A formerly vacant storefront in downtown Allegan is filled with activity during Festive Fridays.

Allegan is doing everything right. They have an historic downtown, a beautiful riverfront, community-wide events, and most importantly, wonderful people who all love where they live.

We had the opportunity to partner with Allegan in 2013 when the community won a PlacePlans grant to create a design concept for their riverfront area. With the goal to further enhance the city’s natural beauty, capitalize upon its historic districts, and jumpstart economic development, the community rallied together to create the riverfront plan they’re actually building today.

Rob Hillard, Allegan’s city manager, believes in the power of place. He’s educated his staff, counsel, and community on the impact of placemaking and acts as a cheerleader to organize and implement place-based improvements. The push for placemaking doesn’t come from Rob alone, it’s imbedded into the community. When walking downtown Allegan, it’s clear that people care: it’s the kind of place where people are pleased to run into their neighbors on the street, where teenagers hang out in the local coffee shop for an open mic night, and where visitors are genuinely welcomed into the art and antique shops by the small business owners who run them.

Local entrepreneurs sell cupcakes and baby accessories at one of the pop-up stores.

We’re so glad that the community’s excitement for placemaking brought us back into Allegan, and this time with our newest League service, PlacePOP. PlacePOP is an initiative focused on tactical and incremental placemaking, with a strong emphasis on civic engagement, education, and inspiration. It’s hard to describe in just a sentence because projects can range from building a pocket park, to bringing a public meeting to the streets, to hosting placemaking workshops. In Allegan, we worked with the community to organize four “pop-up” vendors in vacant downtown buildings. Pop-up retail is more traditionally seen as an economic development tactic for larger communities, like Detroit, but this project illustrates that even smaller places like Allegan have the drive, knowledge, and people to implement pop-up retail effectively.

Every year, Allegan hosts a December event series that brings people downtown for a small-town holiday experience, Festive Fridays. This year, the community wanted to capitalize on having so many people downtown and showcase a few vacant storefronts. Through PlacePOP, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and artists are partnering with downtown building owners to fill these empty spaces with temporary businesses, events, and activities.

The collaboration, effort, and organization all payed off at the first Festive Friday on December 4^th. As families filled downtown for the annual holiday parade, tree lighting, carriage rides, and historic bridge light show, they were also encouraged to visit Allegan’s permanent businesses and temporary pop-ups to do some shopping, have some fun, and see the opportunity in downtown’s available spaces. And visitors did just that: they shopped, had fun, and were welcomed into storefronts that had been closed just the week before.

Holiday lights, decorations, and people fill downtown Allegan during the Christmas parade.

There are two more Festive Friday and pop-up events happening in Allegan this month and I encourage all place-lovers to visit and be part of the magic:

December 11^th is the Downtown Art HOP where existing businesses host art and crafts from local artists. There are also four PlacePOP venues:

• 209 Hubbard has vendors selling sweets, baby accessories, headbands, scarves, jewelry, handmade soap, and more;
• 111 Locust is a collaborative of local artists, Random Acts of Art, selling wood creations, glitter chains, mittens, custom-blended make-up, and more;
• 114 Locust is hosting a 26-hour Creativity Open House, an all-night, holiday-themed craft and music party;
• 118 Locust is full of games to play, and wreaths and poinsettias to buy to support 4-H Camp Kidwell.

Visitors answer the question: What would you love to see in downtown Allegan?

On December 18^th, the community is hosting the Downtown Stocking Hop, where kids decorate a stocking and gather goodies from participating businesses Halloween-style. All four PlacePOP venues are also participating but this time the Jaycees are hosting a holiday beer and wine fundraiser in 114 Locust from 5:00 @ 10:00 PM.

The pop-ups are a true effort of collaboration, trust, and full support of the community. I encourage anyone who loves Michigan’s communities to visit, support the local vendors, and experience the creativity and fun of downtown Allegan.