A Word from the President John Curtis, President, Main Street Martinez The over 150 members and 350 volunteers at Main Street Martinez now wrap up another year as they strive to preserve and revitalize our traditional business district. Their partners in this effort are the Main Street “stakeholders”: the downtown businesses, property owners, homeowners, the City of Martinez and its staff. Not to mention everyone who works, plays, shops and dines downtown.

We all appreciate how rare it is in the Bay Area to still have a traditional, intact Main Street that has retained most of its charm and its ability to evoke that “home town” feeling in those who experience it. We have this in Martinez – and we want to preserve it. The process that Main Street organizations throughout the USA use to preserve and revitalize their downtowns is the “Four Point” approach. The Four Points are:
- Promotion (marketing and events),
- Design (beautification),
- Economic Restructuring (economic development) and,
- Organization (business development)

We have four committees of volunteers – one for each of the Four Points – and we invite you to contact us, join up, meet your neighbors,
and have fun participating in one of the projects that the committees
have in the works -- or have planned for the future. Or you can suggest a project of your own!

Now, at the conclusion of the year, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who participated in the Main Street process in 2011. And we look forward to new friendships
that will be formed as new volunteers join our efforts in 2012. And we wish everyone a successful, fulfilling and prosperous New Year.

John Curtis

A Message from the Executive Director Leanne Peterson, Executive Director Wow! Another year has flown by! It seems like yesterday that I looked at the calendar and thought, it’s Febrary and we have so much time to accomplish everything we want to do this year. So now it’s December and 2012 is around the corner. As I look back over this past year, I realize that we managed to acomplish quite a bit.

Given the economy, our vacancy rate isn’t all that bad. And we have celebrated the opening of several new businesses, the expansion or growth of exisiting businesses that have moved, or remodeled this year too.

The Marina Vista streetscape improvements are almost finished and have created a nice entrance into downtown and an improvement for the businesses located along that street. Main Street Martinez continues to produce many special events that bring a lot of potential customers to downtown. We always hope that businesses take advantage of the extra foot-traffic during the event to increase business and customers.

In partnership with Shell, we are very proud of the new Downtown Speaker Series. The series has brought a new audience to downtown and we look forward to the 2012 season of great speakers. The new Bay Area Craft Beer Festivals have had a great turnout and introduced Craft Beer in downtown Martinez. We contracted with Pacific Coast Farmers Market this year to produce both the Thursday and Sunday Markets. We are excited to announce that the Sunday Market is now a year-round market! And, we look forward to the Holiday Scavenger Hunt on Dec. 22 where we are supplying the first 150 people with shiney, reuseable, shopping bags. We hope we get a good turnout at this first-time event to bring new customers into our downtown businesses.

We participated in the 2nd annual Small Business Saturday event and held a contest for the person who spent the most money that day. Congratulations to the winner, Melody Lacy! Melody chose a $100 gift certificate to Haute Stuff Bistro.
In May of this year, Main Street Martinez relocated. We now have a much needed larger office and storage space. Stop by 649 Main St., Suite 106 when you are nearby to say hello.

We depend on our sponsors for extra financial support. This year, Shell Oil added to their annual sponsorhip by purchasing the downtown decorative LED lights and Shell volunteers spent several hours hanging the lights between light poles. They look great and we are grateful for the support that Shell provides. In early 2012 we will be launching our new downtown website. The new site will feature a searchable database and more features for members and partners.

I wish you and your families a happy holiday season and I am hopeful for a prosperous 2012! I’ll see you downtown!

Leanne