Where downtown meets the sea! The team at the Downtown Management District includes (from left) Terry Sweeney, executive director; Hannah Shaw, merchant and special events coordinator; Sierra Shamblin, arts coordinator; and Allen Albin, finance and operations manager. Photo by Carrie Robertson Meyer/Third Coast Photo
Downtown Corpus Christi has exploded in a cascade of colors and creativity designed to highlight the area’s extensive assets.
Renamed the Marina Arts District, the area that encompasses Kinney Street to Interstate 37 and Lower Broadway to the Corpus Christi Marina L- and T-Heads, now will be carefully branded as an exciting destination to draw more visitors and businesses, said Terry Sweeney, executive director of the Downtown Management District. The new name comes with a vibrant new website, a new strategy, new events and a whole new way of thinking about downtown.
The DMD will retain its name and responsibility for managing downtown, but the area itself has been rebranded to more truly reflect the vibrancy and charm of the seaside city. The name, Marina Arts District, highlights all the aspects of downtown Corpus Christi that make it unique and even spectacular, Sweeney said.
“The area is anchored by a marina as a great attractor and a bayfront that generates a lot of activity, but that’s not the only thing the downtown area has to offer,” Sweeney said. “We offer a walkable environment in an art-driven area. Development is no longer the important word in our name. It’s the marina and the arts.”
And the arts includes more than the visual, continued Sweeney. It’s music; it’s spoken; it’s culinary.
“Downtown has the largest number of locally owned restaurants in a walkable area,” he said. “Downtown is on the edge and at the center: on the edge of creativity, pushing the limits, having fun; it’s on the water’s edge; and it’s in the center of the city, the center of the city’s arts.”
Downtown is where you come to “see art, buy art, create art, be art,” Sweeney continued.
With that in mind, the DMD has launched its first of many campaigns to highlight a new perception of downtown: “Launch Your Craft.”
“‘Launch your Craft’ can include everything from a boat or a bicycle or a business, art, food or artisan work,” Sweeney said.
The idea is best summed up in the next new event to draw crowds and attention to the area. Masterpiece in a Day on Sept. 12 is a competition for all ages in visual arts, music and spoken word. Participating artists will spend the day outside creating their masterpieces. An art parade at 4 p.m. will offer a platform “for presenting artwork in a public sphere.” Participants are encouraged to become art themselves as they dress for the parade.
Next steps include completing and implementing a comprehensive plan for the Marina Arts District, which was funded about 18 months ago by a triumvirate that includes the DMD, the city of Corpus Christi and regional corporate anchors.
Further funding will come from a recently established tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ). The city, Nueces County and Del Mar College taxing districts agreed in 2008 and 2009 to benchmark the total tax evaluation in that point in time. From that point forward for 20 years, any increase in property tax-generated revenue will go into a tourist fund set aside to incentivize new development. The money will be used to attract new businesses and recruit new projects.
“We are just at the starting line, not the finish line,” Sweeney said.
To get to this point took a year and a half of research to establish exactly who visits downtown, when they come, from where they come, where they spend their money and what will bring them back more often. Extensive surveys succinctly outlined what makes downtown Corpus Christi unique in the market — information that was used to develop the new brand and put a strategic plan in place.
Two new hires will help direct the focus of the Marina Arts District. Sierra Shamblin, arts coordinator, and Hannah Shaw, merchant and special events coordinator, join Allen Albin, finance and operations manager, and Sweeney in the offices at 223 N. Chaparral St.
“This is really a paradigm shift,” Sweeney said. “In the past, we had an organization-oriented way of doing things. We were downtown management. That’s our name; that’s what we do. Moving forward, that will be the echo, the second message. The primary message — the destination, the experience and the businesses — will be the primary focus from now on.”
