Webinar

Type: Webinar

Advancing Places: Building a Social Media Strategy Part II

Back by popular demand – a sequel to the December 8, 2023, Advancing Places: Building a Social Media Strategy. During this follow-up, we will dive deeper into the how to of content creation, view real-world examples of strategies, and take an immersive exploration into how data is used by several districts. This webinar is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to elevate your understanding and master the nuances of effective social media strategies.

Advancing Places: Building a Social Media Strategy

Watch this webinar recording to understand the building blocks of a social media strategy through ideation, implementation, analysis and execution. Learn from three professionals in Chicago, San Francisco and Austin and how they create and use content.

Advancing Places: Technology Trends for Managing Operations

Are you managing your district operations? Digital platforms enable UPMOs to deliver accurate information for more effective decision making. In this webinar recording, learn from four practitioners about the tools and technology they are using in their district to power more efficient operations.

Advancing Places: Strategic Planning for Your Organization

Place management organizations vary from city to city whether it be in size, structure, funding or implementation strategies, but ultimately performance needs to align with the downtown and its stakeholders. Hear from three seasoned professionals and the work they are doing to keep their strategic plan front and center.  

Advancing Places: Data Collection, Research and Storytelling for Economic Growth

This case study dives into the work of Charlotte City Center Partners. Learn firsthand the year-round work of data collection, research and storytelling to produce the State of City Center Report. This living document resides on the organization’s website and is updated monthly. Learn how the work of this team enhances collaboration with economic development partners, the commercial real estate community, and existing and prospective businesses.

Advancing Places: Urban Acupuncture & the Archaeology of Local Knowledge

Within the realm of placemaking, there are many techniques and strategies to use to improve the quality of life, well-being, and health of people living, working, and visiting downtowns around the world. This webinar explores two case studies, demonstrating innovative and out-of-the-box solutions hoping to inspire others to create their own placemaking projects and programs. We will explore urban acupuncture, a process consisting of small-scale interventions that serve as a catalyst.

Advancing Places: Parking & Mobility Strategies

Get a better understanding of the findings of the IDA Parking & Mobility Top Issues Council report. We will take the findings from this report, dive a little deeper and share two case studies from Pittsburgh and Memphis. Representatives from both cities will discuss different applications of mobility and parking-demand management strategies on the ground, covering what’s worked, what they would do differently with hindsight, and how the work is evolving. 

Advancing Places: Inclusive Entrepreneurship

Inclusive entrepreneurship describes the practice of supporting entrepreneurs – from home-based to brick and mortar to scaling – regardless of their identity and background.  It centers the unique needs of entrepreneurs from underrepresented or marginalized groups who have historically faced lending discrimination, exploitation by landlords, lack of resources and limitations on the networks they need to thrive. This webinar explores successful methods UPMOs have used to support inclusive entrepreneurship. 

Advancing Places: Engaging the Media

Learn from two seasoned professionals on the evolution of local media ecosystems and the power of proactive relationships with journalists. We will clarify the differences between earned, paid, and owned media, focus on earned media, on earned media and share examples of proactive and reactive/crisis communications. Join the conversation around different strategies, including having an in-house communications team versus working with an agency. 

Advancing Places: Talking Trash Part 2, Collective Composting in your District

In July 2022, IDA presented part one of Advancing Places: Talking Trash Recycling and Compacting where we explored recycling, managing ambassadors and clean teams. Join IDA and the US Composting Council along with two of their members for part two where we will learn about the importance of composting in cities, neighborhoods and downtown districts.  We will learn about the latest trends in composting and how to go about setting up a program.  

Advancing Places: Why Festivals and Events?

As place management professionals, we are often charged with creating ways to bring people downtown and to our neighborhood districts.  Join this session and learn from three seasoned professionals why they produce festivals and events for their districts.  Who benefits and what does it take to produce them.  

The 2022 U.S. Election: What it Means for Downtowns

The ballots have been counted, and the 2022 U.S elections are over. What do the results mean for downtowns? How do shifts in partisan control affect policies around housing, homelessness, public safety, and other programs? And what opportunities exist for IDA and its members to shape policies that keep our downtowns vibrant? 

Advancing Places: Equity in Action

Learn how NewTown Macon, Inc. has taken the community-driven planning process a step further and empowered the public to implement their next comprehensive plan by leveraging resources from the local philanthropic community. 

Advancing Places: Social Inclusion in Public Spaces

Many communities have struggled with building public places that are welcoming and open to all. As downtowns grapple with the uncertainty of office work, the challenge of bringing users back to our public spaces is compounded by the needs of underserved groups. What if we can make use of public space as the nexus where people in need and the programs that are meant to serve them come together?

Advancing Places: Strategic Visioning & Work Plan Management

Building and implementing a strategic plan that aligns with your organizational values can be one of the biggest challenges for an organization. In the world of place management, the process is made even more complex by the presence of a variety of stakeholders, outside factors and limited resources. Where should you begin? What tools should you use?

Advancing Places: HUD Financing Opportunities

HUD’s Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program provides Community Development Block Grant recipients with the ability to leverage their annual grant allocation to access low-cost, flexible financing for economic development, housing, public facility and infrastructure projects. Organizations can use these funds to support central business districts, retail/office manufacturing, small business financing, mixed-use properties and business retention as a few examples

Advancing Places: Talking Trash

Keeping our districts clean can be a daunting task. Hear how three district experts, with a multitude of talents, are managing ambassador and clean teams. In this session, learn about their approach to cleaning as well as other areas related to public space management.

Advancing Places: Holiday and Winter Activations

It’s that time of year again where we need to start planning for holiday events and winter activations. Join this webinar and learn about three different organizations who have developed holiday events and activations to draw consumers to their districts and also learn how some organizations are embracing winter and getting people out during the cold winter months.

