Community Spotlight: Eureka

A mural alongside parking meters in downtown Eureka. Photo credit: Eureka Main Street

CAMSA Quarterly | Spring 2021
By: Charlotte McDonald, Executive Director, Eureka Main Street, and Abby Armato, Communications Coordinator, NMSC

We caught up with Charlotte McDonald, Executive Director of Eureka Main Street. Eureka was one of four California communities to receive funding from the USDA for technical assistance and support for small businesses and economic development in their community. Through this work, Eureka is promoting innovation and entrepreneurship and building a pipeline of future entrepreneurs. Learn more about Eureka Main Street in this interview below:

1. Provide a brief description of your city.

We are rugged. We are surrounded by the redwood forests, six rivers, and the Pacific Ocean. Because of our location, we have historically been a resource-based economy. Back in the 1860s, Eureka was just emerging as a community, and eventually became the County seat. The proximity to Humboldt Bay served as an ideal port for transportation of people and goods.

Eureka’s Old Town is so well preserved it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Between the Gold Rush, fishing, and timber industries we have a generations-deep blue collar, resource-based work ethic.

Eureka’s population is a little over 25,000. However, the daytime population almost doubles due to the number of people who work in Eureka. The County of Humboldt is one of the largest employers. The courthouse, jail, and many of the County’s departments, including Health and Human Services, and Economic Development are located within our Main Street boundaries. The state and federal governments also have agencies within and on the fringe of our district.

Our district consists of a 49-block area—which is actually larger than Berkeley’s Downtown Business Association (population over 120,000) which makes up 35 blocks. This area has three distinct identities—the Waterfront, where commercial fishermen still off load their catch, and cargo ships are seen taking on logs; Old Town, with its eclectic mix of restaurants, retail, offices, housing, and architecture; and Downtown, which is defined more as financial institutions, auto dealers, retail, restaurants, and government offices.

2. How has your commercial corridor transformed over the years?

We should go back to 1983, before Eureka became a Main Street community. We have a 6-lane interstate freeway, US101, at surface street level that splits Downtown and Old Town. In 1983, the businesses, referred to as the core commercial area, created the Eureka Business improvement District Association (EBIDA). This was a first step in unifying the two. Funds raised by the assessment were primarily used for promotions, marketing, and a beautification effort lining F Street from First to Eighth Street with redwood planter boxes.

In 1987, the Bayshore Mall opened. National and regional retailers moved out to the former Pacific Lumber mill site. Two of our larger local stores that anchored downtown closed within five years of the mall’s opening. The smaller shops and restaurants primarily located in Old Town made a slower evolution.

The City of Eureka’s Redevelopment Agency, along with EBIDA members, applied to become a California Main Street demonstration city. Identifying the arts as the catalyst for revitalization and with funding support from the Agency and EBIDA assessments, Eureka Main Street was launched in 1992.

Over the years, we have seen a lot of changes. Our downtown is anchored by financial institutions, a performing arts center, and a seismically retrofitted, five-story bank (built circa 1890) with a Domino's Pizza, a music store, and cider company on the first floor and the County’s Department of Human Health and Services administrative staff on the upper floors at the corner of F Street and 5th Street (US101 north bound).

Two of our arts organizations – Redwood Art Association and Humboldt Arts Council (our California Arts Council partner) – are on F Street between 6th and 7th Streets, with the third – Ink People Center for the Arts – just half a block down. The City of Eureka, Ink People, and Main Street won the first California League of Cities award for Arts as Economic Development. That award led to us becoming one of the first 14 cities in California designated by the CAC as a Cultural Arts District in 2017.

We’ve changed a lot in the last decade. We still have unique gift shops and clothing stores, but we’ve become more of a dining and entertainment district. We have events that are based more on culture, food, music, and arts. Legalizing cannabis has definitely changed the makeup of our district. Cannabis dispensaries have filled several of our big empty buildings, which has also helped merge our district’s distinct identities.

3. Name a Downtown Difference Maker and tell us how they contributed to your downtown vision.

A lot of incredible individuals have contributed to the preservation and revitalization of Downtown and Old Town. However, I think for this article recognition belongs to the Maxon's. In addition to being a past president of Main Street, Barbara Maxon and her son, Robert, are the owners of Globe Properties. More than 50 years ago, when Barbara and her late husband, Bob, first married, they invested in what was still considered the rough-and-tumble area of Eureka. At the time, bars were on almost every street corner. I believe the last brothel was still operating on Second Street. Against Bob’s family’s advice, the Maxon's purchased the Russ Market Building (built circa 1890) at the corner of 3rd Street and G Street in the late 1950s. Over the decades, they found success purchasing and restoring some of Eureka’s oldest buildings.

