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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-01-08 ACE MINUTES• • • ALLIANCE FOR COMMERCE IN ENGLEWOOD January 8, 2009 I. CALL TO ORDER The regular meeting of the Alliance for Commerce in Englewood (AC E) was called to order at 11 :50 a.m. in the City Council Conference Room of the Englewood Civic Center, Chair Schalk presiding . Present: Schalk, McDermott, Vasilas, Lonborg, Espinoza Absent: Panetta, Guinther Also present: Jim Woodward, Mayor Michael Morton, Executive Director, Chamber of Commerce (entered 12:02) Joe Jefferson , City Council Li aiso n Rand y Penn , City Councilperson Staff present: Alan White, Community Development Director Darren Hollingsworth, Economic Development Coordinator Michael Flaherty, Deputy City Manager Chair Schalk welcomed everyone and said Happy New Year to all. APPROVAL OF MINUTES December 11 , 2008 Chair Schalk stated that the Minutes of December 11 , 2008 were to be considered for approval. It was determined there was a quorum. Chair Schalk asked if there were any changes or adjustments to the Minutes. There were none . Vasilas moved : Lonborg seconded: THE MINUTES OF DECEMBER 11 , 2008 BE APPROVED AS WRITIEN. The motion carried unanimously. 11. ACE BUSINESS ELECTION OF OFFICERS ~ Election of Officers was postponed until th e Februar y meeting. Chair Schalk asked if an y one had applied to fill the vacant position. Mr. Hollingsworth stated there had not been any applicants . Mr. Hollingsworth said Council will be looking at filling vacant positions again in July . Chair Schalk asked all members to be thinking of anyone who might fill the vacancy . Ms. McDermott suggested someone from the BID group. Mayor Woodward said he felt someone from the industrial side would be a very valuable member. 1 • • • ECONOMIC FORECAST BREAKFAST ~ Mr. Hollingsworth stated the 22"d Annual South Metro Denver Economic Forecast Breakfast will be held at the Hyatt Regency Tech Center from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 21, 2009. Dr. Richard Wobbekind and Dr. Martin Shields will be the guest speakers. He asked if any of the members were interested in attending to pleas e let him know today. Ms . McDermott, Mr. Vasilas, Mr. Schalk, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Penn and Ms. Lonborg all expressed an interest in attending. 2008 ACCOMPLISHMENTS ~ Mr. Hollingsworth said from the City's perspective there have been some notable accomplishments in 2008. Mr. Hollingsworth distributed a copy of the Third-Annual Citizen's Poll dated October 6, 2008 by Ciruli Associates. The poll of 501 registered voters showed for the first time in the three years the poll has been conducted the economy was the number one issue . The previous two years showed immigration as the top issue. Gas and dil was the number two issu e in 2008. Mr. Hollingsworth reviewed local happenings . He stated 17 new businesses came to Englewood in 2008, 14 new building permits were pulled for a total of $12.8 million, 19 commercial addition permits were pulled for a total of $800,000 and 98 commercial remodel permits were pulled for a total of $8.5 million . Englewood administers the Enterprise Zone for the cities of Englewood, Sheridan and Littleton. Englewood historically has about 100 businesses a year that take advantage of those tax credits . H e stated he did not have the 2008 numbers yet. Other activities that are worth noting included the City working in partnership with the BID to fund the holiday lighting, outside seating, and the Sale Day flags. Chair Schalk asked if the 2008 sales ta x revenue numbers were available. Mr. Hollingsworth said the audited numbers would be available mid-February . Mr. Flaherty offered to give a brief summary . The City is coming in at approximately $23 million in sales tax, which is above original projections and 2.9% over the previous year. Mayor Woodward said Englewood is quite fortunate compared to a lot of metro cities . Chair Schalk asked if the City is projecting the same growth for this year. Mr. Flaherty said Staff was not. The budget projections indicate an increase in revenues ; however Staff will be evaluating the numbers after the December receipts come in. Ms. Lonborg asked how much is from Wal-Mart. Mr. Flaherty said Wal-Mart is in District 1 and that District last year reported about $2.8 million in sales tax, of which over 50% is from Wal-Mart. Chair Schalk said the Buffalo Exchange is looking for space in the south area of town. Mr. Hollingsworth asked Chair Schalk to provide him with contact information. 2 • • • Chair Schalk said the BID accomplished a lot on South Broadway 111 2008 . He congratulated Mr. Vasilas for a nice job. Mr. Vasilas said the BID will continue to make improvements in 2009. Some of the banners w ere destroyed in the wind storms of late, but the banner company will replace them. The art program will continue. The BID is hoping to do bike racks , planters and flowers along four blocks th is year . Ms. McDermott said the streetscape looks very nice ... she said she can see a real improvement. She congratulated Mr. Vasilas. Chair Schalk asked how the coupon booklets were doing. Mr. Vasilas said he didn't have an y f eedback, but customers ha v e been using them at The Breakfast Queen . Mr. Jefferson said very few ha v e been used at the Twin Dragon . Mr. Morton suggested th e coupons b e placed on the BID 's website for customers to print out. Mr. Vasilas said he would look into it. May or Woodward said there has been a lot of renovation by Mr. Jon Cook on the north end of Broadway . On the south end Vectra Bank is under construction on the corner of Belleview and Broadway and a Walgreens will also be going in at that site . He made note of the extensive exterior renovations that have been done at Brookridge Shopping Center. May or Woodward said th e Dow nto w n and Medical District Small Area Plans are moving along. Planning and Zoning has had discussion in regard to looking at other areas of the City in which to do Small Area Plans . One area that was brought up was south of U.S . 