People entering North Adams will soon see new signs that highlight the past, present and future of Massachusetts’ smallest city.Three large bright blue and green welcome signs will be installed along North Adams’ borders on Routes 2 and 8 over the next few weeks as part of a branding and marketing effort for the burgeoning tourist destination. The 12-foot tall metal signs feature 4-inch thick letters spelling out North Adams, similar to how MASS MoCA is stylized atop its buildings. The sign itself captures hallmarks of the city including the Hoosic River, its numerous steeples, a prominent clocktower, main street, the scenic Mohawk Trail and the mountainous landscape. Mayor Richard Alcombright says it points to what the city was and where it’s going.
“It looks to our post-industrial past,” Alcombright said. “The sign itself is in the shape of a bolt. It shows our clocktower which was the old Sprague [Electric] building and is now MASS MoCA. It shows the steeple which points to our past. It shows our river, Route 2 and the Hoosac Tunnel. Now both of those point to our past, but they also point very much to our future, as does MoCA. Everything on there you can look at it in many different ways.”
North Adams Chamber of Commerce President Glenn Maloney unveiled the design, which was funded by the North Adams Partnership.
“This is a culmination of work over the last year spearheaded by the North Adams Partnership,” Maloney said. “Trying to help facilitate the rebranding of the city, the images and how we present ourselves.”
The Partnership of business, education and city leaders formed in 2011. The group has put up about $82,000 for the design, the signs themselves and the installation. Now it is handing the effort off to the Chamber of Commerce for further development.
“Three signs are nice, but we need to do a lot more to identify who we are, where we are in within our city and help people navigate around the city,” he said. “So in the next phase of this over the next year, you’ll see us identifying potential locations from direction and wayfaring signs. The Chamber of Commerce will work with the Partnership on sourcing the funding for this. We’ll figure out how we’re going to fundraise and put that part together.”
The image is also going to be prominently displayed on an enhanced website the chamber is working on with Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts called ExploreNorthAdams.com. Maloney says the idea to combine the chamber’s website and a tourism website came out of the success of DestinationWilliamstown.org.
“We realized there was a better way to do this,” Maloney said. “That we could make a place that serves all of us. Whether it’s someone in the community trying to figure out what’s going on this weekend, someone coming to visit here and wants to know where to go and what to do or you want to open a business and you want to know what you should do, the steps you should take and the resources available. As this site develops and we start to add more pieces to it, the true intention is to do all of that.”
The chamber has doubled its membership from roughly 50 to 100 over the past year, according to program coordinator Ricco Fruscio. He says the members are now looking at themselves as more of a business community, which can benefit from a universal marketing effort.
“It can show people that when they come to town that we care about our city,” Fruscio said. “Marketing and signage are important. How we handle people when they come to town and how sensitive are we in helping them get to where they need to go. It’s hospitality more than anything else.”
The new design is not replacing North Adams’s official government logo. But, Mayor Alcombright says now is the ideal time to revamp the city’s website to better connect visually with ExploreNorthAdams.com. The branding initiative plays off of the city’s master plan, coined Vision 2030, that was unveiled in 2014.
Copyright 2015 WAMC Northeast Public Radio
