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West Memphis Starts Selling Broadway
Wednesday, 29 October 2008 16:18 ADMIN Regional News - West Memphis News

West Memphis Starts Selling Broadway
By Mark Hengel - ArkansasBusiness.com
10/27/2008
 
Branding is something that many cities are getting into. The latest participant is West Memphis and its Main Street West Memphis program.
A three-day session with Ben Muldrow of Arnett Muldrow & Associates has produced a new theme for the ailing downtown: Broadway Wide Open.
"We're not a typical main street built along a courthouse square," Leigh Ann Hastings, Main Street's executive director, said. "We've had a difficult time selling Main Street, because it's really not a Main Street. We never had capitalized on Broadway."
Broadway is the town's main drag and is a five-lane thoroughfare, she said. The theme came during a series of meetings Muldrow, Hastings and others held during the week. Arnett Muldrow is a firm out of South Carolina that focuses on branding cities, and Main Street West Memphis paid for the services with a $5,000 Downtown Revitalization Grant from Main Street Arkansas. Along with the motto, Muldrow drew up a new logo for the organization and most of the public entities in the town.
The new motto is appealing to Hastings because of its broad implications. "We are wide open to opportunities. We are wide open to new construction," she said.
Hastings, who returned to the job in August after serving from 1997 to 2001, said the new logo and streetscaping should create excitement in the Delta town. Seventy people showed up for the Oct. 16 unveiling.