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 Emporia Main Street Calendar of Events 

January 4th

Board Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office.

January 7th

Granada Bridal and Prom Expo

noon in the Granada Theatre.

January 11th

Promotions Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office

Design Meeting

noon in the Emporia Main Street office

January 18th

Board Meeting

8:00 a.m. in the Emporia Main Street office

 January 12-13

Kansas Main Street Quarterly Training- El Dorado

April 1-4

National Main Street Conference- Baltimore, MD

April 13-15

Glass Blown Open Disc Golf Tournament by Dynamic Discs

April 19-20

Kansas Main Street Quarterly Training, Dodge City

April 21

The Taste

Civic Auditorium

May 19

Downtown Car Show by the Flatland Cruisers

June 2

The Dirty Kanza

June 9th

Symphony in the Flint Hills

  
Do you have an upcoming event for your business or organization?  Let Emporia Main Street  know and we may include it on our upcoming calendars! 

Benefactors 

The City of Emporia

Lyon County

Bobby D's BBQ

Caribbean Sun Tanning

CoreFirst Bank & Trust

The Emporia Gazette

ESB Financial

Emporia's Radio

StationsKVOE, 104.9, Country 101.7

Longbine Auto Plaza

Roberts Blue Barnett Funeral Home

T2 Verizon Wireless

AKA Marketing/The Sports Fan

Amanda's Bakery

Applebee's

Ash, LLC.

Atherton & Huth Attorney at Law

Barden & Thompson

Bath Expressions

Bennett Dental Group

Best Western Hospitality House

Black Heart Cherry

Brown's Shoe Fit Co.

C & J Woodworks

Cable One

Cable One Advertising

Capitol Federal

Cassell Insurance

Chester Press, Inc.

Clark Carpet & Tile

Coffelt Sign Co. 

Commercial Street Diner

Complete Works

Country Mart/Price Chopper

Dan's Hands

Dorsey & Wise Family Eye Care

Douglas Chiropractic Center

Dynamic Disks

Emporia Chamber of Commerce

Emporia State Federal Credit Union

ESU Memorial Union

E-Town Solutions

First Community Bank

Flint Hills Eye Care Associates

Flint Hills Lanes

Flint Hills Music

Flint Hills Tech College

Flint Hills Mall

Forget Me Not Productions

Four Seasons Apartments

Furniture Loft

Genesis Health Club

George Groh & Sons

Gerald Schumann Electric

Glendo

Granada Coffee Company

Granada Plaza & Lofts

Graves Drug Store

Hair Krafters

Helbert & Allemang Attorney's at Law

High Gear Cyclery

Hornet Residential

IM Design Group

Inno-Vest Corporation

Java Cat 5

Jimmy John's

Kansas Radio 96.1 The Wave

Kari's Diamonds by Design

KISS 103.1

Krueger & Williams Law Office

L & L Pets

Little Acorns

Little Caesers Pizza

Lyon County State Bank

Lyon County Title

Marion National Bank

Mark II Lumber

Mathis Physical Therapy

McDonald's on 6th Ave.

McKinzie Pest Control

Menu Foods Midwest Corp.

Midas Touch Golden Tans

Modern Air Conditioning

Muckenthaler, Inc.

