Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):

Double D Locksmith property:  This property has sold.  The business inventory was sold to another locksmith that unfortunately decided to locate in Gresham, and the property has reverted back to a residential property.

update:  The Double D van was recently seen roaming around Sandy, so I called the number.  The business has actually been restarted under the same name, and while the current owner is located in Gresham, he is actually looking to move the company back to Sandy as soon as possible.  He has already applied for a new business license, and should be setting up shop somewhere within city limits shortly.

Fastenal Building:  The buildout for Mattress World moved much faster than anticipated, and this business is now licensed and open for business.  Store manager Gary Richards tells me that business is popping and already outperforming projections.

If you haven’t been inside the building, I would suggest stopping by during business hours to check it out.  The layout of this store has been carefully considered and they are making maximum use of their space, including using what was originally the inventory space for Fastenal as part of their showroom floor.  Very professionally done.

Michael Maiden properties:  Mr. Maiden is opening up two other spaces in his pre-fab buildings across the parking lot from the foundry for lease.  One is a business that is waiting for another company to lease their space before they move to another location, and one is currently being used for foundry storage.

I bring this up to illustrate how clustering seems to be working in an unlikely place.  I recently nudged the proprietor of a local church basement based pre-school towards Mr. Maiden’s properties when she called looking for an expansion space.  She has 25 students and needed a space of a certain size at an affordable rate.  I asked her if she was familiar with Wippersnappers, and her response was: “OMG…I could take the kids to Wippersnappers for recess every day!!!”  This item alone might make the sale for Mr. Maiden, and I’ve no doubt that a business arrangement could be made between the two businesses that would be mutually beneficial.

Mark Benson properties:  According to the owner, there is a ton of activity going on with this property right now.  There have been many inquiries into the status of this property since the “Free Land for Brewpub” media circus surrounding this Oregonian story – the property owner says he has fielded calls from “over 100 businesses” since that story broke.

There are several promising actions being considered on Mr. Benson’s property right now.  I am working with him right now to determine whether or not the metering of wastewater for a brewery would be a worthwhile thing to look into for marketing purposes, so I would suspect he is at least talking to a brewery or two.  I have also participated in a discussion between Mr. Benson and our friends at Web Steel regarding pricing for a building involved in one of those “non-brewery” concepts.  So there are many things going on behind the scenes regarding this property at the moment.  More to come…

Baby Goods:  We have an established retail store from SE Portland opening a second location here in Sandy.  Baby Goods will be moving into the old Curves space next door to the UPS Store in Richard Perry’s building (across the parking lot from the library), and has already received their business license and certificate of occupancy.  Lynne Goode’s store buys and sells primarily second hand baby and children’s clothing, which should be a very popular store with young families moving to the area.  Many city staffers with small children have told me they are excited to check this store out when it opens at the beginning of April.

Mr. Perry’s building is now full.  This space and the Sparky’s expansion space were the first two properties I added to the Available Commercial Buildings database back when I created it, and they have remained on the database ever since.  The fact that these are both now occupied says very positive things about the local economy.

Oregon’s Wild Harvest building: …remains empty for now.  Discussions continue between a local Sandy business owner and the property owner, but prospects for a sale and transfer are unknown at this time.

Trading Post NW: This establishment is now open for business.  Andrew Booth is the son of TPNW owner Mike Booth, and will be the face of this business in Sandy.  There was a little rough water involved with this business in acclimating to a new regulatory climate here in Sandy, but I think we’ve passed the rough patch and are well on our way to developing a good relationship here.  Andrew is in the process of organizing a “grand opening week”, so look for (properly permitted) temporary signage to this effect on site towards the end of March/beginning of April.  Also, the SACC will be hosting a ribbon cutting for this business at noon on 3/19.  [Thank you again, Mr. Mayor.]

Project work: 

• City of Sandy Omnibus Bicycle Tourism Proposal: Funding has still not arrived.  Inquiries are in with Clackamas County Tourism – they say an invoice has been processed and that funding should arrive any day.  The concrete pad has been installed behind City Hall, but the ordering of equipment will not occur until funding is received.
• Community Partnership Program grant: The Sandy Tourism Board met on 3/1 to look at the application and make local recommendations to the grant administrator at Clackamas County Tourism.  We received a total of 6 applications for a combined ask total of over $40,000 (total grant funding available: $20,000).  One application was rejected prior to board review for ineligibility due to multiple grant guideline violations.  One was rejected by the STB due to failure to acquire the necessary event permitting from a state agency (although the board did recommend this project for next year and encouraged the local business to work directly with Clackamas County Tourism to put their next application together).   The remaining four applications were approved for partial funding and forwarded on to Clackamas County Tourism for county-level tourism board review.  One application was rejected by the County, and the partial funding for that one will be spread between the remaining three projects (guided & costumed city tours by the Sandy Historical Museum; assistance with creation of a 2016 Sandy River Water Recreation Guide by the Sandy River Basin Watershed Council; completion of the 2015 2016 Sandy Bike Map)
• Special Service Contract Program: We are in the process of receiving financial and performance measure data information from our four grantees.  Data collection period ends on 3/31.  We will compile this data into a brief report for Council.

Conferences/training: 

Travel Oregon Tourism Studios (Recreation tourism follow up to Gorge Studio [March 16 = Cascade Locks]):  The State of Oregon’s tourism department held a follow up to their January Gorge Tourism Studio in Cascade Locks.  It offered attendees a look at a good assortment of outdoor tourism-related businesses from all over the Gorge, and promoted high-level thinking about how to tackle some of the problems related to tourism growth they are experiencing.

One of the most pressing problems in the Gorge right now when talking about tourism is traffic congestion, and the strongest feedback they received was that Gorge residents and businesses alike seem to be demanding a public transportation system of some kind to be developed rapidly.  This was underscored by a presentation by Clackamas County about the Mount Hood Express.  Gorge attendees seemed impressed by the concept, especially by how quickly ridership seems to be growing.  There is a bus/shuttle pilot program that will offer regular runs from Troutdale to Multnomah Falls that is being constructed right now, and the general consensus of the room was to strongly encourage this, as anything that will take cars off of I-84 during peak tourism season would be considered a benefit.

What this indicates is that we seem to be a little ahead of the curve on this side of the mountain.  While we don’t have quite the levels of tourism traffic (and congestion) seen in the Gorge, the MHX is a valuable transportation asset to both locals and tourists and is steadily increasing in ridership as people learn of it.  I will be incorporating a bunch of information about the MHX when I develop the expanded bike page on the City website as part of the Clackamas County Tourism Development grant bicycle project later this spring.  Anything we can do as an organization to encourage the development of stable funding and advancement of this program at the county level would be of benefit Sandy’s tourism economy.