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Highlands Today

CRA Picks Firm To Market Downtown

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: August 13, 2008

SEBRING - During this economic slowdown, the Sebring Community Redevelopment Agency believes the time is right to prepare for when the economy rebounds.

With a quaint, but usually too quiet downtown, the CRA plans to hire a marketing firm to create a plan to lure businesses and developers.

A marketing firm will bring in fresh ideas, CRA Commissioner Kelly Griffin said Tuesday. The downtown has some longtime businesses, but when there is an influx of new businesses, they eventually dissipate.

"We don't have enough involvement of our own community," she said. "With this marketing group, we want them to increase our value in the sense that developers will be interested in coming and looking at our downtown."

After listening to presentations from five marketing firms on Monday, all six of the CRA commissioners present gave their top ranking to Swan Development Advisors Inc. of Lakeland.

CRA Executive Director Pete Pollard said the marketing plan should do more than just attract people and tourists to come downtown to shop.

"The marketing plan that we want to develop will give us the tools necessary to market to businesses and to developers so that we can attract business and hopefully new residential development into the downtown," he said. "Now is the time to do the planning because once the real-estate market and the economy begin to turn hopefully we will then be in position with the tools necessary to attract people."

Swan Development has extensive experience with other CRAs around the state, he said.

Pollard said he will meet next week with the marketing firm's executives to negotiate a scope of services and a fee.

The proposed contract with the firm will be reviewed by the CRA at its Aug. 25 meeting.

It will take four to six months for the firm to complete a comprehensive marketing plan, Pollard said.

Griffin said, "We have young people who are frequenting downtown, and then we have an older clientele that frequents downtown. I think we have to be able to balance between those two things to make it seem inviting to both."

Griffin noted downtown events and activities that attract specific groups of people such as the Gallery Walk, Heartland Idol, bike fest (Run to the Heartland) and antique cars (Saturday Night Cruise Car Show).

The marketing group may help the CRA realize that three or four other types of events could attract other groups, she said. It only takes a couple of visits downtown to prompt people to return, she added.

"We kind of have a little bit of a blank slate right now," Griffin said. "Some spaces are empty, and it's a prime opportunity for some really neat things to be happening."

The Swan team noted that young families with children go downtown because on North Ridgewood Drive there are two dance studios, a scrap book store and the Children's Museum of the Highlands.

"If we can find a way to appeal to them a little more, they might come downtown not just to go to the scrapbook store and just to drop off their child at the dance studio ... they might actually spend some time down there and eat dinner," Griffin said.

Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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