Tim Sullivan: Utilizing the tools in our toolbox

Malverne’s business district has come alive once again! We have many new businesses that are thriving on innovative ideas with a nostalgic twist, and traditional ones that are reinventing themselves. We have a successful bowling alley, a reinvigorated pizza place, a trendy ice cream parlor, a traditional pub, fine dining and a new movie theater that promises to add more vigor to our downtown on the way.

The list of the progress we’ve made goes on, and continues to grow: a one-of-a-kind organic farm that collaborates with our restaurants and local medical center, home design studios and a gift shop that no one seems to pass by without stopping in for a look, which turns into a wonderful shopping experience.

All this progress, exemplified by virtually no vacant stores, is not by chance. It is a top priority of ours, one that our residents demanded be prioritized and an accomplishment of working collaboratively with our existing businesses and community organizations, and thinking outside the box to improve the business environment of our village. While many municipalities are looking to remake their downtowns, we took a rather traditional approach to re-store ours.

In a relatively small community like Malverne, where we have limited financial resources and a tightly regulated municipal budget, our options for widespread redevelopment are very limited, and aren’t a feasible option in our built-out, boutique-style “downtown.” What we resorted to was a traditional fix for a traditional village. I often refer to it as “using the tools in our toolbox” to fix or effectuate change for the community. We don’t have an expansive tax base, but what we do have is “personability.”

We meet with business owners individually. We learn about their concerns firsthand, not through surveys or focus groups. We know one another on a first-name basis, and exchange cellphone numbers rather than having principals and managers of our businesses try to reach who they need in our government by email or a switchboard.

Collectively, with the Chamber of Commerce, which we meet with monthly but communicate with much more frequently than that, we engage with residents and reach out to others who are looking to open businesses. We connect them directly with the building owners in town, and provide avenues for available resources ranging from grant funding from our utility providers to business plan development and low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration.

When anyone wants to open a new business in our village, or improve the one they have, we make sure we go to them. We put their use, signage and building department applications on the top of the pile. When an applicant needs help, we show up and knock on their door rather than have them come to us in Village Hall. It’s these personal touches that we’ve seen supersede any other types of business building programs to build a successful business community in our village.

Personability has also helped us beautify our downtown. Can you believe that we traded a heavily used 1980s dump truck for 16 mature trees from a local nursery? We saw the need to provide more green spaces in our business district, so we traded the surplus truck for what we imagine will be a new canopy of shaded green. With the assistance of a local contracting company, we removed slabs of cement, where we have islanding of parking meters, and our own dedicated employees of the Department of Public Works did all the planting. We utilized the tools in our toolbox.

And we’re far from finished. New gardens, parks and plazas as well as a restored historical train station have all been imagined, and continue to be implemented with the assistance of some of our most valued community groups, such as our Tree and Beautification Committee, the Civic Association and the Mothers of Malverne. Resurfaced roads are on the way, along with more programming to draw outside interest in our businesses, as well as celebrations to acknowledge our collective accomplishments in these vitally important endeavors.

Dollars don’t always make the most sense in seeking to accomplish what you can by utilizing the collective relationships you were elected for and the tools in that toolbox. While capital expenses and investments are certainly valuable, it is important to remember what can be accomplished simply by utilizing those tools, and relationships, you already have.

Tim Sullivan is the mayor of Malverne.