Cause for Celebration: 2025 Downtown Harrisonburg Award Winners
Attendees of Celebration Reception listen to the presentation of awards at The Church of the Incarnation.
On Wednesday, November 19, Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance’s sponsors, donors, volunteers, and supporters gathered at The Church of the Incarnation to celebrate our accomplishments in the last year, to take a look ahead at what’s to come, and to present our 2025 Excellence Awards at our annual Celebration Reception.
One of our favorite things about Celebration is the opportunity to recognize the contributions of downtown stakeholders and community members who make the magic happen downtown with us and alongside HDR. Most award recipients were not told in advance of the event what they were being recognized for, which makes the evening fun and surprising. In this blog, we will profile each 2025 Excellence Award winner.
2025 Best New Business: Harrisonburg Innovation Hub
The Harrisonburg Innovation Hub (HIH) opened in January, after an extensive renovation that transformed a former restaurant into a coworking space. This was a spectacular historic tax credit rehabilitation; they let the original brick, industrial accents, and natural light shine through as they worked with Eugene Stoltzfus Architects, Lantz Construction, and Pendleton Community Bank to convert the building into meeting rooms, private offices, a podcasting studio, a hip common area, and all the office equipment you could ever need.
The team intentionally designed the space to inspire and advance creative and innovative thinking, giving their coworking tenants a beautiful space to get work done and meet others with whom they might innovate and collaborate. Details at every level have been considered, from the local beer on tap to inspirational quotes on the wall.
The HIH team walks the walk when it comes to building community. They host regular events and networking gatherings open to the community and generously offer their space for community groups. HDR benefited from this generosity when the Hub team immediately said yes to hosting the governor’s official Virginia Housing grants announcement this spring. We recognized the HIH team -- Hannah Cooper, Betsy Joy Wilcox, and Peter Denbigh -- for setting their members and Harrisonburg up for success.
2025 Destination of the Year: Harrisonburg Farmers Market
The Harrisonburg Farmers Market (HFM) is more than just a place to buy produce; it is a place to connect with neighbors, a place to connect with the growers, and a place to linger with a cup of coffee. Many remember the market when it was set up in the Water Street parking deck in the 1990s and have been enjoying the market at the Turner Pavilion since 2008.
Not every community gets to enjoy a market all year long; our community is fortunate to enjoy Saturday markets that span all four seasons, Tuesday markets from April-November, and the Thursday Night Sunset Markets in the summer. To jazz up the weekend, they host their annual TomatoFest, Harvest Festival, and Holiday Markets; and to create a different vibe, the Sunset Markets feature informational booths, live music, prepared food vendors, and a variety of activities to make it a fun place to hang out.
The HFM earned gold certification from the Virginia Farmers Market Association and was named Best of Virginia in 2024 and 2025. The staff are welcoming, the vendors remember you, and you leave feeling like Harrisonburg is the best place in the world after visiting. We appreciate the farmers market family of staff, volunteers, and vendors for their contribution in making Downtown Harrisonburg a destination.
2025 Volunteer of the Year: Bill Howard
Many know Bill Howard from the Judy Chops, and others might recognize him as the guy with a handlebar mustache. HDR knows him as our trusted emcee who welcomes everyone to each Levitt AMP Harrisonburg Music Series concert and introduces the bands and artists to the stage.
He has helped us identify potential artists, found local bands to feature as our opening acts (which was new this year), and supports the team by showing up early to help with production. We ask a lot of our Levitt volunteers, and they show up for us time and again.
Bill’s can-do spirit, dedication to community building, love of music, and constant good nature and positive attitude are infectious, and we are so lucky to have him on our volunteer team. We are grateful for Bill’s dedication and love for our downtown community.
2025 Downtown Champion: Becky Bartells and Opal
Becky Bartells is a long-time HDR supporter and has taken participation in our first-ever Harrisonburg dog mayor campaign to the next level. Because of her dedication and enthusiasm, her dog Opal is Downtown Harrisonburg’s first dog mayor!
Becky served for many years on HDR’s Design Committee and has stayed connected with us even after she relocated her massage therapy business outside of downtown. When HDR launched our dog mayor campaign, she wholeheartedly jumped in. Becky not only entered Opal into the running, but she also supplemented the campaign materials and videos we provided with her own collateral. If you ran into Becky during the voting period, she probably handed you a card with a QR code to her campaign page while wearing a t-shirt with Opal’s likeness on it. They hosted several happy hours where Opal was the guest of honor. Her campaign alone helped HDR raise $2,000 for dog-friendly programming in Downtown Harrisonburg! Thank you to Becky and Opal for setting a high bar for the Harrisonburg Dog Mayor campaign and being outstanding supporters.
