General notes: It is noted with great enthusiasm that the Sandy City Council will be discussing the possibility of changing current municipal code to allow food carts on private property at the April 21st Council meeting. I have been watching Tracy’s progress on obtaining community input regarding this question, and have helped him in this endeavor in a couple of ways. I brought the issue before the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce during our February board meeting, and the directors were for the most part extremely pro-food cart (there was only 1 director who was opposed to the idea, and her opinion seemed to be that Portland allowed them and she hates Portland, ergo she hates carts). The thing I heard the most was that “Sandy needs more food choices” along with a lot of grumbling about the quality of Sandy’s restaurant scene. I also tracked down a recent study done by the City of Beaverton on this very topic and got the ED Director Beaverton to forward me the results of that survey, which I then forwarded to Tracy. Again, the public in Beaverton seems strongly in support.
For what it’s worth, I am strongly in support of Tracy’s idea of trying this out for the remainder of the year. I lend my support for the following reasons:
- I agree with my fellow Chamber directors that the overall quality of Sandy’s restaurants, while improving with the addition of the Tamale Factory, is still somewhat lacking. It would be nice to have some alternatives.
- I’m not sold on the idea that food carts directly compete with sit-down restaurants like Two Bros. or Thai Home. If I want to “go out for dinner”, I’m not going to a cart no matter how good it is because that’s not “going out” for dinner…I want to sit down, relax and have an experience. There might be a small amount of indirect competition, but since when did we as Americans become so averse to a little competition?
- I’m also not sold that carts somehow offer unfair competition to brick and mortar restaurants. First, it’s a different experience. Second, if you don’t think cart owners have overhead to deal with, call Ray’s Custom Services (a Sandy business that builds food carts) and ask Ray how much one of his carts costs. And to that end, if a restaurant owner is convinced that carts are unfair competition….well, there’s nothing stopping them from opening their own cart, is there?
- Finally, commercial kitchens generally cost between $30K and $50K to install in a building. This is one of the main reasons why we haven’t seen a new restaurant in Sandy for a while. Bunsenbrewer would love to install a kitchen, but they can’t really afford it. Same with The Beer Den. This would offer some brick and mortar establishments an alternative to food services as well as incubate and help develop future Sandy restaurateurs, because if the cart does really, really well, is a brick and mortar restaurant far behind?
Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):
Mike’s Tire Service: This business is almost in the clear. Mike has been issued a certificate of occupancy pending completion of a final task – to paint the enclosure around his exterior paint compressor to match the building per code. He has until May 1st to comply per Building Department orders, and we have no reason to believe he will not comply.
Connect Wireless: This business has announced its intent to move into the one empty space in the “mini-mall” that currently houses TCBY and Papa Murphy’s in the Fred Meyer parking lot. Considering the asking price ($5,104/month for 2,450 SF with a 5 year term), I was uncertain if this space would ever be filled, but I am of course happy to be wrong in this case. We are waiting on building and mechanical permits from this company before wheels start turning – we anticipate permit apps to start rolling in in May.
Trail Pals: This business is moving into the back of Barbara Sah’s building (the one next to City Hall). They are a mostly on-line parts retailer for horse trailers, and anticipate very little if any walk-in traffic. They have had a number of fire/life safety inspections, and are down to just a couple of minor fixes (raise bathroom sink to 29”, provide addtl mirror in bathroom) before receiving the “all-clear”. More on this business as I get to know them…
Thrifty Dollar: This business snuck in under the radar in March and is already open for business. I spoke with both the husband of the owner and the owner herself, and for now they plan on re-selling used clothing and small house wares, a retail approach similar to Goodwill or the Sandy Action Center’s thrift store. The store is sparsely stocked, and the quality of the items for sale is not very high, but this seems to be improving by the week as the owners move more stock into the store. The owners have also recently responded to initial contacts from Sandy Main Street and expressed an interest in both First Friday and getting involved in the organization generally. More to come…
AntFarm Cafe: Our friends over at Sandy’s favorite youth-oriented non-profit decided to get involved in First Friday this year, and actually took our advice! We suggested that, along with this wonderful new café they had to promote, they should really look at FF as an opportunity to promote themselves by explaining to the community what it is that they really do, which is mentor kids and young adults by introducing them to the outdoors and the working world. They responded with some fantastic displays depicting their different programs, and did a little fundraising as well in addition to offering some awesome gelato. Later in the year, it is SMS’s hope that we get some FF activities going on in the barn (their outdoor HQ down by the Big Apple) as well…
Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce: An update on the Chamber and its future new home…we (the Board of Directors and a relocation task force) have met several times regarding this issue, and we finally feel like we have a solid direction. Initially we discussed several possible new homes for the Chamber, including moving to a different suite in the same complex (Dan Martin offered us an opportunity to move into the old Edward Jones office for a substantial cost savings), looking at an opportunity to partner with the Sandy Historical Museum by moving into their building and renting space from them, and a low cost alternative (the Giusto trust property below where SandyNet is currently located).
