Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.): After the Council meeting in which the owner of Bunsenbrewers aired his concerns about the building inspection and permitting process, the city manager and I discussed the situation in one of our regular one-on-ones. As a result of that situation, Seth has instructed me to design a new section for the Business section of the City website entitled “How to Open a Business in Sandy”, and to make it as all-inclusive as possible. In it, I will discuss the following at minimum: doing your due diligence prior to finding a location (business plan, sample budget, business legal forms (do I want to be an LLC, C corporation, S corporation, etc?) where to get advice on how to do these things, etc.) business types (service, retail, office, restaurant/bar/brewery, etc.), the city permitting process (including average costs for each type of permit), SDCs (what they are, why we have them, when we charge them , average charges for certain business types, etc.), county requirements (health inspections – why? what types of businesses need them?), what’s involved in a change of use/occupancy, and a whole new section on the I-2 zone, i.e. what you can put there, what you can’t, and what you can but really shouldn’t put there.
If you as council members have ideas about additional topics you think might be of use to an aspiring small business owner, please don’t hesitate to add your $0.02 (I will be adding a separate inbox for suggestions from Lois, Carl, and Bill to handle the excess volume). However, this is going to be a major upgrade to the Business section of the website and I want to make absolutely sure that I don’t put out any erroneous information. Your patience with regard to this project is most appreciated.
Bunsenbrewers: The saga continues….after the incident at the City Council meeting, Seth and I met to discuss what we can do as a city to mitigate this issue (see above). Part of the problem seems to be that the owner of this business had no idea of the costs associated with a change of use. Just because we now allow some commercial usage of light industrial sites doesn’t necessarily mean that doing so will be cost effective. Buildings in the I-2 zone were designed for industrial usage, and to convert them to commercial usage (especially where it concerns kitchens) is not cheap, as Mr. Hanson is learning. I will continue to work with him and the Building/Planning Depts. to see if we can get through this process.
Buddha Kat Winery: We celebrated BK’s 1 year anniversary with a ribbon cutting on August 21st, and it was a positive event all around. We toasted the Wasson Bros. and publicly thanked them for the 3 decades of wine, and then officially welcomed our new winery owners to town with a ribbon cutting photo op. They had the event catered (by Chariteas, I think), both sisters were behind the bar, and the winemaker had cask tastings and a primer on winemaking out on their production floor. The event was very well attended (40+?) by Chamber members and citizens alike, and the mayor looked particularly dapper in a suit and tie (who knew?)
Verizon Wireless store: The ribbon cutting for their grand re-opening in their remodeled space went very well. Store management was very impressed that the mayor took the time to show up. Also, as we were prepping for this event earlier we had discussed upgrading them to fiber as their current internet connection (Frontier) is horrible. I took the opportunity after speaking with SandyNet staff to send them a proposal, and they are very interested. They are currently discussing this opportunity at their corporate offices, but preliminary indications are that they are going to try to get out of their current contract and go with SandyNet Fiber. (5 year contract @ $250/month = $15,000 in revenue to SandyNet!!!)
Ox & Marley: We celebrated the grand opening of this fabulous new store with a ribbon-cutting and refreshments during the September First Friday. The store is easily the best interior decorating job of any retail space in town, and opening night customers raved about it. Their prices are also very reasonable – particularly when considering the furniture they are selling (I have some experience with antique furniture, and their prices are awesome – but they assure me they are making a healthy profit despite the prices!) Checked in with both owners the following week, and found that they made quite a bit of money on their opening night and have been doing better than projected since. They are operating on restricted hours at the moment (11-6 Wed-Sun, I believe), but plan to expand those hours as they start to become more established. A fantastic start to a future Sandy landmark!
The Buzz at Bakers: A ribbon-cutting/grand opening at their new location is scheduled for the 25th of September, but they have been fully operational now for a month, and so far, so good. Preliminary reports indicate that they have lost a few customers and gained a few as well, so thus far their bottom line has remained about the same. However, now that they have better visibility (visible from both directions on 26, better signage, Starbucks/BiMart traffic in their parking lot, etc.), I would bet that their volume will slowly increase in the coming year.
Iris Healing Arts: Heather Michét recently lost her subletee – Dina Yerex moved into her own space over in Cyndi McCool’s building – and is currently searching for another. Although Heather really likes her current space, there are some issues with it (antiquated heating system, windows with dry-rot and broken panes, etc.) I also have it on good authority that the owner of the Beer Den would love to take over that space for expansion purposes. I will talk with Heather this month about her search for a new subletee, and see if she might be interested in relocating if the search is not fruitful.
Great Expressions: Sadly, I have learned through my secret sources that this coffee shop will be closing within the next 1-2 months. Considering their location, I fear it was inevitable, but I truly feel bad for these folks, as they are exceptionally nice people. Once this store closes, there will be 5 vacant properties in Mr. Picking’s complex – the other 4 having been vacant since well before I joined the staff here 2 years ago.
