Inside: DNA group has big plans for work in downtown Texarkana,
DNA group has big plans for work in downtown Texarkana
Many people and groups engage in moving downtown forward, ranging from plucky business owners to Main Street Texarkana to city governments to dreamers with the will to change things.
One of the newer such entities on the block is the Downtown Neighborhood Association, which sprang up last year with Dr. Beverly Rowe, a persistent downtown advocate, at the helm. She and Brandy Richards Aaron have worked to make the TXK DNA the “hostess” for downtown, as they put it in a spring 2018 newsletter.
In the newsletter, they describe the nonprofit 501(c)(3) mission they have: “Clean-up, paint-up, fix-up.” They strive to spruce up the downtown windows and work with the city governments as “the ‘voice’ of downtown merchants, owners and residents.”
Their promotional catchphrase for the upcoming spring season? “Opportunities are Blooming in Downtown Texarkana.” You’ll be seeing banners proclaiming this downtown.
“We’re going to have flowers hanging in the windows,” Rowe said about making the storefronts prettier downtown. In some ways, they group strives to be the public face of downtown.
Whereas an organization like Main Street Texarkana works to guide locals to loan opportunities and similar types of financial or expert assistance and to promote downtown via advertising, Downtown Neighborhood Association sees itself as taking direct, street-level action to make downtown better.
To that end, the organization has several projects planned: info kiosks, street music, a downtown cleanup day, decorations and a bronze statue of two mayors shaking hands.
“We have a five-project year mapped out for us,” Rowe said, “and one of them is a wardrobe of decorations for downtown. So it’s seasonal.” They started in the fall, and most recently had “We Love Downtown” signs all over the neighborhood.
Saturday, March 3, is the next day for cleaning, painting and fixing. “We’re putting out the call to come down and help us, sweep up the gutters, sweep out the doorways and stuff like that,” Rowe said. If interested in helping them out, contact the organization through the TXK DNA page on Facebook.
A grander plan is the implementation of interactive kiosks downtown. Rowe explains they were inspired by El Dorado, Ark.
“They have these tall mini-buildings that look like Arabian Nights, Morocco. It’s got a big dome on it,” Rowe said of the El Dorado kiosks, which serve several purposes. “We decided Texarkana needed a recognizable symbol.” They chose the turret on the former Offenhauser building downtown, what’s now the Museum of Regional History.
“There will be seven of them. They are four-feet on a side, four sides, and then they’ll be about 12 feet tall,” Rowe said. That’s a good size.
“In order to have room for a digital television screen, clock and the temperature, a map,” Aaron said. They plan to have local artists draw and paint the clock faces. A temperature gauge will be on another side, while a “You Are Here” map will have one side, too. The lower part of each kiosk will be made of brick.
An interactive screen will show scrolling advertisements. “Except ours are going to be keyed to the block they’re in,” Rowe said. So, if a kiosk is located in the 200 block of East Broad Street, it will advertise what’s available in the blocks right there. Also, a video promoting Texarkana will run on a loop.
Rowe said they’re working with the cities on a proper placement that’s good for electricity access and such. She envisions kiosks near the Downtown Post Office, in the blocks on East Broad and West Broad, near Union Station and near the Perot Theatre, and other spots on both sides of downtown.
“We were able to get money from the A&P to start, so we’re ready to get the first prototype,” Rowe said. Most of $10,000 in A&P funding will go toward this.
Because of financing, deploying the kiosks will be an ongoing project. “We are, of course, always open for donations towards that,” Aaron said.
Rowe said they also hope to have a bronze statue created that depicts two early mayors of Texarkana, Anthony Ghio and Henry Beidler. “These are the mayors of Texarkana respective sides. Ghio’s Texas and Beidler’s Arkansas,” she said.
It would be 120 percent of life size and show them shaking hands, which may not have happened in real life but the idea symbolizes the recent cooperation between the two Texarkana sides, Rowe explained. Both were mayors in 1880, she said. The location would be in a park area near State Line Avenue and the nearby Regions Bank building.
“We’re collecting money. We anticipate the statue will be between $30,000 and $50,000, so it’s big. It will sit up on a pedestal,” Rowe said. They are looking for an artist to work on this project.
Another plan to add ambiance to downtown is music. Perhaps it could play during downtown festivals. Downtown doesn’t have speakers, but it would be nice to have music playing all over downtown, something conducive to promoting shopping, says Rowe.
“In order to do that, there needs to be a system of speakers throughout the downtown area,” she said. They’re currently exploring options to pursue.
Other plans afoot include a downtown scavenger hunt, which they hope to roll out this summer. “The point is to get people downtown, get them familiarized with downtown and have a little fun while doing it, kind of like the little doors and the painted rocks,” Aaron said.
In this way and others, Texarkana Downtown Neighborhood Association strives to be a downtown hostess, to make downtown look good for people who come there.
“It’s like when you invite people to your house. Somebody needs to sweep the porch, somebody needs to scrub the bathroom and somebody needs to put out fresh linens and decorate, do all those sorts of things,” Rowe said.
There’s no one to take on that role now, so this organization will do it, she says. It’s also about one-on-one contact with the businesses and residents.
Right now, they have 100 families and nearly 50 businesses participating, along with roughly 20 building owners. They don’t ask for membership fees, just the energy to put into projects.
“We want everybody to participate,” Rowe said.
(More info: 903-748-1235 or bjbhurst@yahoo.com. Visit the TXK DNA page on Facebook.)