Main Street Texarkana has been honored with a Main Street Arkansas Award for its downtown revitalization efforts.

Main Street Arkansas is a program area of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Main Street Texarkana received the Best Placemaking Project Award for its Better Block Project in which the program worked with volunteers to bring thousands of people into the downtown area to see vacant buildings filled with retail shops, food and children’s activities, which resulted in at least three new businesses in the area and others under consideration.

The Main Street Arkansas awards are presented biannually to recognize outstanding achievements by individuals, organizations and communities in helping to revitalize their downtown areas. The Main Street Arkansas Advisory Board selects the winners.

Cities currently involved in Main Street Arkansas are Batesville, Blytheville, Conway, Dumas, El Dorado, Eureka Springs, Helena-West Helena, Jonesboro, Downtown Little Rock Partnership, Little Rock’s South Main Street (SoMa), Osceola, Ozark, Paragould, Rogers, Russellville, Searcy, Siloam Springs, Texarkana and West Memphis.

Members of Main Street’s Arkansas Downtown Network are Hardy, Pine Bluff, Heber Springs, Fort Smith, Morrilton, Rector, Monticello, Arkadelphia, Clarksville, Warren, Wynne, Fayetteville, Forrest City, Malvern and Pocahontas.

Other sponsors of the Main Street Arkansas program are Preserve Arkansas and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. To learn more about Main Street Arkansas, visit their website.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program is the agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage responsible for the identification, evaluation, registration and preservation of the state’s cultural resources. Other agencies in the department are the Arkansas Arts Council, the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

For more information, contact Main Street Texarkana Executive Director Ina McDowell at (903) 792-7191 or mainstreet@texarkana.org or call Greg Phillips at (501) 324-9880 or email him at greg@arkansasheritage.org.

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