Internal projects: 

• Permanent Outdoor Covered Structures grant program:  The status of the first round of this program is reviewed semi-monthly at the City of Sandy Ec Dev Advisory Board meeting – here is the status of the program as of May 2022:
  
  
  • Tollgate Inn – Keystone Architecture continues to refine the design with input from the building owner.  The holdup lately has been due to the opaque roof the owner has requested – the Sandy Fire Marshal and Building Official agree that if the roof is made from acrylic plastic, a dry sprinkler system would be required for this project.  Unfortunately, the only other option available for the roof is tempered glass, and the building owner is not interested in this option.  Our architect is currently attempting to estimate the cost of a dry sprinkler system for this structure, with some help from the applicant – timeline unknown.
  • All other projects are now complete, structurally and financially.

• Covered Structures Round 2:  Designs for the second round of the City of Sandy Covered Structures grant program were reviewed at the SURA and City Council meetings on January 3^rd, 2022.  Here is the status for this round of the program as of May 2022:
  
  
  • La Bamba Mexican Restaurant – Currently under construction.
  • Thai Home – One of the owners of the restaurant stopped by the Economic Development office during the final week of May.  He is suffering with quite a bit of physical pain from an ailment and is having difficulty walking right now.  The other owner of the restaurant (his spouse) is currently undergoing a fairly serious treatment regimen for cancer and cannot work at all for several months as she recovers.  He asked if we could put this project on hold indefinitely as it is all they can do to keep the doors open right now, and staff agreed to do so.  We will touch base with him and provide an update on this situation later in the summer of 2022.
  • Mt Hood Athletic Club – After careful consideration, Mr. Reed has decided not to pursue this covered structures project due to business considerations – he has several large maintenance projects to complete in the next year or two that are more important to his bottom line than this project.
  • Wippersnappers Kid’s Play Place – Plan set received from the engineer’s office in late May.  However, there are some adjustments needed to the design for ADA compliance and support post placement.  Reviewing design with applicant and design/engineering liaison on 6/7 to discuss next steps.
  • Smoky Hearth — Currently under construction.

Economic Development items:

Econ Devl – Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):

• Façade project – Alan Fleischman church entry:  This project to replace the entry to the little church on Pioneer with an ADA compliant entry is finally being completed after almost a year of inaction.  The pouring of the initial concrete retaining walls is now complete, with the installation of the rest of the concrete and railings to take place during the month of June.  Note:  The Urban Renewal Agency will also now be replacing the entire pedestrian right-of-way in front of the church per orders from the City Building Official.  This sidewalk was not only damaged with multiple ADA barriers present, but due to settling over the years, the slope of the ROW was actually going towards the property instead of away from it.  The cost for this sidewalk replacement is minimal due as the applicant will be pouring a large amount of concrete for the church entry anyway – the agency will spend less than $5K on this badly needed repair.
• Façade project – Clackamas County’s Sandy Health Clinic:  This project is very near to completion – the project manager says that the contractor (Banlin Construction) is experiencing delays on the delivery of circuit boards for the HVAC and security systems due to the worldwide chip shortage, and this is the major delay right now.  Project completion currently estimated for July 2022 if no additional delays are realized.
• Façade project – Mt. Hood Cigar:  Construction on this project appears to have halted for unknown reasons.  Standing by for response from applicant as to why, but an educated guess would be that his primary business is extraordinarily busy (construction contractor)
• Façade project – Fun Time RV fencing:  This project was completed in the final week of May.  Applicant has been reimbursed and the project file is now closed.

Econ Devl – Internal Projects:

Downtown maintenance:

• AF Downtown Maintenance:  The first tranche of downtown maintenance work for 2022 was sent to their Outdoor Programs Manager on June 2^nd.  All of the work requested for this round will be performed on Proctor and Pioneer within the pedestrian rights-of-way – mostly weeding, but they will be digging out a couple of the worst planter strip segments and making more permanent improvements.  As always, if you see something around the couplet that you would like to see addressed, send an email (and a picture!) to the Economic Development Manager about the issue and we will make sure we get to it one way or another.
  
  In addition, we have asked the AntFarm crew to provide some basic trimming for our street trees in the couplet.   The trees need it really badly, and the contractor that installs and removes the holiday lighting for these trees recently told staff that they would not be able to provide this service for us any longer unless we trimmed these trees (too overgrown).  We are also looking into the possibility of leaving the street tree lights in the trees all year long instead of paying to put them up and take them down every year.  Watch this space…

Econ Devl – Economic Development Advisory Board:

At the Economic Development Advisory Board meeting on May 18^th, the board completed two important milestones – one for the Comprehensive Plan, and one for the Economic Development Strategic Plan.   

• After some technical difficulties, staff first met with Ms. Shelley Denison from the Planning Department for about 45 minutes and provided their input for a community conversation as a stakeholder’s group taking part in the Comp Plan process.  Questions included high-level issues such as “Why did you choose to live/own a business in Sandy?”, “What do you think we ought to preserve/enhance in Sandy?” and “What about Sandy do you think should change our view?”
• Following this exercise, the board met with Elliot Weiss from Community Attributes Inc. for their inaugural meeting about our economic development strategic plan.  Elliot used this meeting to introduce himself and his company, a quick look at how the project is planned from the 30,000 foot level, and to get started with collecting a little bit of data from the group.  Questions to the EDAB included:
  • What is your number one objective for this project?
  • What is the economic question you would like us to answer?
  • If this Plan were magic, what one challenge or problem for Sandy would it solve?

Econ Devl – Conferences/training:

There were no training opportunities for Economic Development in the month of May.