How Steubenville earned the score

Let’s Meet Steubenville, Ohio

Situation

Steubenville had a dead downtown. The town had risen to prominence on steel but now, with the decline of manufacturing, the town was suffering. The downtown was stale. The town is about an hour west of Pittsburgh however, which provides some opportunity. That location matters: it puts Steubenville within an easy drive of a large regional market, and a downtown with nothing to see was leaving that proximity on the table.

Jerry Barilla, owner of the local appliance shop, was the champion with the dream to make a “Dickens Victorian Village of statues that draw people and customers” like Cambridge, Ohio. He had seen how Cambridge’s Dickens Victorian Village used a statue display to pull people and customers into its downtown, and he wanted the same effect for Steubenville. He recalls the idea hit him like a “Bolt of Lighting” that they could do nutcrackers. Barilla was also president of the Old Fort Steuben Project, which gave the idea a home and an organization behind it. He would later become mayor.

Action

Fellow local businessman Mark Nelson helped build some of the first giant nutcrackers, produced locally at Nelson’s of Steubenville. The idea brought the passion and they continued to create another 37 of them. The nutcrackers portrayed local figures, historical figures, professions, and characters, so the display told the town’s own story rather than importing a generic theme. Making them locally kept the cost down and the ownership close to home.

They set up the light display at Fort Steuben Park, a historical site where Mr. Barilla helped out, and built the Advent Market programming around it. It was thrown together late in the year and, afraid to advertise, they pulled the trigger anyway. That year, over 2,000 people came to visit. For a first attempt with no marketing push, that turnout was proof the idea worked.

The following year in 2016, they created 69 more nutcrackers. Local businesses, organizations, families, and individuals sponsored their creations. Think everything from cultural clubs to dentistry offices sponsoring the nutcrackers. In 2017 another 50 were added, and in 2018 another 20. As of 2018 there were 170 nutcrackers. Each year the collection compounded, and each new statue came with a sponsor already invested in seeing the display succeed.

Result

Local Draw From Big Cities. In 2018, more than 40,000 people came to see the statues. That is 40,000 people from Pittsburgh, Toledo, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and further.

Sponsoring the Statues. Steubenville allowed businesses to sponsor the creation of these nutcrackers. Selling sponsorships to local businesses helps them get visibility and adds to the town’s theme for a fee. This structure of company-sponsored statues could be used by many towns across the nation without stepping on each other’s toes.

Visitor Spending in Steubenville. 40,000 people spending $100 or more on non-lodging spending in a city has a large economic impact. They are using their Christmas-themed inertia to create a winter-long Christmas market nearby and are hoping to extend it to a year-round market. There they sell everything from nutcrackers to reindeer sausage. They see this opportunity to also have activities like sleigh rides, live music, and hot cocoa. They even support a year-round Christmas store. They do have at least 4 million dollars coming in every year from these nutcrackers.

Steubenville is the perfect example of a town with creative city developments. It just goes to show, it doesn’t have to be expensive to attract tourists, just creative. From there, many other businesses can start and exist, which then in turn makes the town more of an attraction all together.

Other Examples of Creative City Developments

Leavenworth, Washington is an example of a town that has capitalized on this to the extreme. Leavenworth too has a Christmas village. They made their town into a creative city and have prospered ever since. Anoka, Minnesota has done something similar but for Halloween.