Bradford Main Street Program Receives National Accreditation

The City of Bradford’s Main Street program has again 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™

 

“We are proud to acknowledge this year’s 889 nationally accredited Main Street America programs that have worked tirelessly to advance economic vitality and quality of life in their downtowns and commercial districts,” said Patrice Frey, President & CEO of the National Main Street Center. “During an incredibly challenging year, these programs demonstrated the power of the Main Street movement to drive impressive local recovery efforts, champion small businesses, and foster vibrant downtown districts.  I am inspired by their hard work and confident that these accredited communities will continue to help their downtowns flourish in the next stages of recovery.”

 

In 2020, Main Street America programs generated $4.14 billion in local reinvestment, helped open 4,356 new businesses, generated 14,988 net new jobs, catalyzed the rehabilitation of 8,488 historic buildings and clocked 983,702 volunteer hours.

 

The Bradford Main Street’s performance is annually evaluated by the Pennsylvania Downtown Center, which works in partnership with the National Main Street Center to identify the local programs that meet ten 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.

 

“We have many wonderful businesses located within our city’s historic district,” said Community/Economic Development Manager and Main Street Manager, Anita Dolan.  “We are also fortunate to have building owners who are making significant investments in the buildings.  2020 was a very difficult year and these are not easy times for brick and mortar businesses, especially in rural Pennsylvania, but we, as a Main Street program, work very hard using the Main Street Four Point Approach to promote and improve our downtown business district.”

 

Since Bradford’s Main Street program began, its façade improvement program has received approximately $367,000 in grant funding from DCED.  That funding has leveraged more than $1,000,000.00 in exterior building improvements to downtown buildings.  In 2020, four new businesses opened within the historic district and more than $876,086 of private investment dollars were invested in building improvements.  Total investment within the historic district (public and private) was $3 million.

 

The Main Street program is gearing up for a busy 2021.  Construction for Phase II (Festival Way to E. Main Street) of a multi-phased streetscape improvement project is almost complete and engineering design is underway for improvements to be made to Veterans’ Square, Chambers Street and Chestnut Street.