285 between Broadway and South Santa Fe Drive . He said at some point City Council and Planning and Zoning would be meeting to discuss. Director White said the joint meeting was scheduled for February 2nd. Mr. Vasilas asked if the marketing plan presented to ACE by representatives from the Recreation Center was moving along . Mr. Hollingsw orth said it is being worked on b y representatives from the Parks and Recreation Department. Mr. Vasilas said some t y pe of business letter is needed . Maybe something could be placed in Th e Citizen. H e stat ed man y of his customers find his store through the w ebsite. Mr. Hollingsworth said in the past Staff did a one page business fax that talked about what was going on in the community . Staff has begun placing information in the Citizen about businesses coming to town and projects, but it is not a purely business document. Staff does not collect email addresses for businesses. Mr. Vasil as said the Bl D has established the last Saturday of every month as "Sale Day", but has no way to market it. We need to find a tool in which to do that. He said he is looking for a local media to help with the marketing but doesn't feel the newspapers are that helpful. May or Woodward said for the younger generation technology is perhaps the better way to communicate that through the papers . Ms. Lonborg said the hospital did an assessment over the past several years on ad v ertising for consumers and found that the smaller newspapers did not generate results . The only results were from the Denver Post 3 • and Rocky Mountain News which are very expensive. Chair Schalk said he uses Westward and The Onion. He offered to have his repr ese ntative from Westward come talk to the BID . Ms . Lonborg said she would encourage the BID to look at advertising on the TV station websites . She said you don't have to buy TV time; you can advertise on the website only. Mr. Hollingsworth said he would like to look at the City's web and publication policies. It is possible that information on the Sale Day could be provided on the City's website . 2009 GOALS Chair Schalk asked if anyone had any goals they would like to focus on in 2009 . Mr. Hollingsworth said the City currently does not have a business registration process . It was discussed in past years, but did not go forward to Council. Is that something that ACE would like to take a look at and bring the idea forward for discussion as to what the benefits might be for individual businesses? Ms. McDermott said she believed ACE thought it was invasive and that's why we shelved the discussion . Ms. Lonborg said she personally thought the City would be more successful if they asked the businesses to provide th eir information for communication purposes rather than telling them they have to register. • Ms . McDermott said maybe we should try it again in order to keep the businesses informed and able to communicate easily. • Chair Schalk suggested finding a way to communicate more effectively electronically be placed on the February agenda. Ms. Lonborg said she had a comment regarding Mr. Hollingsworth checking to see what th e City's web policy is . She said she hopes as a City that we have the attitude th at we're going to fix the web policy, if needed, so we can do this because it's good for business and good for Englewood . We don't want to be constrained by the policy. Chair Schalk agreed. Taking care of the businesses will ultimate ly take care of the citizens. Mr. Vasilas said the citizens need to understand the majority of the budget for the City comes from the sales tax. Any dollar they spend within the City goes back to th em through the police department, fire department, etc. Mr. Hollingsworth said we can't advertise indi vid ual businesses, but may be able to advertise the BID doing a certain event. There can 't be a conflict of interest. The members said they understood that. Mr. Flaherty said the City has one employee th at works on the web site and she has man y other duties as well. What other localities have done is create a web portal where you can go from a City website to a portal that is for commercial or even residential usage that addresses businesses, yard sales, etc. Littleton is one city that does this, but there 1s a 4 • • • separate entity that is responsible for the portal. Sometimes they are administered through paid staff and at other tim es through voluntee rs . The Littleton portal is done by a volunteer group. He said that may be a better approach . Mr. Morton said a web ring, where yo u can go back and forth from one business t o another, might be another approach . The Chamber plans on using that concept on their website . Chair Schalk said he wo uld like to se e the sign code on February's agenda . He said he feels the code is fairly restricti ve and hasn 't changed a lot over the years. He would lik e to see more flexibility in it. BUSINESS APPRECIATION EVENT Discussion was not held. 111. COMMENTS & EVENTS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ~ Mr. Morton said the new Chamber website would be launched next week (myenglewoodchamber.com ). He asked for all members to go to the website and provide feedback to him. The Chamber is looking to hold a farmer's market every Saturday from May to October of this year. The y have a commitment from a professional manager that does other markets in town . The location has not been estab li shed at this time . The membership drive will take place in February. Ms. Lonborg exited the meeting at this tim e. Mr. Penn stated there is a meeting today for Staff to previe w and provide comments on the new Chamber website . The Chamber Gala will be held on March 31st. The golf tournament will be held on June 12 th. Englewood Days is scheduled for August 27th _ The Christmas party will be held on December 22 11 c1. BID COMMENTS ~ Mr. Vasilas provided an update on the BID . The holiday banners will be taken down this week. The next BID meeting will be held on January 20 th . 5 • • • ACE MEMBERS ~ Ms. McDermott said she had some comments and questions on the Economic Development Strategy that was included in the meeting packet. She felt this inform ation was valuable and hoped the members wou l d be able to discuss it at a future meeting. It will be placed on a future agenda. Mr. Vasilas noted he wou ld be unable to attend the February meeting. STAFF COMMENTS ~ Staff had no further comments. No further business was brought forth for consideration . The meeting was adjourned at 1 :00 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for February 12, 2009 . 6