UNWELCOMING. Local citizens are banning together in hopes of brightening up boarded-up storefronts in Tacomaâ??s Hilltop neighborhood through a community mural project. (Photo by Staci Peper)
Driving down Martin Luther King (MLK) Way through Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood, one notices a number of boarded up buildings, which can affect the attractiveness of an area.
Tacoma resident Morgan Alexander hopes to change that soon with a storefront mural effort he’s kick-starting through the organization Tacoma Works, a grassroots volunteer group that produces community events.
The plan is to solicit local artists to paint murals on boards to look like storefronts, which will be placed in vacant buildings with the property owners’ permission. Over time, this will attract real businesses to the area, according the Alexander, a local real estate agent.
“I would like people to consider locating on Hilltop,” he said. “Something like this could help with its image.”
This Hilltop community mural project will be similar to a project done in Columbia City on the south end of Seattle in the early ’90s. In a particular neighborhood there, Alexander said all the stores were boarded up, and it was “not a nice place to be.”
However, a group of neighbors gathered together, painted murals and put them up in the boarded-up storefront windows. Alexander explained these weren’t just typical side of a building wall murals. “These were specific about business,” he noted. “What they wanted to do was show what kind of businesses they wanted to see in the neighborhood.
“If we can’t see them or until we can see them, we’d rather just look at pictures,” he added.
Within a year or two in Seattle, people started to take note. “It raised awareness of the area and helped potential business entrepreneurs to kind of consider that area” as possible locations for a new business, Alexander said.
He hopes the Hilltop project will have a similar affect. Recently, Alexander has met a few times with individuals in the community, who want to participate in the project.
Though attendance has been low at meetings, Alexander said he isn’t discouraged and wants to move forward on the project. “It can be a real fun project,” he commented.
Alexander said he has volunteers working in two teams on various aspects of the project including designing the murals and convincing property owners to participate. A few have committed verbally, he noted. Though, he’s still hoping to get more design teams and property owners on board.
A project meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Aug. 22 at the MLK police substation on the intersection of 16th and MLK.
For more information, visit www.tacomaworks.org.