The Guisto trust, while very inexpensive, would have required a substantial investment to upgrade the property to the point where we would not be embarrassed to bring members to it, so we discounted that idea fairly quickly. We felt the partnership with the museum would have been very advantageous to both organizations, and were eager to explore that possibility. However, museum staff, while very courteous toward us, did not seem eager to share their space. While taking a walk-through of the property, we were told that the conference room space upstairs that we were interested in was “completely reserved for additional future displays” and was essentially a non-starter. We were shown space in the basement of the building, and were told that maybe the museum would be able to provide us about a 60 square foot space that is currently occupied by a mountain of books about 6 feet high
(see pic at bottom of report – the space offered is the space between the grey filing cabinet and the support beam – the books are the boxes with clear plastic tarp over them)
As you can see, the space offered will just not work for any sort of office enclosure, much less the professional office space that the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce requires. Another issue was access – the only access to this basement space was through either an old freight elevator or a stairwell that was quite cluttered, unfinished and difficult to navigate. And quite frankly, while museum staff was polite, the “issues” that this partnership had in the past did come up more than once. Several SACC directors (more than a few) could sense that there are still some hard feelings associated with that period of time on the part of some museum board members, and that we as an organization really weren’t completely welcome there.
We discussed our options at length over the course of several board meetings and one meeting specific to finding a new home, and we really liked the concept of a renewed partnership with the Sandy Historical Society. However, as much as we believe that such a partnership would have indeed benefitted both organizations, we just didn’t want to ruffle any feathers and make anyone uncomfortable. We have elected to accept Mr. Martin’s generous offer and begin contract negotiations with him regarding his space. We plan to have our move completed by the end of June 2014 if negotiations end positively, which we do anticipate.
Bunsenbrewers: Currently has two plumbing permits open for minor fixes, but both are well within time allotments allowed. Is currently in good standing with Clackamas County Health according to Ms. Leben. Has started offering food (microwavable only – mostly snacks and appetizers), and early indicators are that customers see this as a positive, although they are patiently awaiting Council’s decision on food carts (rumor has it that they intend to start a partnership with a local food cart in the future if this is allowed). Is now selling and filling growlers as well as pints and kegs. Every time I visit this establishment, there seem to be more and more people in it. Whatever it is that Aaron is doing, I recommend he keep doing it. 🙂
Sandy Main Street: We are currently organizing First Friday right now, and Aubrey is hard at work planning for a series of community visioning meetings that we will be hosting in June, beginning with a walking tour of downtown in late May. The visioning meetings will be focusing on what citizens would like to see in their downtown in 10, 15, or 20 years, and how to get this information to the right people. We continue to build content into our new website (www.sandymainstreet.org, if you haven’t seen it yet), and hope to have this mostly completed before the City starts migrating to the new platform for their website.
Project work:
- The Mayor’s “Business-Friendly” Task Force – The “How to Open a Business in Sandy” Guide is now complete pending any tweaks Tracy would like me to make to it, which I will be happy to do at his request. I have taken a lot of feedback on this project, and all of it has been quite positive. Many thanks to everyone who gave this a once-over, and special thanks to Lois and Grant for staying with me on this, bumps in the road and all. All in all, I am very proud of how this project turned out, and I sincerely hope it helps a few businesses. The task force has also morphed into a regular monthly meeting between Administration, ED, Planning and Building, and this has so far turned out to be very beneficial to all involved.
Conferences/training: [OCCMA 2014 Manager’s Conference]. On 3/26 and 27 I was in Stevenson, WA at the Oregon City/County Managers Association spring conference as Sandy’s only representative (Seth had something else going on). The programming this year was not that useful to me, but as always, it was the networking that made the trip worth it, and network I did. There was a presentation on the second day that I did find fascinating regarding succession planning [which basically means long term planning for the retirement of key people in the organization and recruiting young workers to replace them]. It is interesting to note how difficult it is for some cities and counties to find qualified people to work for them in this day and age. Millenials don’t typically want to work in rural areas (and certainly not for $12/hr if they have master’s degrees – believe me, those student loan payments are tough!), and cities like Tillamook and Florence are having a hard time. We, on the other hand, are reaping the benefits of planning for this. Although we have lost Scott, Marlyn and Martin in recent times, and will be losing Beth shortly, we have also gained some great young talent in Caroline, Andi and Thomas, as well as some slightly more “experienced” talent in Lisa and myself. This is a great mix of youth, education and experience, both direct (Lisa) and indirect (I knew owning my own business would come in handy someday!), and a mix that other municipalities are struggling to find right now. So pat yourself on the back, Council! We’re way in front of the curve here…
