Monthly Archives: April 2016

Posted on by

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

Goodwill Industries site (formerly Oja Lumber):  This project should begin construction near the end of April/beginning of May.  A majority (although not all) of the existing structures on site have been deconstructed and removed, and this process should continue until the heavy equipment arrives.  The contractor is currently anticipating a December 2016 completion date for both the new Goodwill center and the 4,000 square foot retail for-lease building they are building closer to the corner of US26 and Kate Schmitz.  For leasing and other information, please see the entry for this for-lease building on the City of Sandy Available Commercial Properties database here.

Tamale Factory/Muff properties:  The Tamale Factory closed its doors in March.  I have not been able to contact the business owners to get the official reason for the closure.  However, a new Tamale Factory has opened in east Gresham next to the Harbor Freight store, which leads me to believe that the decision had something to do with moving to a larger market area to generate more sales.  The building owner has already made arrangements with the City for a fire/life safety inspection for a similar business venture. However, some code requirements for housing another food service business in this location may be cost prohibitive, as this space is currently without both a commercial grade ventilation system and a heating unit.

Also, please note that the rest of the building (formerly occupied by Tovar’s Auto Repair) has also been leased out to Morton Preservation, a business that provides maintenance and minor repairs to a portfolio of bank-owned residential properties in the greater Sandy area.  Chris Morton is a one-man shop, and will be looking to hire a seasonal crew to assist him with this maintenance – I made the suggestion that he speak with Nunpa over at AntFarm about filling these positions.

J. Carlson’s “Sandlandia”:  This is the space where the former La Torta Caliente once sat – there is now signage up indicating that this space is intended to be a food cart pod at some point in the near to moderate future.  Work has been happening at this location in fits and starts, and it appears that the property owner is getting close to paving the site and adding utility connections.  We anticipate seeing additional activity at this site soon…

Baby Goods:  Sandy’s newest retail business opened its doors to the general public on April 1st, which coincidentally was the first First Friday of the season.  Ms. Goode worked the grand opening, and said she was pleasantly surprised by her sales on opening day, which about equaled an average Friday at her SE Portland store and was heavy on furniture sales and shoppers browsing her inventory and giving her encouraging words regarding future sales.  She tells me that cautiously optimistic about this market, and so far her intuition seems to be serving her well.  She is also already a SACC member and will be partaking in all of the downtown business awareness events (First Fridays, Trick or Treat Trail) in 2016.

Oregon’s Wild Harvest building:  Discussions between a local Sandy business owner and the property owner have ended without any transactions.  The interested parties were not able to come to a mutual agreement on a sales price.  The property remains available on both the commercial sales and leasing markets.

Trading Post NW:  Andrew Booth will be having a “grand opening week” from April 22nd through May 1st, so look for (properly permitted) temporary signage and balloons on the building during that timeframe.  Also, the SACC hosted a ribbon cutting for Mr. Booth on the 19th of March – special thanks to Mayor King for wielding the big scissors.

Project work: 

  • City of Sandy Omnibus Bicycle Tourism Proposal: We now have funding secured.  All equipment except signage has now been ordered and should arrive within the next 2-3 weeks.
  • Community Partnership Program grant: All four approved projects are underway.  The City of Sandy 2015 2016 Bike Map design work is in final process and will be approved for printing this week.  There will be two versions of the map – one created on a product called Paper Tyger that is similar to the waterproof & tear-proof versions of previous maps, and a less expensive version printed on regular matte-finish paper for the non-hardcore cyclist.  These should be ready by the end of April, and are a step up from previous versions primarily due to the new elevation tables included with each ride listed on the back.
  • Special Service Contract Program: The off-year audits are complete, and all performance evaluation data has been collected.  All four grantees have been very cooperative and are living up to their end of the deal regarding performance evaluation data.  Here is the relevant data in a nutshell:
  1. AntFarm International – Community Connect Program
  • Number of unduplicated visits (i.e. homes served) completed through the AntFarm Community Connects program (Jul 2015 thru Feb 2016): 90
  • Number of youth actively involved in the AntFarm Community Connects program: 81
  • Number of volunteer hours spent providing services to end users through the AntFarm Community Connects program: 3,084 (total value: $59,158)
  • Donations specifically earmarked for AntFarm Community Connects program: $52,035.07
  1. Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce – First Fridays/Trick or Treat Trail Events
  • Number of participating businesses for First Fridays and the Trick or Treat Trail:
    • 2015 First Friday (SACC took ownership of this event in August of 2015)
      • August 2015: 32
      • September 2015: 28
      • October 2015: 31
    • 2015 Trick or Treat Trail: 59
  • Sandy Historical Museum – tracking visitor information
  • Number of total visitors in 2015: 2,312
  • % increase from prior year (if information is available): 6% (2,254 in 2014)
  • Place of origin of visitors (2015):
    • Local visitors (Sandy area): 605
    • OR visitors (outside of Sandy area): 1,064
    • US visitors (outside of OR): 590
    • International visitors: 53
  • Reasons for visit: (data taken from Aug 2015 thru Feb 2016 – 1,306 visits – 1,532 reasons given – multi-reason visits allowed)
    • Visiting museum: 24%
    • Visiting visitor’s center 85%
    • Visiting gift shop 71%
    • Purchasing Park pass    00%
    • Purchasing bus pass    46%
    • Other reason    74%
  1. Sandy Community Action Center – improving service to the Spanish-speaking community
  • Demographics of individuals served (specifically English-speaking clients vs. Spanish speaking clients – July 2015-February 2016):
    • Total families served: 2,224
    • Total Spanish-speaking families served: 278
    • Percentage of Spanish-speaking families served: 5% of total

 

Conferences/training: 

Broadband Communities 2016 (Austin, TX):  Spent the week in Austin, TX with Seth and Counselor Pietzold drinking from the firehose of knowledge regarding broadband generally and fiber-to-the-home and business specifically.  It was impressive to get a feel for how far ahead of the rest of the country we are when it comes to broadband, and what our project here in Sandy means for broadband propagation in other communities.  We here in Sandy really are kind of the rock stars of the municipal fiber world, and rightfully so considering how many other municipalities are considering diving in and using little old Sandy, Oregon as their model.

We made a number of good connections with similar communities (Cortez, CO and Westminster, MD) who look to follow us down this path, and I had a number of fruitful conversations with the economic development folks in both cities that have given me good ideas of how to proceed with marketing our network in the future.  It would have been wonderful to have Mr. Knapp with us on this trip, but it just wasn’t possible considering the workload SandyNet is experiencing right now.  Hopefully SandyNet will be in a better position for him to join us a year from now in Denver for BBC2017.