Have you heard the expression, “New Year. Same Me?”
I’m not positive, but it seems likely that it came about after years of personal resolutions being broken by about this time in the year. Personally, I’ve been using it because I’m still consuming too much caffeine and too much sugar and asking my parents mundane cooking questions over the phone. And I didn’t ease off any at any at the beginning of January. But as of today, there are 351 days left in 2023. So, if you can make an ironic motto un-ironic again, Main Street is embracing a new year and same us in earnest. And we started working on it in early October this last fall.
Mostly recovered from Cheese Days but not quite and not quite geared up for the holidays, we held a strategic planning meeting. It was facilitated by Wisconsin Economic Development staff and was attended by long time volunteers, current board members, and founding members who created the organization back in 2005.
On tap for that day was recapping our previous plan from 2017 — recognizing accomplishments and changes to downtown — examining our 2022 work plans and budget allocations so we can answer what are we actively prioritizing now, beginning to answer where do we want to be in 5, 10, 20 years, goals, and priorities, and, most importantly, what is the strategic implementation — how do we get there? And how will we know when we make it?
Thanks to cell phone data, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation can also provide visitor profiles going back to 2019. As we move forward, they’ll be able to pull data from any specific time, including when events are occurring. Currently, we have just over 22,000 unique visitors per week in the downtown district. There is, of course, a wide range, given the nature of seasons and tourism. The greatest number of visitors are from south and west of Monroe. It is evenly split between men and women, but family households, younger individuals, and older adults are the core visitors. With all of that in mind, the group reviewed what had been addressed in 2017.
In reviewing our last Comprehensive Plan, we were reminded of our attention to working on connecting the city to agri-tourism business, increasing resources for aging and growing populations, promoting succession planning for businesses and community leaders, and creating improved public spaces throughout the downtown for increased gathering.
Recent program achievements have included kickstarting a mural program, diversifying out event calendar, expanding civic and community partnerships, focused business support (especially with COVID), creating an endowment, and our Project Pop Up program. Specifically, in the last five years, Main Street Monroe has netted 10 new businesses, 37 net new jobs, 72 property rehab projects, $5.2 million dollars in private investments, and we have had a more than respectable average of 1,500 annual volunteer hours.
If you have followed the process of completing any comprehensive plans with the city or county or a regional entity, you are likely to have heard it referred to as a “living document.” Not something to be marked as completed and allowed to collect dust on a shelf, but something to be referenced and adapted to continue taking advantage of emerging opportunities and addressing challenges to move forward.
There are many components to our strategic plan and some of the most adventurous — on visitor experience, residential, supportive environment, and collaborative efforts — may not fully come to fruition until 2028, but I’ll be sharing with you over the next few months the specifics of our plan and our visions and priorities for continuing to improve downtown Monroe as the focal point of the community and providing appropriate assistance to all a part of it.
New Year. Same us.
— Jordan Nordby is the executive director for Main Street Monroe. He can be reached at MonroeMainStreet@tds.net. Complete details on Main Street Monroe and its efforts can be found at mainstreetmonroe.org.
