Main Street Matters By Michelle Owens - Executive Director, Tybee Island Development Authority/Main Street
Main Street after Coronavirus: What’s Next?
March 2020 will forever be remembered as the year we took a freefall into the unknown – a time when we were caught off guard by the need to shut down life as
usual and adapt to a new and solitary existence to fight off a pandemic.
28 TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | JUNE 2020
A Pandemic Strikes
Businesses abruptly closed, unemployment swelled and families retreated indoors at unprecedented levels. Phrases like “social distancing,” Zoom call,” and
“shelter-in-place” suddenly became a part of our daily lexicon as a new social revolution unfolded before us.
After weeks of lockdown and businesses losses, what’s next for Main Street? Economic development and small business experts agree that small businesses
received a potentially mortal blow by going weeks with little to no revenue.
In fact, a National Main Street Center (NMSC) survey found that 7.5 million small businesses nationwide are in danger of closing permanently in the coming months
due to pandemic related business interruptions without effective interventions. To deploy these interventions, we first must understand where we are in the greater
scheme of this pandemic response.
Our Pandemic Response
According to NMSC, communities like ours will move through three stages of response during this pandemic: urgent response, stabilization and revitalization. These
stages are important to know because they lend context to how we can assist our businesses and our community going forward.
We encountered the first phase – urgent action – in March when we all were forced to take immediate steps to adjust to emergency orders and restrictions in the
name of safety. We were all forced to make vast changes on the fly just to be functional.
Local businesses quickly added take-out windows, switched to delivery/takeout service and promoted online sales. City government quickly mobilized a remote
workforce, eased restrictions, deadlines and late fees for businesses and citizens, conducted virtual public meetings, communicated fast-changing local, state and
federal rules and implemented more stringent sanitary practices.
As the health crisis continues to grow, we now realize we’re in this for the long haul. We have to learn how to survive with more creativity and less capital. We are
moving into stage two of our response – stabilization.
This will require us to manage the impact of coronavirus on our business community. This is where we try to find steady ground in our new reality.
The CARES Act federal funding and other financial assistance are the first steps in this direction.
What we offer locally will take us further along the path to a new normal, so our local Main Street program is finding innovative ways to help our small businesses
survive.