Mount Vernon Downtown Association

In 2022, the MVDA continued its ongoing work of supporting our community by providing opportunities for social connection and generating civic pride through a robust calendar of events in the district that we either solely produced or partnered in production. That calendar included 22 community events as well as our three-day Tulip Festival Street Fair, which brought an estimated 35 thousand visitors to our district in April. As the first outdoor event in our region since the pandemic, the Tulip Festival Street Fair provided a much-needed bolus of tourism and revenue to our businesses. All events except our two fundraising events were free and open to the public. We further developed partnerships with other community organizations, such as Public Hospital District #1 and the Mount Vernon School District. We continued our economic ecosystem development work through operating our small business incubator space, The Pop-Up Mount Vernon. 2022 saw the further development and opening in April of our new economic development initiative, the LIDO Collective. The LIDO Collective is a creative microenterprise incubator that strengthens the local arts economy by providing area artists and artisans with a year-round sales outlet, rendering them less dependent on seasonal events, and strengthens our downtown business environment by adding retail interest and creating more foot traffic, serving to draw commerce from our popular food Co-Op out into the downtown. The Mount Vernon Downtown Association also served the district through non-event promotional activities, such as two shop-local punch card campaigns and the continued production and distribution of glossy marketing materials like our Downtown Dining Guide and shopping guides, as well as maintaining our website and multiple pages on Facebook and Instagram. We continue to provide information and connections to resources for our businesses. In March, we hosted members of the Board of Main Street America in our district, gaining our community national attention from representatives from across the United States. In June, we hosted an event celebrating the inaugural Washington Main Street Week, bringing elected representatives and visitors from the states preservation community into the district to see our communitys progress under the Main Street program. As in previous years, we continue to partner with our city in the beautification and maintenance of the historic downtown through our hanging basket program, streetscape improvements, community clean-up events, and hanging banners. We advocate for the interests of our business and property owners at the local, state and federal levels.