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Can ailing businesses in downtown Blacksburg cash in on a new Virginia Tech arts initiative and plans to create an arts and culture district in the town's core? And if so, how can that be accomplished?

John Barrett, mayor of North Adams, Mass., will give two talks this week on how that small, rural town parlayed the arts into a major economic engine. Barrett will speak at 2:30 p.m. today at the Municipal Building at 300 S. Main St. and at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Lyric Theatre on College Avenue.

His presentation will feature excerpts from the film "Downside Up," which documents the revitalization of North Adams and is part of a joint community education effort on the value of the arts for economic development.

The arts can be "a way to redefine downtown as a year-round destination," said Jo Evans, director of communications for the Tech arts initiative, a sponsor of the event.

Blacksburg town government and the nonprofit economic development group the Blacksburg Partnership are co-sponsors.

Barrett's visit "is just an expansion of what is already happening in Blacksburg," Evans said.

As the town council considers the creation of a downtown arts and culture zoning district that could create incentives for certain kinds of businesses, Tech is building an experimental theater on part of Henderson Lawn. That project has raised some ire among those who want to preserve open space in downtown. But others see it as a way to bolster downtown businesses.

Plans are also in the works for an $82 million center for the arts to be built on and around the current site of the Shultz dining hall, nearby downtown.

-- Tonia Moxley