Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.): We are now officially down to 17 vacant commercial spaces in Sandy.  I finally made contact with owner/realtor for the property at 39400 Pioneer, Suite 2 (formerly Priester’s BBQ).  Mr. Park told me that he intends to open a Hawaiian-themed restaurant in this space by January 2013.  However, there does not seem to be any current construction activity at this property, so I treat this with some skepticism.  In any case, since this seems to be what the owner of the building plans to do with this space, I have taken it off of the current active directory.  More to come…

Tickle Creek Antiques (a consignment antique store):
The store is still under construction on the interior, and I assume will be opening soon.  I received a call over the weekend of 12/8 from the owner stating that she would like to go over logistics with me and make sure “all of her T’s are dotted and I’s are crossed”.  I am informed by the building department that they have yet to see a business license application from her, so I have left her a message stating that this is priority #1.  I will walk her down a business license app and a business welcome packet as soon as I hear from her.  After receiving a completed license and the requisite $41, I will schedule a walk-through with Terre.

Sweet Cakes by Melissa:  I have been in initial discussions with the Sandy owners of this Gresham business about moving them into the property at 39070 Pioneer Blvd. (corner unit, Junker Bldg.)  Met with Melissa’s husband at their shop on Friday, 12/8 to discuss basic needs and logistics.  Supposed to meet with Melissa as well, but one of her children went in for emergency surgery earlier that week, so we will need to reschedule again sometime in the next 2 weeks or so.  Husband sounds positive about the move, and would like to schedule a walk-through with Jack Paola as soon as possible to check out the space.  I plan to do this later in the week…

Coffee Station:
We had another business open up in downtown Sandy in December that came in completely under my radar.  Coffee Station has opened up shop in the Café Coco site adjacent to Tovar’s Auto Repair.  It is owned and operated by San Francisco transplants Andrew Muff and his German girlfriend Marieke Dorf.  They brought two of their friends up from SF as employees, and all four are now Sandy residents.  Coffee Station serves Stumptown Coffee, thus preserving the Stumptown brand in Sandy even after the bookstore closes at the end of the year; they also serve homemade pastries, soups and sandwiches made by one of their employees who trained as a chef.  They seem to be very invested in their business, which will be necessary to survive in such a saturated market.  However, if this business can survive, it would fill a retail space that has proven difficult to fill over the years.

I suggested to them to consider box lunches for the ski crowd as a possibility for a long term revenue stream – if they have a classically-trained chef at their disposal, why not take advantage of that fact?  To do this, I suggested introducing themselves to the ski shop owners and taking them down a sample lunch or two and a stack of menus in return for some recommendations (as luck would have it, Andreanne Rode stopped in this morning – I ran this by her, and she thinks it’s a great idea)

Public Information:

• Social media:  updates on the PPLIP, library events, First Friday, AntFarm Café and Bakery Kickstarter program, SandyNet outages, new public loo, tree lighting reminder, SHS students to visit Germany, more library events, craft bazaar at local church (by request), Boring grade school entering vote by e-mail contest to win new PC lab (by request), Warren Miller film at SHS, city website outage, new business announcement (Coffee Station), ad for Planning Commissioners, Sandy Transit public meeting, SHS/Kiwanis food drive, another library event, another SandyNet outage,
• Other outlets:  n/a
• Current copy of Sandy Business Insider – ..\PIO
  duties\Sandy Business Insider\Sandy Business Insider – Dec 2012.pdf
• Current copy of H2O bill newsletter – ..\PIO
  duties\Water bill newsletter\Dec 2012.pdf

ED Committee:  Does not meet again until January 15^th.  We have identified that having a commercial property owner on the committee might be a good thing.  Still trying to identify who that might be…

Project work: 

• destination hotel – still in holding pattern – 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 – meeting spaceslocked in; sent out letters to all invitees to sector meetings scheduled for Jan. 10^th & 11^th and March 10^th.  Have received a few responses (mostly positive) – got one from Jerry Knowlton wanting to back out claiming technical ignorance; once I explained to him that we in fact wanted business owners who might not be so technically savvy so as to learn how to market to them, he caved and is now planning to attend.
• PPLIP – The project continues…we are seeing a downward trend of parking in the lot, we assume mostly related to the weather.  We are curious to see how lot usage is affected by (a) sunshine, and (b) wayfinding signs.

Conferences/training:  The only training I had this month was the fourth of five weekend meetings of the FILP.  The meeting was held at Welches Middle School, and it was here that we decided on our group project.  Amazingly, our project will be to benefit a Sandy organization (the Sandy Community Action Center) that actually services the entire mountain community as its food bank.  We plan to replace the shelving inside the SCAC, as well as do other work (cleaning, painting, etc.) that the director of that organization would like us to do.   I understand that you have a close working relationship with an SCAC board member – perhaps that board member might be willing to talk to myself and the library director about what might be the best way to present our ideas to both the director and the board?