A $50,000 public/private project to update the brochures that economic development officials use to lure businesses to Lawrence and Douglas County has been completed.

Officials at the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce recently began distributing the new marketing materials to about 180 commercial real estate brokers and site selectors across the country. The new full-color, 12-page brochure touts Lawrence as a masterpiece.

“If cities were paintings, Leonardo da Vinci would have created Lawrence, Kansas,” the opening line of the brochure reads. “It is a masterpiece of urban living.”

The chamber received $20,000 from both the city and the county to create the marketing materials. Douglas County Development Inc., the nonprofit group that manages the East Hills Business Park, also contributed $10,000.

The brochures replace the chamber’s previous economic development marketing guide, which was printed in the early 1980s.

“We really needed to do this because the one we had was just so old,” said Lynn Parman, vice president of economic development for the chamber. “It still listed Douglas County’s population as 60,000, and some of the businesses that were featured are out of business.”

The new brochure includes a one-page facts and figures sheet, which is inserted in the packet, making it possible to update it each year with new data. The rest of the brochure is estimated to have a five-year shelf life, Parman said.

The brochure touts the city’s work force, business climate, its growing mass of technology companies, quality of life, arts and culture, and the city’s location.

It also provides brief profiles of six Lawrence business and community leaders, including Sidney Garrett, president of Brown Cargo Van; Roger Shimomura, distinguished professor of art at Kansas University; Jennifer Sanner, senior vice president for communications at the Kansas University Alumni Association; Bennett Griffin, president of Griffin Technologies; Bruce Boyer, vice president of Prosoco Inc.; and Kiersten Gens, area manager for Hallmark Cards.

“We took a very unique approach,” said Alicia Janesko, marketing manager for the chamber’s economic development program. “Most of these (brochures) all look kind of the same. We tried to be different by identifying individuals that show what the community is about.”