Garret Martin, Downtown Arlington Management Corp. vice president, left, and Maggie Campbell, corporation president and CEO walk along downtown Arlington.
Photo courtesy of Downtown Arlington Management Corp.
For 20 years, the Downtown Arlington Management Corp. has collaborated with the city, businesses and Arlingtonites to expand and grow downtown Arlington into what it is today.
The organization was formed in 2006 as a private nonprofit, said Maggie Campbell, Downtown Arlington Management Corp. president and CEO. Campbell was the first employee and was given the task of helping revitalize downtown and make it a vibrant, walkable area.
“There wasn’t a Levitt Pavilion. There weren’t parks. All of that has been what has happened, and it’s happened because the community was very intentional,” she said. “They said, ‘We want to have a downtown.’”
Campbell said the city created plans in the ’90s, trying to figure out what to do with the downtown area.
Through this desire for revitalization, a board of directors was created with people like Victor Vandergriff and Tom Cravens, longtime Arlington residents who wanted change, she said.
Campbell said many of the businesses and spaces there today were not then. There was the university and the Entertainment District, she said, but not much else. Littered across downtown were old and empty buildings, lone businesses, like J. Gilligan’s Bar and Grill, and parking, she said.
“When I first came to Arlington and started trying to talk to people about what this downtown could be, there was a lot of skepticism,” Campbell said.
As World War II ended, with the development of freeways and soldiers coming back home, apartments and affordable houses were built, followed by the migration of General Motors and the Bell Helicopter Plant, she said.
However, Campbell said it wasn’t until the 1990s that people wanted to invest in the core of the town, in downtown Arlington.
She said a lot of the work done these past decades has been to make up for the trends of the late 20th century, a focus on suburbia, cars and the destruction of historic buildings.
“In the early days it was all about — well, it was two things,” Campbell said. “It was setting up the organization to be a successful business and a successful organization with involved board leaders and get the community involved and engaged.”
She said beyond that goal, it was also about physically bringing the proposed changes and making people see them. The corporation didn’t have an office in 2006, and she would work in the back of a coffee shop downtown, the only one at the time, she said.
Maggie Campbell, Downtown Arlington Management Corp. president and CEO.
Photo courtesy of Downtown Arlington Management Corp.
Campbell said Arlington was the most challenging downtown she had ever worked with, because there wasn’t anything there for her to work with. Most places she previously worked at had something there to build onto, she said, like a town square, historic buildings, a successful department store — but Arlington did not have that.
“The citizens of Arlington had not yet seen what a walkable development was like. They were all used to going to suburban destinations,” she said.
Campbell first worked as the president of the Downtown Arlington Management Corp. from 2006 to 2009. One of the big accomplishments of this time was bringing Levitt Pavilion to the city. She said it was the catalyst project that put downtown Arlington on the map.
Through this, more businesses began to open, and a business improvement district was created. She said this is a way for property owners that are willing to pay higher taxes to say they want better services, like a higher level of trash pickup.
This legal mechanism helped fund the corporation, Campbell said. With this new budget, it was able to start marketing, develop a website, get businesses to work together and start creating events, like a farmers market.
Through Campbell and the Downtown Arlington Management Corp., the arts district was created, more business and developers came to the city, Arlington Music Hall was restored, Doggie Depot was built, the DREAM sculpture was created for the Rotary Dream Park and the Founders Plaza was created. All of these changes were through the work of the organization.
“I think citizens in Arlington are very proud of downtown,” she said. “They love coming here for parades and for the Levitt and going out to dinner. For those people that have lived here a long time, they remember that none of that used to be here.”
Campbell said the corporation’s purpose has always been to be an advocate, a convener, the promoter and the bridge between the public and private. The purpose has stayed the same, she said, while the role the corporation plays continues to evolve.
Campbell said what the corporation is involved with today is more impactful; it has brought together landowners and developers, and brought the community to downtown Arlington. She said the impact is different from what she imagined in 2006 and that downtown Arlington has exceeded anything ever imagined.
“And we’re not done,” she said.
Eight years ago, Campbell was given the opportunity to come back to Arlington and resume her role as president after having left the position. But after two tenures as the president and CEO of Downtown Arlington Management Corp., Campbell is retiring at the end of September.
Garret Martin, vice president of Downtown Arlington Management Corp.
Photo courtesy of Downtown Arlington Management Corp.
The vice president of the organization, Garret Martin, will take over the role. Martin began working at the corporation as an intern in 2017 and eventually returned to the corporation.
He said that as an intern, he learned that events, such as the ones put on by the corporation, are a great way to bring people together, but they have to happen in the context of the space they are hosted in.
“One of the things that our organization has done very well is helped Arlington believe in itself as a destination for local activities,” he said.
Martin said now, the community relies on the corporation more because it’s seen as an organization that can get things done.
It has proven its value with the programs it’s taken on and shown it can take on projects and turn them into real results, he said.
“We’ve become the person that the city reaches out to when something needs to be done down here,” he said.
Martin said their jobs are to be the experts on downtown Arlington.
“What downtown has proven over the years is that this is a space where people can grow their business. This is a space where people can express themselves artistically,” he said. “That’s what’s been one of the largest impacts of our organization, is helping facilitate that and amplifying it.”
@atclements03