Advancing Places: The Present and Future of Office

In January 2021, we heard research around how the pandemic-induced work-from-home experiment had altered perspectives on work, flexibility and the office. We are circling back with experts to present new findings on this topic. Join this session and learn from recent research conducted by Cushman & Wakefield and the Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis (CREUA) at the George Washington University School of Business around office demand, hybrid work and occupiers’ workplace strategies.

Advancing Places: Place Management Membership Programs

Place management organizations generate revenue from various sources. In this session, we will focus on the membership component of organizations and hear from three different organizations to learn how they are approaching membership. Walk away with a better understanding of what other place management organizations are doing and gain new ideas to help with your membership program.

Advancing Places: Placemaking and Design for Successful Retail

Watch this session and explore how downtown managers can foster better downtown retail environments with advanced techniques of placemaking and design. We will learn from two seasoned professionals whose expertise in placemaking, and retail design has created tools for more active people environments to support retailers.

Advancing Places: Accessible Ways to Connect With Your Audience

In this session, you will learn about different types of podcasts and cable television programming produced by three IDA member organizations all with varying budgets and in different geographic regions of North America. From shoestring budgets all the way up to working with professional production teams, attendees will hear about lived experience and explore producing their own programming.

Advancing Places: Public Safety Roundtable 

Public safety has always been at the forefront of the work of UPMOs. The reality and perception of crime in dense urban districts continue to impact the return of workers and vibrancy in the urban core. IDA is inventorying best practices and trends and will publish findings from this discussion and other data collection. Participants will be split into breakout rooms to maximize discussion time. Please note: the breakout rooms of this discussion were not recorded. 

Advancing Places: How To Fight Blight

Learn how every downtown faces the challenge of vacant and blighted commercial buildings. These problems often appear intractable and frankly beyond the reach of an urban place management organization. Learn how two cities decided to step up and tackle this problem head-on with a data-driven approach using both carrots (incentive outreach) and sticks (litigation). Hear about what worked well and what didn’t.

Fostering Resiliency: Helping Your Downtown Rebound after COVID

Over the past decade, downtowns have enjoyed a revival not seen since the middle of the 20th century. And then COVID-19 hit. Now that consumers are clamoring for a return to normal activity, it’s time to reevaluate your downtown. To do that, it’s important to understand who your visitors are. 


This free webinar was presented by Buxton. To learn more about them go to www.buxtonco.com. Click “Buy Now” to get your free access to this recording today. 

Advancing Places: Downtown Recovery Strategies and Storytelling

Downtown leaders and marketing professionals around the world have been exploring new recovery strategies and storytelling. The depth and range of techniques used to elevate one’s district vary. In this session, speakers will share a variety of tactics from their own experiences and attendees can examine which approaches might work best for their district.

Advancing Places: Retail Is Changing. Are You?

Brick and mortar retail, especially during the pandemic, is changing drastically but our downtown recruitment efforts aren’t keeping up. Moving forward, shared spaces, studio/retail mixes, pop-up retail, a diversity of business owners – and an understanding that retail must be different to disaster-proof our districts – will be key to keeping retail and businesses alive in our downtowns.

Advancing Places: Cementing UPMO Leadership Role in Economic Development

With businesses facing an existential crisis and municipalities cutting budgets in 2020, UPMOs were forced to take the lead on triage and recovery. This session will explain how the pandemic experience and crisis management can translate into a permanent and lasting role in economic development.

Advancing Places: Get Your District Back Online With Digital Advertising

There’s never been more need to quickly bring our districts back on track. Digital advertising is the most efficient channel for increasing foot traffic, event attendance, and sales… but only when it’s done right. Learn how Downtown Norfolk used digital ads during the pandemic to become the country’s top travel destination, shattered Restaurant Week records, and emerged with extraordinary momentum.

Advancing Places: From Pop-Up to Permanent

In this session, learn how three different organizations are incubating businesses in a pop-up environment to create immediate buzz and interest, potentially leading to long-term tenants in their district.  First you will learn how one organization leveraged the districts available space to lure in burgeoning locals and international mega brands, health and wellness providers, cultural organizations and emerging culinary entrepreneurs, through a newly realized, expansive pop-up program.

Advancing Places: Capping & Bridging Expressways

Expressways cut through communities and stand as barriers to connectivity, economic development, equity and neighborhoods in our downtowns. Learn how a partnership between ODOT, Columbus and the community developed and implemented a nationally recognized infrastructure model using freeway caps and enhanced bridges to stitch neighborhoods together and address the critical topics of quality of life, mobility, economics and opportunity.

Advancing Places: Working with Media and Managing PR Campaigns

Communications is an important part of our work in urban place management. Two experienced practitioners, both downtown leaders with extensive marketing & communications backgrounds, to learn how they are building relationships with media, what the media is looking for in news stories, and how to go beyond traditional media relations to take control of your district’s story. We’ll also dive into crisis communications and some tips on planning and executing an effective PR campaign.

Advancing Places: Zoning Therapy

Creating change in your community can take shape in many forms. We’ll discuss the role of the downtown plan and strategy in counseling communities through change and improvement and how to work through challenges and issues, local politics and differing opinions. Learn about two communities’ approaches to updating their plans, using zoning as the primary tool for implementing a downtown plan.

Advancing Places: Talking Snow in the Summer Heat

While most of the nation is sweltering in record heat, many of us in the operations world are already in deep preparations for winter weather. Representatives from Cleveland, Denver and Edmonton will discuss the preparations they undertake to be ready for winter weather, specific areas of management and responsibilities, and the partnerships they depend on to keep their districts accessible and safe throughout the winter months.