoted on the site. Foote says the district also will print a pocket map to the breweries. “I’m looking forward to that expanding into other clusters, so to speak, like the bars, the eateries, the shops, so we can do a series of little mini maps,” he says.

Getting groups of similar businesses to collaborate instead of being territorial is part of a larger shift — and the pandemic might have had something to do with it. “That’s a change in culture now,” Foote. says “People are realizing they’re more successful together than they are apart.”

Like most other Main Streets, Grand Central canceled several events in recent months, including a 20th anniversary celebration. “What I’m doing is really just turning it over to the businesses that want to do small-scale events together,” Foote says. If breweries want to do a crawl weekend, or vintage stores want to do a mini street market, he works with them instead of the district hosting a large event. 

Foote expects those kinds of micro-events to go on for the foreseeable future. “There’s no light switch that’s going to go on, and everything goes back to normal,” he says. “It’s going to be a long while before you pull people out of their homes. It’s all going to be small, and it’s all going to be outdoors.”