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How do you know if your community is thriving? Just look downtown.

Downtown is your city’s front door, economic barometer, and best recruiting tool for any new business.

It does seem to me that new businesses are popping up in Natchez every day. So far this year, Downtown Natchez has welcomed at least a dozen businesses that are either newly opened or newly expanded.

On Franklin, you’ll see the new Edwards Chiropractic Clinic. On Main is The Rendezvous, a new restaurant, and Louie’s, a new event space. The Gate, in a beautifully renovated 19th century house, is a new event space on MLK. Across the street, Jarita Frazier King rebranded and expanded SoulFusion, which includes Miss-Lou Heritage Cooking and Rod’s Grill-n-Chill.

Interestingly, some of these new or expanded businesses fall in line with the recommendations of DNA’s latest retail market analysis which revealed that downtown could support much more than it currently does, including grocery stores, pet stores, art dealers, liquor stores, restaurants, snack and non-alcoholic beverage bars, men’s, children and family clothing stores, and more furniture stores.

In fact, Anna Ferguson of Brakenridge Furniture on Franklin is expanding their inventory this fall to include appliances. Now, when you need that new refrigerator, freezer, stove, washer or dryer, you can shop Downtown.

These are the types of essential goods that DNA’s studies show that downtown needs to encourage local people to stay local, instead of heading to another city.

To explore the magic behind the business of doing business downtown, I contacted one of our newest entrepreneurs, Caylen Caldwell, the 24-year-old owner of Wishes Bakery. Inspired by her passion for Disney, Caldwell named her bakery “Wishes” and says her goal is to create a magical experience for her customers. She described Franklin Street as a close-knit community where everyone supports each other, often collaborating on events and promotions to draw more people downtown.

Maybe the best proof that Downtown is a land of economic opportunity is the fact that so many seasoned downtown merchants are currently expanding their businesses. Why else would Darby’s purchase yet another building to open an additional 15,000 square foot furniture showroom on Main Street last year?

For example, Sharevolution, Alicia Norris’s downtown health and wellness clinic, has steadily increased its offerings since relocating to MLK. A new massage therapy clinic, Fortitude (Nathan Hinkle), and a new pediatric clinic (Dr. David Timms) have just opened in the center.

To further explore this growing trend, I spoke with Meghan Wood, owner of the new Reverie Salon at 403 Main Street. For 10 years, Meghan operated C’est Jolie in a 700 square foot leased space on Franklin. Over time, she outgrew the space. Last year, just before the holiday season, she not only found a hugely larger space (2500 square feet), she purchased an entire building on Main to accommodate her growing clientele and vision for expanded services. When I spoke with her, she emphasized how much she values the downtown community spirit and the relationships among local businesses.

I also reached out to Kaelin Daye, co-owner with Taylor Cooley of Kaelor and Co, a successful athletic and lounge wear store on Franklin, opened last September. They each already owned a downtown business, but they were confident that they could do more. Their joint venture began as a casual idea the two had thrown around, but gradually transformed into a reality. Their expansion plan is to relocate the athletic wear store to 414 Main Street (The old Burns Shoe Store building) in September and then open a new children’s clothing store, Kaelor & Kids, in their original space on Franklin.

This move truly demonstrates the confidence they have in the downtown marketplace. Kaelin says that in her opinion, Downtown Natchez is stronger than it has been in years.

Downtown merchants and investors, the city, and DNA, in pursuit of the city’s Downtown Master Plan and armed with data from ongoing retail market studies, work together every day to create a thriving downtown business environment. As new businesses continue to open and expand, they’ll have no shortage of organizations, individuals, and even neighboring businesses, ready to help wherever they can, because, as evidenced every day in our downtown community, we are stronger together.

Michael Wilson is the Community Engagement Coordinator for the Downtown Natchez Alliance (DNA). He can be reached at Downtown@NatchezDNA.org