BURIEN, Wash. — The city of Burien has hired a Tacoma agency to work on re-branding the city’s image, a process that will cost between $93,000 and $149,000.
The first step of the process is a survey, which was launched yesterday.
There are separate surveys for residents and business owners: http://www.burienwa.gov/Branding101
Katie Trefry, the city spokesperson, said there has been no slogan since the city’s incorporation in 1993.
“It’s so much more than colors. It’s so much more than a logo. It’s helping us define who we are,” Trefry said.
She said by creating an entire marketing campaign, they can attract more businesses to the area.
Those businesses can then pay business and occupation taxes, which will fund the city’s increased services to meet increased demand.
The city’s website explained the re-branding process as something equally important to police, or other city services.
But some residents question whether it’s the right priority.
“No, I just think that there’s more important things right now to spend money on,” said Angie, a Burien resident.
Others said they feel it could be worth it, if the marketing campaign brings in businesses to some of the empty storefronts.
Jerome Damey, who has lived in Burien all his life, said he’s seen the city change for the better.
Damey said when he was growing up, “It wasn’t the best, I’ll admit. And it was so, your normal robberies, shootings.”
But he said his neighborhood feels much safer now, and the once sleepy town is filled with businesses, at least 60 percent of which are small, with between one and four employees.
For the first question on the survey, residents are asked to write down three words that come to mind when they think of Burien.
Damey wrote, “home,” “growth,” and “warm.”
Andrea Reay, the executive director of Discover Burien, said she moved to Burien from the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.
Before the move, she thought Burien was another suburb of strip malls and concrete.
But she discovered much more.
She now helps the thriving businesses and loves the small-community feel where people know each other.
Matthew Wendland, co-owner of Burien Press, said many people have misconceptions of Burien.
“I see the re-branding effort as the opportunity for us to tell our story about our community, and not let it be defined by people that have maybe never been here,” Wendland said.
Wendland said the cost of re-branding will be worthwhile.
“If someone’s coming in to take a couple photos, then it wouldn’t be worth it. But I think the whole re-branding process is much bigger than that,” Wendland said.
The campaign will be done by mid-summer of 2016.