A Moment With Main Street Marshfield: April 2026

Friday, May 1st, 2026 -- 2:00 PM

It’s time for A Moment with Main Street Marshfield, April Edition.

I spoke with Carter Howe, Executive Director of Main Street Marshfield, and discussed what they’ve been up to and what’s coming up down the road.

Listen to the interview with Carter here!

(AI assisted transcription via Otter.ai)

Carter: "We have a couple days left on our building revitalization grant applications. They are due May 1st. This is a really good opportunity for some facade work for businesses in our business district."

"It's a really great opportunity if you want to do a restaurant conversion, we have some options for that, so be sure to check it out on mainstreetmarshfield.com where you can find the grant overview and the link to apply."

"I also have some exciting news from the Main Street end of things. We spent some time out in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because we were at the Main Street Now Conference, which is the National Conference for all the "Main Streets" in America."

"So, Main Street Marshfield is not the only main street organization. We're part of a larger group called Main Street America and we're all focused on revitalizing downtowns and supporting the businesses within them."

"And so this national conference was over 2,000 leaders from Main Street groups and I took 15 different classes. I met with hundreds of new people. And we also visited a companinon community called Sapulpa, which is 20 minutes south of Tulsa and it's very similar to Marshfield in the sense, where they're downtown."

"They have historic Route 66 running through it, and they had two lanes with parking. There was a lot of traffic noise and congestion and things. And they really put in a lot of work into their downtown to make it more walkable and pedestrian friendly."

"And they've seen some really good results in terms of the business output of things, seeing an increase in spending, seeing an increase in time people are spending downtown. So, it was really interesting to see community very similar to Marshfield, and what they've done with the resources they have to make their downtown a better place."

Riley: "Very cool! So, you've definitely been busy for Main Street Marshfield. And now what's coming up down the road? What do you got on the agenda, so to speak?"

Carter: "Yeah, absolutely has. It has been pretty busy, but we're still going. We got a lot of upcoming events coming down the pike. Our big one is Hub City Days. Starts the evening of July 23 with our movie in the plaza and it goes through Saturday, July 25."

"So, we got your summer plans covered at the end of the month already. Come down for a craft show, car show and especially to our local shops and restaurants that will be open. We have a lot of good things in store for that festival, so I'm really looking forward to seeing that come to fruition, and hopefully some warmer weather for us too".

"In terms of other things that we've been up to, we're partnering with Mid-State Tech College for a program called Mid-State on Main which is where students can sign up for classes outside of the classroom, but they're all hosted at downtown businesses."

"It's a really awesome, awesome opportunity, and we're still working out some of the logistics and details of that, but we're looking forward to that potential partnership and seeing where that goes, because we'd really like to bring some traffic to local businesses and to give students the resources to understand how a business operates and give them some sparks in terms of the daily tasks and challenges that small businesses have."

"Lastly, my update for you is that Main Street Marshfield started an Endowment Fund at the Marshfield Area Community Foundation. We're really looking for ways to grow our long term growth and sustainability and we believe this endowment fund is that we look forward to working with some fundraising people in late 2026 and early 2027 to get that fund off the ground."

Riley: "Is there anything else that you'd like to add?"

Carter: "You know, we're here. We're doing the work. We've been collaborating a lot with our partner organizations. We can't thank the Chamber of Commerce and Visit Marshfield and the local universities enough for their continued partnership."

"I mean, we've really been enjoying being part of the broader economic development conversation for Marshfield and looking forward to seeing what else we can do to support our community."

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.