Several years ago, Marcia Freeman-Larsen went to a party with a man from Chicago. When she told someone she lived in Elgin, her date looked embarrassed and promptly pulled her into a corner.
“Maybe you should say something like Barrington,” he suggested.
Freeman-Larsen, a member of the Elgin Image Advisory Commission, says Elgin’s gritty reputation, a result of gang problems and the collapse of the city’s business district, has vastly improved. But the Fox River community still suffers, however unjustly, from a lingering image problem, she acknowledges.
A recent survey by a consortium of community groups showed that Elgin-area residents are quite happy with their city but believe that outsiders hold a negative, misguided impression of the historic town.
In response, the commission plans to launch a print advertising campaign aimed primarily at young professionals.
The ads, developed pro bono by a Chicago advertising firm, are to be published in daily newspapers. They’ll compare Elgin with fictional communities like Bedford Falls, from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and Mayberry, from “The Andy Griffith Show.”
“(In Elgin) you can buy corn from a farmer and go to the symphony,” Freeman-Larsen said. “It’s a nice combination.”
The comparisons to Mayberry and Bedford Falls are not meant to be taken literally but to stir curiosity and create a favorable image of Elgin as the “quintessential American city,” according to Elgin’s Michael Powers, a member of the image committee and an advertising executive who spearheaded the project.
The ads target potential residents ages 24 to 44 who are married and have children or are dual-income couples without children.
Elgin’s appeal is its charm and heritage, qualities that bedroom communities like Schaumburg are hard-pressed to match, Powers said.
But the ads are not the only effort to target Baby Boomers.
Elgin is in the midst of a movement to adapt and reuse commercial and industrial buildings that is helping to revitalize the downtown. Elgin’s old shoe factory is being converted into residential lofts. The former Old Grove Theater is thriving as the Prairie Rock Brewing Co., and owners are looking to expand and open a beer garden, according to Paul Maring of Keystone Realty.
Other recent developments include renovation of the old Ackemann’s building, which had been vacant since 1993. Now called Highland Lofts, the former department store houses R.R. Donnelley & Sons and a marketing company called Synaptx Worldwide Inc.
“If you’re sitting in a condo in Schaumburg and don’t want to live in steel and glass, you can go somewhere with a little more charm,” Powers said. “We don’t want people to feel (Elgin is becoming) some gentrified yuppie white enclave. But we want to maintain solid, middle-class families.”
The Community 2000 survey, sponsored by Sherman and Provena St. Joseph Hospitals and several community organizations, asked residents of Elgin, South Elgin, East Dundee, West Dundee, Carpentersville, Gilberts and Sleepy Hollow about life, family, community, health care, education, government and other issues.
Though 84 percent of adults surveyed said they think Elgin and surrounding communities are good or excellent places to live, about one-third believed that the outsider’s view of Elgin was fair or poor.
The poll also found that the image of local schools needs to be improved and that there is a perception within and outside the community that violent crime, especially gang-related crime, needs to be addressed.