Nature's Paradise

Navrat's Office Products

Pizza Ranch

Plum Bazaar

Poehler Mercantile

Pool & Wright

Prairie Sage Apartments

Prairie Land Partners

Pro Cuts

Pyramid Pizza

Redi Upholstry

Redline Trucking

Ru Yi

Sauder Custom Fabrication

Scheller's Lawn & Landscape

Simmons Pet Food

SS Graham Insurance Agency

Stanley Jewelry

Studio 11

Subway

Sunflower Gymnastics

Symmonds & Symmonds Attorney at Law

The Help Desk

The Henrikson Team

The Medicine Shoppe

The Sweet Granada

The Villiger

The White Rose Inn

Thompson Auto Repair

Toso Appraisal Service

Total Technology, LLC

Town Crier Bookstore

Town Royal

Water's True Value

Westar Energy

Wheat State Pizza

Williams Automotive

 Big Brothers Big Sisters

Community Theatre of Emporia

Corner House

Emporia Arts Council

Emporia Farmer's Market

Emporia Granada Theatre Alliance

Emporia High School Future Business Leaders of America

Emporia Public Library

ESU Foundation

Small Business Development Center

First Presbyterian Church

Flint Hills Optimists Club

Jayhawk Area Council (Scouts)

Lyon County Historical Society

National Teachers Hall of Fame

Plumb Place

The United Way 

Boyzen Bunny Fiber Arts- Tracey Graham

Energy Innovators

Family Jewels-

Leticia Rust

Gold Canyon Candle- Stephanie Morgan

Green Door Recycling- Amy Becker

Independant Longaberger Consultant- Judith Dieker

Interdependent Web- Ben Stallings

Joe the Furniture Doctor- Joe Kurzen

Kynda Kreative- Amanda Mendoza

Mary Kay- Brenda Braynard

Pampered Chef- Chelsea Gerleman

Patti Cakes- Patti Lipson

Paula's Creations

Paula Roper

Premier Designs Jewelry- Nikki Simmons

RossTography

Mike Ross

Scentsy- Deann Rose

Stampin-Up

Darcy Johnson

Tastefully Simple- Vanessa Apodaca 

Anne Strobel

Brad Harzman

Dale and Carolyn Davis

Erin Woods

Fred and Patricia Gilligan

Julie Johnson

Kayla Oney

Mark & Amy McAnarney

Mary & Tim Helmer

Matt & Val Zimmerman

Pam & Fred Stephenson

Peggy Mast

Rob Gilligan

Sue Blechl

Tyler and Melanie Curtis

Victoria Partridge 

Emporia Main Street E- Newsletter

To sign up for tickets: CLICK HERE!

Looking for a way to advertise your business to hundreds of youth and their families coming to downtown Emporia this January?

Can you spare some volunteer hours to help "spot" athletes on different aparatus (must be able bodied)?

Would you like the chance to view world class gymnastic athletes compete in Emporia?

Contact Stacie or David at Sunflower Gymnastics!

622 Merchant Street in downtown Emporia.

www.sunflowergym.com

sunflowergym@yahoo.com

Phone: 340-0831

The tournament will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 14th at the Civic Auditorium in downtown Emporia!   

For more information on the Conference: CLICK HERE!

Want more information?  Click HERE!

The Start Your Own Business Class is a joint effort between Flint Hills Technical College, the Small Business Development Center at Emporia State University and Emporia Main Street.  Classes run from February 14th through March 15th. For more information on the class CLICK HERE! 

Ready for IMPACT! 

 A look at Emporia Main Street, by the numbers...

At Emporia Main Street, we produce documents on a quarterly basis for Kansas Main Street with the highly creative name "Quarterly Reports".  The same people that named the Pentagon and the Oval Office must have developed the name...  But, Quarterly Reports serve a very important purpose: they tell us what is and isn't working within the approaches we are taking as Emporia Main Street.  We can talk about how wonderful something is until we are blue in the face, but you can't measure effectiveness without hard data.  And, at Emporia Main Street, we believe in setting goals that are "quantifiable", meaning that we have numbered benchmarks associated with our goals.

For example, we have sales goals associated with event like Midnight Madness because we want to ensure that the event has a positive economic impact on participating businesses.  We have attendance goals for events like the Great American Market, because we want to expose the community to a certain level of people.  We have usage goals for incentive programs like Incentives Without Walls, Trusler Loans and Network Kansas Loans, because what good is it to have a program if no one is using it?  We have usage goals for Business Enhancement, tangible impact goals for Design, fundraising goals for organization and so on...  The numbers for the 4the Quarter of 2011 will come out next week, but we can look back over the last four consecutive quarters to give you a good idea of what's going on with a segment of the local economy.

