This week at Green Heart Town Patrice Frey, President and CEO of Main Street America, joins us for the second half of our recent interview. Last week we discussed her background in sustainability and green historic preservation. In the following interview, we will discuss Patrice’s transition to leading the National Main Street Center, updating the brand for over 1,600 neighborhoods and communities nationwide, and “refreshing” the time-tested Four Point Approach.

Several weeks ago, we covered how “Main Street is the Time-Tested Basis for Green Heart Towns”, but at the conclusion of the post, I wanted to know more about what was happening with the program.

We hope you pick up something that helps make your historic downtown stronger. The new Refreshed Approach for Main Street America™ will offer participating communities a more pragmatic revitalization strategy.

Below is an outline of some of the talking points we covered (with their approximate times), so you can jump to them if you'd like. The total interview ran about 33 minutes. Hope you enjoy! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

0:00 Welcome
1:00 Introduction on leading a movement
2:20 National Main Street Center
4:00 Subsidiary of the National Trust (circa 2013)
5:00 Autonomy, innovation, and independence
6:45 Main Street America re-branding
8:10 R&D work: open-source
9:30 Refreshed 4-Point Approach
10:20 Silo-busting
11:30 Becoming more strategic
13:00 Projects for people, not points
15:30 Deliberate community engagement
16:30 Focus on Transformation Strategy
17:45 Outcome measurement
19:00 Wrangling the Transformational Strategies with limited resources
21:50 Refresh guidance from the National Main Street Center
23:00 Economics preceding buildings?
24:30 A community’s most significant assets
25:00 Robust data and engagement drive outcome
26:00 Advice for Main Streets moving into the Refresh
29:30 Strategy
30:00 Closing thoughts