Steve Harmon is the new president of Emporia Main Street. He took the time recently to talk with The Gazette about his plans for the downtown-development and promotion organization.
Q How is Emporia Main Street doing, and what role will you play as president?
A I think the organization is doing fine. It is a very hard-working, action-oriented board as well as the organization. As president, I will just help facilitate all the great ideas the organization has.
Q What are some of your goals as president?
A The goals are outlined by the organization as a whole. At a board retreat recently, we came up with some annual goals, some five-year goals and long-term goals. Some of our annual goals are pretty generic, like grow our organization and membership, encourage use of our loan programs and facility improvement. Another is to be more involved with the community and be more of an asset.
Q What are some changes you are working on?
A After Streetscape was finished and Emporia was recognized as the first city in Kansas to be a national Main Street award-winning organization, we took a breath and started planing where do we go from here. We have done all these great things and what is the next big step we are going to work on?
Specifically we are looking at keeping the vacancy rate low, continue to improve Streetscape and we want to grow our own. We need to have a balance between what we can bring in from outside the community as well as what can we grow within our community. That is what we are focusing extensively on with our entrepreneur program. The entrepreneur program is meant to start our own small businesses in our community.
Q How are vacancy rates downtown, and what are you doing to keep downtown filled up?
A I look at where we were 15 years ago when I first came to Emporia, and there will always be vacancies — but it is looking really good. Right now, we are to the point that we are focusing on upper-story development. We are going to work with local developers and locals to find ways to live downtown, play downtown, work downtown and have entertainment downtown. If you look at the next big things, it is only going to be positive. The Granada Theatre is almost done and there is a lot of talk about an arts district coming up and I think we can be a great asset to help with that.
Q What do you like best about our downtown?
A If you look downtown from ESU — it is just a good-looking downtown. We have historic buildings, we have newer buildings that are well made, wide sidewalks, good parking. It is a well-maintained, positive downtown that is accessible which has room for growth and improvement. It’s not stagnant. There is something always going on.
Q What are some of your favorite events?
A The Christmas events are outstanding. But my No. 1 event is The Great American Flea Market every September. That brings a lot of people to our community and it continues to grow.
Q What are your challenges?
A I think they are the same challenges that any community has. As we continue to grow and expand northwest, how do we continue to keep our members strong and keep the incentives going and keep the growth going for our current businesses. These are the same issues that our Sixth Avenue businesses are facing and the industrial corridor is facing. We know growth is happening, we know things change. How do we continue to be a viable asset as a heart of the downtown? No matter how much we grow as a community, our downtown is still the heart of our community. It is still a civic and living center that people look to. It’s where the parades are, it’s where people go to get their services taken care of, it’s where retail happens.