Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.): Rumor alert – the property in which the Sub Shop currently resides has been looked at by the Local Cow, a Gresham-based organic burger joint. Their owner held his cards pretty close to the vest when I talked to him about a month ago, so they may just be researching the possibility of expansion. However, this business is a) pretty successful, b) owned and staffed by young, vivacious entrepreneurs, which would be a great addition to our business community, and c) makes an outstanding product. I let the co-owner know that we would LOVE to have one of their stores in Sandy, and I would help make that happen in any way I could.
Also, I am working with a local artist to try and find a suitable property for a studio/gallery in the downtown business district. So far we are just in the planning stages, but there is a possible development that looks promising. If this starts to look like it might happen, I will flood you with details, but right now it is probably better not to jinx it and refrain from further comment.
Finally, Main Street tells me that the Park building has changed ownership by reverting back to the original owner, Dr. Sah. What impact this might have on the current tenants is not immediately clear, but I’ll see what I can find out from them…
Stephanie’s Restaurant: Open for business. Have not had a chance to assess the quality of their product yet, but if the handwritten signs in their windows are any indication, it is my assessment that this business may not last very long. More to come….
Sandy Family Restaurant: Open for business. The interior remodel is fantastic, and is a massive improvement over Stephanie’s. Very modern, but still has a “Sandyesque” feel to it. Food is much better than the former restaurant as well. Thanks to Councilor Coleman for helping me “test” the business. The building has also been cleaned up fairly well on the outside, and is sporting a clean roof and a new coat of paint. Many thanks to Ria of Ria’s Bar for buying the building and actually putting some money into fixing it up. May she profit handsomely from her investment!
Leathers property: Will be speaking to Nunpa at the AntFarm at length about the produce shack revitalization on 5/10. More to come….
Sandy River Brewing/Lumberyard/Psychic Shop property: There have been, according to my contacts at Windermere, a few inquiries on these properties in the past few months. When potential buyers hear the asking price, interest evaporates…
Sandy Antiques & More: Open for business, and seems to be doing ok so far…
Rip City Glass: Open for business. I have met some of the employees, but not the owner yet…
Public Information:
- Social media: Facebook followers = 3,149 (+16) // Twitter followers: 121 (+2) // Again, lots of posts this month but few comments. Largest activity generator was a weather alert warning about high winds posted by Scott Brown from his smart phone (9 comments, 33 likes, 22 shares). No other post generated more than four comments. I do see that our posts are being shared quite frequently, which reinforces to me that people are finding them useful though. // Some departments were also getting a bit overzealous in posting and re-posting for events earlier in the month, which can often lead users to “unliking” a site because they feel like they’re being spammed. This has been addressed.
- Current copy of H2O bill newsletter – G:\Economic Development\PIO duties\Water bill newsletter\May 2013.pdf
- Current copy of the Sandy Business Insider –
ED Committee: There was no ED Committee meeting in April – next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 14th. This meeting will be almost entirely dedicated to Catherine Comer from Clackamas County’s Business Development Office. Catherine will be leading the committee and a few key staff and community members in “rapid response team” training. In economic development terms, a rapid response team is a group of community members that can be called upon when a business is considering moving to town to answer any questions that company might have about the community. This includes things that directly affect businesses, like “What is the tax structure like?” and “What kind of utility bills can we reasonably expect to pay?” to more indirect questions like “What is crime like in Sandy?” or “How good is the school system out there?” Having a short list of people available to businesses to answer these kinds of questions is very important from an economic development standpoint, as most good medium-to-large sized businesses expend a fair amount of resources doing their due diligence before making relocation decisions. As a community, we should be prepared to help them get the information they need as quickly and easily (and completely) as possible.
The last committee meeting also ended with a call to have the group speak with representatives from Hood 2 Coast to see if there is anything we can do improve the event experience for both participants and the community. The last two years have seen some behavioral problems on both sides, with many complaints about public urination, trespassing and general rudeness on the part of some race participants, and the general rudeness being returned in spades by some local businesses. In doing my due diligence by talking to impacted businesses, I have found that the problem isn’t as bad as I had originally thought, and almost all businesses view H2C as a positive thing for their bottom line, even if it is a little inconvenient. I also found that the “rudeness displayed by local businesses” was essentially limited to one business. I spoke to the owner of that business, and he told me that it was pointless to talk to H2C and that I should give up, and was angry with the City because the PD wouldn’t tow H2C members from the Safeway complex lot on race day for essentially not patronizing his store. He also patrols what he believes to be “his” parking spaces in the lot, confronts support teams about parking in those spaces personally, and told me that “some teams are extremely rude”. When I asked for a specific example, he could not give me one. He also locks some of the doors to his business and his bathroom doors on race day, and will only let his regular customers inside his store – when I told him that this was potentially illegal (there’s a sign right above the door in question that says “This door must remain unlocked during business hours”), he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He was also the only business that stated that he lost business on race day ($1,500!!!!). I can’t for the life of me imagine why…
I have scheduled a meeting with H2C’s President and their Chief Operating Officer for May 9th. Mayor King, Dr. Lazenby, and Chief Yamashita are all planning to attend. Looking forward to the discussion…
Project work:
- destination hotel – The meeting with Jamie and Wendy went very well – the County is becoming very interested in this project, and is looking to see if Enterprise Zone incentives apply (they probably will). Wendy also asked for maps of any other property in Sandy that would be big enough for the project and has a great view. I think she’s just doing her due diligence, but I did send her topographic and floodplain maps (thanks Liz!) of the Fleischman and Knapp properties right behind Brad Picking’s property that she’s currently looking at. These were the only other option in town with a potential view. If anything comes of this, I’ll let you know.
