Building a vibrant downtown where young talent can incubate and pop-up requires two strategies: the first is cultivating businesses from scratch, and Seaside, Florida has done a phenomenal job, helping close to 200 businesses get started over the past 40+ years. There are obviously not 200 businesses in this image; some startups inevitably fail. But quite a number have grown to achieve regional status. Seaside's Town Founders are the husband-and-wife team of Robert and Daryl Davis. Robert focused on the real estate development side while Daryl focused on the economic development side, so she is the prime mover in the cultivation of all those businesses.
The Village of Providence in Huntsville, Alabama does a great job of incubating new businesses, but they also curate the best local & regional businesses to open in Providence. And the region in which they scout for entrepreneurial talent is as far as Nashville to the north, Atlanta to the east, Birmingham to the south, and Alabama's Quad Cities to the west. Using both strategies has turned Providence into an employment powerhouse.
Recruiting the best local & state businesses to your downtown is one thing, but the regional businesses can be tricky. The best ones have branded their experience but not their look. Mellow Mushroom fits great in a repurposed Tuscaloosa industrial building and in a new Providence building. This is a great business strategy because a visual brand that encompasses the entire building (or at least the entire building face) is more limited in where it can occur (mainly suburban sprawl strips and outparcels) whereas other businesses have no such limitations. And as The Experience Economy shows, branding your experience is far more powerful today than just branding your building.
Providence recruits a lot of service businesses, so their town center has a classic American downtown mix. Technically, State Farm is a national, but this one's Natalie Cain's agency, a far cry from a national franchise operation with an interchangeable cast of characters.
The only true exception Providence makes to recruiting no national chains is hotels. There are three; each with the highest occupancy for their flag in the region. Because of that success, a fourth Providence hotel is nearly complete. One key was being in a vibrant place; another was requiring them to build city hotels, not their suburban models. Because Providence programs events skillfully, there's always something happening on any given weekday evening when most other places are dead, and on the weekends, it's absolutely hopping.