News Photo by Crystal Nelson Jenney Murphy, who co-owns MI Northern Espresso, pulls a shot of coffee Friday in downtown Rogers City. The coffee shop opened for business in May and city officials hope to attract more businesses through the Michigan Main Street Program offered by the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

ROGERS CITY — A plan to create a more robust main street is in the works for downtown Rogers City.

Members of Team Rogers City, an informal group of city officials, business owners and others, heard from Lindsey Miller, community assistance specialist with the Michigan Economic Development Corp., on Friday about how the Michigan Main Street Program could impact the community.

Miller said the overall goal of the Michigan Main Street Program is to attract residents and businesses to the community and to encourage investment. She described the program as a “self-help program” through which the community puts forth the effort, but program officials guide them and help with funding.

“It’s a grassroots, volunteer-driven program, and so it’s really going to start with all of you, here in this room, that obviously have an interest in their community,” she told the members of Team Rogers City.

The program will require the city to apply and be selected for the program, develop communications and funding plans, and demonstrate it can afford to hire a full-time Main Street manager position. The city’s Downtown Development Authority would likely oversee the program.

Miller said the community could be selected for the program as early as next fall.

Once a community is selected, Miller said, state and national Main Street Program staff visit the community, do some secret shopping, collect data about the community, and then create a baseline assessment.

That assessment helps determine what kind of technical assistance the community receives. Miller said technical assistance could include a market analysis or mini grants to help businesses get started.

“It’s kind of hard for us to talk about it, because we don’t know what your needs are right now,” she said.

Rogers City Mayor Scott McLennan told the group the Main Street Program is his number-one priority, now that the city’s has worked out a solution on pension debt. The city recently sold bonds to stabilize its annual cost toward employee retirement benefits.

McLennan said the demographics in the community are changing, and that Cheboygan and Boyne counties have had success with the program.

“I do know that, in order to keep the beauty of Rogers City and all that we have and embrace and love, we need to have an economy to support that,” he said. “We need an economy that supports families.”

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.