WALNUT CREEK — It's a downtown divided; north versus south, with Mt. Diablo Boulevard its "Mason-Dixon Line."
The split between the updated mall and newer shops to the south and the hodgepodge of older businesses and ethnic restaurants to the north is clear, says branding expert Roger Brooks. A fractured downtown can't thrive, much less bill itself a regional retail destination, he said.
"It's ridiculous; you should be joined at the hip," said Brooks of Walnut Creek's downtown.
To make Walnut Creek's downtown a brand name, the business association should ditch the slogan "Escape the Ordinary" and build its brand as a tony shopping mecca with choice eateries, a true culinary destination. Any city needs to focus on what it has to offer, as Napa Valley does with wine or Anaheim with Disneyland, and create an experience around that, Brooks said.
Hired by the Downtown Business Association, Brooks recently spent three days in downtown Walnut Creek. Armed with a detailed list of suggestions — some stinging — Brooks talked to a group Wednesday made up of 80 property and business owners and city leaders. Brooks has worked with more than 800 communities on branding, development and marketing, including Whistler, British Columbia, and Hilton Head Island, S.C.
To deal with Walnut Creek's north-south dichotomy, he suggested creating two distinct districts. He gave them the working titles of Plaza District to the south and International District to the north, home of many restaurants. Banners and maps should illustrate to visitors how all of downtown is Walnut Creek, but that one district is a culinary hot spot and the other highlighted by glitzy shopping.
"There are 80 to 85 restaurants downtown," Brooks said. "Boy, if there was ever a culinary destination in the Bay Area, you have it."
Brooks' suggestions ranged from the need for perpendicular store signs to the importance of an open-air public market — think farmers market year-round. Also, the downtown needs an identifiable entrance so those drawn from all over the East Bay know they have arrived.
The northern edge of downtown should stay "organic" with its independent shops, but it needs landscaping and beautification, Brooks said.
"Once you have your brand it creates business opportunities," he said.
The free trolleys that wind around downtown are great, Brooks said, but need advertisements and visitor information.
Interestingly, he praised the city's much-maligned parking resources. He suggested better signs, but said the cost of parking is reasonable. When told many perceive Walnut Creek to have a parking problem, Brooks shrugged it off, instead holding the city up as an "example of how to do parking right."
"The better the destination, the further people will walk," said Brooks, who admitted he thought a $35 parking ticket was steep. To assuage "locals," Brooks suggested free parking on certain days in the city's garages.
"If locals won't hang out in downtown, neither will visitors," he said.
Emily Chang, director of the Downtown Business Association, said local leaders needed an outside, honest perspective but admitted that some of his suggestions require more "resources" then they have.
"But we are optimistic that we can find a way to get them done," she said. "It will take strong private-public partnerships. We need to make the investment if we want a vibrant downtown economy for years to come."
This is true, especially in light of other cities' efforts to invest in their brands, such as Pittsburg working to cast itself as an old-town fishing village, Brooks said.
"They are all gunning for Walnut Creek," he said.
Contact Elisabeth Nardi at 925-952-2617.
