The Kissimmee Main Street program now has its headquarters in the historic 1926 Standard Oil gas station building, located at Main Street and Drury Avenue, in downtown Kissimmee.

By Juliana A. Torres
Staff Writer

Kissimmee Main Street’s new Welcome Center places the organization in the middle of the activity of the city’s growing downtown, right where it should be, Executive Director Cheryl Fish said.

The nonprofit’s move from the Community Redevelopment Agency’s offices on Monument Avenue to its current address at 24 E. Broadway allows them to be closer to the businesses they’re trying to promote and gives a central location for incoming visitors and tourists.

“It’s been very good for Main Street to have a home,” Fish said. “We want people to feel like they can come in here for pretty much any information.”

Aside from being a center to promote downtown businesses, the building includes a store that sells jewelry, art and goods from Central Florida artisans and crafters. It also acts as offices for Fish and an assistant.

The Main Street program also helps beautify the downtown area. It hosts clean-up days and recently had the flowers replaced in 58 flowerpots throughout the area. Staff also manage the Kissimmee Farmer’s Market, open in Toho Square from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Thursday. The market has seen an increase in vendors as well as customers, especially since snowbirds have returned to the area, Fish said.

Fish came into the position as executive director in March. She’s been living in Kissimmee for the last six years, after having lived in Kansas City, Mo., for more than 20 years.

“I’m paid to do what I love to do,” she said. “It’s nice to be back downtown and see that it’s being restored and that it’s still got that Southern feel.”

An upcoming goal she hopes to achieve for the downtown is a project that will install kiosks with maps and way-finding signs for key landmarks – such as the Kissimmee Civic Center, the marina and courthouse square – as well as harder-to-find businesses off the main road.

The design for the signs as well as the engineering to determine where they should go has already been completed. The project only lacks the money needed to purchase and install the signs.

“We’re optimistic that we’ll get funding,” Fish said.

Fish has two things on her wish list for downtown: a hotel so tourists could stay close by and a small grocer that could sell food and necessities for the convenience of the permanent residents and business regulars.

“I think that it would be very successful and that it would enhance the life in the downtown,” she said.

She said she also hopes that Main Street could help organize more low-cost, promotional events for the downtown area, like the one it hosted for Halloween. On the afternoon before the holiday, businesses stayed open from 4 to 6 p.m. and stocked candy for a downtown trick-or-treat event that attracted an estimated 480 children and their families.

“The sidewalks were full. It was glorious to see,” she said. “We hadn’t seen that much traffic in downtown in a long time.”

She’s optimistic that regular traffic downtown will become a more consistent trend, citing the opening of the City Centre and all its corresponding restaurants as a big boost in that goal. The restaurants are a good start to creating a vibrant, healthy downtown, she said, explaining that after restaurants open and do well, retailers will follow.

Overall, she said she is pleased with how much the city has grown.

“Now we really have a downtown to show off,” Fish said.