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Kentucky Main Street Communities Contribute Nearly $110M to Economy in 2016

Kentucky Heritage Council

The Kentucky Main Street Program said 39 participating communities reported a cumulative investment of nearly 110 million dollars in downtown districts in 2016.

The statistics were announced at a meeting last week in Frankfort. State Coordinator and Site Manager Kitty Dougoud says $75,070,029 came from private investments matched by $30,920,494 in public improvements. The total is up significantly from the 76 million dollars reported in 2015. Dougoud said the average size of a Kentucky main street community is 8,000 people and the program’s role is to improve the quality of life in those communities.

“Our goal is to rehab and renovate and reuse historic buildings and then get businesses in those buildings and then create jobs whether those be fulltime or part time and enhance the vitality of downtown and contribute back to the economic base of the community and make it a vital place and change the quality of life for people,” said Dougoud.

Dougoud also announced that 29 communities have achieved accreditation for 2017, meeting all of the 10 performance standards by both Kentucky Main Street and the National Main Street Center. Cities include Cadiz, Dawson Springs, Henderson, Murray, and Paducah.

 

Kentucky Main Street communities also reported 1,452 new jobs in Main Street districts, 234 new businesses, 81 new housing units downtown, and 198 rehabilitation projects completed.

 

Ebony Clark is a student at Murray State University majoring in computer science. She was born in Brownsville, Tennessee. Ebony has served as a reporter for 4-H congress in Nashville, TN where she spoke with several state leaders and congressmen. Ebony enjoys writing poetry and spoken word and competed in Tennessee's Poetry Out Loud competition hosted by the arts council in Nashville,TN.
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