Making Moves on Main Street

January 6, 2025

Commercial & Investment Real Estate, Community Outreach, Retail Properties, Curb Appeal, Sustainability

Entrepreneurs in commercial real estate build momentum for revitalizing their towns and suburbs.

Remote work options have led some Americans to trade urban living for smaller communities where the cost of living is lower and the quality of life is often higher. The result is an increasing demand for local services and entertainment that support Main Street development.

Other drivers boosting small-town development include a desire for walkable communities, “shop local” movements, sustainability goals, and an increased interest in revitalization as an economic development strategy. Commercial property professionals are taking advantage of these trends and, in some cases, helping drive them.

Trading D.C. Politics for Rural Renewal

In 2008, Paul Yandura and Donald Hitchcock, both self-described “political creatures,” bought a vacation home in rural West Virginia to “escape from D.C.” Before long, they began pondering a permanent move and worked out a plan that involved earning their real estate licenses and setting up shop with a local brokerage.

Their first commercial listing was a 3,000-square-foot historical farm and feed store in Wardensville, W.Va. “We saw a vision for the place as a community hub and ‘trading post’ and pitched it to the seller, who suggested we buy it ourselves,” Yandura says. After some soul-searching, Yandura and Hitchcock purchased the property. Today, the Lost River Trading Post anchors a vibrant main street in Wardensville, with a population of 265, drawing customers off nearby interstate routes in the Shenandoah Valley.

Yandura and Hitchcock invested in more than an old feed store. They invested in the community, using the space to host art openings, poetry readings, pop-up dinners and concerts, thus providing a space where local artisans and entrepreneurs could create products and build businesses. “We created a ‘Main Street Initiative,’ independent of our business, to encourage cooperation between existing businesses and bring in new opportunities,” Yandura says. Since then, about a dozen new businesses have opened—most occupying rehabbed space.

Three years after the Trading Post opened, Yandura and Hitchcock’s efforts drew the attention of the Jonathan D + Mark C. Lewis Foundation, which focuses on youth empowerment. The foundation, for which Yandura had been an adviser and now serves as its CEO, created Farms Work Wonders, a nonprofit that provides job training for area youth. A multimillion-dollar investment, FWW employs over 100 people. It has spawned local businesses, including a garden market, restaurant, bakery and glassblowing studio, that create local jobs, helping to retain young people who would otherwise leave the community for work.

“The change in the town has been dramatic,” Hitchcock, ABR, says. “Our real estate clients thank us for selling them a home and making the town they love so special.” Yandura and Hitchcock keep their business interests separate from the foundation’s initiative but agree there is a strong synergy between them, helping spur economic development.

“Our personal and financial commitment to the town attracted the foundation’s interest,” Yandura says. “Simultaneously, the foundation’s commitment has become a multiplier effect that we would not have created alone.”

As the town’s businesses expanded, so did the couple’s real estate success. In 2021, they opened Lost River Trading Post Realty. Hitchcock manages the firm, which in three years has become the number one agency in the county, with four agents and an office manager; he’s considering expanding to neighboring counties and states.

Lost River Trading Post, founded by two local real estate agents, anchors a vibrant Main Street in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands just 99 miles west of DC over the border of Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.

©LOUANNE WELGOSS

©LOUANNE WELGOSS

Committing to the Community

Hitchcock stresses that community participation is the key to their brokerage’s success. “We got involved in civic organizations, attended town hall and economic development meetings, and worked to elect a mayor promoting a business-friendly environment,” he says.

“People saw us doing things, giving back, and always being there,” Yandura says. “Other entrepreneurs in the past came here and saw the investment opportunity but didn’t commit to living here like current successful entrepreneurs. Being part of the community is the best advice we can offer.”

They caution that reinvigorating a small-town main street isn’t always an easy or fast process. “Small-town development is forever a work in progress,” adds Hitchcock. “We’re in constant creation mode.”

Reflecting on their success, Yandura emphasizes their willingness to work with others, without letting money drive the long-term vision. “We matched people who wanted to start a business with people who wanted to invest in one,” Yandura says. “It takes some of the competitiveness out of business development, which is important in a small community.”

Turning Around an Indiana Neighborhood

Community is also at the heart of an incremental neighborhood revitalization effort in South Bend, Ind. Working with a cohort of small developers, Mike Keen, broker and managing partner of Hometowne Development LLC, is leading the transformation of an aging neighborhood into a growing, sustainable community he dubbed Portage Midtown. He’s doing it one property at a time, and he’s proving you can make money doing it.

Keen is a former professor at Indiana University in South Bend. “After 20 years of teaching, I’m in my office, imagining that if I laid every student paper I ever received side-by-side, it would be 19 miles long,” he says. “I knew then it was time to do something different.

“I’ve always been interested in communities and sustainability,” Keen says. “My plan was to be a sustainability consultant and build one net-zero home in my area to sell or rent, but the neighborhood was pretty rough.” To make the area more attractive, Keen committed to building three net-zero houses, buying a vacant flower shop around the corner and seven empty lots on a tax sale to clean up the area.

Beginning with the flower shop, he and two partners each put in $60,000 to rehab the property, but it appraised at only $150,000. “If it had been a standard ‘fix and flip,’ we’d have been out of business,” says Keen. “But it penciled out, and we could rent it, cover our expenses, and make a little cash, allowing us to move on to the next property.” Fast-forward seven years, and Keen is leading the effort to renovate a 56,000-square-foot abandoned former bakery into a collaborative village of retailers, professionals, artists and food entrepreneurs, drawing significant interest from other would-be local developers.

