Making cities and neighborhoods inclusive, fun and inviting.
Walnut Street Creative LLC provides marketing, brand and strategic services to place-based organizations. With more than 18 years of experience in commercial real estate and place management, Rachel L. Davis works with organizations throughout North America to create vibrant brands, engaging events and practical marketing strategies to make their cities and neighborhoods inclusive, fun and inviting.
Walnut Street could be the main street or downtown spot in your city that needs a little extra attention. Let’s work together to create an event activation strategy, a place branding plan or a colorful new campaign to get more eyes focused on your place, no matter what your goals are.
MARKETING
CITY BUILDING
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
BRAND STRATEGY
COMMUNICATIONS
Exploring by bike, one city at a time
Rachel L. Davis, Principal & Chief Strategist
Rachel is a hardworking and efficient professional who has spent her 18-year career focused on the creation, activation and branding of great places. She began as a journalist covering growth and development in the South, and found small-town planning commissions extremely entertaining. She has managed and launched the brand identities for eight organizations and countless campaigns, including the Friendship Heights Alliance, NoMa BID, Dupont Circle BID, the International Downtown Association and the National Landing BID. She helped create a yoga studio from scratch, emblazoned a parking lot with Washington, D.C.’s largest mural, and has managed and promoted hundreds of events. Due to her team’s marketing and event programming, Washingtonian Magazine named Jazz in The Parks at Walter Reed one of the five best outdoor spots for live music in Washington, DC. Her project management-based experience includes strategic marketing, brand management, public relations, communications and writing, photography and community outreach.
Rachel has a bachelor's degree in journalism, with minors in English and music, from the University of Georgia. She formerly served on the boards of Mt. Pleasant Main Street and the Petworth Community Market. She lives in Washington, DC, with her family in a 100-year-old rowhouse.
Essential team member, creator & contributor
“Rachel was an essential team member, creator and contributor to the latest incarnation of the BID, helping to define and successfully drive some of the major milestones of our work. It is through her vision, organizational skills, outreach and capable management that we launched such a beautiful, elegant brand and brand assets — not to mention her essential contributions as we cleared hurdles to expand the boundaries and change the organization's name. Our website is the crown jewel in her efforts, synchronizing our brand with our messaging and voice in a beautiful way.”
— Tracy Sayegh Gabriel, President & Executive Director, National Landing BID
Consistently exceeded my expectations.
“Rachel was an integral part of the creation and launch of the Dupont Circle BID brand. After a successful brand launch, Rachel seamlessly pivoted to advising on strategic approaches to internal and external events and communications. Her work consistently exceeded my expectations. She approached challenges with creativity and focus. Rachel is passionate about what she does and that comes across in every task that she tackles. I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to work with her at such a critical time in the BID’s development.“
— Colleen Hawkinson, former Executive Director, Dupont Circle BID
Passionate about building diverse, resilient and vibrant cities.
“Rachel brings a sharp eye, deep insight and enormous creativity to her city building work. She understands and appreciates the many layers and nuances involved in helping places thrive. She attends to detail while adding both sparkle and depth of thought to all the projects she works on. She is also a joy to work with, asking questions that make outcomes better, bringing up issues one may not have thought of, adding creative ideas while always keeping things moving. Rachel is passionate about building diverse, resilient and vibrant cities and she brings that passion into everything she works on.“
— Natalie Avery, President & Executive Director of Friendship Heights Alliance
A creative, diligent and incredibly effective leader.
“Rachel is a creative, diligent and incredibly effective leader. She is action-oriented and gets impressive results. As a team player, she knows how to see all parts of a project and make sure it is a success. Having worked with her on a wide-variety of projects, I would jump at the chance to work with her again.”
— Galin Brooks, President & CEO, Downtown Rochester Development Corporation, former VP of Economic Development, NoMa BID
Reaches a variety of audiences.
“Rachel can collaboratively frame a comprehensive communication strategy which crosses mediums, and also creatively shape the messages and the design format essential to reaching a variety of audiences. I have always enjoyed and valued working with her.”
— Rich Bradley, The Urban Partnership
