People Energizing Places Grant Update: Sedalia's Main Street Program Evolving
December 28, 2022 | Keith Winge
The City of Sedalia continues to work towards revitalizing its downtown district through the city-led Main Street program formed using services provided by Missouri Main Street Connection’s People Energizing Places (PEP) matching grant. As a 75/25 matching grant with Missouri Main Street, 75% of the grant service costs are covered by Missouri Main Street Connection (MMSC), the PEP grant is a great way to leverage local dollars to elevate or focus downtown revitalization efforts with the help of Main Street specialists.
Through the administration of PEP’s specialized trainings, Sedalia’s new board of directors, committee chairs, and volunteers have advanced their knowledge of facilitating and implementing preservation-based economic development. Several recent trainings included services under the Promotion point of the Main Street Approach™ and more specifically creating a brand identity for the newly formed city-led Main Street program.
Ben Muldrow is a branding specialist and partner with Arnett Muldrow & Associates, a creative planning firm. He has experience working in over 550 communities in 40 states and five countries. In addition, Ben has worked in over 25 Missouri communities creating branding strategies and tools for many Main Street organizations and districts. He spent three days in Sedalia meeting with stakeholders and city leadership to develop new branding for the downtown district and the organization. The feedback from the stakeholders referenced the architecture from the district, being flexible for various uses, and that it should work with the new City of Sedalia branding. Ben also took inspiration from Sedalia Main Street’s transformation strategies focused on creating an entertainment and family-friendly downtown.
The new branding debuted during a brand-unveiling presentation on the third day of the visit. During this presentation, Ben walked through the new branding recommendations he created based on the input sessions with complete explanations of the contents of the branding toolkit including colors, typefaces, graphics, and messaging. He elaborated on each section of the branding toolkit with its inspiration and connection to what he gathered from Sedalia’s stakeholders. The Main Street logo is anchored by the archway which is a one of the gateways into the downtown district. Downtown’s branding color palette expanded allowing the use of several colors found in the downtown district, one example being the red brick of several buildings in the district. This provides some flexibility to the system for the graphics and logos to reflect seasonal use and events.
The City’s new branding typeface and fonts were used as the primary font for the Sedalia Main Street logo. Another part of the City’s new branding integrated by Ben for the downtown branding was the tag line “Cross Paths.”
Sedalia Main Street accepted Ben’s recommendations, meaning the newly formed Main Street program now has their own identify and look with new graphics presented for the downtown organization and its efforts. All of the assets created will be available for Sedalia Main Street to create marketing and event materials.
This branding system will be integrated into all things Main Street from events, marketing and promotional materials, branding resources and programs offered downtown, integration into wayfinding signage, and shared with vendors for merchandise and souvenirs. Included in the branding service was an implementation checklist and complete style guide to promote proper usage and tools to help integrate the new tools into programming and communications.
If your Main Street program is interested in accelerating the downtown revitalization efforts or need some assistance with a specific project, contact Missouri Main Street Connection at 417-334-3014 or email Keith Winge at kwinge@momainstreet.org about the PEP grant or other grants that are available.
