To increase the appeal and draw more people downtown for Small Business Saturday, Morgan Hill, CA, created “street scenes.”
Individual parking spaces in the heart of downtown were transformed by local businesses into activity areas. One parking space was transformed with a holiday theme and featured Santa Claus posing for photos with children. Another spot featured small desks and chairs and a large mailbox so that children could write letters to Santa. Yet another street scene featured table games such as chess.
The event was popular with shoppers as well as merchants. Edith Ramirez, economic development manager for the city said in an interview that, “The response that we got from the businesses was fantastic, with more applications [submitted] than we thought we were going to get. The amount of effort that people have gone to in order to activate these parking places is really tremendous.”
The full article appeared in our print edition. To always get the full story, read Downtown Idea Exchange.