Downtown Revitalization – Bowling Green Missouri Chamber of Commerce

The Bowling Green Downtown Revitalization Committee is a sub committee of the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce.

It was founded in February 2017 by a mixture of concerned citizens and the Chamber of Commerce. The talks began when two old buildings got to the point of no return and were set to be demolished. This sparked conversations by many in what could be done about ensuring our downtown doesn’t end up one big empty lot, and what could be done to “revitalize” and get people interested in being downtown again.

Our “Square” was once the place to be; lots of businesses and things happening all the time. Over time, buildings have become older and some owners were unable to keep up with the costly maintenance that comes with these “old buildings”; sad but true. Our committee is focusing on how we can help those current building owners keep pride in their buildings and help bring them a larger customer base.

This committee meets on the first Thursday of each month at 5:00 p.m. at the Bowling Green Community Center and it is open to the public. You do not have to be a chamber member to be involved; although it is highly encouraged!

We do our best to entice the community and visitors to visit the handful of local shops our downtown has to offer.

View our Downtown Map >>

Since 2017 we have completed beautification projects to help improve the look of our downtown, as well as hosted events to encourage more “foot traffic” as well — #OccupyTheSquare!

LATEST NEWS AND EVENTS:

Paint the Street! During the Champ Clark Heritage Festival: Saturday, September 14th, 2019.

Beatification Projects:

4 planter benches were built by the NECC Building Trades class. Each bench holds two planters that we fill with seasonal plants; they also boast a business sponsor plaque. These local businesses purchased a 4 year “sponsorship” in early 2019 to help us raise funds for these kind of projects: Midwest Pest Professionals, Shimp Storage LLC, Community State Bank of Missouri and PB&T Bank.
Display walls were built and put into the empty “Ben Franklin” building. This project was completed in 2017 and we are currently working on rehabbing them to work better for our needs. These display walls are available to not-for-profits and chamber members once a month.
Other projects are in the works!

Events:

We held our first “Living Windows” event in November of 2017 in conjunction with the Chamber’s Holly Jolly Festival and the town’s “Christmas in the Green” events. We had locals fill our vacant building windows with “live” holiday scenes. Participants paid a small fee to enter the contest that boasted cash prizes donated by Community State Bank. The winners were chosen by a “spare change” vote; event attendees visited a voting station where they used their spare change to vote on their favorite scene. This event was held again in 2018 and we plan to continue it every year as long as we have the volunteers and participants!
Food Truck Fridays began in 2018, we invited local food vendors to set up downtown through the months of May and July each Friday so the public could enjoy what these mobile restaurants had to offer. We plan to have this event every year as long as we have the food trucks willing to come!
Spring on the Square was our first “solo” event held in the spring of 2018; we had a photo scavenger hunt, sold t-shirts and had a living windows contest with a spring theme.
Our first ever Downtown Hoedown was held on July 12th, 2019. Our biggest small event to date! This event was held on a friday night and was for patrons ages 21 and over. We offered beer and beverages, live entertainment, games and snack vendors. Stay tuned for 2020!
More events in the making! Stay up to date on our facebook page!

BIG THINGS HAPPENING!

We currently became owners of a vacant lot downtown. This came after over a year of working with lot owners and sweet talking them into donating the property. We would like to give a HUGE shout out to Liberty Utilities who was the first to donate their property to us at 14 South Court Street. We have big plans for this lot, and hopefully the neighboring lots if we are lucky! Our plan with the area is to create a community space that can serve as entertainment space for events as well as to bring in mobile businesses to the area. Stay tuned; the info will be posted here and on our Facebook page! Check out the plans here:
The Liberty Theatre Project_poster

THANK YOU TO OUR VOLUNTEERS & DONORS!

It takes a special kind of person to volunteer their time and donate their services; and our community is full of those kinds of people. We would like to thank the following businesses and people for helping us in our endeavor to revitalize our downtown:

Coming Soon!

WANT TO HELP?

If you are interested in volunteering on our committee please reach out to us on our facebook page, or contact Tracy Brookshier; Chair Person and 1st Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce (314) 971-5886 tbrookshier@pikecountyhealth.org.

Or maybe you are interested in donating to help us with projects and events; you can donate right now online by using the paypal donate button below OR Send checks payable to Bowling Green Downtown Revitalization (please put “Donation” on the memo line), P.O. Box 315, Bowling Green, MO 63334.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!

We would like to thank our most active members; these are those who have attended majority of meetings or been volunteers we can count on:

Tracy Brookshier (Chair Person), Shelley Wiler with Crossroads General Store, Marianne Everhart with KJFM Radio, Erica Mitalovich with Spring Hollow Coffee, Brittany Henke & Elizabeth Kingsley with Community State Bank, Sue Haley with The Garden Gate Antiques, Allen Chandler with Bowling Green Housing Authority, Danielle Orf with Pepsi Co., & Amber Grote.