MONROE — Main Street Monroe, Inc. has been designated as an accredited Main Street America program for meeting rigorous performance standards set by the National Main Street Center. Each year, the National Main Street Center and its partners announce the list of accredited Main Street America programs to recognize their exemplary commitment to preservation-based economic development and community revitalization through the Main Street Approach.

In 2019, Main Street America programs generated $4.93 billion in local reinvestment, helped open 5,310 net new businesses, generated 25,301 net new jobs, catalyzed the rehabilitation of 8,146 historic buildings and clocked 2.2 million volunteer hours.

Main Street Monroe’s performance is annually evaluated by Wisconsin Economic Development staff. This year Errin Welty, CEcD, EDFP, Downtown Development Program Manager oversaw the evaluations. WEDC works in partnership with the National Main Street Center to identify the local programs that meet 10 national performance standards. 

Evaluation criteria determines the communities that are building comprehensive and sustainable revitalization efforts and include standards such as fostering strong public-private partnerships, documenting programmatic progress and actively preserving historic buildings.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Main Street Monroe. Since its current executive director, Jordan Nordby, joined in 2015, it has been nationally accredited every year. Currently fewer than half the state’s programs are. Nordby attributes this to the broadening of the program. 

“So much of what we do takes place behind the scenes with businesses in a one on one capacity, but over the past five years we have also diversified the types of businesses downtown, the people we’re attracting to Monroe and increased the variety of our events. We’re proud to be nationally accredited again this year,” Nordby said.