In fall 2019, the Downtown Reno Partnership and its ambassadors changed their approach to homeless outreach. Our two Outreach Ambassadors focused on a few chronically homeless individuals full time instead of working with a lot of people for a little amount of time each day. The goal is to assist people as closely as possible while helping them navigate service providers. We do whatever it takes to keep individuals off the streets and out of the penal system.
Award
Type: Award
Central Green: Connecting Community with Commerce & Culture
Over several years, the Baton Rouge Downtown Development District has worked to connect numerous civic and cultural institutions downtown through a unified system of greenspaces known collectively as the Central Green. In total, the Central Green boasts over 11 acres of accessible, contiguous public greenspace in the heart of downtown. The Central Green is now host to events ranging from large concert series attracting thousands of attendees to small informal gatherings.
Greening Lab
In a city with a nation-leading park system and leafy neighborhoods, downtown has been the gap in our tree canopy for generations. Trees cover 30% of Minneapolis overall, but only 4% in the downtown core. This is significant for our community because street trees are an invaluable resource for improving public health, addressing the heat island effect, and creating an inviting public realm.
ACTIVATE
ACTIVATE is a series of pop-up celebrations of public art that take place in alleys and other underutilized public spaces in the Loop. ACTIVATE is free to the public, bringing Chicagoans from 74 unique zip codes to the Loop during times that are traditionally less busy.
A New Future for I-35: Urban Land Institute Panel
The project, undertaken by the Downtown Austin Alliance, builds on the Texas Department of Transportation’s plans to reconstruct Interstate 35 through the downtown core. I-35 is an immense highway with a deep, complicated history; a structural barrier that has caused division in our community for decades. Our project aims to enhance TxDOT investment, making the most of this once-in-a-generation opportunity by creating a shared community vision that will improve quality of life.
Downtown St. Pete Development Guide
Not only a economic benchmark report, this documents delves into topics such as the adjacent residential neighborhoods and education. It was designed to memorialize our progress as an urban center and provide a road map to our community leaders for thoughtful growth into the future. Through our research in this project, we were able to forecast public and private investments approaching $8 billion will be spent in our city center.
Writing on the Walls
Writing on the Walls is an annual series of collaborative public art installations and events. At the inaugural event in March 2020, local, national and international artists simultaneously created two new landmarks in downtown Austin, including our city’s largest mural to date. This mural is located on the iconic Congress Avenue, 11 blocks south of the state capitol, and located at the gateway into downtown Austin.
Downtown 2.0, Livingston County Commercial District Assessment
The Downtown 2.0 Commercial District Assessment, a comprehensive plan for the County and its nine downtowns, identified shared downtown challenges and established a set of clear strategies and tactics for the County to collectively address business attraction and sales growth, capital investment, and redevelopment.
Unbranded
Unbranded is an experimental pop-up shop showcasing the finest work of Dallas’ robust creative community. Sponsored by Downtown Dallas, Inc. throughout the past five holiday seasons, Unbranded brings together a unique, diverse group of vendors – typically local artists, artisans, and designers trying to expand their small, often online-only businesses – each year to provide a special, one-of-a-kind shopping experience for all Downtown residents, employees, and visitors.
Detroit Aglow
Each winter, the various departments within DDP work in tandem to light up Downtown Detroit – hence Detroit Aglow! The BIZ illuminates Downtown with seasonal lighting that enhances the physical characteristics of the Downtown parks and streets. The BIZ focuses on pedestrian, cyclist and vehicular gateways to make dark winter traveling brighter and safer. The DDP Parks team creates a season of programming centered around the tree lighting ceremony and the popular ice-skating rink.
Shining A Light
In December 2018 Lilly Endowment, Inc. awarded $7.6 million to Downtown Indy, Inc. and partner, Indiana War Memorials Commission, to execute Shining a Light on Indianapolis: Bringing Arts and Culture Full Circle. The initiative was designed to collaboratively infuse arts and culture into Indianapolis through artistic video mapping, lighting and activation on the city’s premier civic plaza, Monument Circle.
’80s Mall Party
In 2018 we moved our offices into the old Main Street Mall in downtown Little Rock. In the early 1980s the building was full of retail stores and restaurants. However, the state of Arkansas wound up purchasing the building and converting it into a variety of state agency offices – but the interior remained untouched. Think glass block, black and white tile, teal paint and colors, neon signs, glass elevators and working escalators. It was a space screaming for a throwback ’80s party!
