Revitalize Your Downtown

04 Jun Revitalize Your Downtown

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Do you need actionable ideas to breathe life into your downtown? My recent trip to Rapid City, South Dakota turned out to be a work study experience I hadn’t anticipated!

Our family set-up camp in Rapid City for four days, as it was central to nearly everything we wanted to see and do. I hadn’t really thought about what we might do in Rapid because we had big plans to go everywhere else! Hot Springs, Custer, Keystone, Deadwood and more. Our trip was already going to be jam-packed full of fun.

As it turns out, we still had a couple mornings and late evenings that we wanted to fill, so we ventured out.

It all started with me not wanting to make breakfast one morning so I searched for the best breakfast place in Rapid with the best and most reviews. Up popped Tally’s Silver Spoon in the downtown area with a score of 5 and nearly 600 reviews! You can’t beat that! I also recalled that they had an Art Alley that I wanted to see, so off we drove to downtown.

As we pulled into their downtown district the first thing that caught our eye were these incredible bronze president statues! So we all hop out of the car, stuffed animals from Bear Country U.S.A. in hand, and start our tour around every block to get photos with each and every president!

Then we head down to the awe-inspiring Art Alley and take in the messages of these talented artists who have transformed what used to be a grungy alleyway. Then we were off to grab breakfast, all in a walkable downtown space.

Turns out the chef at Tally’s studied in France and Italy and the menu featured many unique dishes that were fantastic!

After breakfast we headed out to get more pictures with presidents and we stumbled upon some great shopping. I wasn’t really equipped to take advantage of it with 3 kids, but knew I needed to come back sometime and explore! Then we happened upon an incredible downtown Main Street Square! It was magnificent!

The kids were instantly drawn to the water features. I loved the ambiance, many umbrella’d tables, great architecture, turf with no dirt, mud or unsightly weeds, a performing stage complete with great lighting, restaurants with outdoor seating (including an ice cream shop), a parking garage next door, and it was complete with a cute little train for the kids.

It wasn’t too long after we arrived that I began to think…heck, we could spend all day here. THIS is a place I want to be, morning, noon and night!!

Despite it being a mid-week day at about 10am in May, there were still a handful of people there. I could only imagine how bustling it would be on a warm day/night at peak tourism season. I could tell the locals loved hanging out there and people of all ages would converge in the same space.

As we went to leave, we saw notices that the street near the area would be closed that evening for ‘Summer Nights’. We were intrigued. So after spending a whole day on the road visiting all the great sights, we came back to Rapid around 8:30pm and just had to check it out.

We drove to the area and there were 2 separate concerts going on in 2 places downtown and there had to be at least 500-750 people (and we arrived late!) Admission = FREE!! Even better in my book!!

The main stage featured up-and-coming artist, Brandon Jones, and the streets were full of people of all ages dancing, drinking and conversing. This was the first in a series of Summer events that would happen every Thursday throughout the summer. What a great way to activate your downtown!

Even though you may be thinking, sure…a big city can easily do this, it has actually only been a few years that Rapid City has seen this revitalization. Although Rapid City boasts a population of nearly 70,000, they also struggled with how to attract people to their downtown. Tourists didn’t have a reason to go downtown. The businesses struggled and they weren’t capturing even a small percentage of the tourism dollars they were capable of securing.

One of the foremost leaders in downtown revitalization is Roger Brooks and the Destination Development Association. I could see many of his recommendations at work in this great downtown so I wasn’t surprised that his article came up when I googled ‘downtown revitalization tips!’

This article from Roger details the struggles that Rapid City was facing just a few years ago and how an investment in their downtown has been transformational for their businesses and community as a whole. https://www.destinationdevelopment.org/articles/what-comes-first-when-revitalizing-downtown-and-what-is-place-making

Here are a few of the photos I captured while hanging out in this incredible space and the takeaways that your community should consider as you look to revitalize your downtown!

To start things off, I thought this downtown sign was a great reminder of the impact of spending money locally.

It’s true…spend your dollars on Main Street instead of big box stores and online,and that small shift alone can make a tremendous impact on your community!

1. Artwork and Creative Spaces