Dumke Arts Plaza — Union Creative Agency

The Challenge

For this project, Union Creative Agency teamed up with another Weber County-based firm, Io Land Arch and international design studio, Sasaki Associates. While our team has played and continues to play many roles in this project, our most visible was in the development and implementation of a Community Welcoming Campaign. This campaign was designed to raise local awareness, define local desires for the plaza, and ensure the end result includes both local support and excitement. Of particular importance, the campaign was targeted toward neighborhood residents, Spanish speaking community members, and local artists. All of these stakeholders are traditionally excluded from processes like this and Ogden City has had difficulty reaching them successfully.

Collaborators

Ogden City, Weber State University, The Dr. Ezekiel R. and Edna Wattis Dumke Foundation, Sasaki Associates, Nine Rails Creative District, Io Land Arch, and Cam McLeod Photography

The Outcome

The Dumke Arts Plaza broke ground on February 26th, 2021 and officially opened to the public on December 3rd, 2021. Throughout this four month campaign, we attracted more than 500 unique website visitors, heard from 154 survey respondents, and reached more than 5,700 users via Facebook events. Most importantly, we heard from many new voices who had not participated in local planning efforts previously and the feedback we received was deeply integrated with the design process and will forever shape the use of this community gathering space. Furthermore, our team was retained to conduct additional work in the development and codification of a mission and vision statement that will shape site programming.

Engagement Marketing/Efforts