The Center City Authority is pleased to announce the installation of the Center City identity signs bringing to a close a two-year fundraising and installation project.
Midland’s Center City district welcomed their new identity signs this week and marked the completion of a two-year fundraising effort to purchase and install the signs.
Two gateway signs designating the entrances to the district along with ten identity signs throughout the district were installed on Thursday. The Center City district is made up of more than 225 properties along Saginaw Road from Manor to Patrick Drives and includes areas along Ashman, Rodd and Washington Streets.
“This is the first major project taken on by the Center City district as a whole and we’re very proud to have these landmarks in place so visitors know they are part of the vibrant Center City district,” said David Ginis, chair of the Center City Authority board and owner of Ginis Goldsmiths.
The Center City signs compliment the wayfinding signage that is in place throughout the City of Midland and provides distinctiveness to the corridor as a shopping and dining destination in Midland.
Center City Authority members with the newly installed sign 2014
A campaign to fund the $64,000 cost of the project was completed in February of this year. The Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation provided a generous $24,000 challenge grant toward the purchase of the Center City signs. Forty-two Center City businesses, property owners, organizations and individuals contributed $8,000 toward that challenge grant effort with $4,000 being contributed by The Mary C. Currie Foundation, Consumers Energy and The Dow Chemical Company.
An additional $28,000 was generously provided by the Midland Area Community Foundation’s Margaret T. Guilford Memorial Endowment Fund and by the Project for Public Spaces Task Force.
In addition to the major contributors, the Center City Authority would like to recognize and thank the following Center City businesses and individuals for their generous financial support of this project:
AAA, Bob Benoit; Amish Reflections; Art Cleaners; Asset Brokers and Loans; Big Boy Restaurants; David & Joan Brausch; Cartridge World; CCK Pizza Company, LLC (Dominos); Chemical Bank; Circle Properties; Custom Tile and Design; Bill & Haroldine Daily; Designed by Julie, LLC; Firehouse Soft Wash; Forward; Gaslight Square; Ginis Goldsmiths, LLC; Grounds for a Better World, LLC; Hair on the Square; JL Foods, Inc. (Ponderosa); The Mane Hair Co., Inc.; McMahan, Thomson & Associates, P.C.; Midland Circle Business Association Inc.; Midland Ford Lincoln, Inc.; Midland Plaza Center, LLC.; Midland Towne Center, LLC.; Muffler Man; Northwest Tire & Service; The Paper Moon; Pathway Christian Books & Gifts, Inc.; Pixie-Ponderosa Restaurants; Quick Reliable Printing; The Rehmann Group; S&S Investment Company; School Days; SE Cellular, LLC; Sleepy Hollow Bookshop; Suelynn Properties, LLC; The Paper Place; Twocan Inc., (DBA Tim Hortons); Village Green and; Wolverine Bank.
The Center City district was established with the State of Michigan as a tax increment financing(TIF) district in 2012 in an effort to correct and prevent deterioration in the business district, support historic preservation and promote economic growth through the use of TIF revenues.
