People want to live and work in a city that is thriving, Shannon Haney said, and the best way to determine that is by the health of its downtown.
Haney became the new executive director of Main Street Batesville in January, replacing Joel Williams, who left for a role at Intimidator, which manufactures utility vehicles.
“I think you can really accurately gauge the health of a city, in general, by the health of its downtown. It is the heart. It’s the heartbeat,” she said. “I would challenge you to offer a city that doesn’t have a thriving downtown that is a thriving city in general. It’s so crucial in recruiting new businesses and recruiting jobs and recruiting a trained workforce to live here. People want to live and work in an area that is thriving, and the downtown is a perfect reflection of the city’s overall health.”
The mission of Main Street Batesville is to preserve the historic structures of downtown Batesville through economic revitalization.
Haney grew up in the Batesville area, attended Lyon College and stuck around for a year to work at the a local newspaper. She then moved to Eureka Springs for another newspaper job, then worked in marketing in Northwest Arkansas. She also joined the National Guard in 2008 and was a public-affairs officer at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock.
She left Camp Robinson after having her son, Jude, 3, and moved back to Batesville in January 2016. Haney said joining Main Street Batesville was like fate. She loves history — which was her major at Lyon — and she loves the Batesville area and its downtown.
“We’ve been getting settled in and house-buying and all of that, and this serendipitously came along,” she said of her new role. “And it was just a perfect fit for me because I’ve always been enthralled with downtowns and historic buildings and had lived in downtown Rogers and also in Argenta [in North Little Rock] for a while and just loved the atmosphere and that kind of community — that walkable community.”
Haney said both the community of Main Street and Main Street Batesville weren’t in the greatest place several years ago. Many historic structures were at risk of being lost, and many residents drove through Main Street but never spent time walking on it. To help, Main Street Batesville experienced a new board, she said, and brought in help from someone out of state who works with nonprofits, in order to develop a streetscape plan.
Across the street from Haney’s office, construction-coned boundaries have been set up, and workers have been hard at work turning Main Street into a one-way street with increased angled parking.
“Obviously, no one wants to see, especially business owners, streets closed off, and no one wants to drive over holes and everything, so it’s inconvenient,” Haney said. “But it’s already working as far as bringing back life to the downtown. People are excited. We’re getting calls from businesses wanting to move in down here. We’ve seen the Melba Theater completely restored. We’ve got three new restaurants. A new clothing store moved in … . There’s a lot of excitement surrounding downtown and a lot of new partners coming to Main Street Batesville saying, ‘We want to be part of this. What can we do to help?’”
From her office windows that face Main Street, Haney said, she also sees a complete range of people visiting the area.
“I see older people just coming to walk to get their exercise. I see young kids out here just running up and down because Batesville is safe, and you can still do that here. I see millennials out here; they’re going to The Pinto or going to [109 Main restaurant]. And then your baby boomers are actually a generation you’re seeing gravitating toward walkable communities where they live, work and play, all in the same space.”
Danny Dozier, vice president of Main Street Batesville, said Haney is a self-starter.
“She just seems to be real at home with that role, so I think she’s going to be a good one,” he said.
Dozier also said there’s no “right time” to do the streetscape construction on Main Street but that it is beneficial that it’s currently being done.
“That’s been a struggle for downtown merchants,” he said. “The coordination of such an enormous thing has disrupted a lot of things, but it has to be done.”
Haney said the perfect formula for a healthy downtown includes a mix of retail, entertainment, restaurants and living spaces.
“All of those four elements in one space create a walkable community that is alive, not during business hours only, but all day long,” she said. “That’s why you see major developments being built in that style, like new shopping malls are now being built with upstairs living spaces included in the larger cities. If you look at Little Rock with the Promenade and the Outlet Mall, you’ve got a major entertainment anchor like the theater in the Promenade or a major retail anchor like Bass Pro in the Outlet Mall, and then you’ve got retail and shopping clustered around it, so it’s that clustering, I think, that is really imperative to creating a whole experience.”
Haney brings a fresh perspective to Main Street Batesville, Dozier said.
“I think it’s a perspective of future generations, which are going to be the lifeblood of the new revitalized downtown area in Batesville,” he said. “That’s what’s going to make it work, eventually.”
This year will be a year of completion for Main Street Batesville, Haney said. The organization is working on completing Maxfield Park, which is being created in honor of the late Anne Strahl of Batesville; establishing event venues; and finishing streetscape work on Main Street.
“The public has actually been really patient and understanding,” Haney said of the Main Street construction. “Some people don’t understand it yet, but I’m really confident that when they see the final project, they’re going to love it. It’s one way, and it’s a narrower lane, but that accommodates a lot more parking. … The curbing that we’re installing is going to be green spaces, but it’ll also have conduit for lighting and for hookups for food trucks and vendors when we have festivals on the street.”
Haney said her experience thus far as executive director has been amazing.
“I have zero complaints so far. It’s just such a great time to come in because everyone is already excited and wanting to participate and wanting to do what they can and wanting to see this succeed, and now they can see the vision.”
Former Executive Director Joel Williams has also been assisting Haney in her transition, she said.
“He’s been in here several times to help me out with all my questions, and he’s a great guy and very popular. He got a good opportunity that he couldn’t turn down, so he was reluctant to leave. For his family’s sake, it was a good move for him.”
After the groundwork and infrastructure are completed in downtown Batesville this year, Haney said, her goals for the future include strategic recruitment. She said she would love to see every space on Main Street be an attraction, not just storage or offices. Haney said she’d personally like to see more retail downtown.
“It’s that perfect formula, that business clustering, the combination of retail and restaurants and entertainment and living spaces. We’ve got our first two loft apartments right across the street opening up this year. There’s a good chance [that we’ll] have a small boutique-hotel-type business coming in later in the year. I’m talking later today with someone about the potential of opening up a bakery. Our last huge unsaved building on the lower end of Main was just purchased … , and it’ll be undergoing renovations, so we’re hoping to get some really cool maybe retail and maybe another food venue in there.”
Haney said she hopes people visit downtown Batesville in the future to note the progress that it’s making.
“It’s the ultimate comeback kid,” she said. “It looked like it was in a really bad place not very long ago. But in less than five years, it’s been a complete turnaround, so I’m excited. The whole community is excited. I think if you came back in a couple of years, you would be amazed.”