Pop Up your Downtown

Have you been interested in launching Pop Up Shops in your downtown to cultivate entrepreneurs and makers in your district? Main Street Alabama staff attended a session in Atlanta featuring this team and was moved by their impressive story. We are bringing them directly to you so your community can benefit from their 4 years experience with the details involved from finding and securing sites to cleaning, turning on utilities and supporting entrepreneurs to make their businesses a success.

More about the project: Downtown Delaware’s Project Pop-Up is an initiative to provide entrepreneurs the opportunity to open for business in downtown business districts and proximate locations, by offering retail space rent-free for three months October through December. In addition, selectees receive one-on-one guidance, free of charge, from a small business advisor and other subject matter experts on an as-needed basis. The Project Pop-Up in Delaware has consistently yielded tenancy well beyond the “three month free rent” incentive timeframe and can therefore be considered a successful entrepreneurial development and vacancy reduction strategy. The Delaware Economic Development Office (DEDO)/Downtown Delaware sought local implementation of this statewide initiative by partnering with Delaware cities, towns, and property owners that exhibited the best capacity to successfully implement the project.
About Diane: Diane oversees Downtown Delaware, a resource center within the Delaware Economic Development Office (DEDO) that focuses on downtown revitalization issues, with particular emphasis on business development, vacancy reduction, and proactive planning for selection and placement of retail goods and services in commercial business districts throughout Delaware. Following after the National Trust Main Street model, additional areas of focus include organization, design and promotion. The resource center's mission is to provide Delaware's historic downtowns, communities, and small businesses with tools to revitalize their commercial districts, increase entrepreneurism and innovation, and enhance quality of place. Diane also serves as the Vice Chair of the Main Street Executive Council and in that capacity, acts as a liaison between coordinating programs and the National Main Street Center, a new subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
About Ken: Continuing to oversee support for entrepreneurs, innovators and small businesses statewide from the restructured Delaware Economic Development Office to the newly established Delaware Department of State's Division of Small Business, Development and Tourism. Ken's unit also supports the Downtown Delaware and Main Street Programs. This current position transferred from what was formerly the Delaware Economic Development Office where Ken held this position from October 2007 through July 2017.