umbrellas

During late Summer and early Fall,  hundreds of umbrellas form a colorful canopy over 3rd Street in downtown Wausau, giving pedestrians some nice shade and something unique above them to see and photograph.  The popular umbrellas, which now are a prominent part of the Third Street Lifestyle Center logo, were the brainchild of Compass Properties’ Mark Craig.  Mark was inspired by the colorful floating umbrellas that bathe the streets of Agueda, Portugal during its annual Agueda Festival each summer .  He thought a display based on the idea might work for downtown Wausau. Compass Properties enlisted the help of Rob Eriksen of Wausau Canvas Company and Liz Field of the Downtown Wausau River District to create plans for the umbrella display, back in the summer of 2015.  Once the umbrellas were ordered, Ericksen helped connect each umbrella to a wire canopy, which the city of Wausau installed to hang [...]