Join us in celebrating our 2020 Award Winners!
Our first award goes to Diane Seely, the owner of Georgia’s Bed & Breakfast for the 2020 Downtown Collaborator Award! In the short amount of time Georgia’s Bed and Breakfast has been open and operating, they have already partnered with several other downtown businesses to promote their goods and services, building a foundation of community support. Their exemplary attitude, perseverance, and dedication to our community has been an excellent addition to our downtown!
We are proud to present Homestretch Apparel owner Jason McMahon with the 2020 Business Beacon Award! Jason, Carrie and their team at Homestretch have such heart, that they epitomize our Business Beacon Award. They were ready to open their doors last April when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and changed their plans quite a bit, but what they did in response was extraordinary. They launched the “Delaware Has Heart” T-shirt campaign, which raised funds for struggling small businesses, before their business even opened. They saw a need and decided to do something about it, and we are so grateful to have them as part of our downtown family.
We are proud to award the Delaware County Commissioners with Main Street’s 2020 Best Building Improvement for the recently completed renovations to the Historic Courthouse.
In June 2019, Delaware County launched a construction project to preserve and renovate the Historic Courthouse. Begun in 1868 and completed in 1869, this iconic structure at the northwest corner of North Sandusky Street and Central Avenue originally housed most of Delaware County’s elected officials and their staffs. The building was vacated in November 2017 when the offices working there (including the Court of Common Pleas and the Clerk of Courts) moved to the new Delaware County Courthouse at 117 N. Union St.
The renovation was completed in Fall 2020, its four floors are occupied by:
Ground floor: Delaware County Veterans Service Commission; accessible entrance
First floor: Offices for the County Commissioners and their staff, including the County Administrator, Clerks, Staff Attorney and Communications Department. The front doors will be reopened to the public.
Second floor: Hearing room for the Commissioners’ sessions; offices for the Economic Development and Fiscal Services departments
Third floor: Human Resources Department
Additionally, the front lawn of the Historic Courthouse was renovated to feature a Veterans’ Memorial Garden, utilizing the existing monuments and adding flagpoles to honor all branches of the United States military forces.
Not only did this project protect and honor historical standards, it is a beautiful repurposing of the original Courthouse and serves to remind the community of the history of Delaware. We believe this project will also set the standard for future preservation and revitalization projects throughout the entire state of Ohio.
We are proud to present The Strand Theatre with the 2020 Business Innovation Award! We were truly inspired by The Strand’s Board of Directors and Managing Director Tracey Peyton for their innovation during the pandemic. Offering curbside popcorn, streaming movies at home, marquee rentals, and ultimately the bring-your-own movie promotion were not easy changes they had to make. But they did it with grace and dignity and we are so excited it allowed them to keep their presence in the community. At 105 years old, it would have been a devastating loss were the Strand Theatre to close.The Strand is such an important part of our downtown, and we can’t wait to see it return to its original love of showing first-run movies – soon! Congratulations!
We are excited to present the Delaware County Finance Authority with Main Street’s 2020 Downtown Business Partner Award! The DCFA helped provide much needed financial assistance by creating a revolving loan for small businesses during 2020. Without programs like this, many small businesses in Delaware County would not be open today. The DCFA has also been a financial partner to Main Street Delaware in our effort to create The Delaware Welcome Center. Thank you and congratulations!
We are honored to present the Delaware Public Health District with the 2020 Community Leader Award, for their outstanding leadership during the past year. We have witnessed the dedication, expertise, and sacrifice of Health Commissioner Sheila Hiddleson and the entire DPHD team to care for our community during the worst public health crisis in a century. Their tremendous efforts have not gone unnoticed. Thank you and congratulations!
