Best Practice Archives - International Downtown Association

Best Practice

TGIFood Trucks

TGIFood Trucks was a summer pop-up of a rotating variety of food trucks and cuisines. Open to the public and free of charge, the goal was to encourage community connection and gathering in a safe outdoor space during the pandemic, and increase the area’s reputation for being fun and a foodie haven.

Pop-Up Shops at Martin Street

Pop-Up Shops at Martin Street is a pop-up retail store program in downtown Raleigh to provide affordable and attractive short term retail space for minority and women-owned businesses to improve diversity in storefront ownership in downtown and Raleigh.

Opa-Locka Downtown Master Plan

Despite a 2016 bankruptcy, political instability, and widespread stakeholder skepticism, the Opa-locka Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) launched a 2020 Downtown Master Plan to reverse downtown’s decline. The plan started to overcome past failures by creating public/private partnerships (P3).

State of Cape Town Central City Report

This is the ninth, and largest, edition of the State of Cape Town Central City Report, produced at the height of South Africa’s various harsh lockdowns. Its mission is to illustrate in financial terms the investment opportunities of the most successful downtown in South Africa through meticulous research.

Peacock Alley

Peacock Alley emerged as a location from an initiative led by Centro to gather feedback from the community to develop a placemaking action plan for the Houston Street corridor. The placemaking effort set out to provide novel play experiences while supporting local small businesses and artists.

Root 107 Pop-Up Park

For decades, there has been a deficiency of park space in the downtown core. Recognizing this gap, the City of Edmonton set aside 1.7 hectares of underdeveloped and vacant land in west downtown to be the future home of a central downtown park in 2026.

Reading Downtown Strategic Plan

The confluence of a rich architectural legacy; vibrant downtown communities; and the advent of unparalleled change unlocked an unprecedented opportunity for downtown to again lead its region toward a more economically competitive, equitable, livable, and resilient future.

Market

Market was a series of outdoor summer artisan markets in collaboration with local artist collectives. On three weekends in the summer of 2021, visitors could enjoy an outdoor craft fair, and then stick around to see what else was happening in the neighbourhood.

Main Street Pocket Park

What started as a weedy, deserted eyesore became a beautiful, welcoming parklet in May 2021. Sponsored by Ben E. Keith Foods, the Main Street Pocket Park is a collaboration of love, sweat, and a desire to see downtown Little Rock continue to thrive and grow.

DTSF ArtBox

The DTSF ArtBox gallery is a collection of 26 traffic signal control boxes wrapped with vinyl artwork from artists of all abilities from the area. Proposals were solicited in many languages, resulting in 176. A jury ultimately selected 66 artists, who were all paid stipends for their work.

Delightful Downtown – Grafton Park

As part of our DELIGHTFUL DOWNTOWN lighting installations, we developed a new light projection series that is being displayed onto the former Halifax Memorial Library building at Grafton Park from October 2021 until the end of March 2022. The series features a total of 12 different light shows over five months that changes to reflect relevant seasonal, heritage and cultural themes. Each month comprises of a main show that is accompanied with a shorter show.

Allegheny Overlook Pop-Up Park

The Allegheny Overlook, or ‘AO,’ was a brand-new pop-up park that transformed a portion of Fort Duquesne Boulevard in Downtown Pittsburgh, highlighting live performances, arts, and culture while showcasing one of Pittsburgh’s most iconic riverfront views. The pop-up park reimagined a peripheral boulevard and an underutilized riverfront park in the city’s urban core, creating a more vibrant Downtown in a city rebounding from the effects of the pandemic.

$3 Food Walk & Station Opening Festival

The $3 Food Walk and U District Station Opening Festival was an all-day event planned and executed by the U District Partnership to celebrate two neighborhood milestones: the return of 73,000 students, faculty, and staff in-person at the University of Washington, and the opening of a Light Rail Station. The event featured street closures, colorful decorations, a main stage with eight local performance groups, a beer garden, and a $3 food walk with 45 participating U District businesses.

Creating Confidence for Returning Workers During COVID-19

To ensure workers were comfortable returning to the office in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDBIA worked with our members to develop a Best Practices for Return to the Office report. Advocate for indoor mask mandates, and we created promotional videos about returning to the office and public health measures.