Our dollars reinvested in just the downtown over the past four Quarterly Reports (one year) equals: $2,486,916.39 .  This number was primarily made up of the fifteen building rehabilitations and new construction within the area, but there were also a number of facade renovations, six buildings sold and some public improvements during that time frame.

The Kellogg Plaza and Lofts represent one of many new construction and building rehab projects downtown that are making a difference.

Eighteen new businesses started during the past year in downtown, while nine either closed, were relocated or absorbed into other existing businesses.  Within the new businesses, 55 jobs were created.

Heart Center Studio offers yoga and several other types of classes at 608 1/2 Commercial Street (above Studio 11 and Emporia Realty Group).  They represent one of the many new businesses downtown.  Photo by Eric Benjamin.

Over 3,000 volunteer hours were worked over the past four quarters through Main Street membership on Emporia Main Street projects and events.  This volunteerism has a state assessed value of over $52,000.

Your volunteer hours make a difference!  Volunteers offer their expertise in committee meetings, they help with clean up activities, decorate for the holidays, help with public improvements, aid in event planning/implamentation and develop new and expanding businesses!

In addition, Emporia Main Street aided in several large events that are not "counted" within our quarterly reports, but they do have a tremendous economic impact on our local economy.  The Taste, The Dirty Kanza, The Glass Blown Open, The Great American Market, Symphony in the Flint Hills activities, Oktoberfest and many more events brought hundreds of thousands of dollars into Emporia with people staying in our local hotels, eating at the local restaurants, shopping with local merchants and purchasing local entertainment.

Unique events like the Dirty Kanza bring hundreds of bikers (and their families) to Emporia!

Through our zero interest loans, we have supplied local businesses with over $500,000 in capitol, matched with over $2,000,000 from local lending institutions.  In addition, we have introduced local business owners and entities to alternative financing methods like tax credits that have resulted in millions of dollars in project completions in our core.

Programs like Incentives Without Walls zero interest loans are helping businesses start up or expand!

Over the past 20 years of Emporia Main Street, we have helped facilitate over $57,000,000 in reinvestment in the community.  Again, that number does not take into account the financial impact of events, but it does show that Emporia Main Street has one of the highest investment ratios of any active Main Street program in the State of Kansas.  

Through all of you, Emporia Main Street receives clear guidance to achieve our vision and mission objectives.  Through the Main Street Four Point Approach, we have a successful economic development program to help our local businesses and community achieve sustainable success.  We record data to ensure that our activities have a positive impact on the local community and to generate data tied to new work programs.  When we ask ourselves what is working and what isn't, we need real numbers to back up our assertions!  What once was considered "fluff" by some (like a little bike race, or a late night shopping event) can become a critical economic driver for our community.

Thank you for all of your hard work in 2011, and we hope to produce even more for our community in 2012!

Bob Jones of Bob Jones Photography snapped this photo of Downtown Emporia at Midnight on New Years!

Last week we met with our Business Enhancement Committee, a couple of local non-profit groups and connected with an out-of-town property developer looking at Emporia.  We worked on the Start Your Own Business Class, a variety of "end-of-year" reporting, sent out information on a new potential mobile application platform, started lining up vendors for "The Taste" in April, worked on some issues surrounding another fun April event, wrote text for our upcoming Business and Entrepreneurial recruitment guide, worked on a grant application and got some good news back on the potential Historic District.  It was a busy week, but we got some great questions!  

