BUILDING HEALTHY PLACES

August 17  |  10 - 11:30 AM

Live Webinar

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Many factors affect human health, including genetics, personal behavior, and medical care, but this workshop will explore the relationship between health and the built environment. It will look at the many ways that the design of our buildings and communities affects our physical health and mental well-being. In many places, physical activity, once part of our everyday lives, has been designed out of our daily routines.

This webinar will examine what communities can do to create healthier buildings and neighborhoods. It will set out fundamental principles for building healthy places and showcase numerous examples of what both builders and local communities are doing to make healthy choices easy and more profitable.

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*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Ed McMahon

Senior Resident Fellow

Urban Land Institute

A COMMUNITY GUIDE TO BUSINESS RECRUITMENT

September 14  |  10 - 11:30 AM

Live Webinar

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While the pandemic may be in our rearview mirror, many communities are struggling to regain momentum and attract new commercial activity to their downtown. Learn proven strategies that local governments and downtown volunteers can use to attract new investment to their downtown and fill vacant or underutilized spaces.

Hilary Greenberg (Greenberg Development Services), author of “A Downtown Economic Developer’s Guide to Business Recruitment” will present steps that towns of all sizes can take to recruit new businesses and put buildings back in service. The guide was published by the NC Main Street & Rural Planning Center at the N.C Department of Commerce and is available for download.

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​*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Hilary Greenberg

Greenberg Development Services

MASTER PLANNING ON
A BUDGET

November 2  |  10 - 11 AM

Live Webinar

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Every community is unique, requiring a specific planning process to ensure the community gets a valuable and implementable plan document to follow and utilize. In this webinar, you will obtain information on identifying your downtown planning needs, highlighting, or prioritizing necessary plan elements, and associating applicable costs or budgets to each task. Additionally, this webinar will discuss preparing Request for Proposal documents, soliciting proposals, and conducting a fair or equitable solicitation and review.

The information learned will help streamline the planning process and ensure that each community has a plan that meets their individual needs, not just a copy of what the neighboring community received.

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​*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Ben Levenger

President

Downtown Redevelopment Services

AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT (ARPA) RESOURCES TO HELP RURAL COMMUNITIES

August 24  |  10 - 11:00 AM

Live Webinar

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Rural Economic Development is dependent on strong partnerships. The North Carolina Department of Commerce Rural Economic Development Division (REDD) works with rural communities from Murphy to Manteo, to provide funding, technical assistance, training, and educational programming that helps communities build capacity and bring great ideas to fruition.

Tune into to this webinar to learn more about the new federal resources available to North Carolina towns and cities from the Assistant Secretary of the Rural Economic Development Division at the NC Dept. of Commerce, Kenny Flowers, and his team members.

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*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Kenny Flowers

Assistant Secretary

Rural Economic Development Division NC Department of Commerce

THE 12 ADVANTAGES OF A DESTINATION BUSINESS IN YOUR COMMUNITY AND HOW TO NURTURE ONE

September 21 |  10 - 11:30 AM

Live Webinar

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In this webinar, Destination Business Expert Jon Schallert will explain why the most advantageous businesses any community can possess are Destination Businesses, capable of pulling customers from hours away. After the workshop, Jon will take questions from the attendees.

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Attendees will learn:

• How developing Destination Businesses in your community can be the easiest way to change an entire marketplace The 3 consumer groups that every community should be concerned about attracting

• How any city or town can minimize its marketing expenditures with a process that is 12 times more powerful than any form of advertising

• How to target and attract the most profitable consumers to your community while reducing your marketing costs by 93%

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*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Jon Schallert

Destination Business Expert

DOWNTOWN REAL ESTATE: HOW TO ACTIVATE RETAIL VACANCIES

November 30  |  10 - 11:30 AM

Live Webinar

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Retail and restaurant options play a big part of a vibrant downtown, but it can be challenging to know what the biggest real estate opportunities are for city leaders. Whether you have a completely vacant Main Street, have recently had positive momentum downtown, or are fearful that long-time businesses may shutter in the coming months, our approach is to provide guidance to create and implement a sensible retail plan for your downtown.

In this webinar, Elliott Cook, director of real estate for Downtown Strategies, provides answers to some frequently asked questions he hears from community leaders that are focused on maximizing real estate assets in their downtown.

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​*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Elliott Cook

Downtown Strategies

10 CRITICAL ELEMENTS THAT WILL MAKE TOMORROW’S COMMUNITIES

September 7  |  10 - 11 AM

Live Webinar

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The world has changed, and consumer preferences have changed with it. People are reconsidering the definition of home, where they live, how they live, how they interact when using technology, and so much more. This session will provide insights into the future that should impact how to plan, design, and develop tomorrow's communities. Hear from a nationally renowned urban thinker, Mitchell Silver, about the ten critical elements you need to know about to prepare for tomorrow.

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*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Mitchell J. Silver

Vice President of Urban Planning with McAdams

THE POWER OF PLACE

October 5  |  10 - 11 AM

Live Webinar

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When we think of placemaking, we typically imagine how we dress up our favorite public space, but the concept of place is so much bigger. Place is ubiquitous. It affects everything we do, and it is one of the largest determinants of the type of life we lead. We are always surrounded by place. How places are built, how they function, and how they are designed dictate how people go about leading their lives.

Our places have the ability to make us proud or make us feel ashamed. They can bring us closer to one another or make us feel alone. The places we shape, determine our physical, mental, social, and economic health. In understanding how much our places shape our lives; we begin to understand how much better we need to do in shaping our places. This session will lay out why we should focus all our efforts on place and how we can transform a community simply by upgrading the surroundings.

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​*In order to receive APA credits, you must register so your attendance can be verified.  For APA credit information, contact Grace Findley.

Jeff Siegler

Revitalize or Die

Proud Places