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by Linda Hein - for more info call 345-7134/8484
December 22, 1996
Feedback time... Right after I began writing this column, a lady from a neighboring town called and very nicely and matter-of-factly give me her perspective on what the McCook Main Street district needed. She said that we need to bring in a good men's store to replace those we have lost. Her husband and boys had always been dressed from McCook men's stores, the good stuff, and now that her boys were grown and gone, she still wanted to buy her husband the brand names he had always worn. If they could not get them in McCook, it was almost as convenient to go to North Platte but...if they were making special trips to North Platte, they would probably make their other purchases there also and North Platte could become their main shopping community. To complicate the business part of the dilemma, the past few years have seen the "dressing down" of men in the workplace and at certain social occasions. I appreciated her call and told her that I would pass the comment on to thos! e who were trying to rectify the situation. In talking recently with Karen Mulder, director of the McCook Industrial Development Corporation, I found out that she, for one, had been working on it. She has visited with three men's store owners in neighboring larger communities about the possibilities of opening a store in McCook. She had investigated and talked with several men's stores further away and has a new lead on yet another.
A retail leakage study is currently being done, says Vicki Leibbrandt of the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce, to determine what shoppers are looking for and are unable to find in McCook.
Some of the other suggestions received to revive Main Street...put in a Long John Silver's, several suggestions to put in restaurants, make DeGroff's into a mini-mall of Eddy Bauer, Victoria's Secret etc. and artist's studios on some of the second floors. No idea should be dismissed without thought. The whole Main Street concept is based on free enterprise. The idea is to attract businesses which will enhance the ones already there. There is logic for trying to rehabilitate existing buildings instead of bulldozing and replacing them. New construction costs more to begin with and involves more outside contractors which means the money leaves town once again. With rehabilitation the buildings are brought into code, fit in with existing buildings, retain their and the town's history, usually are able to be done with local workers and cost less than new construction. I've also had a building owner tell me that I was beating a dead horse by trying to revitalize Main Street! too, so go figure.
I received a beautiful Christmas card this week from one of the premier McCook Main Street businessmen, Ray Search. The front of the card was a portrait of Ray with his movie projector at the Fox which was taken by his son-in-law, Dick Woolwine. When we were preparing the Lied Main Street application, Dick donated his services and all the photos and slides that were needed. Leslie Stramel, Dick and I walked from one end of the district to the other capturing the buildings and open spaces that the judges needed to see to evaluate McCook's application. Dick would take one photo, stand exactly in the same spot and we'd hand him the other camera so the image would be the same on slide and photo. When you're putting something like this together at the last minute, you don't dare make any mistakes. Dick didn't, and we appreciate it. That application was a labor of love by many people who really care about downtown McCook and its future.
Monday is the last night that the McCook Main Street Hospitality Room at 212 Norris Avenue will be open for this season. Please stop by Saturday or Sunday 1-5 pm or Monday evening from 6-8:30 pm just to get warm or say hi or have a cup of coffee. Ivan still brings the Hospitality Room sweets from his Ivanhoe West and Matt Sehnert at Sehnert's Dutch Oven Bakery is still a part of the program by honoring the trade of a "McCook receipt for a cup of coffee" as we do. All the McCook Main Street group would like to wish you each a very peaceful Holiday Season and look forward to a great 1997.