Districts deserve better tools. 

My name is Justin Copenhaver, founder and technical director here at Urality. I’m obsessed with solving the problems that downtown developers face everyday.

I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Johnstown was known for its coal and steel production through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Slowly, Johnstown’s core identity was offshored, and work eroded, with the last steel mill closing in the early 90s. Since then, Johnstown has been working to reimagine itself as a center of excellence for different disciplines, none of which have stuck enough to fuel true revitalization of the area. 

Despite being a beautiful, historic, and walkable place, downtown is often a ghost town unless there’s an event drawing people in.

But things are changing—just like it probably is for your town too! Johnstown has seen an increase in their downtown business community, as people see potential and work to make their downtown prosperous once again. What really sticks out to me as the lesson learned here is that, no matter what economic development you’re doing to attract new business to a region, the only way to build back your downtown is from within; no one is coming to your rescue.

That’s why I built Urality. You need a platform for downtown development, which is NOT county or regional economic development. 

I’ve spent the last seven years working with downtown leaders, attending conferences to understand the industry fully, and developing solutions that help manage relationships in your downtown. Urality helps you:

Manage relationships  •  Fill property vacancies  •  Interface with Public Works  •  Engage stakeholders and citizens  •  Connect your whole downtown  •  Manage events and organize volunteers

Urality is built from years of conversations with downtown leaders—not assumptions. Every tool we’ve developed was made because someone like you needed a solution.

Downtown work is messy. Urality helps you make sense of it all.