Changes for the Better: On the revitalization of downtown

A couple of weeks ago, a visitor (who was staying at the Marriott downtown) approaching me while I was eating a breakfast bagel at one of the high-top tables outside of OTB. He commented on the tuck pointing going on in the alley, and while gesturing to the streetscaping, emphasized how impressive it all was for a town the size of Owatonna. I, naturally, agreed with him.

Jump to last week, when I had the pleasure of moderating a panel that was focused around the revitalization of Downtown Owatonna. One of the main themes that came up in the panel was that the transformation didn’t happen by accident - it required strategic partnerships, patient capital, and a willingness to invest that other communities often overlook.

While developers like Mac Hamilton have brought expertise and scale to kick off some of the major developments, local investment proved crucial as well. Bill Cronin, one of the owners of Mineral Springs Brewery, summed it up nicely: “You invest in a lot of things, but investing in your community can be seen as a little bit of benevolent investing. In the end, you’re likely going to make some money, but you’re investing where it counts.” (This is one of the reasons we’re launching an Owatonna angel investor network this month – stay tuned!)

Bill’s experience with MSB also illustrates the power of starting small – something we teach in our Small Business Academy at the Owatonna Area Business Development Center: “We thought we were going be able to open it for $50,000,” he recalled. It ended up costing significantly more than that, and the support from the city and local banks made the difference. When the pandemic hit just four months after opening, the brewery adapted by purchasing igloos that became “almost a trademark now of who we are.” Compare filling those few igloos with last year’s Oktoberfest, which drew over 1,200 visits to the brewery in one weekend alone.

The City of Owatonna itself takes an unusually proactive role in improving downtown as well, the impact of which is not to be underestimated. Through the Economic Development Authority, Owatonna offers forgivable loans up to $20,000 for facade improvements and ADA accessibility, which helps jumpstart improvement projects downtown. Lisa Cochran, director of the Main Street program at the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, noted the ripple effect: “Your neighbor does it, and then you’re like, oh, maybe [my store] doesn’t look so good.” The program has helped spark a wave of improvements throughout downtown over the last few years.

Matt Jessop, who now co-owns Owatonna Shoe and was elected Mayor last year, remembered resistance during the Cedar Avenue reconstruction as well: “People would come into the store and gripe about construction.” His response to them focused on the future: “Yeah, it’s tough, but imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s done.”

Speaking of the Main Street program, Downtown Thursdays now draws 3,000-4,000 people monthly, transforming perceptions about what’s possible. Lisa emphasized that Main Street isn’t an event planning program—events actually serve a larger purpose. “Really it’s about bringing people to downtown and showing them what we have, and then capitalizing on that.” A good example of this was overcoming initial resistance to food trucks from existing restaurants. After the first year, even skeptics came around: “‘I already have a line that goes down the street on Downtown Thursdays, and I can’t serve everybody,’” Lisa recounted one business owner telling her.

I made a point during the panel of pointing out that collaboration is a key component of what makes Owatonna different from other communities across Southern Minnesota: all stakeholders—the school district, city, county, public utilities, non-profits, the Chamber—actually work together regularly instead of competing in silos. If we didn’t have all these parties at the table, we couldn’t have made the upcoming Rose Street Center project happen. What started as discussion about filling a vacant storefront snowballed into what’s going to be another transformative project for Downtown Owatonna.

For Matt, the change represents Owatonna’s character: “We’re the sixth largest city in greater Minnesota, but we still think we’re a small town, and we have the values of a small town. We have great pride in who we are and where we are, and people are willing to do the heavy lifting in order to make things better.”

As can be seen almost every day on Cedar Avenue, that willingness to do the work, combined with strategic investment and genuine partnership, has turned Owatonna into the kind of place that makes tourists stop and ask total strangers: “How did you all do this?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​”

This article was originally published in the Owatonna People's Press.