General notes: Sandy Mountain Festival. Music Fair and Feast. The SMF Carnival. Summer Sounds. Shakespeare in the Park. Wine in the Woods. The Brewgrass Festival. Hood to Coast. Fiber installs. It’s that time of year again…
With all of the activity that is going on in Sandy right now, I’m going to take a hiatus in the general notes section this month so I can focus on getting some things done. There is nothing currently “on-fire” with regard to Economic Development right now….just a lot of reporting that needs to be completed. If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please don’t hesitate to call or email me.
There is one exception to this, and it’s just an FYI. We have completed work on the Special Service Contract program, and conditional acceptance letters have been sent out to the four non-profit organizations that applied for funding. Seth and I plan to bring this to the full Council at the July 20th council meeting for your review. As it stands now, we will be able to provide full funding to all four requests, and will have a small contingency left in the SSCP fund ($3,000) for the remainder of the biennium for any emergencies that may arise.
Special thanks to Councilor Hamblin and Mayor King for taking part in this process.
Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):
Red Boot Branding: We have a new business moving into the old Energy Unlimited site on Pioneer. Red Boot Branding is a company that specializes in promotional materials for small business. They do branded clothing, embroidery, small promotional items (pens, coffee mugs, etc.), some kinds of signage including vinyl wraps like the ones they just installed on the building, and a host of other services. They were a Gresham-based company for years, but recently had some issues with the building they were in and decided to move here for the next phase of their development. Rob and Melanie Stewart are delightfully positive folks, and have already reached out to their friends at Rock Ranch Embroidery to see how they can work together as they have in the past (they have referred a lot of work to each other over the years, as each business has a few capabilities that the other doesn’t).
There may be an opportunity here for the City to make a deal with the building owner regarding parking at this site. She owns several dilapidated properties surrounding this one, and the idea has been floated to offer to assist with a parking lot behind this building in return for the donation of one of these properties and a set aside of a portion of the parking spaces for public use. Watch this space.
La Bamba: So good news followed by uncertain news on this one. There is a tentative deal in place to move La Bamba over to the Muff property across the street from Sandy Grade. Carlo Vicentin (owner of La Bamba) has made an offer on the property that has been accepted by Clan Muff, and moving the restaurant to this new location would get Carlo out of the poorly maintained quonset hut he is currently in and into a building that he owns and can fix problems with, rather than rely on a landlord that has allegedly told him that if he wants repairs made, he can pay for them himself. This would also give the City its flagship commercial location on Pleasant Street, which will help us to develop more commercial there in the future.
It appears that Planning is going to require enough changes to the building and the exterior lot (parking surface, sidewalks, curbs, etc.) that this move may become a bit more financially difficult for Carlo than he had initially planned for. Planning is currently working with Carlo on these issues, and Council may see a recommendation in the near future that we use some urban renewal money to assist him with some of these upgrades, as developing an “anchor tenant” on Pleasant Street has been a Council goal for some time.
Cedars Laundromat (old Blue Sky & Daydreams LLC site): So it seems there has been a setback already in the push to get Sandy’s only laundromat a facelift. Apparently the general contractor for the new owner came out to do the fire/life safety inspection, pulled the demo permit, demoed the site, moved the new equipment into the facility, and then……vanished into thin air. Terry and John requested at the fire/life safety inspection that the main sewer line be scoped for this project, as due to the number of broken machines at the old site, it is likely that this line has not been operating anywhere near capacity for years now. Our building official has seen workers scoping this line at the street, but aside from this observation, no other work has happened at this site for about a month now and no plumbing or building permits have been pulled. We have informed the owner on multiple occasions that we have had no contact from his GC, and have not received any response from the owner or the GC. We literally have no idea what is going on.
Answer Ally: Barbara Sah has found yet another tenant for her building in her never-ending quest for full occupancy in her building! Answer Ally is a small call center that provides answering and scheduling services for a number of small independent dentists and doctors, and one medium sized talent agency. General manager JR Ryall tells me that they are starting with a staff of 7 employees running three shifts, and that they plan to slowly expand over time. They decided on Sandy because JR and his family live in the greater Sandy area and that there was no way they could beat the commute.
