The opening this summer of an American Apparel outpost on Weybosset Street offered adventurous students one of several new alternatives to the Providence Place Mall.
Numerous economic revitalization organizations in the city, including the Downtown Improvement District and the Providence Foundation, have joined with the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors' Bureau to launch "Live It Up!," a marketing initiative designed to showcase the commercial comeback of downtown Providence in recent years.
"I don't think we could have done this four years ago," said Mayor David Cicilline '83 at Monday night's launch for the marketing campaign, which was held at the Providence Performing Arts Center. The event showcased a new logo created by Providence-based marketing firm Advertising Ventures. Along with the bold yellow-and-black "Live It Up!" logo, Advertising Ventures created a new map that pinpoints businesses and restaurants in downtown Providence.
The logo also appears on the DID's new Web site, which was launched about two weeks ago, said Frank LaTorre, director of public space for the DID.
Providence Foundation Executive Director Daniel Baudouin, Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce President Laurie White, Downtown Neighborhood Alliance President Maria Ruggieri and City Council President John Lombardi spoke at the event, which showcased food from downtown restaurants such as Cuban Revolution and featured a "pickle troll" puppet from downtown-based puppet performance group Big Nazo.
"This is the beginning of a great campaign that captures the energy and vitality of the new downtown," Cicilline told an audience of about 50 in the PPAC's opulent main foyer.
"The revitalization is unprecedented," Lombardi said in his remarks, adding that "there are still challenges and the City Council is here to help."
Live It Up! sends the same message as other improvement initiatives in stressing the importance of a clean, safe city. "That's the beauty of it," LaTorre said, adding that this initiative targets a much smaller part of Providence than others.
In April 2005 the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors' Bureau launched a campaign called "Night and Day" to draw visitors to the city, featuring yellow and black shades - a concept Advertising Ventures took into consideration when creating the logo for the new initiative, said Joelle Crane, project manager at the Providence Foundation.
Crane said organizers for the new initiative modeled it after the "Night and Day" campaign because of its emphasis that "the city could be all things to all people."
The new initiative is designed to bring not only those from outside Providence and Rhode Island to the downtown area, but also those from within the city and state who have not realized the range of options in dining and shopping that the area offers, according to Crane and LaTorre.
"People think it's about getting Boston and Hartford - but that's not what it's all about," LaTorre said. "It's about getting your neighbors."
The initiative hopes to reach anyone in a 50- or 60-mile radius of downtown, Crane said - a group that includes residents of Providence suburbs and residents of Boston.
The DID was "heavily involved" in the campaign because "one of the missions of any DID in any city is to make the city center a more pleasant place," said Ruggieri, the residential appointee to the DID board. The DID and the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce have been the strongest financial backers of the initiative, while the Providence Tourism Council provided funding for the creation of the map specifically and the Providence Preservation Society's Revolving Fund provided grants and loans for businesses in the district to improve their storefronts.
That these groups and others could collaborate so well is what makes the initiative noteworthy, Lombardi said after the launch.
"It's easier to achieve more when people are collaborating," he said.
As the new marketing campaign complements existing efforts to show what downtown has to offer, the DID's "Clean and Safe" program is working with the city government to improve the area.
The DID hired a team of 20 workers - also dressed in yellow and black - to clean up graffiti and patrol downtown. When the workers first began cleaning in February 2005, they found 350 graffiti tags, LaTorre said. In the past few months, they have brought that number down to about 25.
"The city looks like it hasn't in a generation," LaTorre said.
Funds for the Clean and Safe program come from taxes assessed on all property owners in the district as well as donations from non-profit organizations such as Johnson and Wales University and several churches, according to LaTorre. The DID has an annual operating budget of $1.2 million - $800,000 of which is spent on the Clean and Safe program. A smaller amount is spent on marketing efforts, such as the Live It Up! initiative.
Downtown improvement districts are showing residents across the nation that previously economically depressed downtown city areas are attractive, LaTorre said.
"People are coming back from the isolated lifestyle of suburbia to get a community experience," LaTorre said.
"Everything is going in the right direction," said Joe Dibattista, owner of Hallmark Properties, located at 40 Fountain St.
Dibattista credited the collaboration of the DID, the Providence Foundation and others with the changes downtown, expressing particular satisfaction with the area's restaurants.
"We have the best restaurants in the world per capita," he said, "and I've been around the world."
"I have seen Providence go through a transformation," said Margaret Dooley, a self-described life-long resident of Providence and executive director of the Heritage Harbor Museum. Seeing the "landscape change" makes Providence "an exciting place to live and work," Dooly said.
"All the cranes in the air add to the excitement," she added.