Public Information:
- Social media: Facebook followers = 3,321 (+83) // Twitter followers: 137 (+6) // Large increase in traffic this month due to the credit card fraud issues concerning a couple of Sandy businesses. Citizens had a massive response to the original post about the problem (20 likes, 55 comments, 147 shares (!)) as well as the next day’s update and warning about credit/debit card usage at the two affected businesses (31L, 31C, 93S (again, !)). Facebook is proving once again to be a very effective communications tool; considering that these 2 posts generated 250 shares (and one can assume virtually all of the shares were with other Sandy citizens), this is clearly a much faster and more effective way to inform the public of a known issue than press releases or the local paper. This also contributed to the large increase in “likes” to our page and our Twitter handle, as citizens that have been “shared” with add City of Sandy social media outlets to the pages they are following so they can begin seeing these posts directly. Bonus points to Chief Yamashita and the PD for displaying a most effective use of social media! The only other post that generated a moderate amount of traffic was the notice of the Compassion Sandy Free Clinic (41L, 7C, 93S) which will provide free health and dental checkups for those without insurance in the community – and the community response to this program has been heart-warmingly positive!
- Current copy of H2O bill newsletter – G:\Economic Development\PIO duties\Water bill newsletter\previous newsletters\2013\Sept 2013.pdf
- Current copy of the Sandy Business Insider –
ED Committee: Meeting – August 6th, 2013 – Unfortunately, this particular iteration of the ED Committee suffered from the “summertime blues”; only 3 other members showed up! Thanks to Dawn Loomis (MHCC), Connie Knittel (Pioneer Pacific) and George Hoyt (Sandy Main Street) for being troopers and coming to a meeting on a beautiful 85 degree day. We discussed the H2C local coupon program, which unfortunately was a bust (see below), and I recounted my largely problem-free experience at the staging area. We also discussed the rapid response team training – particularly the data sheets I would like to put together on different topics (i.e. crime, schools, neighborhoods, etc.) I will need additional committee members there to discuss helping me with data gathering, as I will need people to identify what their particular area of expertise is. When discussing the business to business guide I am currently putting together in fits and starts, Dawn Loomis also brought up the “Try Local First” program in Gresham as a potential model. She is going to try to set up a meeting between the 2 of us and the director of that program, so stay tuned….
Project work:
- destination hotel – Just communicated with Wendy Higgins yesterday – here’s the latest. Wendy has spoken with Brad Johnson, and he is amenable to selling his property to her IF he can find somewhere else to relocate to (preferably on the west end of town) Wendy has asked me to get in touch with Brad and discuss options with him, which I will do shortly. We might run into a problem if there are no 10 acre plots of land available for sale, so I will need to find out exactly what is out there. The idea of using the Skipper/Lundeen property for this purpose has been floated, but a) that is a 100 acre property, which is orders of magnitude more than what Brad needs, and b) the County would have a collective heart attack if we did that, as this is the only employment lands parcel available in Sandy, and they would like to see this land develop into something that will create (new) jobs. I will do an inventory of possibilities soon and discuss with Brad.
- SIFI fiber project – Final recommendations to the Council have been pushed back to the first October meeting due to more communications issues with SIFI. SandyNet continues to look at “Plan B” because of this, even though SandyNet Advisory Board has officially endorsed and recommended their new contract. It has been difficult to get information on this project due to Joe’s multiple absences over the last month, but ED is still ready, willing and able to help with the marketing of FTTH once a decision is made. (Also, see “Verizon Wireless Store” above – another business account is in the works)““`
- PPLIP – We have a few prizes left to claim, but none left to distribute. This program will be officially over by next month’s report. Didn’t do what it was intended to do, but did increase goodwill between local businesses and the City (all prizes were from local companies; cheap advertising) and citizens (vast majority of winners were Sandyites).
- Hood to Coast – This event took place on Saturday, August 23rd. I was present at and monitored the staging area for part of race day to observe and assist race officials and local businesses with any issues that might arise. The coupon program unfortunately was a bust – Great Expressions was the only business to receive any coupons back, and they received a grand total of 1 – so we are probably not going to pursue this program any further. However, my take on the event was that racers were mostly polite and well behaved. In speaking to the staff at the Sandy Inn Best Western, trash was at a lower level than last year and racers were very respectful of their parking situation, which was properly marked and monitored by race officials. There was good communication between race officials, and both officials that I talked to gave me their cell phone numbers and told me to call them immediately if I ran into any problems with participants. There were no incidents that I am aware of.
- Ford Family Foundation project – project completed (see below)
Conferences/training: [The Ford Institute Leadership Program] This project is now officially complete. I have forwarded the project budget to Annalisa, including the $3,200 (approximately) that we didn’t spend which should go directly into the SCAC general fund, so the books for the project are now officially closed. We will have our “graduation ceremony” on Friday, September 20th at the Sandy Public Library, and at that meeting we will discuss a possible Part II for our cohort….more to come.
Upcoming conferences include:
- ELGL Conference: Friday, October 4th – Portland, OR
- OEDA Conference: Sunday, October 20 – Tuesday, October 22 – Hood River, OR