2025 Supporter of the Year: Dirty Dog Carpet, Surface and Duct Cleaning
HDR cannot make its events happen without our amazing sponsors’ support. Dirty Dog Carpet, Surface and Duct Cleaning has sponsored multiple festivals for three years, and business owner, Justin Rowling, has really embraced taking his involvement with us to the next level each year. Justin regularly posts on social media about HDR’s festivals, helps spread the word about our mission, and encourages fellow entrepreneurs to become involved in our work. He always asks how he can help and how we can be creative together.
Justin is particularly enthusiastic about our Skeleton Fest and goes the extra mile for us as a sponsor by becoming an involved event partner and volunteer. Each year, he does something extra to make his booth fun. This year, he was in costume, had his furry best friend Marley greet attendees, and even emcee’d the hour-long costume contest with enthusiasm and humor. He was also passionate about our dog mayor campaign and rallied hard for his beloved dog, who was first runner-up. We truly appreciate Justin’s support of HDR and for bringing energy and positivity to your partnership.
2025 Board Member of the Year: Mel Nguyen
We are grateful for all the ways our board members support our organization, including the ones that inspire us to find new ways of serving our community. Mel Nguyen didn’t want to just own a business downtown, she wanted to get deeply involved in downtown. Joining our board was a natural fit for her and a blessing for HDR. You don’t have to spend too much time with Mel before you get a sense for her passion for being inclusive.
She encouraged us to find ways to introduce sensory-friendly programming into our work. It was a huge help to have her connect us with community members who could share what their needs were and what we could offer to grow our inclusive programming. She volunteered to have the Shops at Agora host our first two sensory-friendly trick-or-treating hours ahead of Skeleton Festival, and she also offered to provide ASL interpretation during our Levitt AMP Harrisonburg Music Series concerts.
If you ever need to take a 20-hour car ride with someone, Mel is your person. She joined our team at the National Main Street Conference as we drove to Birmingham, AL, last year, brainstorming almost the entire car ride about things we could do downtown.
In addition, she was enthusiastic about putting together a downtown-wide putt-putt course during Best.Weekend.Ever., and led a board member task force to help pull it off.
Behind the scenes, Mel was instrumental in HDR’s exploration of applying to acquire the former Virginia Quit Museum building. She was a major proponent for our dream to acquire a building and create a destination that could bring more people into downtown. As she helped bring in consultants to provide renovation quotes, we realized price tag was too daunting and she offered us grace when we had to abandon the effort. We appreciate Mel’s enthusiasm, her heart, and her support, and the HDR team is thrilled to celebrate her as board member of the year.
2025 Partner of the Year: Urban Wood Team
When HDR moved into its current office, we had to leave our conference table behind. We reached out to Knoched VA, and Brad Wroblewski accepted the challenge of creating a new conference table from reclaimed wood. Luckily, Brad ran into Jeremy Harold, who was just getting the City of Harrisonburg’s Urban Wood Program off the ground in 2018 following the arrival of the destructive emerald ash borer in Harrisonburg. This partnership not only got us beautiful and functional conference tables, but it was also the first demonstration project for the Urban Wood Program and the start of an amazing partnership.
HDR’s Events Manager, Jennifer Bayes, saw an opportunity to connect the Urban Wood Program and HDR’s Restaurant Month by offering a charcuterie-board-making workshop. We held our fourth sold-out event this year, underscoring the strong community appeal of this partnership. Each workshop begins with an overview of the Urban Wood Program, framed in a statewide context by Jeremy and Joe Lehman of the Virginia Department of Forestry. This is followed by woodworking with the help of Mike Hott from Harrisonburg Public Works and Rhett Miles and Ned Gearing from Rocktown Urban Wood. Attendees enjoy a beverage from Brothers and a lesson in charcuterie by JMU Dining, creating a fun experience that highlights the collaborative spirit that makes our city so special.
The team always creates the coolest putt-putt holes that make an appearance at Best.Weekend.Ever., and built a new Little Free Library in Liberty Park. Together, we introduced a new workshop this year, making dog bowl stands as part of the Hburg Hounds program. We hope to have another workshop where the community can make more dog water bowl stands to place outside of businesses to enhance our dog-friendly downtown.
HDR is proud to be a stop on the Urban Wood tours that Jeremy leads for curious state agencies and other municipalities. This reclaimed wood is a gorgeous resource that was previously just burned for fuel or mulched. The program was featured in a recent documentary that used Broad Porch Coffee as a backdrop for the creative incorporation of urban wood throughout their café.
Thank you to the Urban Wood Team for working with us every year and being an example for the Commonwealth and beyond.
2025 Community Builder of the Year: Community Connectors Team
You may be aware of the Urban Renewal demolition of the African American business and residential district on the north side of downtown, funded by federal dollars in the 1960s. Many families lost their homes and businesses, and while some were relocated to the Northeast Neighborhood, residual trauma remains from this action, with an invisible wall dividing some residents from the Northeast Neighborhood and downtown to this day.
