City of Newnan Website

Linda Bridges-Kee

The Business Development Department is made up of two parts: Business Development and Main Street Newnan.

The Business Development Department is directly concerned with three areas of development: 1) Business retention, helping businesses stay in touch with their market 2) Business expansion, creating new jobs, and 3) business development, filling existing space with new businesses. We take an active roll in working with all of our businesses regardless of size. Our department meets with new retailers and restaurants including the big boxes. We explain the market to them and the fact that advertising in the surrounding counties is just as important as here in Coweta. We encourage them to become a friend of downtown through contributions to the Main Street program and participating in local events creating a "bond" with the community.

Finally, our department is especially concerned with maintaining the economic development of downtown. Big box is not an enemy of downtown. We tell our merchants that they do not sell anything that you can not buy somewhere else. What they do sell is service. We continue to try and create a destination shopping experience in our downtown. We have completed a gorgeous streetscape program downtown utilizing transportation enhancement funding. It is a slow and constant process. It flows with the economy. When the economy is down, retail is down and that affects the "mom and pop" retailers the hardest. Downtown must be viewed as a shopping mall to survive and it can only be done with the support of local officials, staff, and most importantly merchants and citizens. It takes time and effort but downtown is truly the "heart of the city".

The Main Street Approach to Downtown Revitalization
The need to revitalize downtown commercial districts is clear. A healthy, viable downtown is crucial to the heritage, economic health and civic pride of the entire community for several reasons. A healthy downtown also means a stronger tax base; long-term revitalization establishes capable business that use public services and provide tax revenues for the community. A revitalized downtown increases the community’s options for goods and services, whether for basic staples like clothing, food and professional services or for less traditional functions such as housing or entertainment. Finally, revitalized downtowns are symbols of community caring and high quality of life, factors that influence corporate decisions to locate to a community.

The Main Street Approach
The Main Street approach to downtown revitalization is based on four points:
Design involves improving the downtown’s image by enhancing its physical appearance-not just the buildings, but also that of streetlights, window displays, parking areas, signs, sidewalks, and all other elements that convey a visual message about the downtown and what it has to offer.
Organization means cooperation among the groups that play roles in the downtown. All of the following have a stake in the economic viability of the downtown: Bankers, property owners, city and county officials, merchants, professionals, Chamber of Commerce, industries, civic groups, historical societies, schools, residents, real estate agents, local media and more.
Promotion involves marketing the downtown’s unique characteristics to shoppers, investors, new businesses, tourists and others.
Economic Restructuring means strengthening the existing economic base of the downtown while diversifying it. Activities include recruiting new businesses, converting unused space into productive property and helping existing downtown business expand. The key to the success of the Main Street approach is its comprehensive nature.

Identifying the Participants
The local Main Street program must involve groups and individuals throughout the community in order to be successful. Downtown revitalization requires the participation and commitment of a broad-based coalition of public and private groups: businesses, civic groups, local government, financial institutions, and many others. It also involves mobilizing a large number of volunteers to implement activities.

Different groups have different interests in the downtown. While each may have a particular focus, all groups ultimately share the common goal of revitalizing the commercial district. By involving a broad range of constituents in the process, the downtown program can help each group realize that this common goal exists and the cooperation is essential for successful revitalization.

History, character and people are a community's strengths! Each community is unique, and each downtown has special characteristics that set it apart from all others. By creating a strong revitalization effort based on the downtown’s unique heritage, each local Main Street program creates on organizational structure that builds on its own specific opportunities. In this way, the Main Street program is adaptable.

The Main Street program was begun by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1980, and is housed in Washington, D.C. Newnan is one of the 36 Georgia Main Street cities. The Georgia Main Street program is housed in the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism in Atlanta.

Our Newnan Main Street programs has been quite successful, with $1.2 million reinvested last year through rehabilitations and improvements, over 62 new jobs created downtown. It is the broad-based support that makes these achievements possible. The Newnan Main Street program is a public-private partnership, deriving its funds from the City of Newnan and from membership dues. All funds are generated at a local level. We need involvement from businesses to continue our progress.

The Main Street Newnan program is overseen by the Downtown Development Authority. The Authority is comprised of seven members including: Mayor Keith Brady, Martha Anne Parks, Chairman, Sam Edwards, Rochelle Norred, Ray DuBose, Graylin Ward and one unoccupied seat. The authority meets the second Tuesday of each month in the upstairs conference room at City Hall at 8 a.m.