Beaverton And Hillsboro Receive Awards For Downtown Revitalization Efforts -10/02/19

TILLAMOOK — Oregon Main Street announced its 2019 “Excellence in Downtown Revitalization” award winners this evening at the awards event in Tillamook, Oregon. A total of twenty businesses, projects, and people were recognized. Five of those recognized were from Beaverton and Hillsboro. This awards event kicks off the Oregon Main Street Conference taking place in Tillamook, Oct. 2-4. 

Beaverton

• Big’s Chicken won the award for Best Adaptive Reuse. Big’s Chicken, a popular new restaurant, adapted a Mid-Century Modern building that was previously used as a retail space and dental office. This was the first new restaurant to open on Watson Avenue since the City launched its restaurant strategy initiative. Significant design changes were made including removing multiple interior walls and bringing back the full transparency of the storefront more in keeping with the building’s original architecture. The project was the first to include significant outdoor dining which is drawing attention to the area when activated.
• Beaverton Downtown Association’s Old Town Passport won the award for Best Retail Event. The Passport to Old Town, designed to look like real passports, was created to expose people to 20 unique businesses in downtown Beaverton. After visiting at least 15 businesses, the passports were turned in to one of the businesses to be entered in a grand prize pool consisting of gift cards. 2,000 passports were printed resulting in hundreds of people visiting new businesses.
• Beaverton’s Ex Novo Brewing won the award for Best Interior Renovation. Portland-based Ex Novo Brewing opened their brewpub in the heart of downtown in the location of a former mattress store. Their extensive renovation included building out a kitchen, bar, and dining room in the former retail space, in addition to addressing some structural challenges like a sloping floor that needed leveling. The brewery’s original plans called for adding an interior brick wall behind the bar. During demolition, workers revealed an existing brick wall which they were able to incorporate in the design. The project has had a significant impact by bringing the first brewery to downtown, creating 13 new jobs, and activating an important corner location.
• Beaverton Downtown Association’s Michelle Barnett won the award for Volunteer of the Year.

Hillsboro

• Hillsboro’s Temporium won the award for Best Economic Vitality Activity. Temporium was a temporary storefront in downtown Hillsboro created to bring entrepreneurs without a storefront together to create shopping opportunities over the holidays.

9 other towns in Oregon were honored with awards. “The award winners serve as inspiration to communities across our Network and reflect some of the highest level of revitalization success,” said Sheri Stuart, state coordinator, Oregon Main Street. “We are so inspired to see how our historic downtowns across Oregon are coming to life through the creativity, passion, and plain hard work of community members.”

The wide range of awards is reflective of the comprehensive Main Street Approach® to downtown revitalization developed by the National Main Street Center. This model is used by the communities participating in the three-tier Main Street Track of Oregon Main Street Network. From 2010 to 2018, communities participating in the Performing Main Street and Transforming Downtown levels – the top two tiers – have seen $97,901,913 in private building improvement projects, $104,225,575 in public projects, 1,106 private rehab projects, 650 net new businesses, and 3,226 net new jobs. In addition, over 207,000 hours of volunteer time has been contributed to local main street organizations.

Oregon Main Street is part of Oregon Heritage, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. For additional information, visit www.oregonmainstreet.org.