Downtown Revival Is A Grind, But Faribault Showed It Can Be Done
Main Street programs across the Midwest have been running for decades, and most of them follow the same playbook. You get a nonprofit or civic group organized, secure a grants administrator certification from Main Street America, and then spend years pushing facade improvements, marketing events, and design standards. Faribault was no different on paper. What made it was how they actually executed it on the ground. The Faribault Downtown Development Authority took a fairly standard approach but concentrated on three things that usually get half-hearted treatment elsewhere: facade improvement grants with teeth, consistent business recruitment, and an annual event that actually draws traffic instead of just being another festival nobody attends. They structured their grant program to require matching funds, which weeds out property owners who are only going to do the minimum. That single requirement cut down on low-effort applications significantly. I worked on a similar project in a twin cities suburb not long ago, and one thing I ran into repeatedly was the issue of vacant ground floor retail spaces sitting above occupied apartments. Property owners don't want to invest in buildouts when the tenancy situation is uncertain. The workaround I found was to structure temporary pop-up lease programs where local artisans and food vendors could take short-term space at reduced rates, which kept the storefronts active and gave the street a lived-in feel. Faribault used something close to this with their downtown market events, and it mattered more than people give it credit for.
Another detail most people skip over is the timeline. Main Street revitalization isn't a two-year project. The Faribault effort started ramping up around 2015 and you can still see the compound effect of that continued investment today. That nine-year stretch includes periods where funding tightened and progress slowed. What kept it moving was having a professional grants administrator on staff rather than relying on volunteers or part-time help. That distinction alone accounts for a lot of why some programs stall and others persist. The design side deserves mention too. Faribault invested in streetscape improvements like wider sidewalks, better lighting, and streetside seating rather than just painting buildings and hoping foot traffic would follow. Physical infrastructure changes signal to business owners that the city takes the downtown seriously. It also changes how people move through the space. When you widen a sidewalk by even two feet, retail activity tends to shift toward the improved areas within a season. A common failure point I see in these efforts is over-reliance on events. A downtown festival might bring in thousands for one weekend, but it doesn't replace the need for permanent tenancy growth. Faribault avoided this trap by treating events as supplementary revenue while focusing their grant dollars and staff time on retaining existing businesses and attracting new ones. That prioritization is easier to say than do, since event fundraising is more visible and politically rewarding, but it made a real difference in the durability of their results.
Property values in the downtown assessment district increased steadily after the initial wave of facade improvements. New restaurants and shops opened on what had been vacant corridors. The downtown library renovation and the riverfront trail connection gave visitors a reason to stay longer than a quick shopping stop. None of this happened because of a single master plan. It happened through incremental funding cycles, repeated grant applications, and the kind of patience most municipal projects don't offer. If you're looking at a similar effort in your own town, the practical takeaway is that grant capacity matters more than grand vision. A well-staffed downtown development organization that applies for state and federal funding consistently will outperform a volunteer committee with a beautiful downtown brochure every time. The granular work of compliance documentation, progress reporting, and matching fund verification is what separates programs that wind down from the ones that carry forward.
Get the Full Details