Thankfully, Harrisonburg was selected as one of 15 communities in the United States to address our city’s past, the harms that remain, and to work with the community to find ways to move forward, forming the Community Connector Team which includes Karen Thomas of the Northeast Neighborhood Association (NENA); Monica Robinson of the Shenandoah Valley Black Heritage Project (SVBHP); Amy Snider and Mike Parks of the City Manager’s office; Tom Hartman and Jakob zumFelde of Public Works; Erin Fischer formerly of Public Works; Thanh Dang and Nyrma Softel of Community Development; and Duane Borntrager of Harrisonburg Redevelopment & Housing Authority (HRHA). We frequently had difficult conversations while trying to build trust and a collaborative process together.
Ms. Robinson and Ms. Thomas represented the neighborhood and helped connect residents to extensive public engagement opportunities so we could get meaningful feedback to guide our efforts. Beyond multiple open house sessions at the Lucy Simms School, some neighborhood residents and business owners dedicated a few days to join the Smart Growth America Complete Streets Academy where we had educational workshops, followed by a hands on planning activities that aimed to slow traffic on N Mason St. We walked Mason Street with community members, engineers, and planners to identify pain points and to start reimagining the corridor, and the participants designed temporary street pattern and roundabouts that Public Works implemented using grant money, narrowing the street into two lanes to match Old Town.
During this time, the Community Connectors Team hosted a community event called Mason Street Blocks Party, where we had games, African American vendors, children’s activities, booths for nonprofits, self-guided local history tours, and more. We also hosted many open house sessions and hired a planning firm to create a small area plan from the feedback and dialogue we had with community members, and hired a research team to take a deep dive into the history of urban renewal. We now have a fascinating report and the most complete history we have ever had.
Thank you to the Community Connectors Team for your dedication, but especially thank you to Ms. Thomas and Ms. Robinson for your willingness to get involved one more time after many years of disappointment and feeling like your voices weren’t being heard. They worked hard to encourage their neighbors to give Community Connectors a chance.
While the grant-funded portion of the program is winding down, our work and partnership are really only just beginning. We thank the City for acknowledging the harms that came from demolishing the African American neighborhood, the full team for channeling their time and expertise in moving the partnership forward, and the two community-based organizations for being open to working with us despite years of pain and an absence of partnership.
2025 Rehabilitation of the Year: Matchbox Realty
Because it isn’t easy trying to save a historic building, we are grateful when property owners take on the heavy lift to reuse and revive existing buildings. Having a Rehabilitation of the Year award means a building was saved from heading to the landfill, and gets a new chance at life. Matchbox Realty transformed and breathed life into an existing building this year with its Daily News-Record renovation.
The DNR building is a sign of the times. This entire building once was dedicated to local news and newspaper production, but with the consolidation of media companies and the shrinking of local news, this building became mostly vacant. Matchbox envisioned a multi-use project here and acquired the property. The DNR still has offices in there, albeit smaller, but now there is also a new apartment on the top floor, a beautiful and bright new Illyria restaurant on the ground floor with two wonderful outdoor dining areas, and the North American headquarters for Lauf Cycles and their showroom.
We love this splashy, cool space and the modern new uses that have reinvigorated this building, and seeing the initial steps in beautifying Blacks Run. To get it started, they recently installed a historical marker about the DNR and created a space with Adirondack chairs near the water. Thank you to the team at Matchbox for another high-quality project in Downtown Harrisonburg.
2025 Scenemaker of the Year: Massanutten Regional Library
From weekly events to special events, there is always programming in full swing at Massanutten Regional Library for all ages. Every year, they hold incredibly engaging and educational programs and events like the Deyerle history lecture series every October, the Rocktown Authors Festival in April, and summer reading programs for all age groups. They are also great partners and have been hosting activities outside of the library at local downtown businesses, including a recurring book club at Sage Bird Ciderworks and bad art night at Restless Moons.
If you check out their event calendar, you can filter by age group to find a ton of programs for all ages. From Fandom Fest (which is their version of Comic Con) to writing clubs, to events where children can practice reading aloud to therapy dogs, there is so much happening at the library.
On top of their events, they have many more resources than books to check out. The Community Gear Library is housed here, so you can check out camping and other outdoor gear and state parks passes that allow you to get admission for free. Massanutten Regional Library is a place of learning and belonging – anyone can get a card and start exploring and you don’t need a card to attend their events or activities. Our downtown is so lucky to have a library, and we are so lucky that ours is so fantastic. It is no wonder this team won the Virginia Library Association's 2025 Library of the Year award for offering new and record-breaking programming with limited resources. Congratulations to everyone at the library, and thank you for making a scene.