Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):
La Bamba “Nuevo”: Opened for business on May 26th. There are a few minor Building Department issues to be resolved yet with this project, but they are in process.
Timberline Meats: Work has started on the interior of the building (see below), so you can start to get an idea of how the store is going to be laid out. The interior surfaces are very bright and clean, with subway tile on the walls and faux hardwood floors. Contractors are working on forms for the driveway and remaining concrete work as I type this.
Sandlandia: We have added two more carts to the pod. Captain’s Galley serves fish and seafood, and also sells whole fish out of their cart. Gyro Grill serves gyros and Mediterranean food. Both are now open for business, giving us a grand total of five active carts in the pod.
These cart owners are still in the process of figuring out our community and how best to serve it. Several cart owners have children or employees (or both!) that are still in school, making it difficult for them to post regular hours. Cart owners were also not aware of First Friday, making for a disappointing scene during the Chamber’s last FF event in June, as several carts closed prior to the end of the event.
Mr. Carlson has rectified this situation (see post on Sandlandia’s Facebook page), and I have spoken to most of them directly about this as well. I have also informed the cart owners about Sandy Mountain Festival and Music Fair and Feast, and to prepare for a busy 2nd weekend in July. I intend to visit the cart owners with the Executive Director of the Chamber later in the month to see if they have any interest in officially taking part in First Friday, either as a group or as individual carts.
We have a sixth cart (Mexican cuisine) that has been approved to move forward and is waiting in the wings. Once they have received clearance from the county health department, they may apply for a business license and get in the game.
Joe’s Donuts: I am pleased to announce that we are very close to signing an agreement with the owners of Joe’s for a substantial façade improvement project. The primary focus of this project will be to refresh the iconic paint job on the building with professional painters, ensuring that the lines are straight and all of the reds are actually the same color. We also plan to make some needed repairs to the walls and roof soffits and fascia boards, remove all of the lighting and wiring that is no longer being used, upgrade the old air conditioning units and supports, replace the front windows and replace the 70’s-era planters in front with some updated street furniture and planters. We are also looking at putting a concrete pad in next to their building on the City’s lot and put some bicycle hardware (bike rack, bench, and maybe a Dero Fixit?) on it to get the cyclists and their bikes out of the public right-of-way.
We have put together a scope of work for them for this project, and we are now waiting to get the requisite number of bids to get started. More to come.
Sandy Community Action Center: We are also close to a façade agreement to repaint the Action Center and replace the glass in their front door that was shattered during an attempted break-in earlier this month. The building will remain green, but the orange trim will be repainted a nice shade of tan to more closely match the brick façade in the front of the building. Other minor repairs to be made to the building as needed.
Sandy Shell Station: 95% completed. I spoke with the contractor today about this project. He is a local Sandy guy, and is very proud of the custom entry feature he has added to this building (and he should be – it’s beautiful!). For the high visibility that this building has in our downtown core, this project is a fantastic expenditure of urban renewal funds from an economic development standpoint.
Project work:
- City departmental webpages: Made some online forms for the Utility Billing Department for people to request or cancel service at their property online at their request. Still waiting for the green light to work on the Finance page, but considering their appropriate focus on the budget process at the moment, I have placed myself in a holding pattern and can work on this project at a time that is more convenient for the Finance Department.
- Connelly demolitions: The work on this project is now mostly complete. All 4 buildings are demolished and removed, utilities are properly capped, and properties are being graded and seeded per our contract. We discovered a couple of old wells on the property – the smaller of the two we have already mitigated. We have determined that the larger well is outside the scope of this project, and after proper capping we will leave this to the property owner to deal with. We are in the process of wrapping up our involvement in this project, and I will give cost information and a final report in next month’s report.
Conferences/training: Thrive at 25 (SHS) – May 4th: Another successful morning of scaring the wits out of high school freshman with the simple realities of household budgeting. Tyler Deems accompanied me to this event and worked the “Taxes” table with me for the morning in the absence of our city manager (double-booked), so special thanks to the Finance Department for the assist.
Oregon Economic Development Conference (Florence, OR) – June 7th: A one-day conference focusing on economic development topics. Most of the programming was not particularly relevant to Sandy, but it was an opportunity to network with our county-level Economic Development and Travel Oregon folks as well as some of my counterparts in other cities. Note: the Travel Oregon folks were very, very, very interested in picking my brain about SandyNet and how they may be able to replicate this in other smaller cities on the other side of the mountains. (I gave them Joe Knapp’s contact info for further discussion…)