General notes: In early 2016 I will be working with the SandyNet boys to help get the word out about SandyNet Business Fiber. We intend to develop a master list of businesses that tell us they want fiber by the end of January using multiple methods, and then use that information to issue an RFP for engineering in February. Hopefully we will be ready to issue another RFP for construction in April and begin connecting businesses in May.
In the beginning of this rollout we will use the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce’s e-blast tool to give SACC’s membership first crack at signing up. We viewed this as the easiest way to let the business community know about the rollout, as it reaches a large number of brick and mortar businesses and costs the City nothing. This is not to say that non-member businesses are not eligible, so if you know of a business that wants business fiber right away, tell them to get a hold of myself, Joe or Scott. We will then send a snail mail letter to the same businesses as a follow up later in the month, and a general mailer to the entire Sandy business community (in qualifying areas) after that.
Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):
Fastenal Building: I am pleased to announce that this property is now occupied. There are crews working on the interior of this building right now transforming it into the showroom for Sandy’s newest retailer…Mattress World. Galen Fancher tells me that they have signed a multi-year lease, and he is very happy with that contract.
And the Available Commercial Buildings database gets one entry shorter…
Eclectic Institute: I was recently contacted by the principals at this business and invited down to their base at McKinnon Airfield for a tour. Dr. Ed Alstat, Eclectic founder, has had a tough last couple of years with the business for a number of reasons, but appears to be working on digging himself out now.
He was interested in finding ways to get more involved in the Sandy community, and I think there are some opportunities for Eclectic to do so.
I mentioned to him that, according to our Retail Market Survey, there seems to be a strong community interest in alternative and naturopathic medicines and healthy food, and this appears to be an underserved market. I strongly hinted that there are organizations in Sandy that EI would be well advised to make acquaintance with, including AntFarm, who is currently looking for a new home for their community gardens and is always looking to connect with people who need inexpensive youth labor (like herb farms, for example). Unbeknownst to me, one of Dr. Alstat’s partners, Dr. Steven Bailey, works with a charity organization that does similar work in North Portland (and even operates in the Lakota tradition, as does AntFarm)
Look for Eclectic to have a presence at First Fridays in 2016. Watch this space.
Barbara Sah properties: Mrs. Sah (building includes Stephanie’s Intl, Trail Pals, Answer Ally, etc.) is currently working with SandyNet Fiber to have fiber run to four different businesses in her building, with the remaining two businesses “thinking it over”. North Sky Communications has completed running the conduit to this building, and fiber should be run through said conduit within the next few weeks.
Also, it seems that we have had a construction contractor move into this building recently as well. KLM Construction is currently in the business license/certificate of occupancy process.
Lamb properties: Gary Lamb owns the building that Red Boot Branding is in, as well as a number of commercial and residential properties behind it near the corner of Strauss and Junker. He has recently contracted with a developer/commercial real estate agent to look at the possibilities of building out the site. Seth and I had a very promising conference with Tim Whiting of Amerivest (Gary’s agent) to look at some of the issues surrounding this area and what, if anything, the City would like to see develop here. Tim has already begun working with Kelli Grover over at Firwood Design on some concepts for development, both commercial and residential, and showed us three concepts for different builds.
We told Tim that we are amenable to any kind of new development here, although it seemed to everybody involved that the residential build might be the best concept. This concept involves building 7 or 8 modern rowhouses along Junker Street, with overflow parking to be contained by building a parking lot behind the RBB building. There may be opportunities to use this overflow parking as potential public parking during business hours as well. Tim also asked for contact information for the person representing the Connelly properties (btwn Action Ctr and RBB) to see if they might be amenable to a larger concept development, although this seems unlikely.
In preparation of development here, Tim was most interested in finding out what, if anything, the City might be willing to do to incentivize development. We told him we would be happy to contribute up to 50% of the cost towards demolition of the existing dilapidated buildings on these lots, and would also be amenable to extending this offer to the Connelly properties if they might consider tearing down the three shotgun houses on their lots. We also told him that we would be amenable to looking into using URA funding to potentially fund streetscape improvements and/or part of any parking lot that could potentially be used for public parking. However, what he was most interested in from our end was some sort of mitigation of a hump that has developed in the street surface on Strauss a few feet from the south side of the intersection with Pioneer. He says if we can find a way to correct this without burdening the land owner, this will make the development much more likely to happen. We are looking into what mitigation of this issue would entail.
B of A building: The merry-go-round has finally stopped! While the DEQ and the current owner of this property are working towards closing out the hydrocarbon issue from years ago (and DEQ has taken the lead to get this done), the future owner of this property has decided to lease it from the current owner until this task is complete.
The new tenant and future owner of this property will be Dr. Jonathan Rhue of Oregon Trail Chiropractic. Dr. Rhue is currently in the space that Dr. Hyland of Sandy Chiropractic was in for years, and both doctors are now working together under the OTC banner. Dr. Rhue intends to move his chiropractic and massage services to the B of A building, and is leaning towards the idea of expanding into mental health services as well. If he decides to expand, he will also keep his current location next door to Nails N Styles to house the new services.
Dr. Rhue also tells me that he is interested in fixing up the exterior of the building once he is the legal owner, and will be approaching Tracy to see if there is anything that can be done through the City’s façade improvement grant program towards this end. He also intends to remove the trees behind the building bordering the back access to the building housing Sparky’s and the UPS Store and replace them with younger trees from the street tree guide to stop the degradation of the parking lot via tree roots and get rid of the crows that seem to congregate there and make a mess. If his location in Estacada is any guide, he should be actively looking to improve the site and maintain it properly.
Oja Lumber/Goodwill: The internal review process is complete, and Goodwill has now given Oja Lumber 60 days to wrap up business and vacate the site in preparation for construction no later than the end of February 2016. They will be having a customer appreciation event on Saturday, January 16th featuring refreshments and tours of the site, and are encouraging locals to come down, take pictures and share stories.
I spoke with the Oja family recently, and they are in good spirits and ready to wind things down. I also offered to help them with publicizing the imminent closure to help them get rid of their current inventory….an offer they were happy to take. I will be posting on the City’s Facebook page (and hopefully the Chamber of Commerce will assist with their available media outlets) several times between now and the end of February to help out this Sandy institution in any way I can. [Update: After putting a FB post up on 1/4, the overwhelming majority of responses are upset that Oja is closing and even more upset that a Goodwill is replacing it. Special thanks to one of the Oja daughters who commented on this post stating that her parents were retiring, that they deserved to retire, and that she would really like it if posters kept their comments to thanking the family and wishing them well. That comment really caused the remainder of the community to check themselves and changed the tone of the post from that point forward.)
Project work:
- City of Sandy Omnibus Bicycle Tourism Proposal: Waiting on funding to arrive.
- Retail recruitment: I will be making some contact with the corporate offices of a few different small retail chains over the next few months to determine what would make Sandy a more attractive location to open a new store. These chains include: Maurice’s, the Children’s Place, Beall’s and Sportsmen’s Warehouse. Watch this space.
- I also had an interesting conversation with Officer Bickle’s brother Howard recently who is interested in starting a professional theater company here in Sandy. He appears to have some financing already established, and is in the process of looking for a location for a 150-200 seat theater somewhere in town. In going through the vacant commercial properties that might work for this here in town, I was able to point him towards the old Paris Café as a potentially workable site (much cheaper and a better location (parking, neighboring amenities) than the other two sites he was looking at), and also suggested sitting down with SAT to discuss partnership opportunities and talking to Lori Ryland as a potential champion for his cause. Will continue to research and keep the discussion going…
Conferences/training:
None in December.