BOOMS Tracking – Maximizing Your Historic Commercial District by Understanding its Current Occupancy
Taylor Moore and John Vietmeier | June 25, 2025
Information is power! In the Main Street world there is a lot of information to record, update, and share—especially when it comes to a business and building inventory. When time runs short for a Main Street program’s staff or volunteers, no matter the size or accreditation status, maintaining a business and building inventory can slide to the bottom of the priority list. This puts the Main Street program in a bad position as they are not making decisions with the best and most current information about their historic commercial districts. That is where Main Street America’s Building Opportunities on Main Street (BOOMS) Tracker come into play as a property inventory tool designed for local Main Street leaders that allows Main Streets and cities to better understand their historic commercial district and its current occupancy.
What is the Building Opportunities on Main Street (BOOMS) Tracker?
Released in April of 2024, the BOOMS tracker is a property inventory tool to identify, track, and promote potential business opportunities within historic commercial districts and support economic vitality and historic preservation in Main Street communities. It replaces the business and building excel sheets and databases that Main Streets currently use, which can be too cumbersome to keep updated, with a smartphone and internet connected device friendly application. Since its release, local Main Street committee members have hit the streets gathering information onsite at occupied or vacant buildings or parcels including architectural features, stories, size, history, occupancy, business mix, stories, size, and more. The information collected allows Main Streets and the cities to understand their business mix better and make informed decisions about current occupancies and vacancies when recruiting new businesses.
How the Building Opportunities on Main Street (BOOMS) Tracker works.
The BOOMS Tracker lists all parcels within a designated district in a comprehensive database that Main Street volunteers can input relevant data such as occupancy, stories, use, square footage, history, National Register listing status, and more. Some of the information that you can record includes basic inputs from local tax and municipal records. Having a good relationship with the property owners and occupants in the district can assist in gathering other information not found onsite or in publicly available documents. While onsite, Main Street volunteers can even take pictures and upload them instantly. One community within the Main Street network took an innovative multi-phase approach that utilized Google Street View to enter each property into the BOOMS tracker during phase one then walked the district to get to know tenants and update information that was entered via Google Street View as it is about 8 months behind. (Main Street America, Diving into the BOOMS Tracker With Brian Kramer at Hilltop Campus Village)
Once the information is entered into the BOOMS tracker, it only needs to be updated periodically as new information emerges such as a business opens in a vacancy or a façade is renovated on an occupied building.
Using the information recorded in the Building Opportunities on Main Street (BOOMS) Tracker.
Main Streets and cities can utilize the information recorded within the BOOMS tracker to assess vacancies, understand the economic vitality of the area, and inform business retention and recruitment efforts. First floor and upper story vacancies can be looked at alongside market data to determine what type of business should occupy a first-floor vacancy that addresses a market demand as well as what an upper story unit should become. Right now, there are many conversations about the housing shortage in America and Main Streets are looking at their upper stories as potential solutions to increase density and vibrancy while adding to the housing supply. (Main Street America, A Housing Guidebook for Local Leaders) However, Taylor Moore, in his experience as the Historic Preservation Planner for the City of St. Charles, shares that, “converting upper story units into housing isn’t the only option and communities should consult their market data to see if short term rentals or office space is better suited for that space. In St. Charles we learned that because of the tourist and festival goer’s we attract; it was more advantageous to prioritize converting upper story units into short term rentals.” Housing is definitely important for every community in America right now but just as Taylor points out, it is more important to satisfy what your community needs.
Understanding the economic vitality of your historic commercial district and surrounding area becomes easier when you know your occupancies and vacancies and allows you to position your Main Street as a mixed-use district that has openings for new residential developers and business owners. The BOOMS tracker provides a map of existing residential or commercial uses that can assist a Main Street with their overall development plans. Through information and action Main Street programs become advocates and guides for positive change, instead of allowing random change that could hurt the district.
This plays into business retention and recruitment strategies which require accurate and current information. Without it, a Main Street could not help a business owner who is looking to expand or relocate to a space that better suits their needs and clients find the right property. With it, Main Street can be the partner business owners need to find that perfect property in the historic district. Additionally, with the historical information you can record in BOOMS, Main Streets can provide prospective business’ historical information, stories, and information, such as if the building was built by a famous architect to guide how they will let the buildings’ past influence their business and/or décor. (An example of this is Truffle & Sorrel in Sedalia and Jude’s Café in Lebanon.)
During the Main Street Now Conference in Boston, MMSC staff talked about the concept of “Retail follows rooftops,” with our Immediate Past Board President, Bob Lewis, an urban planner and economist. With historic preservation in mind, this can be a great advantage when considering where to break ground for new developments. The value of information for Main Street cannot be understated. Will you join MMSC and other Main Street communities in Missouri and across the nation in using the BOOMS tracker to complete an inventory of Main Street?