2019 Holiday Placemaking Initiative
During the 2018 holiday season, we saw a competing town center in our region offering holiday event content that was distressingly similar to ours – Shopping! Dining! Skating! Santa! We quickly realized we needed to take steps to truly differentiate and improve on our downtown holiday experience to make our downtown THE holiday destination.
Work Great on A Great Street
ORBA launched Singapore’s first precinct-wide health initiative to bring the fight against diabetes to one of Singapore’s largest retail districts. Work Great on A Great Street was ORBA’s first strategic, long-term collaboration with the HPB to create a healthier workplace on Orchard Road through a series of health events and programmes.
Pop-Up Winnipeg Public Toilet
The Pop-Up Winnipeg Public Toilet initiative aims to lead by example through providing an accessible, clean, secure, well-maintained, monitored public washroom facility. The Pop-Up has captured the imagination of people in Winnipeg and beyond, generated enthusiastic media coverage, and stirred conversations recognizing the importance of human dignity and access to public toilets in the downtown. |
Activating Nicollet | A Street for All
There were three challenges in the renovation of Nicollet Mall: capitalizing on the new space, engaging the community, and executing an activation plan. Now, downtown Minneapolis has a plan to attract inclusive, year-round events, amplify partner efforts, and fill in future programs. |
Downtown Hays Pavilion
Through a partnership with the City of Hays, two academic institutions, and Commercial Builders; DHDC was able to design, fund, and build a beautiful structure for their community. The Downtown Hays Pavilion transformed a vacant lot into a place for people to enjoy downtown. Activating this unused space expands an existing park into a versatile public-use facility. The Pavilion serves as the center of downtown, bringing community groups, local businesses, and residents together.
SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan and Sub-Area Planning
The SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan is multi-layered and sequentially moves from big-picture vision through implementation. The plan includes 13 regional centers, as well as plans for community areas. Downtown is one of five regional centers being planned in the first phase. Those first set of plans will be completed and adopted by summer 2019 and the second phase commenced in January of this year.
The Lower Polk Tenant Landlord Clinic
The Lower Polk Tenant Landlord Clinic is an innovative homelessness prevention program serving the historic Lower Polk district of San Francisco, CA. The clinic’s primary mission is to help vulnerable residents save their homes by avoiding eviction. Known affectionately as “TLC,” the program brings together a coalition of experts in myriad disciplines to address the diverse needs of the target at-risk populations. In its first year of operation, TLC helped 87 people save their homes.
Completion of the Boynton Harbor Marina Redevelopment Project
January 2017 marked the completion of the Marina Open Space Project, one of three redevelopment phases of the Marina Redevelopment Plan. The marina was purchased by the Boynton Beach CRA to maintain the “working waterfront” and ensure public access. The marina has nineteen, water-activity related businesses and three waterfront restaurants. The operation of the marina and the creation of much needed public waterfront areas is consistent with the mission of the Boynton Beach CRA and the Boynton Beach Downtown Vision & Master Plan.
City of Arcades
FOR Cardiff has struggled to identify its USP and wanted to address this by using one of the city’s best assets to attract new and old visitors, the beautiful arcades. They utilized FC Ambassadors to gather feedback from businesses, researched other independent shopping campaigns, and identified a need to first win-back Cardiff shoppers who were already aware of the arcades and encourage new visitors and customers.
IMMERSE
IMMERSE is the annual performing and interactive arts event from the Creative City Project. 2018 platformed more than 1,000 artists and performers for an audience of 45,000 people. Creative City Project staff works with artists to create site-specific performances and installations in the streets of public spaces of downtown Orlando. IMMERSE 2018 connected residents of and visitors to Orlando with unique creative encounters that transform the way people see and experience the urban core.
