CARLISLE, PA (March 27, 2012) - The Downtown Carlisle Association/LoveCarlisle.com will be unveiling a new way to get around Carlisle this summer. The DCA's Design Committee teamed with the Borough of Carlisle and the Cumberland Valley Visitors Bureau, to develop a color-coded mapping system of downtown that will be displayed through new downtown banners. Borough employees will start hanging the banners in late April right after a downtown wide "spring clean-up."

"Carlisle's downtown is four blocks wide by four blocks long, therefore we have divided it into quadrants and will highlight the stores and restaurants and tourism attractions in each with the color-coded downtown banners," stated Ed Bidelspach, President of the Downtown Carlisle Association. Carlisle's new "way-finding" system will implement color-coded signage on downtown street lights, and these will correlate to new color-coded maps and business listings in the LoveCarlisle.com downtown guide, and LoveCarlisle.com website.

The red quad of the downtown will display white and red banners, the same colors as Dickinson College. This quadrant will be adjacent to Dickinson and will overlay West High Street to West North Street to North West Street. This red quad will boast all of the downtown restaurants on West High and North Pitt Streets, along with Dickinson College, the Historic Carlisle Theater, Cumberland Valley Visitors Center, Cumberland Valley Historical Society, Union Fire Company, and the famed Molly Pitcher art mural.

The blue quad of downtown will display white and dark blue banners, and will overlay North Hanover Street, to East North Street, to North East Street. The blue quad will host all of the restaurants on North Hanover Street, Wednesday's Farmers Market on the Square, along with the various art galleries including the Carlisle Arts Learning Center, the Garden Gallery, and Nancy Stamm's Galleria. The green quad will cover East High Street to South East Street and East South Street. This quad will show the Cumberland County Courthouse, and the historic Molly Pitcher gravesite.

The purple quad covers South Hanover Street, west to South West Street. This quad will be home to the West Pomfret Street shopping district, Comfort Suites hotel, Borough Hall, Cumberland Valley Visitors Bureau, and the Pennsylvania State Dickinson School of Law.

Over eighty banners will be hung on downtown light poles. Careful consideration was given to the current flower pots sponsored and hung by the Rotary Club of Carlisle. "We knew the poles would have to share space with the flowerpots, we definitely did not want to interfere with the beauty of the flowerpots or the generosity of our local Rotary in their downtown beautification program," stated White. The new banners will be hung on every third light pole and on the opposite side of the flower pots.

"This region has over 2.5 million visitors from around the world each year. With the car shows, US Army Barracks and War College, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Dickinson College and Penn State Dickinson Law, we recognized the need to offer help to the local community welcome all of these visitors," stated Shireen Farr, Tourism Director of the Cumberland Valley Visitors Bureau. "We offered wayfinding signage grants to our Cumberland Valley Region in 2011 and were very excited to be able to team with the DCA and Borough to provide visitors with a very visual means to find their way around town. We anticipate other communities will incorporate wayfinding strategies such as this." continued Farr.

The future of this wayfinding project will be to incorporate banners into the various downtown neighborhoods through the Downtown  Neighborhood Connection. "We have many active neighborhood associations working hard to improve the quality of life for all residents of the Borough. These banners will provide both a physical sense of place, and an emotional sense of pride." stated Eddy Kaplaniak, Director of the Borough's Elm Street program.

Assistant Borough Manager Susan Armstrong added, "This banner project is just another example of the collaborative work among community stakeholders to promote and market our downtown and community. The Borough of Carlisle thanks those involved with this project and the countless others that have occurred throughout the years."

The Downtown Carlisle Association is a main street development organization that markets and promotes the assets of the Carlisle region for the benefit of downtown shopping, tourism, business recruitment, and economic development. Through various tourism events, downtown beautification initiatives, retail recruitment and downtown residential revitalization, we make Downtown a great place to live, work, shop & play!