{"id":2781,"date":"2012-11-05T18:03:58","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T01:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/financenewmexico.5e-dev.net\/?p=2781"},"modified":"2013-07-12T17:22:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T23:22:46","slug":"main-street-program-makes-strides-in-artesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/articles\/investment-in-new-mexico\/main-street-program-makes-strides-in-artesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Main Street Program Makes Strides in Artesia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rich

Rich Williams, NM MainStreet Director and Arts and Cultural District Coordinator, NM Economic Development Dept.<\/p><\/div>\n

Artesia is a southeastern New Mexico town named for the artesian aquifer on which the area’s early agricultural industry was based. Today Artesia\u2019s 10,700 residents are drawing on the city’s history as they work with the Artesia MainStreet program to remake the town\u2019s downtown.<\/p>\n

Artesia MainStreet is part of the New Mexico MainStreet Program, a grassroots economic development program of the New Mexico Economic Development Department. The state Legislature launched the program in 1985 to help communities remake older commercial neighborhoods as economically viable business environments while preserving local cultural and historical resources.<\/p>\n

The program currently serves 23 affiliated MainStreet projects and six state-authorized Arts and Cultural Districts statewide.<\/p>\n

In the late 1970s, the National Trust for Historic Preservation developed the consensus-building approach used by MainStreet participants to wed economic development and historic preservation.\u00a0Community volunteers are the engines of each program, but MainStreet Program directors contribute resources, education, training and technical services as needed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Water<\/strong><\/p>\n

Artesia MainStreet began as a grassroots effort in 1997 to revitalize the appearance and spirit of the town\u2019s dilapidated downtown area, according to program manager Rebecca Prendergast, who serves as a liaison between the public and the state program. Volunteers began hosting activities to draw the community\u2019s attention to downtown as a destination place and began working with landscape architects and engineers to create a master plan for downtown rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

In 1998, the Artesia City Council approved the master plan, empowering Artesia MainStreet to incorporate as a nonprofit to spearhead downtown renovation and encourage merchant and community unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe envision Artesia Main Street as an economically active and energetic historic downtown where \u2014 because of its attractive, clean, shaded, pedestrian-friendly, small-town atmosphere \u2014 people will want to live, visit, shop and work,\u201d Prendergast said. \u201cI would like to see more retail business downtown, and I believe we are making incremental growth toward a more even business mix.\u00a0 We have some great \u2018anchor\u2019 businesses that have remained and chosen to remain in the downtown area for decades, and I see the trend of quality retail businesses continuing to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public\/Private Partners<\/strong><\/p>\n

Artesia MainStreet, Inc. has raised more than $6 million \u2014 70 percent from private sources \u2014 for capital improvement projects since its inception. It\u2019s had a hand in renovating the fa\u00e7ade of a vintage movie theater and worked with engineers and landscape architects to renovate Heritage Walkway and Plaza and the city\u2019s Main Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur public\/private partnership takes public dollars and leverages them with private resources to create a bigger impact overall,\u201d Prendergast said.\u00a0\u201cThere are projects that a private organization can tackle much easier that a public entity, and I think that the city of Artesia and Artesia MainStreet recognize the strength in that relationship.\u00a0One step at a time is how our program has grown, and that is how the downtown has improved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 1985, thousands of jobs have been created and millions of dollars in private funds have been invested in New Mexico\u2019s communities through the MainStreet Program.\u00a0For information about past and present projects, visit www.nmmainstreet.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Download Article\u00a0266_MainStreet Program Makes Strides in Artesia<\/a>\u00a0PDF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artesia is a southeastern New Mexico town named for the artesian aquifer on which the area’s early agricultural industry was based. Today Artesia\u2019s 10,700 residents are drawing on the city’s history as they work with the Artesia MainStreet program to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2781"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2788,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2781\/revisions\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}