UPTOWN — A new video campaign and digital marketing strategy is aiming to help North Side businesses dealing with the massive Red Line overhaul.
The CTA on Tuesday rolled out the newest component of its Red-Purple Modernization Open For Business program, a marketing effort aimed at giving businesses near the construction zone a boost in customers and an online presence.
The I Support Local website contains a list of businesses in Lakeview, Uptown, Andersonville and Edgewater that are contending with the $2 billion overhaul of Red and Purple line infrastructure in the area. Small businesses, theater companies and nonprofits are highlighted.
A video series that profiles local businesses has also gone live. The profiles highlight Edgewater’s Rewired Pizza Cafe & Bar, Uptown’s La Pâtisserie P and Salon Echo in Edgewater, among others.
More business profiles will be rolled out in coming weeks and months, according to the CTA.
The video campaign and business portal build on earlier efforts to boost the 300 businesses near the “L” tracks on the North Side.
In October 2020, the Open For Business program debuted with signs and a digital marketing effort asking people to support local shops during the work. A neighborhood-specific yard sign campaign debuted in March.
More than 100 businesses have signed up to be featured in the Open For Business campaign, according to the CTA.
The Red-Purple Modernization project is rebuilding track and station infrastructure between the Lawrence and Bryn Mawr Red Line stations. It also includes the construction of the Belmont flyover. The flyover, which allows Brown Line trains to pass over the Red and Purple tracks, will debut this month, the CTA wrote online this week.
Construction on the north branch of the project will continue until 2024. Recently, a massive “gantry” crane was erected in Edgewater to help install prefabricated portions of track infrastructure.
For more information on CTA’s I Support Local campaign, click here.
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