Aaron Wiener moved to Lansdale due to the strong arts program at North Penn High School.

It was one of the reasons for partnering with two other people and opening the Water Elemental Crafts and Fine Art Gallery in the Dresher Arcade on Main Street.

“It’s the best in the area; that’s why I moved here. This is where I wanted to raise my kids,” Wiener said during a recent Lansdale town hall session. “You can draw arts into this town without putting money out in a low cost, high impact way.”

It is the local arts and promotion of its artists that encouraged Wiener to bring up an idea of how to use vacant storefronts in town.

There was talk of having local artists paint the windows of businesses on Main Street for the holiday season.

Wiener brought up an activity that has done well for Chestnut Hill – having local musicians and artists perform or paint in vacant storefronts. He said artists can be rotated from space to space.

“It will help realtors keep vacant spaces active,” he said.

Resident Linda Breithaupt said a minor effort is being done like that with the arts center windows. She said a gallery of paintings, sculpture and the like could rotated every so often in there.

“(The storefronts) wouldn’t be so desolate and vacant,” said Economic Development Committee chairwoman Mary Fuller.

Wiener said artists of the North Penn Arts Alliance could start the effort and provide the scaffold and framework to continue with the idea.

“I’m delighted to help with projects if this is what the town would like,” Wiener said. “I don’t think we should try to be a New Hope. We’re not Phoenixville, and we’re not Ambler. We have to make an image. People are tired of paying out the nose for a decent evening.”

Wiener said an event such as this could help put Lansdale on the map for arts in the region. He said he wasn’t even aware that Lansdale had a car show every year; he was aware of Bike Night as it’s the single largest one-day bike show in the country.

Resident and business owner Steve Jones said that once the nonprofit Discover Lansdale develops, a discussion can begin with businesses to develop moneys to do social media advertising of events.

Wiener said a more effective goal is to invite creative thinking for problem solving. He suggested taking a vacant space, hanging a white sheet and showing a movie to the public.

Fuller said the same would work on an outside wall at the Fairmount Fire Co. or at White’s Road Park.

Jones said promotion of such creative thinking could begin by advertising in business newsletters. He said the Milestones in Music newsletter goes out to 600 families.

“We can reach out to clientele who would be happy to be supporters of events in the area,” he said.

Fuller said she wouldn’t be surprised to find businesses to get behind this effort.

“This is such an exciting time to be a part of this,” she said. “What a perfect time to start painting the canvas.”

There was some brief talk of installing billboards in town, including on top of buildings, if necessary, in order to help advertise events in the borough.

The only place to advertise in the borough is on East Main Street where a banner can span the roadway.

Fuller said the location next to the train station where a current “Welcome to Lansdale” sign exists would be a perfect advertising billboard location.

“The Lansdale Business Association wanted to look at updating that sign,” said Breithaupt. “Grant money was put aside for that, but it was frozen with the way the economy is.”

Fuller said the borough has reviewed changeable signs, but they can cost upwards of $250,000.

“What I got from this meeting is there is a mantra of unity. We have it all here, all over town,” Breithaupt said. “Branding will do that. If we move forward with an event person, I think it can be done.”

Fuller said it is interesting to see where the borough came from, as it steadies on the edge of big, big things.

“We need a trunk,” said LBA president Doug DiPasquale. “The branches can’t survive without the trunk.”

The Lansdale town hall meets the fourth Tuesday of each month.