Expected to be ready for Celebrate Wallingford and Choate's Family Weekend, the physical and virtual map will give visitors a convenient way to familiarize themselves with downtown and its many businesses.
The map will highlight places to visit, eateries and major landmarks in the downtown area. Businesses on the map will have QR codes on the map and in their storefronts to give those interested a look at their menu and other information.
Illustrator Maria Rabinky, who has worked on several maps for places like Dartmouth College, UCLA, and Ransom Everglades School, is designing Wallingford's map.
Choate and Wallingford Center Inc. hope the map will be a valuable resource for students and their families. The school brought in over 850 students the last school year. With their families and others attending sporting and other events on the campus, thousands of people visit the downtown area.
The idea of an interactive map had been a topic of discussion for some time, but it was Wallingford Center Inc.'s executive director, Liz Davis, who kick-started the project after learning Choate had done something similar for its campus.
"It came up in a merchant's meeting," Davis said. "They said, 'We'd love to have a map we can give people who are visiting the town to tell them where to go, places they could visit.' I said that's a great idea. It'll promote the business owners, for one, and it'll promote for new families coming into Choate, which is why we looked at Choate. This is gonna be part of their regimen when they hand out information about the town."
For their part, Choate representatives have said that with the campus's proximity to downtown, it was important to inform incoming students about nearby amenities.
The details still need to be worked out, but Communications Director Alison Cady said the school is considering a gift card raffle for families who patronize the different shops downtown as an additional incentive for them to explore the area during Family Weekend, Oct. 24-26.
"We bring thousands of visitors to Wallingford, specifically to attend events and to visit the campus, and we understand that in doing so, there is a great benefit to the local community if we can encourage our visitors to spend money while they're here to support the local economy," Cady said.
"Another important aspect of that is that our proximity to downtown Wallingford does make our experience at Choate unique among some of our peer schools that might be in more isolated areas or not have the amenities of local restaurants and services nearby," Cady said. "So that's something that we like to showcase so that families get excited about the experience they can have at Choate, but we also understand that driving business to the local economy benefits us all."
Another tentative aspect of the map is a historical walk through downtown, reviving an old idea put forward by the Health Department several years ago. Similar to the business offerings, the tour would have QR code integration with scannable codes at several of the town's prominent downtown sites, allowing people to learn more about Wallingford's history.
Wallingford Center Inc. and local Rotary Club volunteers would provide tours of the town using the map to convey information.
Those ideas are in their infancy, however. It's not concrete whether or not they will be implemented as part of the final product.
Overall, the town has supported the initiative, seeing its value with many new businesses opening along Center Street in recent months. Celebrate Wallingford is scheduled for Oct. 5-6.
"The use of technology to get the word out about the Wallingford Town Center is great," said Economic Development Director Don Crouch. "Years ago, we've done the mail maps and different things. So I think this is just a new and more engaging way to let people know what's going on in the town center."
© 2024 Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
