Todd Taylor tried living away from Knox County, but it was just not the same.
Born and raised in Fredericktown, he lived for a few years after college in Michigan and later in the Columbus suburb of Worthington. But he missed the friends and family and home of Knox County.
“That real sense of community, you don’t find that everywhere,” Taylor said.
He came home and now owns a custom apparel business, Markt Solutions, in Mount Vernon. He has never regretted the decision to come back to Knox County.
Taylor, the new president-elect of the Main Street Mount Vernon Board of Directors, once thought the Columbus suburb of Worthington was a town that was doing everything right compared to Mount Vernon.
“Now, I will actually flip that,” he told the Mount Vernon News. “The downtown has grown in Mount Vernon with all the events and involvement. They do nothing like that in Worthington. We are doing a ton of things right in Mount Vernon, a ton of things.”
For entrepreneurs in particular, Mount Vernon is an affordable incubator, Taylor said.
“The 12,000-square-foot building I have in Mount Vernon I never could have afforded in Columbus,” he replies to people who ask him why he didn’t locate his business in Columbus.
Taylor is serving as chairman of the events committee this year before taking over as president in 2022. With the COVID-19 pandemic, events were scarce in 2020, but he is hoping that will soon change.
“Main Street Mount Vernon is known for its events — First Fridays, the Christmas parade...,” he said. “That is one of my goals, is to get the events going again.”
As a small-business owner, Taylor has empathy for downtown merchants who endured the pandemic, struggling to keep their employees and customers safe while also keeping their businesses solvent.
“It’s tough to see small businesses struggle; but at the same time, a lot of small-business owners have told me they’ve never been stronger,” he said.
The return of events will help all downtown businesses.
“Every time we put on an event downtown, yes, we are trying to get more bodies downtown,” Taylor said. “But it also creates a better sense of community.”
One of Main Street Mount Vernon’s goals this year is to expand partnerships with other organizations that are also working on downtown projects.
“We might have resources they don’t have,” Taylor said. “They may not have the connections with the downtown merchants that we have. There are lots of opportunities.”
.webp){kind=tracking}