Best of Siloam Springs

20 • Best of Siloam Springs Wednesday, March 27, 2019 Siloam Springs Herald-Leader By Renee Durham Main Street Siloam is doing more than just concentrating on Main Street. Kelsey Howard, Director of Main Street Siloam explained, "Not unique to this year, but every year for the past several years Siloam Springs has a pretty extraordinary number of business and building owners who are enthusiastically investing and re- investing in downtown. One of the ways I love seeing that materialize is through our main street building improvement program grant program." Main Street Siloam just last year was awarded almost $12,000 from state grant money they received, straight back into business and building owners to help catalyze that investment. "We have a pret- ty rigorous and very competitive grant application process, and we always have more people who want to do projects then we have money to give, but it always has such a significant impact so we have people who want to put everything from a fresh coat of paint to new branding and signage, new awnings, replacing windows so it can be something that can be a very obvious aesthetic improvement or critical structural improvements for historic buildings." e continued commitment from Si- loam Springs' relatively small main street and area of downtown for people to con- tinue every year to want to invest is a sign of great health. So it's continued growth, not just isolated growth in the last year. "Last January, the city started a huge infrastructure project on Broadway Street creating the bump-outs, which significantly shrunk the crosswalk length making it much safer for pedestrians to get from one side of the street to the other. en just the beautification of Broadway Street really inspired a lot more private investment so that is something really special about our town," Kelsey said. "How the City, Chamber and Main Street continue to invest time, energy and money into down town and it just results in a flourishing of down- town businesses and quality of life for the whole town." Kelsey hopes it's something everyone is really proud of, their historic downtown; because there's nowhere else in the world that's like it. ere are few empty storefronts along Main Street, and none are dilapidated or run down. Siloam Springs is clearly a town where people care about their surroundings and the appearance of the community. e ones that are in need of TLC are targets of improvement for people who really care about improving the whole city. "If you have a healthy downtown, you have a healthy city. It's so good for community pride; it's so good for preserving our culture, and our history and our stories," Kelsey says. "It's about economic development and better innovation, better jobs and better com- Main Street Siloam "If you have a healthy downtown, you have a healthy city. It's so good for community pride; it's so good for preserving our culture, and our history and our stories..."

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