JR is also very, very, very interested in getting gig fiber to his business for obvious reasons. I suggested to Barbara when they were first discussing moving in that this company not sign any long term deals on data and phones until he had talked to me first, and fortunately he listened (he’s month to month with Wave right now). With Trail Pals LLC in the back of the building clamoring for gig fiber as well, this building should be one of the first on the list for a business fiber buildout when UR money becomes available for this purpose. Barbara tells me the two professional medical offices in this building have expressed some interest in becoming business fiber clients as well.
La Torta Caliente: This building was demolished at the very end of June, leaving nothing but the foundation and the previously existing parking lot. Jerry Carlson has not given us any indication that he plans to build on this lot any time in the near future, but leveling the buildings leads me to believe that he might be interested in selling to a developer. He is mulling over the idea of putting a food cart pod on this site and has preliminarily discussed the idea with Tracy, but has made no commitments as of yet. As for now, this is one less eyesore of a building in our downtown core….so many thanks to Jerry for pulling it down.
Adios, la torta caliente…
I have also put Mr. Carlson in touch with Clackamas Co. Health, who will be looking to expand in 2016 and has at least discussed the idea of a build-to-suit project with him. No idea if this project is feasible or not, but it has been confirmed that they have spoken about the concept.
Red Shed Public House (former Organic Sandy location): I have now been to this establishment a number of times, and I am pleased to report that this might be the best new restaurant Sandy has seen in years. Red Shed could definitely compete with Podnah’s, Russell St. BBQ and Smokehouse 21 in Portland, and should definitely start advertising up at the resorts as a great place to get some hearty grub after a good day on the slopes. They also have a fantastic selection of local brews (including some great old fashioned root beer on tap for those who don’t drink). If you haven’t tried it out yet, stop by tonight and get some brisket to take home. You won’t be disappointed!
Cool Printing site: Finally, a signed lease! A new business called “Alter Your Ego Hypnotherapy” has moved into this site, and will be practicing hypnotherapy along with some reiki massage and a few ancillary services. According to owner Shana Aivaliotis, the majority of the work she does is with combat veterans suffering from PTSD, for which hypnotherapy has shown to be quite effective.
Sandy Main Street: We (Jennifer and I) will be working throughout the latter part of July to help transition First Friday over to the Chamber of Commerce pending final approval of the Special Service Contract Program by City Council. We will both be here in October to assist with transferring the Trick or Treat Trail as well. Aside from that, Sandy Main Street has officially been dissolved as of July 1st from the perspective of the state Main Street program.
Since George Hoyt holds all of the financial and taxation data for the program, it will be up to him whether or not to dissolve the organization completely or to put it in mothballs for a few years until he or others are ready to try again. But for now, Sandy Main Street is no more, and this will be the final “SMS” section of my departmental report .
Project work: As we delve into the world of business fiber, a current question before the Council is: “What would be the proper amount to charge businesses to run fiber to the buildings they reside in?” Since Council has determined that $500 is too steep of a fee to charge, Seth asked me to help him research this question by putting together a brief survey for Sandy businesses on this topic.
The survey was very short, and was constructed in this manner. Question #1 was “Are you interested in fiber for your business?” If the answer was ‘no’, the survey ended right there. If ‘yes’, it went to Question #2, which described the service and then asked “Would you be willing to pay an install fee of $400 for this service?” If yes, the survey ended; if ‘no’, Question #3 asked “Would you be willing to pay an install fee of $300 for this service?” If yes, the survey ended; if ‘no’, Question #4 asked “Would you be willing to pay $200 for this service?” I didn’t ask about install fees lower than that, considering that $100 seems to be the industry standard for installation fees for other types of services.
Here are the results of the survey so far (as of 7/8/15, 5:15pm):
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Total number of respondents: 33
Do you want service?: Yes = 26 // No = 7
Willing to pay $400 install fee: 10
Willing to pay $300 install fee: 2
Willing to pay $200 install fee: 8
>$200 or not willing to pay: 5
Wants service, but did not respond to install fee questions: 1
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I will continue to gather data from this survey, and will report out the final findings at the SandyNet Advisory Board meeting on July 16th.
Conferences/training: None in the last 30 days. I have opted not to go to OCCMA this summer to conserve my limited budget for OEDA conferences over the next two years. Next conference for me is the OEDA (Oregon Economic Development Association) conference in Vancouver, WA from July 13th – 15th.