{"id":194,"date":"2015-09-10T00:12:32","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T00:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/?p=194"},"modified":"2015-09-14T19:08:05","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T19:08:05","slug":"economic-development-monthly-report-august-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/2015\/09\/10\/economic-development-monthly-report-august-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic Development \u2013 Monthly Report \u2013 August 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

General notes:\u00a0 <\/strong>So the August First Friday went off without a hitch, and turnout was medium.\u00a0 Participants by and large were happy with the event, and are hoping for a little better turnout in September.\u00a0 So far one of the biggest obstacles we have faced so far is how to remind folks about the event.\u00a0 When they know about it, they turn out.\u00a0 The transition has also highlighted that this is one area where the Chamber needs to do some\u2026.er\u2026.problem solving.<\/p>\n

So far we have made changes in a couple of areas with a couple of reminders in our collective calendars (getting advance notice of the event to Karey so she can post on FB and the City webpage, and to Seth for mention in the \u201cWeekend Update\u201d \u2013 the Chamber forgets from time to time that the City has these great communications assets!).\u00a0 We will also start sending out an e-blast as a reminder to our membership \u2013 and there is talk that we might look for event sponsors for First Friday in 2016.<\/p>\n

One other idea that we would like to ask you about is event signage.\u00a0 Since this is a community event, and we are largely not using the yellow \u201cMain Street Event\u201d flags anymore for obvious reasons, it would be helpful to have 5 or 6 signs to put up around the couplet (and eventually around the City) that say something simple like \u201cFirst Friday \u2013 This Week \u2013 Friday the __, 5PM to 8PM\u201d as a reminder to Sandyites that First Friday is happening.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how many people have told me \u201cI forgot\u201d when I ask them if they\u2019re going to FF.\u00a0 Of course, sign code prohibits this\u2026.with exceptions for community events like the Trick or Treat Trail and First Friday.<\/p>\n

I have asked Seth to put myself and our President\/Executive Director on the agenda for one of the upcoming Council meetings to humbly ask for your permission to consider doing this.\u00a0 If you have questions or concerns, please call me.\u00a0 (x2159)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.): <\/strong><\/p>\n

TCBY<\/u>:\u00a0 Neighboring businesses inform me that this business closed sometime during the last week in August.\u00a0 This strikes me as somewhat strange, considering that they seemed to be drawing a fair amount of customers (they have been busy every time I have stopped by Papa Murphy\u2019s to get a pizza in the recent past).\u00a0\u00a0 Noryne is attempting to contact the owners as I type this, so hopefully we will have some more information soon.\u00a0 However, considering how much the property owners are charging for rent and triple-net charges in this building, I think I might have a good idea as to why this happened\u2026.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a><\/p>\n

Crawlers<\/u>:\u00a0 This business has recently closed due to pending eviction by the building owner.\u00a0 The building was purchased recently, and the new owner evicted this business for allegedly failing to pay rent.\u00a0 There is some sort of legal action pending concerning this eviction, but it is unlikely that Crawlers will return to this location in the future.\u00a0 It is possible, however, that this business will return in another form as a cart-based business.\u00a0 Time will tell…<\/p>\n

NW Trading Post<\/u>:\u00a0 So Mr. Booth does intend to open his pawn shop in Sandy, although the location has changed since my last report.\u00a0 Unfortunately negotiations with Galen Fancher to lease the Fastenal building were unsuccessful, so he has signed a lease (pending the capacity to get a business license) with Betty Tee to take over the vacant space in her building, which is the east side and downstairs areas.\u00a0 The carpet shop has moved from the east side to the west side of the building, triggering another recent fire\/life safety inspection, which they passed.<\/p>\n

However, this presents a problem that Mr. Booth and Ms. Tee will need to work out amongst themselves.\u00a0 Mr. Booth requires the downstairs of the building for storage, but the downstairs is currently posted as not available for occupancy by the building official.\u00a0 This condition is reversible, but Ms. Tee will need to make some serious repairs to that section of the building, including building out walls and installing a door for the electrical panels so that both tenants may have keyed access to them, which is required by law.\u00a0 The rest of the downstairs, if occupied by Trading Post NW, will also need extensive work before occupancy. \u00a0\u00a0The building owner indicated to the building official and myself that she intends to get this work done immediately and has contractors lined up to do the work.<\/p>\n

It has now been two weeks since the building official\u2019s initial inspection, and so far we have not received a request from the building owner for a re-inspection.\u00a0 My hope is that the building owner gets the work completed soon, but I am exploring back-up opportunities for the business owner in the event that he gets tired of waiting for this to occur should the process get stalled.\u00a0 I have also suggested to Mr. Booth that he personally do a walk-through at the property to make sure that it suits him, as he has not taken this step yet.\u00a0 I\u2019ll keep you updated as to the progress here as it occurs.<\/p>\n

B of A building<\/u>:\u00a0 This building is in the process (hopefully) of changing hands. \u00a0A potential sale of the property is being negotiated right now between the current property owner and a local business owner, and the progress to this point sounds encouraging.\u00a0 Since the current owner of this property values discretion, it would be prudent for the buyer to remain anonymous at this time.\u00a0 However, this transaction may be part of a larger deal between the two parties involving another downtown property in the near future.\u00a0 Watch this space.<\/p>\n