1.  "What do you think Emporia will look like in 20 years?"  From a board member.   We have a diverse local community, and we face a future with a lot of options.  Emporia has always been a rural community that is highly dependant on local agriculture.  We have larger institutions like Emporia State University and Flint Hills Technical college that add jobs, culture and an educated workforce to this community.  We also need to realize that national trends in jobs, transportation, education and life styles are changing.  So, the question should be "what can Emporia realistically achieve in the next 20 years?"  Can we buck the national trend of decreasing populations in rural areas?  Will our institutions adapt to a rapidly changing market?  Will we have foresight to build towards future trends, or will we work towards building a city that meets the needs of 20 years ago? I think if we learn to utilize the strengths of our entrepreneurs and learn to adapt to a sustainable community model, our community has the chance to look like a nicer, denser Emporia with a higher median income and a steadily increasing population.  But, it is really up to ALL of us to make Emporia a prosperous community. 

2.  "What can we do to help people understand what our organization does?"  From an area non-profit. The first rule of achieving understanding is putting a core message into a context that people can understand.  That may sound simple, but think about it...  Often, we concentrate more on buildings, missions and bumper sticker rhetoric than we do on people, which is unfortunate because the people we serve generally can describe the importance of what we do.  Tell the story of the people you serve and the real (quantifiable) ways in which you help them.  Once you give individuals a glimpse into your world from the perspective of your end client, people will gain a better understanding of your organization and its importance. 

3.  "When does your membership drive start?" From a call to the office from a local business. Emporia Main Street runs on a fiscal year that starts on July 1 and ends on June 30.  We typically start our early bird membership drive in May of each year, but we sign members up all year long.

4.  "Are you ready for the Bridal Expo?" From a variety of people. YES!  This Saturday's Bridal and Prom Expo should be a good time, with two fashion shows, 32 vendors and LOTS of prizes, including a grand prize package worth over $2,000!!!  We do encourage you to buy your tickets early (it saves you both time at the door and money).  Purchase your tickets HERE: http://www.emporiagranada.com/wp/calendar/emporia-bridal-prom-expo/ And, we will see you at the Expo!

5. "Why do you want to try a midnight Madness in April?" From a local business person. There are two basic reasons: First, we want to gain more information on how to utilize this tool best for your benefit.  You may not have noticed, but we have tried slightly different variations of the Midnight Madness concept during each event.  Ideally, we want to give our members the best bang for their buck and create a social experience that includes shopping, dining and some services.  Replacing an Artist Walk with another event that serves as a "welcome to the pedestrian friendly shopping season" during a Saturday may be a good boost after a traditionally slow first quarter for businesses.  In addition, we would like to test the concept of tying extended hours to an existing event so that we can better determine how our business community can profit from planned inflows of consumers attending a convention, pre-existing event or athletic endeavor.

Second, we have the opportunity to potentially hold a world disc golf championship in Emporia.  To accomplish this task, we need disc golf courses, housing facilities and a "wow" factor to entice the championship here.  That "wow" factor is you.  We want to utilize our business community to welcome participants in this year's Glass Blown Open to Emporia and encourage a connection to the community.  Win over the disc golfers, and we can win the opportunity to host a world tournament!  I know that this is asking businesses to work extra hours, but I hope you've also seen extra profit from previous Midnight Madness events.  The extra traffic generated by 600 additional disc golfers, plus their families, could make this yet another lucrative activity for Main Street members. 

For those of you looking for answers to last week's historic "mystery pictures" (Click HERE for last week's newsletter and view the bottom section) here are answers to the different buildings pictured: 

1. The Mitway Hotel- Used to stand where Flint Hills Eye Care is today.

2.  The Strand Theatre- 707 Commercial Street

3.  The Whitley Opera House- This building once stood on the corner of 6th and Merchant, where the parking lot next to Java Cat resides today.

4.  This is an interior shot of the Whitley Opera House.

5.  This photo is a shot of the 2nd Lyon County Courthouse.  This building once stood where the "old" Courthouse and current Lyon County Office building stands today.  Nothing remains of this once majestic building, except for the front archway, which was moved onto Old Highway 50 a few miles east of Emporia.