IF Downtown Development Corporation (IFDDC)

Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corp. board meeting was held April 2, 2019 in the Syringa Networks Board Room (460 Park Ave) at 8:30am Attendance: Jill Hansen, Kevin Cutler, Tasha Taylor, Antonio Meza, Kevin Josephson, Lisa Farris, Cindy Napier, Derek Christiansen, Brandi Newton, Jake Durtschi, Chip Schawrze, Shanon Taylor, Mark Munoz - Staff: Catherine Smith, Mala Lyon & Ed O’Rayeh Minutes for March 5, 2019 were reviewed – Cindy motioned they be approved; Kevin C. seconded, and board approved Shanon – financial report: Half way thru our fiscal year; received reimbursement of $34,000 from city; Those funds will be used for the corner projects along with a $100,000 line of credit at the Bank of Idaho that is now in place; Still working on moving the investment fund from US Bank to Bank of Idaho; deposited about $14,000 from St Paddy’s Day – net will be about $6,000 – had some extra costs with lights for the stage; parking income is up. Shanon motioned they be approved; Jill seconded, and board approved Directors Report: Catherine – Parking committee met last week, and we have launched the Downtown Park IF Facebook page to use as a tool for communication and education. Positive response – the few negative posts had received responses from people other than us asking if they are not willing to walk a couple of blocks? We will be discussing on-street parking on this page; we have permission from the city. Jake – we had some push back from one business owner as we began enforcing the after 6:00pm ticketing of vehicles in the lots. Ed – talking to people in the lots and explaining how it works and they can get validation so it’s free to park. Jake – we will be installing 2 Luke meters in the A Lot and in the B lot; 2 carts with license plate readers that will also have small water tanks so we can supplement watering the flower baskets; 2 bikes, security cameras and signage. We are dividing parking into 3 zones – on-street pay to park will be zone 1 and is the most valuable, zone 2 is the parking lots off-street parking and zone 3 if the free all-day parking. We have created an insert about parking for the downtown brochure. There are a couple of other city owned lots that we might manage. Brandi asked if the cost of marketing and install was included? Yes, the budget shows the cost of the very high-end Luke meters, but we won’t get that as we don’t want to use one that has cash in it. Credit or debit only. We have had a lot of news coverage with the newspaper and TV news. Brandi said it is important that we show the RDA that we are putting gin our money too. Budget of $104,000 - motion was made to approve this budget by Brandi; Tasha seconded and board approved. Bid for the Broadway landscape project went out and 4 came in. Bid has been awarded to JM Concrete. Kent Frugal has full confidence in this company. Much of the work will be done at night to avoid disrupting the traffic. Idaho Falls Power is going to replace out the cobra lights at the same time and install the decorative lamps. Parks & Rec wanted auto watering systems for the flower baskets and pots. This will go to the City Council April 11th for the final vote. Project is scheduled to be finished by July 1st. The trees have all been ordered. Parks and Rec will oversee planting the pots on Broadway. Lyon Johnson has agreed to cut the trees down at night and use LED signs to keep people informed. Brandi requested a detailed schedule as they have 8,000 kids come into the ARTItorium in May on school field trips. The IFRA has about 1 million dollars left, and we investigated upgrading Constitution, but there is not enough time to have it completed by Sept. 1st. Two other projects have been proposed – facelift for S Yellowstone and blasting of lava rock at Taylors Crossing. Corner projects – waiting on the asphalt plants to open. Reinhart will be the contractor and price has stayed the same. We will use the city curb and gutter funding. Dave Lawrence is our landscape contractor. Parks and Rec hoped to add auto watering to the project, but this is not within their budget. Conduit will be installed for Parks and Rec to come back and easily install auto water as they have the funds. Kevin C. – it will be a 12-week project, so the timing must be all in place for demo, concrete, pavers and trees and planting flowers in the pots. Public Art – call to artists has gone out for the 3 murals – May 1st is the deadline. Artists will be paid $2,500 and $500 for supplies. They will be placed on SnakeBite, Villa Coffeehouse and the back of Willowtree Gallery. Next year we plan to do 2 very large murals on the back of the ARTitorium and the back of the Colonial Theater. Thursday, April 4th is the State of Downtown annual public meeting at 6:00pm. A ‘dashboard’ has been created with Brad Cramer that shows maps, graphs and data specific to the downtown. This will be very helpful for those looking to put a business downtown. IFDDC #Downtowner jacket order will be sent in Friday for anyone that is interested. Lisa – city façade grant money - $3,000 from 2017 – MCS Advertising has requested funds; $55,000 for 2018 are available – we just need projects; starting the process for the 2019 funds Meeting was adjourned at 9:11am. Our next board meeting will be held May 2, 2019 Respectfully submitted by Kevin Josephson, IFDDC secretary and Mala Lyon