Downtown Foley, through Foley Main Street, has been accepted into the Opportunity Alabama Community Growth Accelerator Program. The CGA team came into town for their first site visit September 27. The visit included touring properties in Downtown Foley that are possible projects, reviewing assets and opportunities, challenges and barriers, and possible goals and results. Thanks to Chad Watkins, Wayne Dyess, Todd Koniar and Darrelyn Jung Dunmore for serving on this taskforce. Foley Main Street’s acceptance into the accelerator program was made possible due to the extensive work done through the Envision Downtown Foley process.
The Community Growth Accelerator (CGA) is a 10–12-week program designed to help communities identify and scale real estate projects and economic development initiatives that can be competitive for private investment or grant funding. During CGA, communities execute pre-development work and design high-quality programs, all with the goal of securing new sources of public and private investment for those initiatives.
CGA is offered free of charge by the ALTogether Coalition, an alliance of four organizations committed to ensuring every community in the state – regardless of demographic make-up, geography, or size – has access to the types of capital needed to strengthen the local economy. The ALTogether Coalition includes the Business Council of Alabama, Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Opportunity Alabama, and Main Street Alabama. CGA is made possible through grant funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), the US Economic Development Administration (EDA), Rural LISC, and The Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing (TPF). We work with 4-6 communities at a time and a total of 12-18 communities per year.