16605 362nd<\/sup> Avenue<\/u>:\u00a0 This is the tiny sliver of space available in the Fred Meyer Shops property (the mini-mall with Great Clips and Papa Murphy\u2019s in it) next door to the AT&T Store.\u00a0 The property owner is asking $1,917\/month plus triple-net charges of $663\/month and a 5-year minimum lease for this 920 SF space.\u00a0 I have no idea why any retail business would agree to those terms in this market, but according to the realtor, that is what national chains are used to paying so he thinks he can get someone to pay that amount.\u00a0 I am highly skeptical of this, and the fact that this space has been unoccupied since the building was built and is almost small enough to be functionally unusable would seem to support my case [not to mention the recent failure of TCBY in the same building \u2013 see above].\u00a0 Yet, they have somehow found enough national retailers to fill the rest of the slots at that rate, so I guess we\u2019ll see\u2026<\/p>\n

35900 Industrial Way Suite 305<\/u>:\u00a0 This is another property that I have had an extremely difficult time getting in touch with the realtor about.\u00a0 He gave me about half of the information I needed, but asked me not to post it for months while he worked out a potential lease with an unnamed company.\u00a0 This company allegedly signed a lease at the beginning of August.\u00a0 I asked him if, now that he had a signed lease, he would give me contact information for the company so we could get in touch with them regarding business licensing and a fire\/life safety inspection (and so we could at the very least check and make sure that the business was a permitted use in this zone).\u00a0 At that point he went completely dark on me.\u00a0 This concerns me a little bit, as I now wonder if he has leased to a marijuana-based business and doesn\u2019t want to tell us.<\/p>\n

I have been checking on this property about once a week since then.\u00a0 No one has moved in yet (the realtor\u2019s lockbox is still attached to the front door), and I will continue to check until something happens here.\u00a0 Hopefully my concerns are unfounded.<\/p>\n

Cedars Laundromat<\/u>:\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t see the post I placed on the City\u2019s Facebook page\u2026.Cedars is now open for business, and if you listen very closely you can hear the cries of \u201cHallelujah\u201d coming from trailer homes and apartments around the area!\u00a0 The new owner did a FANTASTIC job of rehabbing this space from the disgusting hovel\u00a0it used to be to its current form \u2013 the walls are clean, most everything works (there were a few machines out of order, but considering that the former business only had 17% of their machines working prior to leaving, I\u2019ll take it!), the ceilings aren\u2019t water-stained anymore, and the change and soap machines are brand new.\u00a0 They even installed a free wi-fi system and some nice commercial folding tables and new seating for their clientele.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

Sandy Marketplace<\/u>:\u00a0 This is the official name for the complex that contains Bi-Mart and Grocery Outlet.\u00a0 Under new management since July, the new owner has contacted me about placing three of their properties on the Available Commercial Buildings database, which I have done.\u00a0 They include the old Starbucks location, Cascade Vision\u2019s location (see the July ED Dept report), and Baskin Robbins.\u00a0 The latter apparently hasn\u2019t been doing all that well in recent years, and will vacate the space as soon as another business is interested in moving into their site.\u00a0 No takers yet, but Joe Knapp suggested that this space might make a good new location for SandyNet\u2019s offices considering it is next door to Wave. \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The new owners, Albanese Cormier LLC out of Texas, are also making arrangements to repair\/repave and restripe the parking lot for this complex soon, which should mollify the retail tenants of this mall that have been demanding this of the previous owners for years.<\/p>\n

Carlson property (old La Torta site)<\/u>:\u00a0 Another quick update on this property \u2013 Planning has informed me that Jerry Carlson has indeed agreed to run utilities to this property for his food cart pod concept.\u00a0 An excellent decision on his part, and one that I believe will bear fruit for him soon.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Mr. Carlson has decided that he is not happy with the currently planned configuration for parking at this site, and plans to challenge the requirement with the Planning Commission, which is his right.\u00a0 More to come (hopefully).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Project work:\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0The pre-application for the City of Sandy Omnibus Bicycle Tourism Project has been approved by Clackamas County Tourism, but with caveats.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the County is not interested in funding the 2015 Bike Map piece of the project, stating that it would be more appropriate for the City to fund that piece directly.\u00a0 That leaves the project with two primary parts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Building a \u201cCycling in Sandy\u201d master web page on the City\u2019s site with a series of sub-pages to replace the old \u201cSandy: Bike HQ for NW Oregon\u201d page that Dr. Lazenby created. The new pages will include dozens of new Sandy-centric rides along with pages for Cycling and Transit, Sandy Ridge, Sandy Bike Friendly Businesses, How to Get to Sandy on your Bike, and a lot of other amenities. (Let me know if you have any suggestions!)<\/li>\n
  2. Creation of a public bicycle station in Centennial Plaza: this highly-visible station will include a Dero Fixit<\/a> self-serivce bike repair station complete with attached tools and compressed air, additional bike racks, video monitoring and signage to go along side the public restrooms at Centennial Plaza.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I am currently working on putting together a budget for the project, and will complete the application for the grant no later than October 14th<\/sup> for submittal.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Conferences\/training:\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0None in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    General notes:\u00a0 So the August First Friday went off without a hitch, and turnout was medium.\u00a0 Participants by and large were happy with the event, and are hoping for a little better turnout in September.\u00a0 So far one of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.cityofsandy.com\/economicdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}