Economic Development – Monthly Report – November, 2012

Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):
There are currently 19 vacant commercial properties in Sandy as of November of 2012 – most are on the City’s commercial property database (3 are not due to difficulty contacting the property owners – I am working on this and have just received info for 1 of the 3 and new contact info for the other 2).  This is one less than last month – Jack Paola has a renter currently moving into the property at 39090-A Pioneer.  She will be having the grand opening of Tickle Creek Antiques (a consignment antique store) on December 7 of this year, and will make this grand opening a part of First Friday.  She intends to sublet space to eight people at this location for consignment sales of antique furniture and other goods.  Long term prospects for this business are probably not that good, as I can see a lot of logistical problems with subletting a relatively small space to so many different consigners.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed, though…

On the down side, it appears that the current owner of Some Bookstore (39080 [?] Pioneer) will be retiring at the end of the year.  It is unclear what shall become of the bookstore – according to Mr. Paola, the owner is currently advertising the business as being for sale on Craigslist.  I have thus far been unable to find this ad…

Public Information:

• Social media:  updates on the PPLIP, stolen Sandy Fire sign, emergency kits (FEMA), updates on Candidates Forum, Trick or Treat Trail, lost dog, ODOT meeting, Sandy Apartment Finder, 1^st Friday, Hurricane Sandy relief, Holiday Tree lighting, Yellow Pages opt out
• Other outlets:  n/a
• Current copy of Sandy Business Insider – ..\PIO duties\Sandy Business Insider\Sandy Business Insider – Nov 2012.pdf
• Current copy of H2O bill newsletter – \\Server001.cityofsandy.dom\Data\EconomicDevelopment\PIO duties\Water bill newsletter\Nov 2012.pdf

ED Committee:  The ED Committee met for the second time this month.  There were a number of unplanned absences this time around, so I need to increase the number of
reminders I send out (especially to our private sector members), and perhaps see if there are members who would like to be relieved of their responsibilities, as I have several pending inquiries as to available committee seats.  The majority of time in this session was devoted to Catherine Comer of Clackamas County ED – she came to speak to us about the importance of having a rapid response team ready and available to talk to businesses considering Sandy as a new home.  Two or three committee meetings from now we will invite Catherine back to do formal training in this area.  This segment went much longer than anticipated (committee members were very interested in this topic) so most of the agenda items were pushed off until next meeting.  We did briefly discuss the question of what to do about Sandy commercial property owners that have significantly overpriced their properties.  More discussion is needed here as well, but one suggestion was to see if we can get a downtown property owner to join the committee who is willing to talk about this problem…

Project work: 

• destination hotel – remaining in the loop as to status updates on this project; market study complete – now waiting on hotelier to make ultimate decisions
• i3 fiber project – introductory letter sent out to all City residents week of 11/12.  Most of the actual work (printing letter & envelopes, stuffing envelopes, etc.) was outsourced to Cool Printing for a substantial savings over the staff time it would have taken to do this mailing – also moving forward with the NetCity portion of this project (all sector meetings have locations and dates; working on completing sector lists)
• Sweet Cakes – I have taken a look at one of Jack Paola’s properties (the old used appliance store across from AEC) for a possible future location.  Next step is to visit Melissa at her store in Gresham and discuss the pending move; have her look at the property to see if it will work for her needs.  Will schedule this for the week after Thanksgiving…
• PPLIP – The project goes marching on – we have now done 8 drawings and given out half a dozen prizes.  It is too early to tell whether or not this program is having an effect on parking in this lot, but participants love it and businesses are getting their money’s worth via advertising (we mention and thank each donor as their prizes are given out).  Signs from the forthcoming wayfinding program should help increase usage of the lot as well – we are tracking usage on a weekly basis, so we will be able to confirm this in real time.

Conferences/training:  This month was supposed to include the one conference I have been looking forward to for months – the Broadband Fiber Communities Conference in Danville, VA (the conference suggested by Councilor Pietzold).  Unfortunately I was waylaid in NYC en route to the conference by a freak weather occurrence, which ultimately shut down JFK Airport and caused me to spend the night in the terminal.  Fortunately, this same organization will be having their next conference in April 2013 in Dallas.  I transferred the fee for the conference in Danville to the Dallas event, for which I am already registered…

I was also in Eugene from the 16^th through the 18^th of November for the Conference of Communities, a sub-section of the Ford Institute Leadership Program.  Programming
at this event included basic training in negotiating and improving communications skills.  More to come…