They still operate Globe Properties out of the oldest building in the district: the H.H. Buhne Store building. Built in 1869 by Captain Hans Henry Buhne, one of the first settlers to enter Humboldt Bay, the building still houses retail on the first floor, and upstairs is a vast collection of historic Eureka photos and other memorabilia from the bygone days. The Maxon’s own four historic properties and warehouses that they have creatively repurposed to be traditional office and commercial spaces as well as spaces and studios for artists: woodworkers, a homebrew business, and a workspace for an arts organization. The Maxon’s were the pioneers of the vision of what Old Town could be.

I’d also name Sondra Kirtley. Sondra is a business owner, property owner, and past president of Main Street. Before her mother and brother retired in the late 1990s, Sondra had been a co-owner of four businesses housed in three connected buildings in Downtown Fortuna. Currently, she owns Scrapper’s Edge in our downtown. Scrapper's Edge is a scrapbooking and crafts store, but she had the vision to see the potential for more. When she started, Sondra bought a copier business across the street from the post office; it was a sad business, and it had poor parking. She had all these obstacles going against her, but she was able to stabilize and built a good reputation. Her business grew, and she soon outgrew her first space, so she found a building around the corner and bought it. In this bigger space, she really expanded from just printing supplies to also a paper craft store. Now, she owns her own building (which she just finished paying off as we were in COVID) and connects with teachers who are looking for materials for projects. Sondra also serves as a notary as well as a post office location, and she recently won the Eureka Chamber’s Customer Service Award. She’s just the full package. She was 16 years old when I was 29, so I’ve watched her grow up. I’m really proud of her.

4. Name a successful downtown project that can serve as a model for other communities.

We had a number of unreinforced masonry buildings that had to be retrofitted to survive major earthquakes. A good model of this retrofitting and rehabbing would be the Carson Block Building, which was one of the first major commercial properties constructed in 1892 for William Carson, a lumber baron. The three story building was the first of its kind in Eureka to include professional offices, large retail spaces, and the Ingomar Theater: a 837-seat theater that was one of the most ornate theaters of its time on the West Coast. When many of the ships would come into Eureka’s port, they wouldn’t need to go out again. So Carson used the wood from those ships and incorporated it into the building. For example, the wainscoting on the Carson Block Building is from those old ships that came to Eureka.

The Northern California Indian Development Council (NCIDC) purchased the property in 1986 in order to fulfill one of NCIDC’s primary and specific purposes: conservation and preservation of historic and archeological sites and resources. This project laid the groundwork for retrofitting future historic buildings, in part because it started with a community investment of $1.5 million dollars. Led by Arcata Economic Development Corporation, the partnership included Humboldt County’s Headwaters Fund, Humboldt Area Foundation, and Redwood Region Economic Development Commission. The project was one very dear to us because the California State Historic Preservation Office was involved. Everything was documented as well as refurbished and restored without compromising the integrity.

5. How has COVID-19 affected your commercial district? Tell us more about one of the ways in which your Main Street organization has addressed those effects.

It’s had a profound impact. It was scary when the first shut down happened. Like other communities, many of our small businesses live paycheck-to-paycheck or have savings or retirement they don’t want to tap into, but almost everyone had to find a way to survive those first few months. When businesses were able to reopen (and because we stayed in the yellow tier for so long), we did a great job rallying around shopping local. Our town knew the importance of keeping dollars in the community.

I’ll say we all came to realize how important events are in our district. That’s what helps bring people down here. Because we’re now into a full year without any events, and people are anxious to hear music played out on the street, see live acts, and go to the theaters.

6. Can you tell us a bit about your experience working with CAMSA and Main Street America through the USDA grant?

It’s been really great. We’ve been able to identify the entities – banks, lending institutions, economic development agencies, realtors, our local chamber, countywide visitors bureau, arts organizations, business and property owners, developers, government agencies, and even Redwood Acres Fair – that can help our efforts, as partners, in supporting entrepreneurs. It’s cool to be seen as a leader, as an organization that is able to bring groups and people together. I always knew that that was one of our best suits, but I’m proud of the collaborations we now have in place. A special thanks go out to Amanda Elliott and Matt Wagner. They have been very helpful in leading us through this process.

Once we have all of this information in place, we’ll have a directory of the groups and people who can support our entrepreneurs. That’s the best way to move ourselves forward over the next five to ten years: knowing and recognizing the various partners.

7. Anything else?

I love our community. There are a lot of caring individuals, and kindness is shared up here. People are willing to help in any situation. For example, the local food bank ended up having a plumbing issue at the beginning of the pandemic that literally backed everything up and created an issue for food distribution. They had to quickly find a new place and get that restocked. The community pitched in, and it only took them a few weeks to be solidly ready to go. I’m amazed by how undaunted people can be in a crisis.