Hanning, one of the driving forces behind the two year old Roanoke 100 Miler campaign, designed to get people outdoors during the winter months, also hatched another idea about six months ago: a website separate from the Roanoke City government page, where the link to parks and recreation was just one of about 100 buttons that visitors could click on.
About six months ago Hanning convinced others that a separate website would draw more attention to all of Roanoke City’s recreational amenities and thus was born playroanoke.com.
“If you told somebody to go to look at stuff on our [old] website or a hike on Mill Mountain it was a little bit of a treasure hunt to go find it,” said Hanning, who was lured to the valley from Ohio several years ago largely due to the region’s outdoor amenities.
“It’s basically a one stop shop for everything active in Roanoke when it comes to city parks and recreation,” said Hanning. The site is still being built out. Offerings fall into several categories, like organized recreation activities for everyone from youngsters to seniors at venues like the Mountain View Center.
Playroanoke.com also lists events like 5K races and bike competitions. There are plenty of places said Hanning for people to commune with the outdoors, even in an urban environment like Roanoke: “that’s something that you don’t see in a lot of cities. It’s literally a concrete jungle [in many cities]. That’s a great thing about the City of Roanoke.”
Hanning mentions Fallon Park as a favorite. “Its rolling hills…you get up on top of Fallon Park and you can see the mountain views. There’s a cycling course that goes through the middle. That’s an asset that I think [some] of the people that have lived in Roanoke all of their lives don’t realize.” He’s pleased with the Elmwood Park redo as well, with Hill Studios providing the landscape design. “It’s nice to actually see green space and a lot of trees downtown.”
In the outdoor division (a fairly unique feature for any urban parks and recreation agency noted Hanning) there are tips on where to go hiking, kayaking, caving (the city sponsors a trip to something called “The Murder Hole,” every year) and even access to paddleboards if people want to try one of the newer outdoor fads.
Most of the target marketing for Playroanoke.com is aimed towards Roanoke City residents and those that live in surrounding jurisdictions. In some cases website visitors from outside the valley often come from people that may have relatives here and are thinking about a visit – and what to do while here. Hanning has seen traffic from Washington and Chicago in some cases.
The 100 Miler program, where people pledge to walk, run, bike, paddle etc. a hundred miles or more over a period of several winter months has led some from outside the valley to join along, often to support a relative here. That is also driving some traffic to playroanoke.com.
“There’s a lot of [information] sharing going on as well,” said Hanning. Now, along with the Regional Partnership’s roanokeoutside.com website, the recently launched playroanoke.com is another clearinghouse for much of that information.
By Gene Marrano
