RALEIGH - THE FUTURE OF DOWNTOWN RALEIGH - PART 3
Downtown Raleigh. The next speaker was the Deputy Director of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, Chris Larson. Again, he was doing a slide presentation. Therefore, I have re-arranged his remarks to make them more understandable since you don’t have the benefit of the photos to go along with his comments.
My name is Chris Lason with the Downtown Raleigh Alliance. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance is an independent 501c-3 non-profit organization. We function as a conduit between the public and private sectors. We work to represent the private sector to the public sector to work toward collaborative solutions to needs and problems. I live in downtown Raleigh and I walked here today. I walked to my office, picked up my projector and carried it here. There are opportunities for anybody who wants to live downtown to live downtown. I would like to tell you a bit about what we do as an organization. Ultimately, what we want to do is keep downtown in the minds of the people downtown.
We wanted to develop a new symbol for downtown Raleigh that really encapsulated a new place. We have a new logo you will see all over the downtown area. You will see it on trash cans, banners - everywhere. When folks are downtown we want them to know not only that they are downtown but where they are downtown. Inside the logo is an homage of each of downtown Raleigh’s five interdependent yet independent districts: The warehouse district is symbolized by red. We thought red would remind people of brick warehouses. The color for the Fayetteville street district, where you are today, is purple. Purple was chosen because we feel that North Carolina’s main street is deserving of a royal hue. Green, for Moore Square Park, denotes camping. We chose blue for the Capital District which is the State Government complex. Last there is Glenwood South. We chose a trendy orangeish color for it. That, then, is the new symbol for Downtown Raleigh.
As an organization there are many services we provide. We have a total of seven full time staff and a group of about twelve Ambassadors. They are the base line service of our organization. If we can’t keep downtown Raleigh clean and safe we are wasting our time on everything else. There are two things everyone wants to know about downtown; is it clean and is it safe! If what we do allows us to say YES to both of these questions we are doing pretty well. That program alone comprises about fifty percent of our total budget. Secondly we have the branding and marketing of Downtown Raleigh. We operate the site - - www.downtownraleigh.org - -. We feeel it is a totally comprehensive site that serves a number of different patrons. We collaborate with the City of Raleigh to create the site. It will tell you everything about what to do in Downtown Raleigh, how to develop Downtown Raleigh, the new projects that are on the way, how to find parking in Downtown Raleigh and more. It is a great site that serves many different needs.
We work in all phases of economic development. We work in business recruitment so that everything from working to attract larger companies downtown to smaller businesses, such as restaurants, are covered. We work to try and fill those vacant spaces that exist and to help create a more vital City Center experience.
Downtown event production is our opportunity to bring people downtown by the tens of thousands to help showcase downtown Raleigh. We also have an outreach that works with all of our constituent businesses in downtown Raleigh to make certain their needs are being met. We do a great deal of research to be certain we have as much information as possible about downtown Raleigh so we can give accurate answers to the dozens of calls we get every day about it. Lastly are the regulatory issues. We work with the City to perform the processes that constrain business. We work to try and help provide solutions that will provide a better business environment.
To Be Continued
John Fish (919) 696-3474 Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com Website: www.JohnFish.com
