Lavonia Main St. Program Receives National Accreditation

Lavonia Main Street has been named an accredited National Main Street Program.

“This is such an  honor to be receiving this recognition,” said Lavonia Main Street Manager and Lavonia Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Marie Morse. “In the past year, Lavonia has been recognized for a Downtown Development Design Award for the Historic Depot, as well as national innovative and historic preservation awards.”

Morse said the Lavonia program received the designation for meeting the Commercial District Revitalization Performance Standards set by the National Main Street Center, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Morse said the mission of the Lavonia Main Street program is to create, implement and evaluate a systematic plan of work specifically designed to stimulate and sustain downtown economic growth and viability, protect and preserve our historic resources and downtown character, and enhance the overall quality of life for the citizens of Lavonia.

“During the past year, Lavonia Main Street has worked hard to provide quality entertainment with plays, art shows, downtown concerts, historic walking and depot tours, numerous seasonal events and a productive and thriving Farmers Market,” Morse said. “Historic Preservation has had a strong presence, not only for design purposes, but for downtown economic restructuring. Several businesses have been able to benefit from façade grants. New downtown banners, Christmas decorations and additions to Lavonia Memorial Park have also been completed during the past year.”

The National Main Street Center works with the Georgia Downtown Association each year to evaluate Lavonia Main Street and other Main Street programs in the state on whether they meet ten different performance standards.

These standards set the benchmarks for measuring an individual Main Street program’s application of the Main Street Four Point Approach to commercial district revitalization.

Evaluation criteria determines the communities that are building comprehensive and sustainable revitalization efforts and include standards such as fostering strong public-private partnerships, securing an operating budget, tracking programmatic progress and actively preserving historic buildings.