When Bert Stitt first visited Harvard in the fall to discuss ways to revitalize the downtown, no more than a half-dozen people showed up for his seminar.
At a town meeting four months ago, Stitt talked to a crowd of more than 40 people about how the city could attract and retain new businesses while leaving something for future generations.
And most recently, Stitt drew an even larger crowd to an all-day seminar where residents set priorities for what they want to see happen in the city of 6,000 in the northwest corner of McHenry County.
“The root issue is not parking spaces and storefronts,” said Stitt, who works as a consultant to communities trying to revive their downtowns. “It’s an attitude and confidence in the viability of the community.”
Part motivational speaker and part preacher, Stitt doesn’t shy away from making tough comments that may upset people when he enthusiastically addresses an audience. He has been known to berate community leaders for failing to become involved in improving their business districts.
“He’s a catalyst,” said Claude LeMere, community development director for Antioch, where Stitt worked as a consultant in the early 1990s.
The all-day conference at the Clock Tower Inn Resort in Rockford was sponsored by Harvard Community Partners Inc., an organization of business owners and residents formed in the fall to entice businesses to locate on Ayer Street and along U.S. Highway 14 and Illinois Highway 173.
Group member Mianne Nelson was pleased with the turnout of 73 people, including 19 students from Harvard High School.
Areas identified by the attendees as in need of improvement included retail and industrial growth, cultural activities, recreational and educational opportunities for youth and architectural standards for downtown building exteriors.
The city, business owners and concerned residents have been down the downtown revitalization road before, but those involved this time say the difference has been bringing in Stitt, someone with expertise in downtowns.
“I don’t think we had anyone who could help strategically plan for the future of Harvard,” said Debbie Miller, executive director for the Harvard Chamber of Commerce, the group that first brought Stitt to the city last year.
Stitt brings with him 25 years of experience working in 175 communities throughout the Midwest, first as manager of a business district in Milwaukee, then as a downtown development director for the State of Wisconsin. For the last 10 years, he has been an independent consultant.
“He teaches you to learn and to organize and to keep building up from the citizen level,” said Jack Potter, chairman of Waukegan Sunrise, the downtown redevelopment group that brought Stitt to the Lake County city in 1995.
Before Stitt was brought in, Waukegan’s downtown suffered from disorganization, Potter said.
In Antioch, Stitt worked with a local group called Community Action Now, and in the eight years since a comprehensive downtown plan was approved, a road was extended to improve traffic flow. The city also replaced sidewalks and curbs and buried utility lines.
Without community input, turning around a downtown area can take 12 years, but with that involvement the turn-around can happen in as few as four years, Stitt said.
There is no guarantee that what Stitt does will work, and the residents need to build on the base he provides and do the work after he leaves, Potter said.
