MVRP Seeks Help From Business Owners On Main Street Project

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Revitalization Project (MVRP) is trying to organize local business owners in exploring options for a downtown streetscape beautification effort that would improve the curb appeal of the business district. A meeting to start the discussion on this subject will be held on Thursday, August 28 at 7:00 p.m. at the Old Logandale School. All community members are invited to attend.
In attendance at the meeting will be David Foster, Business Programs Specialist for USDA Rural Development Program. Foster was invited to discuss possible sources of funding for a community streetscape improvement effort on Overton’s main street.
MVRP member Ron Casey, who is leading the committee in the streetscape effort, said that there are plenty of sources of grant funding out there available to the community for these types of purposes.
Casey served as the President of a Chamber of Commerce in the northern California town of Gualala where residents launched a similar effort to revitalize a commercial district along the Pacific Coastal Highway running through the middle of their community.
“There were a lot of similarities between Gualala and the Moapa Valley,” Casey said. “It was a small town, similar in population. Its main road was a state highway. And they had the same feelings about being a small town in a larger county that tended to get passed over on funding. Despite that, though, they still were able to get $3 million to fund their project.”
Casey said that his first agenda item is to have a discussion with residents and downtown business owners on what the goals should be for the project. He said that it could start simply with improving the main street, adding planter boxes and benches with shade structures. Or it could include creating a themed look to the business facades in the commercial district, and finding grant funding to assist business owners in those improvements. Either way, Casey believes that downtown Overton is long overdue for a change.
“With water levels dropping and services reduced at Lake Mead, local businesses have been hit hard in the last few years,” Casey said. “The clientele from boaters just doesn’t exist the way it did and it probably won’t again. So we can’t just keep doing business as usual. This community needs to re-invent itself so that we can go outside our area and market all that we have to offer. I think that we can get federal funding to help with that.”
But Casey said that this is not something that he, or any other single person, can do alone. It will take a community effort, he said. Casey said that he had personally visited most of the business owners in Overton to introduce them to the project. Most voiced enthusiastic support, he said. Casey also sent out an invitation to each one of the business encouraging them to come to the meeting and join in the effort.
“We especially need the local business owners to be involved in this,” Casey said. “That’s is because they are the property owners along the main street. We are going to need their say-so in all of this. We need their buy-in. I hope that they will come to the meeting and be involved.”