Is A Main Street Program Appropriate for Mattapan? - Tufts University

commercial districts that lined Blue Hill Avenue, including Morton Street,
slowly died when the businesses that comprised them continued to fail . In
contrast, Mattapan Square thrived as its counterparts, including Morton
Street, along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor slowly faded (Rappaport Institute)
.
Through the years, Boston has undertaken many initiatives meant to stave
off the decline of its commercial districts . However, the city did not specifically
target the entire Mattapan area in those initiatives . In 1977, it set to
reconstruct the portion of Blue Hill Avenue between Morton Street and the
Grove Hall area . The following year, the city applied to the federal government
for over $7 .5 million in grant funds to rehabilitate Blue Hill Avenue,
which would have benefitted its portions running through Mattapan . During
the 1980’s, through the Boston Urban Gardeners’ program, the city planted
trees on the Avenue and created urban gardens planted by Boston youths .
In the 1990’s, the Menino Administration launched the RESTORE program
to launch community economic development . That program, from 1994 to
1999, was credited for many positive changes in area businesses:
RESTORE renovated or expanded 30 businesses, helped estab
lish 12 new businesses, retained 180 jobs, created 40 jobs, and
invested $2 million in public-private partnerships on Blue Hill Av
enue. In all, public-private investment along Blue Hill Avenue to
taled more than $51 million between 1994 and 1999 (Rappaport
Institute).
While the city launched programs such as RESTORE, which indirectly
helped areas of Mattapan, it also introduced Boston Main Streets to revitalize
the commercial districts within its neighborhoods .
As various areas of Boston received “Main Streets” designation, a group
of Mattapan stakeholders decided that Mattapan needed special attention
in terms of business development and applied to bring the program to
the neighborhood . During those early years, Lilly Searcy, now director of
Action for Boston Community Development’s Family Service Center in Mattapan,
spearheaded the process that would have brought the organization
to the Square .
Searcy said that some 100 people contributed to putting together the application
. A professional grant writer wrote all of the materials requested by
the city . Businesses pledged nearly $10,000 to support the effort . Others
within this application committee agreed to donate their time . “One organization
did not support it, and that stopped the process . The city did not
want any controversy,” she said . (As we will see later, the Mattapan Board
of Trade is resistant to the idea of bringing Main Streets to Mattapan .)
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“For the application to move forward, there has to
be support from the business community. I hope
that they are not repeating the cycle.”
Some years later in 2001, Searcy attempted, again, to bring a Main Street
program to Mattapan Square . According to her, that application did not
succeed because of a lack of community consensus . The Main Street
application packet clearly requires widespread support for a community to
host a program:
Broad based neighborhood support for the commercial dis
trict’s revitalization and for long term participation in Boston Main
Streets. Merchant organizations, neighborhood organizations,
schools, religious institutions, property owners, residents, civic
groups and lending institutions should be willing to work together
as a team for the successful revitalization of the commercial district
(Boston Main Streets application).
Searcy also admits that the second process did not have the same range of
community stakeholders supporting it . “It needed more community participation
.”
She knows that the Mattapan Community Development Corporation
(MCDC) and other stakeholders aim to submit another application to the
city when it announces the newest request for proposals . “For the application
to move forward, there has to be support from the business community
. I hope that they are not repeating the cycle .” Today, if the city makes
another call for proposals for another Main Street program, the problems
which foiled past attempts, still exist today .
CoMMeRCIal noDes anD PRoPoseD PRoJeCTs
Part of Mattapan’s current business climate is that the region has essentially
four commercial nodes . There are some areas of commercial activity on
River Street that are not under consideration by the parties now interested
in applying for Main Street designation . The clusters that are under consideration
are best defined in the city of Boston’s Mattapan Economic Development
Initiative (MEDI) report . One area is on Morton Street, specifically
its most active areas of commerce from Selden Street to Norfolk Avenue .
There is also another cluster of businesses on Morton Street that caters to
the Haitian community .
The other area under serious consideration for the Main Street program is
the series of stores from Mattapan Square to Morton Street on Blue Hill Avenue
. There are many individuals and entities that would prefer to see the
program launch in the square, which is zoned by the BRA as a community