©COURTESY OF MIKE KEEN

Mike Keen, broker and managing partner of Hometowne Development LLC, is leading the Portage Midtown redevelopment in South Bend, Ind., estimated to deliver major returns.

Engaging the Community in Incremental Development

“It’s been an odyssey, and there have been lots of fits and starts,” Keen says. Engaging the community to invest in their neighborhood is the foundation of Keen’s incremental development model. “The developer should be the band leader, with the others in the ecosystem playing the instruments,” he says. The “band” includes city and economic developers, zoning officials, finance officers, real estate agents, property managers and contractors.

Keen has organized those stakeholders into a vibrant business network called South Bend Town Makers. He began by building relationships with other small-scale developers, assisted by the city planner. “We now have a network of nearly 200 contacts.”

Keen believes the incremental model is not for developers and property agents focused solely on the bottom line. He denounces developers who come into a community and want to blast everything away to put parking lots in front of buildings that won’t last 20 years. “This is a mission-based approach to real estate development and one that is very satisfying and can be profitable,” he says.

Heartland CEO Laura Tilley — Heartland Association of REALTORS® CEO Laura Tilley

REALTOR® Associations Help Grow Commercial Activity

In 2023, the 190-member Heartland Association of REALTORS® helped ignite growth in the West Central Texas town of Bangs (population 1,600) with the help of the REALTOR® Party’s Transforming Neighborhoods program. The program works with the Counselors of Real Estate’s Consulting Corps to provide analysis, strategies and actionable recommendations.

Along with her association’s president and advocacy chair, Heartland CEO Laura Tilley met with the Bangs city manager and mayor to elicit support for CRE’s application process. When CRE accepted the application, Tilley organized interviews with 25 area stakeholders for the Corps’ five-day visit. Following the Corps’ recommendations, there are now plans for new affordable housing and commercial developments, and the city has launched a campaign inviting people to “Invest in Small Town Living.”

The association is now “more recognized as a resource,” Tilley says. And the engagement spurred several members to pursue commercial designations. “Their expertise enhances their reputation and the association’s as we work to position our members as community resources."

Learn more about Transforming Neighborhoods

Start Small and Build Capacity

Commercial specialists interested in incremental development should assess the market and decide what it can bear. “Start with renovations, not new builds,” Keen says. “Move in, pay yourself rent, and build your capacity and resources.” For sales and leasing, Keen advocates bringing the right people to the right spaces.

Ashley Hairston, owner of ANH Realty Group, is one of several real estate agents in South Bend Town Makers who saw an opportunity to do something impactful in the neighborhood. “Being young and relatively new to real estate, I couldn’t see myself selling the same homes year after year,” she says.

After Hairston bought her first property, she talked to Keen and realized she’d done everything wrong. “You live and learn, and I’ll know for the next one,” she says. Hairston is already eyeing a vacant lot next to the property she bought and is partnering with another South Bend Town Makers group member to explore a multifamily development.

Getting Banks on Board

Financing is the biggest challenge to incremental development. “Bankers don’t see it,” Keen says. “We talked to six banks before securing a loan for our first effort. You have to build relationships.”

Keen echoes the advice of Dallasbased incremental developer Monte Anderson: “Don’t beg for money; be attractive to money.” Nonprofit advocacy organization Strong Towns has recognized Anderson for his work saving struggling neighborhoods.

“It takes heart, hustle and humor,” says Keen. But the payoff is real. Public Square, a journal dedicated to best practices in urbanism, estimates that by 2031, the redevelopment in Portage Midtown will total $15.2 million in private investment and deliver about $300,000 annually in taxes to the city—an astounding 2,334% increase from before Keen began his work. The community development group doesn’t compete with large-project commercial or residential development, at least not now. “We tell the city we don’t object to them bringing in big outside developers, but we want them to help us build capacity so someday we can handle big projects,” he says. “In the meantime, we’re building a neighborhood that cares about [investment in] the community.”

Growing Resilient Towns Takes Persistence

Charles Marohn is the founder and president of northern Minnesota–based Strong Towns, which seeks to replace America’s postwar pattern of development (the “suburban experiment”) with a financially strong and resilient development paradigm. Marohn is on a mission to help communities become stronger and more prosperous. Here, he shares his views on “Main Street America” and the role of commercial real estate professionals.

What is missing on main streets across America?

Customers. People are missing from America’s main streets. When I see thriving communities, they have main streets designed and built for people living within walking distance. Trying to entice people to come with one-off events won’t sustain a community.

What role does the real estate industry play in unsustainable development patterns?

Like all industries involved in growth and development, the real estate industry makes money on the transactions. We build and sell. But there is no reason you can’t grow the community’s wealth and make money. For too long, we’ve been oblivious to the long-term ramifications of our transactions on city governments and small businesses. We focus on short-term gains defined by employment or GDP data rather than the long-term cost to cities to provide services. Growing community wealth requires a more complex understanding of what is required to build a great city.

How do we solve the problem, and is there a role for commercial specialists?

We need to build more viable, smaller buildings adaptable to multiple uses—for example, commercial spaces that can be converted into residential or small shops. Adaptable buildings create less risk and more opportunity for long-term resiliency and growth. Commercial real estate professionals understand this. They see what’s not working today, but understandably, they like doing large transactions— one big thing, one time. Small projects can be much harder because they involve doing many things over and over. Getting 40 tenants to fill a space takes more work than just one.

‘Main Street’ is currently undergoing nationwide rejuvenation. It’s where families and small businesses want to be. Cities see it as a dynamic and resilient investment. But it takes work. You can’t do it from afar; you must be there and nurture your investments.

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