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 November 2023:
- Tollgate Inn – At the SURA Board review on November 6th, the SURA Board gave final approval to this project with a 7-0 vote. Construction to begin early in 2024.
- All other projects are now structurally complete and under contract.
- Four applicants have already completely satisfied the financial responsibilities for the applicant portion of their project.
- Covered Structures Round 2: Round 2 of the Covered Structures Program was completed in March of 2023. All projects are completed and either under contract or paid in full.
Sandy Comprehensive Plan/EOA:
- ECONorthwest’s EOA presentation to the Economic Development Advisory Board to present the results at this stage of the project and to get the board’s input has been postponed until December 6th. A second presentation to the EDAB in January will gather the board’s input on draft economic development goals and policies.
Econ Devl – Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, reports, etc.):
- 23-001 FAC Sandbar BBQ façade project: The initial parking pad for the ADA parking section has now been poured, and the contractor (Seifert Concrete of Colton) has been in close contact with the Building Department as the slope corrections involved are tricky. The contractor is currently trying to get asphalt patching at the site completed before beginning the striping work, which can be difficult to schedule during this time of year due to fewer dry and warm days. Striping work and street trees are required to be complete prior to grant reimbursement funds being released to the applicant.
- VFW space – new business?: The Ec Dev and Planning Departments have been contacted recently by a business that would like to completely remodel the basement space in the recently upgraded VFW Building to open a new comfort food kitchen and cocktail bar. These entrepreneurs recently operated a scratch brunch restaurant in Oregon City called Yvonne’s in the Singer Hill Café space that was unfortunately one of the city’s COVID casualties.
- Taco Time driveway aprons: New owner Todd Hoffman is currently replacing the driveway aprons for this business to eliminate a code enforcement issue with this property, as two of the three driveway aprons are crumbling. The first apron replacement (Proctor Blvd, shown below) is complete. The entry apron on Beers Avenue has been postponed due to weather and will be replaced in the spring of 2024.
Econ Devl – Internal Projects:
Downtown maintenance:
- AF Downtown Maintenance: All downtown maintenance work for the 2023 season is now complete. The removal of Himalayan blackberries around the back of the property at the Small Change Car Wash at the SW corner of Pioneer and Bruns has been forwarded to our new Development Services code enforcement specialist as a code enforcement action — we have also asked the property owner to remove the shipping container being stored on site. A code enforcement letter went out to the property owner in mid-October – deadline date for response is November 13th.
The next EDAB meeting was originally scheduled to be held on November 6th. However, due to some unplanned absences and a scheduling conflict with another board, we have postponed this meeting until the first Wednesday in December to compensate. The next meeting is now scheduled for December 6th, 2023, at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers.
Econ Devl – Conferences/training:
- 2023 Main Street Conference (Independence): This was the first Main Street conference attended by staff since the pandemic. Outdoor recreation (bicycle tourism specifically) were one of the strong underlying themes of this event:
- per Travel Oregon, 92% of Oregonians and 82% of out of state visitors participate in outdoor rec activities, accounting for $15.6B per year in revenue and over 22K jobs.
- Cycling visitors from out of state spend >$200/trip more than non-cycling visitors.
- City of McMinnville has installed multiple Dero bike stations (like the one behind City Hall) around their downtown, created an urban bike park in town and worked with neighboring jurisdictions to build graveled trail systems between Mac and other smaller unincorporated towns nearby w/ wayfinding signage & kiosks.
- Strava (an exercise tracking app) cycling events are becoming hugely popular around the country; gravel riding is already hugely popular and still growing.
- Sherwood, Independence, Hood River – all focusing their efforts on improving their downtowns; making them more walkable, more events, more attractive design elements, more plaza space and less parking, “flexible” spaces that can be reconfigured for multiple uses, like parking lots that can be converted to event spaces.
- 2023 Fall OEDA Conference (Eugene): This was the first OEDA Fall conference that the organization has held since before COVID. This conference was mostly a networking event, although there were some good resources made available throughout the event:
- Ski industry: one report in development is the Ski Industry workforce assessment (PNSAA) – industry has serious labor issues (extremely dangerous work, low pay, massive gender gap, lack of proper training)
- Rural Economic Development Toolkit: OSU CORE partnered with ORRA (Outdoor Rec Roundtable Assoc) to develop user-friendly toolkit that includes 15 best practices for sustainable outdoor rec development
- City of Salem: currently using TIF from UR district to assist with workforce housing; TIF funds given to developer as incentive to offset cost of construction.
- Travel OR Oregon Visitor Profile Statewide Report 2021-2022: The #1 outdoor rec activity that people do when visiting OR = hiking (19%), followed by “visited national forest, refuge, scenic areas, monuments, BLM areas” (14.6%) à this is a huge opportunity for Sandy!