New signs show Manassas is a Virginia Main Street town

New signs erected at the entrances to Manassas City are more colorful and bright, noting what residents and city officials have known for 30 years — Manassas is a Virginia Main Street community. 

Debbie Haight, director of Historic Manassas Inc. tells us more about what it all means: 

Virginia Main Street which is an organization that’s been around for over 30 years is part of the National Trust Main Street organization, which is a group run through the state of Virginia through the Department of Housing and Community Development.

It’s all about revitalization and economic development for your downtown similar to what this city has gone through with the rebranding and the new colors and the new logo. Virginia Main Street went through the same thing about two years ago to kind of revamp and revitalizing.

And perk it up again. So that’s why the new signs are out. It is special for Manassas because it adds a special or adds an additional amount of support and resources. It means that there’s somebody that I can pick up the phone and call and say I have I have a problem with the building how can I get resources in there to get it moving to get it revitalized.

Downtown actually became a mainstream organization…the city became a mainstream organization roughly 30 years ago. At the start of it was just that we had boarded up buildings… we had dilapidated buildings we had empty buildings. So there was a group of business owners that said what can we do when they turned to the state. The state said ‘Here’s where we are. We have this great program. It’s nationwide. It has tremendous support. It will turn your downtown into a destination as opposed to going to the mall or to an actual strip mall or even you know what we call the manufactured downtowns.’