BIDDEFORD — It was announced last week that there will be no Main Street Challenge for the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean the idea has been put to bed forever.

There are number of reasons a third challenge isn’t in the works for the new year, Daniel Stevenson, the city’s director of economic development, said on Monday. 

Perhaps the most important reason, said Stevenson, is that businesses no longer need to be lured to the city’s burgeoning downtown area by a prize-awarding competition.

“The initial goal was to stimulate additional growth, which has happened,” he said. Now that growth has been stimulated, the city is ready to let nature take its course, hoping it has given business development in the area enough of a push to keep itself moving forward.

Projects that are in the works for the downtown area have created their own magnet for businesses looking to break new ground, said Stevenson. For example, the hotel planned for the Lincoln Mill will make Biddeford a destination, he said, and its guests will walk around downtown, looking for places to shop and places to eat, and that makes the area appealing to businesses. 

There are a few other reasons behind the decision, too, said Stevenson. 

“It takes much longer than we anticipated to get someone open,” he said. “Whenever you’re doing rehab in buildings, you run into some unforeseen costs, which slows down the project.” 

For example, Stacy Cooper, whose store Biscuits & Company opened last month after being named one of the three winners of the second challenge, ran into venting issues that required additional money to be raised, he said. 

Furthermore, said Stevenson, the challenge was never intended to become a recurring community staple. 

“We didn’t envision it to keep going and going and going,” he said. “We don’t need a third Main Street Challenge right now.”  

The first Main Street Challenge, which was held in 2013, was an idea birthed by the downtown revitalization organization the Heart of Biddeford, the city’s economic development office and a number of others. It provided a $20,000 incentive package for three businesses to move into downtown Biddeford.

The winners of the first challenge included Elements: Books Coffee Beer, Dahlia’s Delights and Tote Road. In 2014, the winners of the second challenge, dubbed the Main Street Challenge Encore, included Biscuits & Company, Desert Moon Leather and Forage Beer Works.

Elements owner Michael Macomber said the challenge was helpful.

“I probably would’ve been able to open, but the support that I got from participants in the Main Street Challenge was invaluable, and because of it, it made opening that much easier,” he said. “I’ve always said the Challenge was, for me, not only about the financial incentives, it was about having the support of the local community.”

He said the Main Street Challenge may no longer be needed.

“ I am seeing that trend,” said Macomber. “Four major businesses have opened in the last few years that were not affiliated with the Challenge: Palace Diner, Banded Horn Brewery, Sugar, and Portland Pie opening this month, and more are on the horizon.”

Moving forward, the city will continue to monitor vacancy rates in the mill buildings, said Stevenson, and if certain spots aren’t filling up, or there are troublesome trends in vacancies ”“ such as upper-floor units not attracting bidders ”“ another challenge would likely be proposed. And if the time for that does come, he said, the new challenge would probably be modified to maximize its effectiveness. 

In the future, he said, it would make more sense to look at the remaining storefronts and decide what the “best uses are for these storefronts,” and then the city would be able to pick out businesses that are best equipped to thrive there. 

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].