Pennsylvania Downtown Center (PDC) has named its best performing Main Street Programs of 2015. This award recognizes those programs that have demonstrated an “across the board” capacity to generate new jobs, new businesses, public and private investment and volunteer hours. The top performing Main Street Programs across the Commonwealth for 2015 are: . 1^st – Easton Main Street Initiative, 2^nd – Greensburg Community Development Corp., 3^rd – Latrobe Community Revitalization Initiative, 4^th – Ardmore Initiative, and 5^th – Ebensburg Borough.

The determining criteria measures program activity as reported annually by local Main Street Managers. Community revitalization organizations are then ranked from top to bottom, with the top performing program in each of the sixteen evaluated categories receiving a score of 1. This year there were forty-nine community organizations eligible to be evaluated.  The rankings across all of the categories are then tabulated and the organization with the lowest total number is the top performing program.

PDC, the coordinating program to the National Main Street Center for Main Street programs in Pennsylvania, is honored to see these downtowns acknowledged for the goals they have set, accomplished and in many cases, exceeded. Each community has also met the ten performance standards established by National Main Street Center to be a nationally accredited Main Street Program.  These standards include topics such as training requirements, planning methods, and community involvement.