Main Street Program Leads a Town-Center Revival
Colorado City has the annual Frontier Junktique Festival to draw visitors to its old downtown and more than 75 antique booths and other vendors. Comanche hosts “Comanche Celebrates” each spring and other events to raise money for façade and sign grants.
Both are designated Texas Main Street communities, as are Stamford and San Angelo. The state-coordinated program helps communities with organization, economic restructuring, promotion and design.
In another nod to its heritage, Comanche is restoring the Frisco Depot, a 1912 brick passenger depot that Preservation Texas in 2007 put on its “most endangered list.” Since joining the Main Street program in 2002, Comanche has seen $6.5 million in new downtown investment, says program coordinator Jacci Stewart.
San Angelo is among 12 urban Main Street members in communities with 50,000 or more people. “We made a decision the best thing for us to focus on to make a difference is to create an environment for downtown living to occur,” says Del Velasquez, San Angelos’s Main Street executive director. “We are really working toward that.”
Texas Tech University landscape architecture students are working on streetscape design, and San Angelo Main Street is applying for grants to help owners renovate older buildings into residential space.
The Sheep Spectacular, a signature San Angelo event, is part fund-raiser, part public art installation. So far, downtown is home to 18 of the one-of-a-kind sheep. Main Street sells the fiberglass shells to raise money; patrons then commission artists to complete them.
