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The Mantua-Shalersville Area Chamber of Commerce is concerned about the health and well-being of businesses throughout the Mantua-Shalersville area. One particular concentration of businesses under the Chamber’s watch is struggling – downtown businesses. The Village is a central business district that represents the larger Mantua-Shalersville area. While turnover is a natural part of all commercial districts, the Village is having a particularly rough time retaining businesses.

Because of this, several chamber members formed a steering/explore committee to concentrate on downtown Mantua. The committee has been researching what other communities do to keep a healthy business/residential mix. Most of their findings are summarized in a special newsletter, which is available at www.MantuaShalersvilleChamber.com.

Most recently, the group read a report prepared for Kent and discussed how to apply suggestions in that report to Mantua. The ideas all pointed back to an issue that keeps coming up: downtown Mantua just isn’t attractive.

Unfortunately, the Chamber can’t make a big enough impact. Newsletter articles about business appearance, a spring clean-up, and discounts on supplies and services only help so much. Private property owners don’t have much incentive to make their businesses look fabulous when what’s around them doesn’t look good. Consumers won’t be motivated to spend time and money downtown without comprehensive improvements.

The explore committee decided to focus on a comprehensive downtown improvement project. With a nod of approval from Village officials, this group is forming a separate non-profit entity and beginning to collect funds for a streetscape. The streetscape will focus on public areas – streets, sidewalks, parks – and will improve the appearance and accessibility of downtown parking.

Donations are already rolling in: Stamm Contracting $2000; B&H Rentals $2000; TL Express $500; and The Village Tavern $500. In-kind contributions totaling $1000 have come from Middlefield Bank, Business Image Solutions, and David Benjamin.

The organization will interview three design consultants and choose the firm offering the most service and best chances for obtaining grants toward construction costs. The community will be invited to give input on design ideas and vote on a “theme” for downtown.

More information will be available as progress is made. In the meantime, please contact any of the following with questions or comments:

Last modified: January 12, 2008