Laurel places as top 20 for a chance to be featured win a $500,000 town makeover

LAUREL, Miss. - Laurel also known as the 'City Beautiful' is a small town in Southern Mississippi filled with business owners and hard working people.

“We have opened sixteen new businesses in the last year in downtown Laurel. Laurel Main Street is responsible for the lighting project, we’ve invested over 50,000 dollars in downtown between lighting the streets and façade grants to individual business owners, building owners,” said Executive Director of Laurel Main Street Association, Judi Holifield.

The director explained her group has a focus for preservation and economic growth of Laurel's central business district.

“One of the other things that we’ve noticed in our downtown is that we have some aging business owners, who would like to pain their building, who would like to do some improvements in their buildings but aren’t quiet where they can put that match out,”

Deluxe Corporation, a company that broadcast a mini documentary titled 'Small Business Revolution' streams on Hulu and YouTube. The company gives small towns like Laurel a chance to win a $500,000 town and local business makeovers with the guidance of expert marketers to steer business owners to success.

"There’s a whole little strip of buildings that could use some updating, the old Marcus Furniture building they are waiting for updating. We still have a couple of things on Central Avenue and we’re doing some street improvements on Central,” Holifield explained.

The Main Street Association said telling the story of Laurel along with the help of residents and city leaders will lead them to the secure the chance of revitalizing downtown.