Augusta, ME – June 10, 2010 - The Maine Development Foundation’s Downtown Center announced the addition of six communities to the recently launched Maine Downtown Network program.  The announcement was made last week at the 10th annual Maine Downtown Achievement Awards ceremony held during the Revitalizing Maine Communities conference in downtown Augusta.
 
Belfast, Brunswick, Damariscotta, Dover-Foxcroft, Machias, and Madawaska will now join the program’s inaugural communities announced last year:  Augusta, Bucksport, Farmington, Lisbon, Millinocket, Norway and Presque Isle to comprise the Maine Downtown Network.

“All 13 of these communities have authentic historic downtowns and adjacent neighborhoods with unique character and great potential,” announced Roxanne Eflin, Director of the Maine Downtown Center and Maine’s statewide coordinator with the National Trust Main Street Center.  “With the expansion of the Downtown Network this year combined with our nine existing Main Street Maine communities, we are now working in all 16 counties and from Sanford to Madawaska for the first time since the Maine Downtown Center opened in 1999.”
 
Participation in the Maine Downtown Network is an important beginning step toward applying the Main Street Four-Point Approach® to revitalize community and village centers, explained Ms. Eflin.  “Main Street at a lighter pace best describes the Downtown network, which was developed to help downtown leaders begin to apply best practices in Organization, Design, Promotion and Economic Restructuring,” Ms. Eflin stated.  “Many states nationwide have launched similar introductory programs like ours, with excellent results in preservation-based economic development.  The Network communities receive guidance, assistance and resources through the Maine Downtown Center and through our affiliation with the National Trust Main Street Center, valued at over $5,000 per community annually.  They also learn through networking with each other.”  Funding has been made possible through an annual allocation of Community Development Block Grant funding in partnership with the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.  The Maine Development Foundation’s Downtown Center also received a $10,000 one-time state appropriation from the Legislature this year (LD91), further enabling Downtown Network’s program expansion statewide. 

The Maine Downtown Center serves as the statewide coordinator for the National Main Street Program in Maine.  The Center is a proud program of the Maine Development Foundation, a 31 year old private non-profit membership organization, whose mission is to empower leaders, strengthen communities and guide public policy.  For more information on the Maine Downtown Center’s mission and programs and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street Program for downtown revitalization, please visit www.mdf.org or contact Roxanne Eflin, Maine Downtown Center Program Director, at 207.626.3117 or reflin@mdf.org.
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