Main Street Alabama, a nonprofit organization that strategizes how to revitalize cities, held a strategy workshop last week to present its findings to the community.

In the study, the group found that Selma has many people all working to improve the area, but suggested that they need to consolidate their work.

“We were very, very happy to see the number of active committed residents who are really working hard,” said Tee Coker, a consultant for Arnett Muldrow & Associates, who is assisting Main Street Alabama.

“I was extremely impressed with the folks who are committing their time … and folks who have a vision for what the community and the downtown could be and should be.”

In a PowerPoint presentation given to the community, the following strengths, challenges and opportunities were listed:

Strengths:

• Sense of positive momentum
• Waterfront
• Community pride
• Architectural fabric
• Anchor stores downtown
• Arsenal place accelerator
• St. James Hotel
• Institutions remain downtown
• Three institutions of higher education
• Support network through Blackbelt Community Foundation and others
• Events and programming
• Many potential Main Street partner groups working for a positive change
• National platform to tell Selma’s story in 2015

• Challenges:
• Organizational silos
• High vacancy rates
• Lack of capital
• Demographic challenges present limited retail opportunities
• Perception issues both internal and external
• Some who want to leverage perception issues to perpetuate negatives
• Need to inventory the success of prior plans

Opportunities:

• Stronger collaboration among partners
• Continued growth of entrepreneurship and the arts as a way to leverage investment in downtown
• Opportunity to more broadly define what comprises economic development
• Public ownership of many properties is a huge opportunity for the city of Selma
• Continued riverfront investment
• Strong historic building stock both grand and humble
• Stronger partnerships with institutions of higher learning

“I think that the key is going to be organization,” Coker said. “When you have so many different groups and organizations who are doing so many good things, the question becomes who’s the ring leader?”

Coker said there doesn’t have to be a “ring leader,” but that the different organizations need to find a way to work together to solve the issues.

In their findings, the research showed that Selma is still a retail attractor for the surrounding area and many of the opportunities rely heavily on support from locals and visitors.

“While this is a retail market study, the true opportunities in some initiatives [are] already taking place in the community,” read one line in the PowerPoint.

The biggest things that the group recommended were finding board members for the Main Street program, hosting a downtown development summit and focusing on marketing strategies.

“We made recommendations about what could be done in the next three to six months to start to pull together,” Coker said.

After presenting the findings and recommendations, Coker said he could feel the level of excitement in the room, and people really wanted to jump in and work on the downtown area.

“It’s nice when you can sense a level of excitement,” Coker said.  “[When people say] ‘Wow, what can I do?’”