Take a Seat at the Community Table

Over the past few weeks, our community has been having an important conversation about Downtown DeLand.

News stories, social media posts, and conversations around dinner tables, coffee shops, and MainStreet's Wayne Carter Conference Room have touched on business closures, rising costs, shopping habits, retail hours, quality-of-life concerns, and what comes next for our historic downtown.

These conversations have not always been easy. They have not always been positive. But they have reminded me of something important.

You care.

You care deeply about Downtown DeLand because our downtown is more than a collection of storefronts. It is where we celebrate milestones, welcome visitors, support local entrepreneurs, preserve our history, gather with friends, and create memories with the people we love. It is the place where so much of our community comes to life.

Our mission at MainStreet DeLand Association is to nurture the heartbeat of DeLand by preserving history, supporting local business, cultivating opportunity, and welcoming everyone into our Historic Downtown.

Like any heartbeat, Downtown DeLand is alive! Its rhythm changes over time. It quickens in some seasons, steadies in others, and occasionally reminds us that it needs our attention and care. It evolves with each generation. It experiences seasons of prosperity, seasons of uncertainty, moments of celebration, and moments that call us to pause, reflect, imagine, and sometimes even invent what comes next. 

That’s why the work of preserving and supporting downtown is never finished. And that is why MainStreet was founded more than four decades ago. Over those years, we have celebrated grand openings and mourned business closures. We have weathered recessions, hurricanes, changing consumer habits, and countless economic shifts.

Today's challenges are no different.

Our merchants are navigating rising operating costs, staffing shortages, changing consumer expectations, and increasing competition. Property owners are balancing the responsibility of maintaining historic buildings while managing increasing expenses of their own. Residents have shared concerns about retail hours, business mix, affordability, and the overall experience of downtown.

These are real concerns that deserve thoughtful conversations. They also deserve thoughtful solutions.

And there is another part of this story that deserves to be told.

Despite today's challenges, Downtown DeLand continues to be one of Florida's most beloved historic downtowns. New businesses continue to invest here. MainStreet currently has thirteen prospective businesses on our inquiry list. Visitors continue to choose DeLand. Our events bring well over one hundred thousand people downtown each year. Volunteers continue to give their time. Sponsors continue to invest in this community. Residents continue to choose local businesses.

For more than four decades, MainStreet has been the table where our community comes together to do the work of downtown.

Around that table are merchants and property owners, residents and volunteers, city and county leaders, nonprofit organizations, sponsors, investors, artists, students, and neighbors. We do not all bring the same perspective, and we do not always agree. Healthy communities rarely do.

What brings us together is a shared commitment to the future of Downtown DeLand.

MainStreet is not separate from this community.

We are this community.

Our board members, volunteers, committee members, sponsors, and partners are people who live here, work here, own businesses here, invest here, and believe in this place. We do this work not for our community, but as a community.

That is what MainStreet has always been.

Not an organization working for the community, but a community working together.

This moment has also challenged us to reflect on ourselves.

Over the years, some members of our community have felt that Downtown DeLand – or even MainStreet – wasn't really for them. Some have felt disconnected from the conversations shaping downtown's future. Others have wondered whether their voice mattered at all.

If that has been your experience, I want to acknowledge it.

Our intention has always been to serve this entire community, but intentions alone are not enough. If people have felt there wasn't a place for them at the table, then we have a responsibility to make that table larger, more welcoming, and more accessible. Because Downtown DeLand belongs to all of us.

A table is only meaningful if people feel welcome to take a seat, so consider this an open invitation.

If you have ideas, concerns, questions, or hopes for Downtown DeLand, I would like to hear from you. If you have a perspective you think has been missing from the conversation, I want to know it. If you have never felt like there was a place for your voice in shaping downtown, I hope you will give us the opportunity to change that.

You can reach me directly at director@mainstreetdeland.org.

I cannot promise we will always agree, and I cannot promise every idea will become reality. What I can promise is that I will listen, that your perspective will be treated with respect, and that I will continue doing everything I can to keep a seat at the table for everyone who cares about the future of Downtown DeLand.

The challenges ahead will not be solved by any one person or organization. They will be met the same way they always have been: by neighbors sitting down together, listening well, and doing the work as a community.

There is always room for one more chair.

With gratitude,

Stephanie Garcia Mullins
Executive Director
MainStreet DeLand Association