Tactical Public Realm Guidelines
The Tactical Public Realm Guidelines came from the Public Realm Plan for Go Boston 2030. The guidelines cover policy and opportunities for enhancing the streets. A Better City and Utile worked with the City of Boston to develop guidelines for tactical activation. Utile created a document which also includes a guide for implementing outdoor elements. The new standards are aimed at making the process simpler and more transparent, in order to actively invite participation from neighborhood groups, businesses, and others. |
NYC BID Trends Report – Telling the Story of NYC BIDs
The annual NYC BID Trends Report targets multiple audiences, serving both a promotional and educational role for the public and NYC BIDs themselves. SBS collects, analyzes, and features program output data, budget information, and highlights of exceptional programming in this report each year. The report highlights the overall impact and financial data for all BIDs and expense and output data organized by comparable BID cohorts. The report also provides financial and output data from individual BIDs.
Main Street Christmas Light Extravaganza
The Main Street Christmas Light Extravaganza is an event that spans four city blocks in downtown Macon. Over 500,000 Christmas lights adorn the landscape in the medians of Poplar Street and Third Street. Bryan Nichols partnered with NewTown Macon to win grant funding to launch the show and achieve the goal of attracting more people. In 2018, the Main Street Christmas Light Show doubled attendance and attracted over 200,000 people to downtown Macon during the holiday season.
CC2DCA Pedestrian Connection Feasibility Study
The Crystal City BID saw an opportunity to further leverage the DCA airport’s proximity to their downtown by bringing it a few steps closer. A new pedestrian connection could harness the multitude of transportation assets in Crystal City, seamlessly link them into a multimodal hub, and position the neighborhood to attract additional rail services such as Amtrak, regional commuter rail, and even a future high-speed rail station.
Great Plates of Downtown Fort Collins
Great Plates of Downtown Fort Collins is an annual regional dining promotion with a local focus. This two-week-long celebration showcases Downtown’s culinary culture and serves as a community fundraiser, with 100 percent of proceeds going to the Food Bank for Larimer County. In 2018, Great Plates raised over $106,000 in two weeks. Overall, the promotion has raised more than $545K: each dollar donated is equivalent to $5.00 worth of food, for a grand total representation of almost $2.7 million dollars.
Commonwealth Canal Promenade
The Commonwealth Canal Promenade was a key revitalization component to Chandler’s long-term redevelopment plan. The project included clearing oleanders and palm roots, re-establishing the flow line and concrete lining, and constructing a canal promenade. Other improvements included an art fence, railings with historic information panels, a courtyard, landscaping, lighting, drainage and roadway reconstruction. Collaboration with all involved parties ensured the project’s successful completion.
OverFlo: Hurricane Florence Preparation, Recovery and Resilience
Wilmington Downtown Incorporated (WDI) led a herculean effort to prepare for, and then recover from, Hurricane Florence. The process included working closely with Emergency Management personnel, property owners, and others. After executing six months of events in one month, OverFlo raised over $128,000 for six nonprofits providing food, shelter and other services for hurricane victims. |
San Pedro Squared
The San Pedro Squared project converted 12 parking spaces in a nearly block-long city-owned garage and five on-street parking spots into four micro-retail shops and the city’s longest parklet. The four shops, collectively called MOMENT, changed the streetscape and feel of the block. The shops and parklet provide unique and aesthetically interesting improvements to the garage facade, with wooden awnings, bright furniture, sidewalk painting, murals and lush plantings that soften the building.
Passageways 2.0
Passageways 2.0 transforms a 6,200 square foot alleyway in the core of Downtown Chattanooga. City Thread, a series of simple steel tubes, creates a space that extends our attitude of adventure. By its geometry, the project possesses many potential settings including lounging, mini-stages, framing for art, concerts, markets, movie screenings, and more. The design is intended to allow casual users and those in charge of programming to discover different ways to utilize the alley.
Coxe Avenue Complete Street Demonstration Project
The project was initiated to accelerate mobility improvements to a developing corridor in an Asheville neighborhood. Coxe Avenue formerly contained a high density of automotive uses but is now the site of mixed-use developments and dining options. The project involved a public engagement process, held on a compressed timeline. The design features a shared-use path and an intersection mural. The final installation includes eight new crosswalks, a multi-use path, and the 6,000 sq. ft. mural.
Garment District Rezoning
The Garment District Alliance, which represents Midtown Manhattan, recently played a leading role in a plan that culminated in a New York City Council vote in December 2018 to remove a neighborhood zoning overlay, releasing millions of square feet of space from outdated, use-restricting regulations. The Alliance’s budget will be increased by $2.5 million for ten years to fund programming that improves quality of life and economic vitality for all in the area. |
DowntownDC’s District of Fashion Runway Show
The District of Fashion runway show seeks to align DC with industry-standard practices in fashion and highlight the unique talent located in the DC area. The project is designed to elevate and support the local retail and fashion industry. With high retail space prices and tepid support for the industry, this event sought to give the fashion and shopping retail industry a needed boost both for the perception of the industry and for consumers who spend money at brick and mortar retailers in DowntownDC.