Bellville Zero Waste Schools

The Bellville Zero Waste Schools project is a replicable, scalable waste-reduction project that enables schools to save money on waste disposal and to reduce their waste footprint, towards a zero-waste environment. Landfills in South Africa are close to full capacity. Schools are culprits as much as businesses and individual homes. The Bellville Zero Waste Schools project takes a systems-based approach to providing schools with a sustainable, cost-effective solution.

Lift Up Local

Lift Up Local is comprised of three smaller projects: Expanding sidewalks, a grant program, and a downtown voucher program. This Best Practices dives into the logistics and details of each component.

Bedford Street Piazza

To support struggling restaurants, DSSD worked with a multi-department team from the City to implement StrEATeries within one week of re-opening the state to outdoor dining. The initiative created ~1,000 outdoor dining seats beyond those typically allowed on the city’s sidewalks through two complementary approaches.

Portland Downtown Tree Cam

In lieu of our traditional, “one night only” tree lighting event, Portland Downtown, Hood® Eggnog, and Portland Public Library launched something all new for 2020: a 24/7 live-streaming “tree cam” overlooking an iconic downtown park called Monument Square. The cam created a virtual window so that visitors locally – and across the globe – could enjoy the illuminated tree & its surroundings anytime, anywhere throughout the holiday season.

Crystal City to National Landing BID Rebrand

In 2019, the Crystal City BID expanded its boundaries by 70% and began the process of selecting a new name and brand for the organization. The brand needed to provide a cohesive sense of place that unified the downtown while still highlighting the existing neighborhoods of Pentagon City, Crystal City and Potomac Yard that the BID now encompassed. The BID began a rebrand effort with the design firm Pentagram, but misconceptions around the new name necessitated extensive community engagement.

Make It Bright on Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue, the world’s most famous street and the centerpiece of New York City’s holiday splendor brightened the Big Apple like never before with Make it Bright, a new campaign that takes two-holiday staples – toys and lights – to a new level.

Halloweek

Downtown Vision designed Halloweek as our first foray into holding safe events and promotions during the pandemic. This multi-pronged holiday celebration allowed us to promote and support Downtown Jacksonville’s small businesses and to create socially distanced, family friendly events for Halloween week 2020. Three key elements composed Halloweek: Decorating Downtown, Driving Traffic to Small Businesses, and Creating a Socially Responsible, Family Friendly Event for the Community.

Hero Meals

Facing one of the first COVID shutdowns in the country, our restaurants were faced with immediate lost revenues, extra food, and a desire to help those fighting on the front lines of the pandemic. The Downtown Tacoma Partnership stepped in creating a site for people to purchase Hero Meals from downtown restaurants we delivered to the front-line workers keeping our community moving.

Downtown Download Webinars

From the start of the pandemic our members, residents, and BID properties were clamoring for reliable information they felt they weren’t getting from existing channels. There was confusion about government relief programs, business shutdowns, liability if someone gets sick, and changes to city permits and fees. So we created a free webinar series that directly connects our audience with top government, public health, and business decision makers.

Curbside Baltimore

This program was created, and scaled up quickly, to support local restaurants and retailers during COVID shutdowns in the spring and fall. It had two components: a universal hashtag #CurbsideBaltimore that we created for businesses to promote their pivot in response to COVID, and; a subsidized gift card program for locally-owned shops, restaurants, and makers within our BID. For each $20 gift card purchased, we added an additional $10, giving the purchaser $30 to spend.

Holiday Movie Food and Drink Week

Downtown Norfolk Council produced the first ever Holiday Movie Food and Drink Week. For this special holiday celebration, Downtown Norfolk chefs got creative and had a lot of fun reimagining iconic food and drinks from everyone’s favorite holiday movies and specials. For one week from December 4-11, Downtown Norfolk restaurants put their own unique spin on recognizable food, drinks, and memorable scenes from holiday classics for a creative and delicious helping of festive nostalgia.

Mall Retrofit Strategy: Unlocking Downtown Moorhead’s Revitalization

From the beginning of the Downtown Moorhead Master Plan process, the number one topic of concern was Center Mall in the heart of downtown Moorhead. With its complicated public-private ownership structure, high number of vacancies, physical connection with City Hall, and yet beloved history, we knew repositioning or redeveloping the Center Mall site would be a focal point of the planning effort.

al Fresco off Main and Downtown Dash

The City of Mesa and the Downtown Mesa Association (DMA), introduced a great way to “extend” patio dining for all of the restaurants in the downtown Mesa District—no matter the restaurant’s outside capacity. al Fresco off Main is a fenced off area with plenty of outdoor, distanced seating where people can bring food they ordered from any downtown Mesa restaurant or their brown bag meal to enjoy their refreshments in the middle of downtown.

