A lot has been going on in Downtown Morehead City over the last 10 month.
- In May, the DMCRA staged the Crystal Coast Boat Show, a family friendly, free event that had more boats than ever on display, vendors, music, an antique automobile show and the ARTrageous art event. The DMCRA more than tripled the amount of promotion outside of the market to draw people from all over the state to Morehead City.
- In April, the DMCRA produced and executed a direct mail campaign promoting the downtown charter boat captains to people around North Carolina identified as having an interest in fishing, boats and the Crystal Coast.
- In May, the DMCRA instituted a weekly Downtown Happenings newsletter sent to hundreds of email addresses in the region and the email list continues to grow as people ask to be added.
- In May, the DMCRA started the free Alive at Five concert series taking place at Katherine Davis Park the first Friday of every month. The bands that have played have been the Big Time Party Band, Love Tribe, Killin’ Time and Spare Change. This has been a family friendly event designed to bring people downtown and, by only playing until 8pm, having crowds of people take advantage of our terrific shops, art galleries and restaurants.
- In June, the DMCRA purchased Hawthorn bushes to complement the Crepe Myrtle trees on Arendell Street. Working with Carteret Community College’s outreach project, inmates from the Carteret Correctional Facility’s horticultural educational program planted them. Plans are underway for more landscaping efforts and tasteful, colorful banners to be hung on Arendell Street.
- A few of our Downtown Friends we’ve helped to promote are: The History Place, the MHC Parks and Recreation free Saturday concert series in Jaycee Park, the Crystal Coast Grand Prix, the Morehead City Center for the Performing Arts, Locals for Locals, the After-Hours Rotary Club, the Crystal Coast Hospice House, the Artists on Arendell Street, the Carolina Artists Studio Gallery, Carteret Contemporary Art, the NC Seafood Festival and many others.
- In July, the DMCRA staged the Morehead City Fireworks display on July 4th drawing thousands of people downtown.
- In September, the DMCRA hosted a ‘Meet the Candidates’ reception that was free to the public.
- In September, the DMCRA was one of three organizations that brought the Seafair mega-yacht to Morehead City.
There’s still a lot more to come, like the Christmas Parade and the MHC Christmas Festival.
We are the liaison for both residents and businesses in Downtown Morehead City with the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Council, the Crystal Coast Hospitality Association and the Crystal Coast TDA. We represent and act as an advocate for Downtown Morehead City with the municipal, county and state governments. We try to keep you informed when there are things going on downtown and things that might affect downtown, both positively and negatively. We actively solicit and seek out compatible, sustainable companies to come downtown to do business. Our job is to constantly undertake projects that will improve the business climate and the quality of life in Morehead City.
We are the voice of Downtown Morehead City.
But we can’t do it alone. We’re a non-profit, 501c3 organization partially funded by the city, fundraising events and sponsorships but to continue operating and instituting new projects to improve Downtown Morehead City, we need your continued help.
The DMCRA endeavors to help all of Downtown (indeed, all of Morehead City and the Crystal Coast) and as such we don’t have memberships. We do have partners. Below, you’ll see partnership levels. Please fill out the partnership form and mail it back to us (or stop by the office here at the train depot…I always have a pot of coffee on).
| Good Neighbor (individual) | $50 |
| Main Street (family partnership | $100 |
| Business Partner | $250 |
| Executive Partner | $500 |
| Benefactor Partner | $1,000 |
| Sustaining Partner | $2,000 |
Please consider offering your invaluable support for Downtown Morehead City!
Thank you!!
Tom Kies
Executive Director, DMCRA