Stephanie Swicker took the reins of the Durant Main Street program on May 28 and she is excited about moving the program forward and she says business runs in her family.
“I am born into entrepreneurship, so both sides of my family, my grandparents, had started various businesses and my parents have started various businesses,” Swicker said. “Me and my husband have started various businesses and so we actually had a store down here.
“I have a love for small business and a love for Main Street after experiencing that for the past eight years. Also, I have gotten involved with community development which I really loved and then finding resources for small businesses and so it just really kind of fit.”
She said the Durant Main Street program had hit a rough patch, especially since the pandemic.
“That was the little catalyst of knocking it down a bit which I think a lot of businesses felt and non-profits and things like that,” Swicker said. “It’s just been struggling since then. So much has changed since the pandemic. We are trying to find out what the businesses need and find out how we can attract people to the district down here. It’s just changed and so I think we’ve struggled or the program has struggled trying to catch back up and pivot to the new way of doing things.”
Swicker wants to see the Main Street district prosper.
“I know we need it very much,” she said. “We unfortunately lost a lot of our businesses that we’ve had down here. A lot of our boutiques and restaurants and just all the fun places and so we want to fill that back up with people, with businesses again.
“We want to start having our events. A lot of events were kind of wiped off. We want to try to re-institute some of the ones that we’ve all fell in love with and we’re trying to think of new and innovative ways to help get traffic downtown.” Main Street is planning events that will bring people to the downtown.
“We’ll have Colton’s Run downtown,” Swicker said. “We are going to have Oktoberfest on September 28, so that’s going to be a really big fun, exciting reason to be here. We had the car show down here. Though Main Street wasn’t a part of it this year, it was held in the downtown district and we were happy about that.
“Then, we’re hoping as a board, to plan out the rest of the year for events and some big special events that we can host to get people excited about downtown.”
She has some ideas to fill the vacant buildings.
“One thing that I’ve heard is that people who want to be in places down here don’t know how to get in contact with the business owner or the building owner and so that we will fix quickly as we want to get a list on our website of all of the spaces that are available and get the information to who they can contact to get in those spots,” Swicker said. “I think that will be one thing that will help make that an easier transition for people.”
Main Street is a national program.
“It was founded from the Historic Society and so it’s to keep the history intact,” Swicker said. “All of the beautiful old buildings and the culture that Durant has had, the history that it’s had. We want to preserve that and then too, we want to have a thriving downtown. They started the program because the mall was built and so everybody left all the small businesses and hung out at the mall and so Main Street was made to get people back down to the heart of the city.” By partnering with Durant Main Street, businesses are supporting the cause and the organization is here to promote all downtown businesses, according to Swicker. One of the goals is to make the downtown a pleasant place to visit. Durant Main Street was founded in 1997 and the downtown was established as a Historic District in 2004. Swicker said a partnership with Durant Main Street benefits everyone who is in the downtown district.
“You are supporting that cause and we know that it’s really important, not only for our community culture, but that we have a place that we go and hang out and that we can do some activities,” Swicker said. “We can enjoy time together as a family, but also it helps the whole community because it’s one of those top things that these big corporations look at when they’re deciding whether to move into a town or city or not. They’re looking at what is your life quality there. So, downtown is super important in attracting the right companies for the growth of Durant.”
The Durant Main Street had been without an office for awhile and is now in a small office at 317 W. Main St. next to Usher & Co.
Swicker hopes the office can move into the building on Market Square.
“The city owns the building and what we’re hoping we can work out is the city will let us have that and we have a grant that we’re going to try to file to be able to go in and revitalize the inside and use it as our Main Street headquarters and also as a welcome center,” she said.
Dancing with the Stars was one of the events Main Street once hosted and it had been scheduled for 2020 but was canceled because of COVID and has not been held since.
“We are definitely going to bring something like that back,” Swicker said. “I don’t know if Dancing with the Stars is the right fundraiser but something that definitely has that feel. So, kind of the same entertainment and a nice way to say thank you to the community with a party for everybody to look forward to. We don’t know what it will be yet.”
Main Street Board of Directors are: Ami Towne, Angela DeLong, Cheyhoma Dugger, Grace Rudolph, Janet Reed, Jessica Manning, Kara Kuykendall, Kathy Moore, Kendra Ibarra, Melisse Prentice, Melodee Terran, Shawna Dewald, Taylor Batton and Wava Keeling.
Executive Committee members are: Grace Rudolph, president; Melisse Prentice, president-elect; Ami Towne, secretary; Wava Keeling, treasurer, and Kendra Ibarra, past president.
Committee Chairs are: Jessica Manning, design; Kathy Moore, economic vitality; Melisse Prentice, organization, and Taylor Batton, promotions.
