RYC Pascagoula - Moss Point

Pascagoula to create visitors center, 'Only in Pascagoula' marketing campaign

PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- Pascagoula city leaders voted last night to move forward with four recommendations made through a Mississippi Development Authority asset mapping project completed last year.

Community and Economic Development Director Jen Dearman said the city requested the free MDA program last summer, and a team visited in October to map out the area's assets.
"The idea is to identify our assets and how to build on those assets," she said. "They try to identify things residents don't necessarily see every day or recognize as assets."
Dearman said a team of about a dozen people -- from a variety of organizations such as MDA, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi Power and the Mississippi Arts Commission -- visited the city for a day, broke out into four teams and mapped the assets.
Then about a month ago, the city was given a 200-page report that included about 15 recommendations for growth opportunities.
Dearman presented four of those recommendations for approval Tuesday night.
"These are things that we could do quickly," she said.
The city agreed to develop and implement a "Stop the Commute" program to educate commuters about the costs of a daily commute and to encourage them to move to Pascagoula, and they also agreed to let Arts on the Avenue also serve as a visitors center to distribute brochures and answer tourists' questions.
"I think this will be a good start for us," Mayor Jim Blevins said. "We don't have a visitors center."
Blevins noted that a long-term goal might be to create a more visible visitors center, either through signage or possibly a move.
Councilmen also agreed to work with the Pascagoula School System to expand the business hours at the Aaron Jones Family Interactive Center, a move that Dearman said is already in the works.
Dearman called the interactive center "one of our jewels."
Finally, the city agreed to develop and implement an "Only in Pascagoula" marketing campaign to highlight the uniqueness of Pascagoula.
"This would pick out things like Bozo's, Scranton's and the (Round Island) lighthouse," Dearman said.
Blevins noted that campaign would be part of a large, robust marketing plan that he envisions for the city.