- i3 fiber project – NetCity delivered their “City of Sandy Broadband Adoption and Utilization Strategic Plan” to us last week, and many thanks to everyone who took part in the process. The report can be found here: G:\Economic Development\SandyNet\SandyNet Fiber project\NetCity – broadband outreach and planning project\Final Draft Sandy Broadband Plan 4-25-13.pdf Other than that, we are back in the holding pattern until a) we hear something from i3America, or b) we make the decision to abandon hope with i3 and head another direction. Next SandyNet Advisory board meeting is 7pm, June 6, 2013.
- PPLIP – The program continues, and is generating goodwill with a) our citizens, and b) businesses that donated prizes to the program. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be affecting parking counts much. Waiting for weather to improve and/or wayfinding signage to be installed to see if this changes.
Conferences/training: The Ford Institute Leadership Program that Beth Scarth, Monica Smith and I have been involved with is steaming ahead with fundraising, which should continue through June 1st at the very least. We have already raised enough money to max out the matching funds available from the Ford Family Foundation and to cover our projected expenses…any funds raised from this point forward will either go toward making improvements above and beyond what was planned, or go into the Action Center’s general fund. We are still soliciting local businesses for funds, and Buhdda Kat Winery has expressed interest in doing a fundraiser for our project. Several group members will be discussing this with the winery on 5/10.
For complete information on the FILP Highway to Hood Cohort and our SCAC Remodel project, check out our project presentation at: http://www.myplacetolearn.com/uploads/users/files/H2H-SCACPresentation/index.html
I have signed up for more OLLI training – I will attend a day class in Newport on May 22 entitled “Oregon Planning Procedures – From Application to Approval” to boost my understanding of planning, as it will be important for me in the near future to work more closely with the planning department.
Unfortunately, the Broadband Communities conference in Dallas that I attended (April 15-18) was somewhat of a disappointment. While the conference was well attended, I would estimate that over 90% of the attendees were private sector ISPs and content providers, so there weren’t a lot of public providers for me to learn from. The private sector folks had no problem spending millions of dollars on buildouts, fancy software, and other expensive pieces of fiber networks as securing loans and booking large amounts of debt didn’t seem to concern them much. This approach is clearly not feasible for a municipality. Of the few cities that were there (San Leandro, CA; Columbus, OH), most were much larger cities that had much, much more in the way of available funding to work with (many had gotten multi-million dollar USDA and USEDA grants, and all had sales tax money to work with as well) and did not have the limitations (topography, lack of existing infrastructure) that we do here in Sandy. When I asked about marketing and advertising strategies, almost every person or group that I talked to replied with variations on “If you build it, they will come…”, which doesn’t really help to craft a marketing strategy. I did, however, gain some good advice from a few of the sessions, including:
- A cut sheet for tech infrastructure showing a map of Sandy with all of the main fiber backbones, area cell towers and central office locations is necessary for marketing to medium to large-sized businesses. Should also address redundancy, statements of on-site capabilities, other service providers, and the potential to build out from current infrastructure. Hopefully I can get Joe or Scott B. to work with me on this in the near future.
- It would be a good idea to research all competitive business internet services available in the area and know what they are offering. This is critical to advertising, as we should be able to blow our competition out of the water when comparing bandwidth vs. price!
- We should not discount the possibilities of directly marketing FTTH to older citizens (65+). The online world offers great benefits to the elderly in the form of: staying connected to family, telemedicine, entertainment (a bigger deal than you might think – Netflix!), shopping from home, e-government, etc. On the e-government front, I believe it would be a good idea for Seth and I to put together a step-by-step online guide (with lots of screenshots) explaining how to pay city utility bills online. Anything that can be done online and save users a trip to City Hall (or anywhere, really) will appeal to the 65+ crowd more than the average citizen.
- It would not be a bad idea to begin marketing fiber services to commercial property owners now – unless the i3 deal comes back online soon, we might be a few years farther out than planned in getting this service to these folks for no buildout cost. However, the economy seems to be slowly coming back, and demand for commercial properties is increasing. What better way to highlight your property in the open market than to differentiate it by stating that it is already wired for gigabit fiber? (even if you do have to pay for it, you can get a super-low interest loan through the city, it will increase the value of your rental property, and will definitely increase the chances of renting property out now rather than 2 or 3 years from now…why wait that long just to save $5-8K, especially when you can write the expense off?)
- As the ED manager, I should have a list of local business service providers (not just SandyNet, but business equipment, accountants, marketing experts, travel assistance, business legal services, business education, etc.) available to promote local providers. [I have already begun working on this…more to come]
- Also received a lot of online resource sites for FTTH, which I will start researching as soon as my reporting is done for the month…