Winter Walk SF
Winter Walk SF was an effort to replace above ground construction with a holiday themed pop-up activation. The Union Square BID developed a concept for the construction moratorium period. It was based on creating a flexible, contemporary urban space that invited shoppers and visitors, was easy to maintain, opened up new lines to the stores and allowed extensive programming. The final design included an allowance for food vendors, green turf, and lighted benches for people to enjoy the open space.
Selden Market
Selden Market is the latest initiative in Downtown Norfolk Council’s Vibrant Spaces program. Located in the historic Selden Arcade that sits between Main and Plume Streets in downtown, Selden Market serves as Downtown Norfolk’s first retail incubator to help new and emerging businesses get established by providing six-month leases with significantly reduced rents.
Glebe Spree 150
Glebe Spree is an annual promotion by the Glebe Business Improvement Area (Glebe BIA) in Ottawa, Canada. Over the past seven years, it has become one of the neighborhood’s most successful traffic generators and an annual Glebe tradition. Running from November 15-December 31, Glebe Spree rewards shoppers receive a stamp for every $20 worth of purchases made at participating Glebe merchants. Once they have collected $200 worth of stamps, their ballot is eligible to enter the drawing for a $10,000 grand prize Glebe Shopping Spree. To mark Canada’s celebration of 150 years of Confederation, the BIA created a new, Canadiana-inspired Glebe Spree 150 contest. This enhanced format awarded shoppers with a stamp for every $15 purchase, making them eligible for entry after $150 has been collected. Glebe Spree 150 had 162 participating businesses, 81 total prize giveaways, and 31,557 ballots entered. The contest introduces top-of-mind awareness for the Glebe and Glebe merchants during a peak shopping period, creates a value proposition differentiating the Glebe from competing shopping destinations, encourages new and repeat visitation to the Glebe, and increases consumer spend during off-peak period shopping.
Gettin’ Diggy With It
Whenever a municipality decides to undertake a construction project, no matter the size, the public perception is often one of inconvenience and ugliness. In reality, despite the inconveniences they impart, construction projects are tied to progress with something being improved upon or something new being created. As best practice, the Hartford Business Improvement District (HBID) designs, prints, and provides non-traditional construction signage to aid local businesses affected by major construction projects, and to change public perception regarding these projects in the district. One example featured is “We like big trucks and we cannot lie.” While BIDs can never completely mitigate the effects that construction may have on local businesses nor change the public’s perception regarding major construction projects, HBID has shown that with the right signage in the right places, it is possible to generate tangible change in public perception, as well as support local businesses in a time of need.
DTP Connects
Chronic street homelessness is a complex societal issue that many cities face world-wide. According to the 2017 Business Security Survey conducted by the Downtown Tucson Merchant and Retail Council, homelessness was ranked the number one safety concern among downtown business and property owners. Homelessness was also identified as the biggest barrier to Downtown Tucson’s success in both DTP’s online Board survey and at the 2017 DTP Board Retreat. DTP Connects is a homeless outreach program.
Bonaventure Projet: From Expressway to Promenade
More than one-half mile of elevated expressway was demolished in the heart of downtown Montréal to make way for a new ground-level urban boulevard and over six acres of continuous public space. For more than 50 years, the elevated Bonaventure Expressway cut across the city centre. This major thoroughfare was the main gateway to downtown Montréal from the Champlain Bridge crossing the mighty St. Lawrence River. It accommodated more than 27,000 vehicles per day, including 1,900 buses. Rather than extending the service life of this structure, built in 1966, the city opted for a large-scale redevelopment, the first of its kind in Canada. It created an elegant, functional and people-oriented gateway to downtown Montréal, meshing together districts that were isolated by the elevated expressway, and supporting private mixed-use development in the area. This bold initiative is the core of the Bonaventure Projet, the latter spearheaded entirely by the city’s administration and completed on time and on budget in September 2017 (CAN$141.7 million).