By Dean Vaglia
Leader Staff Writer
The Oxford Downtown Development Authority (DDA) was accredited by Main Street America on Wednesday, Jan. 12.
Accredited status is the highest level of recognition by Main Street America, a program run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that focuses on downtown preservation and revitalization programs.
Some of the activities contributing to the accreditation include the approval of 16 facade, signage and awning grants, finishing the M-24 streetscape project, performing capital improvement work to the Centennial Park gazebo, organizing over 800 hours of volunteer work across 2021 and hosting some of the most attended downtown events like Concerts in the Park and Witches Night Out.
But one of the biggest factors to the accreditation was the way the DDA director and board got along.

“When the evaluation from [Main Street America] came in, they said that they’ve never seen the board and the DDA work so well together,” Kelly Westbrook, DDA executive director, said. “They have never seen such positive things come out.”
Westbrook says the past year brought local businesses closer to the community than they had been before.
“I think our businesses for so long did not feel like they were a part of the community or they did not know how to become more a part of the community, and I think that is what we did a really good job with this year,” Westbrook said.
With accreditation taken care of, the DDA is looking forward to a 2022 full of projects and programs. One DDA grant-backed program Westbrook is excited about is the reconfiguration of 10 S. Washington St.
Located between Victoria’s Wine and Dine and Modern Marketplace, the boarded-up storefront is being redesigned to match the brickwork of 8 S. Washington as well as expanding Victoria’s dining space and 8 S. Washington’s upper-floor office space into 10 S. Washington.
“All three of those businesses are expanding and the holes have already been put into the buildings,” Westbrook said.
Brickwork is expected to begin before March while the windows will come in later.