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Highlands Today

Meeting Set For Marketing Downtown Sebring

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By JOE SEELIG

Highlands Today

Published: November 13, 2008

SEBRING - Creating a vision of what the future holds for Sebring's downtown will be the topic of a two-hour community meeting and workshop, from 6-8, tonight (Nov. 13) at the Sebring Civic Center.

The center is located at 355 W. Center Ave., in the Allen Altvater Cultural Center, next to Highlands Little Theatre.
City of Sebring Community Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Pete Pollard said Wednesday that the agency contracted with Swan Development Advisors, located in Lakeland, to create a marketing plan to attract developers and businesses to the downtown area.

"They have a very innovative approach," Pollard said.

It will be an interactive workshop seeking input from anyone in the community to learn their interests in what they'd like to see come in to the downtown, he said.

"It would be great to have a good turnout," said Pollard, "but I don't know what to anticipate."

Bruce Lyon, owner of Swan Development, said Wednesday that what he hopes to get out of the meeting is input from the community.

Swan is an urban redevelopment consulting firm.

"We have a couple of goals for this meeting," he said. "First, to brief the attendees on what the project is."

Secondly, this is part of a market study.

"We're interested in capturing information from attendees about where and how they shop and use downtown Sebring," he said.

They want to provide information to the CRA and the downtown businesses so they understand who their customers are and who their customers can be, he said.

Third, they want to gain an understanding of the participants' vision of the future of the downtown.

At the last Heartland Idol, Swan passed out a two-page survey. It also has an online survey that can be taken at www.downtownsebringsurvey.com .

"It takes less than five minutes to fill out," said Lyon.

The company has so far received about 70 to 80 surveys and has already passed out hundreds of business cards to people at the Heartland Idol as well as to business owners.

Looking at the empty square footage from a positive perspective is a component of the overall plan.

"We don't care so much about the current vacancy rate, but rather the most potential there is for occupancy," Lyon said. "We'll find out what the opportunities are."

Fourth, and only if there is time, a brief period of the meeting will take a look at ideas for design elements with respect to the development of a new logo for the downtown, he said.

"If we have time," he said, saying they planned to limit the meeting to the prescribed time.

About 300 announcement/ invitation cards about the meeting were sent out to homeowners, property owners and businesses in the downtown area.

Joe Seelig can be reached at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com .

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