Community Empowerment Grant 4th Quarter Community Spotlight: Main Street Brookfield
November 30, 2022 | Ben White
Missouri Main Street Connection’s Community Empowerment Grant (CEG) program continues to guide Main Street revitalization through its tailored programing. Currently, there are 16 community organizations receiving technical assistance through this program. The CEG program guides the development of a strong Main Street Board of Directors and programs while establishing strategies and implementation measures based on community feedback.
Brookfield is a community of just over 4,000 people in Linn County. Main Street Brookfield chose to make the most of their final CEG specialized service by pairing it with assistance from another grant, the USDA’s Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI) grant program. In addition, the community agreed to provide matching funds to bring branding and design services to Brookfield. This process, brought by the specialized service, allowed the community to come together, through input sessions, on what is important to the future of downtown and their community.
To facilitate the branding portion of the specialized service, Ben Muldrow of Arnett Muldrow and Associates, was brought in with his expertise and recommended a new brand scheme for Main Street Brookfield, the City of Brookfield, and other local organizations. Ben Muldrow’s process solicited the needs and wants of the community to provide a comprehensive and cohesive branding service that brought an identity to the community. Previous efforts were disjointed as logos and branding were completed at different times. This effort presents a united effort by local organizations towards the betterment of Brookfield.
Randy Wilson, Community Design Solutions, provided the design portion of the specialized service to Main Street Brookfield. Randy worked with two building owners on façade renderings to showcase the untapped potential of their properties. This helped visualize the potential for two key buildings downtown. The two building owners are eager to make improvements to their buildings. One of the building owners is in the early stages of implementing Randy’s recommendations. Another component of Randy’s deliverables provided during this specialized service was design-related recommendations including ordinance review, beautification, vibrancy amenities, façade improvements, and how to handle dilapidated buildings. As part of these recommendations, Randy provided a streetscape rendering.
Using this service, Main Street Brookfield was able to leverage Randy’s recommendations to establish a formal contract for services with the City of Brookfield that will be used to provide beautification upgrades. This service provided a road map for the City of Brookfield to provide funding for tangible efforts.
This service helped to bring unity and targeted short-term and long-term recommendations for downtown and the community. Through this service, this passionate community received direction from experts that provided implementation steps now and into the future.
If you are interested in revitalizing your downtown using the structured services and resources of the Community Empowerment Grant program, please reach out to Senior Program Specialist Ben White at ben@momainstreet.org for more information.
