What Main Street Designation Means For McMinnville

This week Livingston became the latest Main Street community in Tennessee. Meantime, Main Street McMinnville celebrated 20 years since becoming a member of the Main Street program.

The Main Street Program provides communities resources to revitalize and manage their downtown areas. Main Street McMinnville Executive Director Teresa Prober said gaining that accreditation is invaluable.

“The resources that Main Street provides is enormous,” Prober said. “Everywhere from pilot programs to working with your businesses. They come in to help train your board members, especially if you are just starting out.”

Prober said the designation was a key component to creating the city’s master plan. Having that master plan allowed McMinnville to apply for grants to help improve infrastructure.

“That master plan is important, because it is your road map of how you are going to do your physical infrastructure improvements and then your aesthetic improvements for years to come,” Prober said. “Being that national Main Street and having that master plan allows us to apply for TDOT grants. What you saw McMinnville 20 years ago is not what you see today.”

McMinnville, Cookeville and Livingston are the only three Main Street communities in the Upper Cumberland. Prober said other Main Street members communicate and share ideas to help improve each city.

“You do learn from each other,” Prober said. “As a director of a main street, you have to do four quarterly training sessions, where you get together with other Tennessee Main Street directors and bounce ideas off each other. Then there are the daily conversations with each other about how we are handling a certain situation.”