Case Study: 11th Street Bridge Park’s The Bridge Spot

Our second client was the 11th Street Bridge Park, which will be Washington, DC’s first elevated public park. The park, spanning the Anacostia River and connecting communities east of the river, will serve as a meeting point for neighborhoods on both sides of the river. This project was community-driven, designed to be a resource for the residents of the community. Meant to serve as an anchor for economic and equitable growth, the 11th Street Bridge Park is more than just a park. The park will feature a mobile kiosk named by SOC3, The Bridge Spot, designed to highlight Black and Brown small businesses from Anacostia across the district. Overall, the 11th Street Bridge Park project will further seek to improve public health disparities and re-engage the broader D.C. community with the river communities.

Our Work

Over the course of the semester, the cohort conducted field research and met with the client. By interviewing residents and small business owners of Anacostia, the cohort gained invaluable insights into the intentions of the park and kiosk initiative. We then got to work, creating exciting and creative products all rooted in storytelling and GenZ’s perspective. Our four teams within the agency each created unique deliverables for our client to use for the launch of the kiosk initiative.

***For a full report on each team’s work this semester, please click the “Deliverable” hyperlink.***

Deliverable #1: Kiosk Launch Event + Media Relations + Logo

Gigi Imperatore, Gabriela Perez, Samantha Smith, Melina Calarco, Jules Losee

After traveling to Anacostia and learning more about the goals of the project, this team set out to create an exciting, interactive launch event to highlight The Bridge Spot at the Anacostia River Festival. The team aimed to create an event to uplift and motivate the participating small businesses. The team then created a media list for the event as well as a sample press release and pitch template for the 11th Street Bridge Park to use. They also created a creative logo design for The Bridge Spot. Overall, this team was able to plan an engaging event, with a celebratory and interactive tone.

Deliverable #2: Kiosk Social Strategy + Influencers

Abby Leszuk, Neal Franklin, Sarah Flakus, Sydney Soka

This team worked hard to design strategies to increase awareness of The Bridge Spot and increase overall business for the kiosk. After visiting Anacostia the team learned that several small business owners were unaware of the project, and those who were interested were unsure of the details. From there they brainstormed different methods to engage all of DC with The Bridge Spot and how to promote the kiosk’s role in the equitable development plan. The team aimed to target DC residents and potential vendors and create a deliverable where people could track the kiosk and find information on vendor services. From ideation to refinement, the team presented an interactive website where people can track the location of the kiosk and a page with information for 11th Street Bridge Park. The team effectively provided 11th Street Bridge Park with information about local DC events, social post templates to use, and a list of influencers they could partner with. Overall, the website is a perfect way to engage residents of DC and help them follow along The Bridge Spot.

Deliverable #3: Promotion Toolkit for Businesses

Hall Harrison, Brendan Locke, Tatiana Papadopoulos, Mahika Tulsyan

Transitioning to an entirely new business model can be immensely challenging yet beneficial. The third team wanted to ensure businesses using The Bridge Spot would feel supported as they made their transition into the kiosk. They developed a promotional toolkit that will not only walk prospective businesses through the background of 11th Street Bridge Park and The Bridge Spot but guide them through methods to promote their business. The toolkit is deeply informative, but the team ensured the content was accessible using minimal text. They also developed mock-up social media post, flyer, and banner ad templates that businesses could use to promote themselves, the event or community they are in that day, and some of their products.

Social Content produced for small business

Deliverable #4: Visual Media for Promotion

Isis Amusa, Jemma Manu, Judith Kirkiris, Fátima García González

The fourth team decided to employ visual media to provide audiences with information about the kiosk and get them excited about what was to come. The main deliverable from this team was a short video documentary, which would not only document the construction of the kiosk and design process but provide interviews and other commentaries to explain The Bridge Spot’s connection to the 11th Street Bridge Park’s equitable development plan. In support of this effort, and to provide a variety of video styles, the team also produced a welcome video to play at The Bridge Spot’s launch event, and hype videos of different styles for promotion on social media. Finally, the team developed a promotional plan exploring the various ways in which these videos may be used.

Conclusion

After presenting our deliverables to the 11th Street Bridge Park team we were met with enthusiastic feedback and beneficial, constructive suggestions to further improve our deliverables. The organization will be incorporating many of our ideas, and we are excited to see our work reflected in the launch event at the Anacostia River Festival. Through this partnership, we gained invaluable knowledge and produced communication strategies and tactics rooted in innovation and collaboration.

Testimonial

"We have worked with other universities in the past and these are largely academic exercises where the plans sit on a shelf. All the deliverables created and presented by SOC3 will be used by our team and are incredibly helpful.”

Scott Kratz, Building Bridges Across the River Senior Vice President & 11th Street Bridge Park Director and Kia Johnson, Equitable Development Manager