2019 Downtown Memphis Parking Study

The 2019 Downtown Memphis Parking Study was commissioned to craft a new approach to parking in Downtown Memphis, shifting policy from simply building more parking to a holistic approach centered on mobility. The great success of the study was it’s intention from ideation to go far beyond parking management, and Memphis’s wherewithal to immediately put the plan into action.

Re-Start Downtown Fresno Grant Program

In the early months of the COVID emergency, Downtown Fresno businesses were facing limited re-opening after nearly 3 months of limited operations due to closed in-person retail, no in-door/ out-door dining, no events or pedestrian traffic, and no office workers. The Re-Start program aimed to assist small businesses by providing grants ranging from $1000 – $2500 that could be utilized to help alleviate some costs and help businesses re-open safely.

The Care Campaign

The Care Campaign is a collection of 14 murals that popped up in our Downtown Dartmouth business district in fall 2020. We worked with a member business to create a placemaking project that would encourage people to feel embraced and connected, at least in mind and spirit, while circumstances beyond anyone’s control make that physically impossible. We received feedback from people of all walks of life that the Care Campaign murals have brought them feelings of happiness and inspiration.

Downtown Dallas COVID-19 Recovery Plan

Supporting business continuity, building an inclusive city and positioning Downtown Dallas to be an international model for economic recovery and social equity is top of mind for Downtown Dallas, Inc. We work every day to protect the last 25 years of investment in the heart of our city and the diversity of our community, while advancing continued growth. Downtown Dallas, Inc., in close collaboration with its members, established a comprehensive path forward.

Planning for a New Downtown Management Organization

In the late 2000s, the City of Tulsa, being dissatisfied with the management of the downtown improvement district, disbanded the private downtown management organization in place by terminating the long-time improvement district. In 2018, a new mayoral administration evaluated the existing downtown management structure and determined that a public-private partnership model should be explored. DCC staff developed a planning scope and timeline to convene stakeholders and partners for the process.

Great DSM Hot Air Balloon Hunt

Greater Des Moines (DSM) residents were encouraged to search for fun surprises in the Downtown DSM throughout two winter weekend evenings on Friday, Jan. 22 and Friday, March 5. Glowing hot air balloons were being stationed in different locations throughout Downtown for an hour-and-a-half each night. Residents were invited to follow The Partnership’s social media channels so that they were first to know about the balloon locations.

Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) Recovery Compass

The DTLA Recovery Compass was a multi-wave tracking study, surveying downtown stakeholders on a range of issues, trends, and sentiments about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on Downtown Los Angeles. A total of eight survey waves, each with 200-300 responses, were collected throughout 2020. The survey was promoted via the DCBID email distribution list and paid, targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

Shattuck East Renaming Project – Kala Bagai Way

The intent of the engagement process was to create a dynamic, transparent, unique, accessible and low-cost process to receive submissions from the community. Renaming a street is no small feat, especially in a City with a politically active population and a City that has a world renowned University with stellar faculty, graduates and staff.

Delightful Doorways Mural Program

The Delightful Doorways Mural Project (DDMP) is a public art placemaking program in Downtown Berkeley whose mission is to transform dark and unsafe street level fire exits and industrial doorways located throughout the district into unique colorful works of art by local artists.

Leading Through Uncertainty: The First 100 Days

During the first 100 days of the pandemic, uncertainty and fear loomed large. Our community invested decades of hard work and millions of dollars to revitalize our area. That generated momentum became a palpable force of its own, but the pandemic threatened to bring it to a halt. Leading through Uncertainty: The First 100 Days was Downtown Arlington’s immediate, four-pronged response to the new needs of our district.

South End Small Business Saturdays

South End Small Business Saturdays is an annual program focused on supporting local retail and the holiday season. In 2020, we pivoted from an extensive one-day program aligned with the national Small Business Saturday, to a five-week program focused on supporting local retail, from Thanksgiving to Dec 31. We held 4 Saturday pop-up markets and ran a 5-week promotional program called Shop Small Heroes to encourage and reward shoppers for spending local.