09/01/2026
🏙️ DOES A MAIN STREET PROGRAM DUPLICATE WHAT THE DOWNTOWN WAYCROSS DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY ALREADY DOES?
The short answer: No.
Main Street and the Downtown Waycross Development Authority (DWDA) are designed to do different jobs, use different tools, and can work together toward the same goal: a stronger, more active downtown Waycross.
🏢 WHAT MAIN STREET BRINGS TO THE PARTNERSHIP
The DWDA has tools to acquire, finance and rehabilitate property. Main Street focuses heavily on the people, businesses, activity and strategy that bring those properties to life.
Main Street can:
• Recruit and support businesses to fill downtown spaces
• Work with property owners on project scope, tax credits, design and contractor coordination
• Connect Waycross with state design assistance, training and Georgia’s Main Street network
• Track important downtown data such as vacancies, new businesses, jobs and private reinvestment
• Coordinate marketing, events, promotions and downtown engagement
Simply put: developing the building and activating the building are two different jobs.
🏗️ WHAT THE DWDA BRINGS
The DWDA has powers and resources that a Main Street program does not.
The Authority can:
• Acquire, hold and sell real property
• Issue revenue bonds and notes
• Finance rehabilitation projects
• Manage property and programmable downtown spaces
• Operate programs such as its existing façade grant
• Bring decades of institutional knowledge and relationships with downtown property and business owners
Its structure also gives downtown stakeholders direct representation, including members elected by downtown property owners and business owners.
💰 THEY ARE FUNDED DIFFERENTLY
The DWDA can generate revenue through property, leases, financing tools and contributions. It can own property and borrow money.
The proposed Main Street program would use separate funding sources for staffing and operations, including eligible hotel/motel tax revenues, City Auditorium rental revenues, grants, fundraising, memberships and sponsorships.
This is not about taking the DWDA’s resources and moving them somewhere else.
And instead of leaving coordination between the organizations to chance, the proposed structure builds cooperation directly into the program: the DWDA Director would hold a voting seat on the Main Street board.
🤝 THIS MODEL ISN’T UNUSUAL IN GEORGIA
Downtown Development Authorities and Main Street programs commonly operate alongside one another because their roles complement each other.
Georgia Main Street provides communities with a framework centered around Economic Vitality, Design, Promotion and Organization — while development authorities have financial and real-estate tools that Main Street programs do not.
That combination can mean:
DWDA helps develop the physical assets.
Main Street helps develop the district around them.
And there’s something especially meaningful about bringing Main Street back to Waycross:
⭐ When Georgia Main Street began in 1980 with five pilot communities, Waycross was one of them.
This isn’t about creating another organization to do the same work.
It’s about putting more tools, more partnerships, more resources and more focus behind the future of Downtown Waycross.
🏙️ One Downtown. Different roles. Shared mission.
