The Main Street station in Evanston, at the edge of the Main-Dempster Mile district Photo: SecretName101 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Small-business owners in Evanston have heard plenty about district branding, banners and events over the years. The most recent organized effort is a retail strategy called Evanston Thrives, which the City Council adopted on May 8, 2023. Here is what the plan covers and what the city has said about paying for it.
What the plan is
The Evanston Thrives Retail District Action Plan was prepared for the City of Evanston by a consulting team made up of All Together, Ninigret Partners and MJB Consulting, according to the project page of Interface Studio. The team says the plan covers eight business districts. The work combined market analysis of each district with public input: storytelling displays set up in each district, a survey with more than 2,100 responses, appearances at festivals and markets, and more than 50 conversations with residents, business owners, organizations and city leaders.
The recommendations fall into five areas: business supports, events and programming, tenant attraction, placemaking and marketing. The plan also includes a separate placemaking plan for each district, shaped by the area’s physical strengths and by how much capacity its local management organization has.
The money
When the council adopted the plan, it also approved $3 million from the city’s remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds to carry it out, according to a city bulletin from June 2023. The city’s Economic Development Committee was scheduled to rank the implementation actions at its June 28, 2023, meeting, after discussing a scoring system on May 24.
Those details matter to anyone running a shop or restaurant in a commercial district, because the five categories translate into different kinds of help. Business supports speak to existing owners. Tenant attraction is aimed at vacant storefronts. Placemaking covers physical improvements to streets and public spaces. Events and marketing are the visible pieces that bring customers in.
One visible result
In February 2024 the city announced Enjoy Evanston, a website and set of social media accounts for events, business news and recommendations on where to eat, drink and shop. The city’s bulletin said the project grew out of the Evanston Thrives plan. It said residents and visitors had asked for one easy place to find businesses in each district, and business owners had asked for a way to promote themselves. Each district has its own social accounts, and the site includes area guides, an interactive district map and a searchable events calendar.
The same bulletin lists nine districts: Downtown Evanston, Noyes, Main-Dempster Mile, Church and Dodge, Howard Street, Ashland Arts, Central Street, West Village and West End. The plan itself describes eight, and the city’s own pages do not agree on the count.
For owners weighing next steps
The plan is a city document, not a program with a single application form. An owner interested in district-level events, marketing or tenant recruitment would start with the city’s Economic Development staff or the management organization for the district. The city’s business pages are the place to find the current status of individual actions, since priorities were still being ranked when the council acted in 2023.
Sources: City of Evanston bulletins dated June 2, 2023, and Feb. 29, 2024; Interface Studio’s Evanston Thrives project page.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
