IF Downtown Development Corporation (IFDDC)

Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corp. May 4, 2021 board meeting was held at the Jacob Grant conference room – 490 Park Ave at 8:30am Attendance: Jake Durtschi, Greg Crockett, Tasha Taylor, Lisa Farris, Kevin Cutler, Cindy Napier, Shanon Taylor, Brandi Newton and Emily Fitzpatrick. Staff: Catherine Smith, Juan Hernandez, Mala Lyon and Gibby Smede Minutes for April 6, 2021 were reviewed - Greg motioned to accept the minutes. Brandi seconded and board approved Financial Report – Brandi – revenue for meters and ticket will always be an unknown; maintenance expense was the trimming of the trees in the A Lot; processing fees are determined by the number of tickets that are written; new enforcement vehicle was purchased, and the old vroom vroom will be sold once the equipment is transferred. Brandi motioned that the financial report be approved; Tasha seconded, and board approved. Director’s Report - Catherine introduce Gibby Smede as our new marketing specialist. She works on our social media items. Showed a CBS Sunday Morning video clip about public art. No everyone will love the art that is done as there are many opinions, but you should still do art. Main Street America conference was great. We are working with Jerry Miller who it the point of contact for the state of Idaho to become accredited with Main Street again. A favorite session was “Downtown Brand Stand Up” where they explained that marketing and branding are two different things. We will not be doing more construction type project for a while, so our focus is going to be on making downtown interesting. We would like to work with property owners to put vinyl art signs in their windows of vacant buildings like at Ferrell’s. Something to catch the eye. We can make it affordable and include it in the marketing budget for next year. Spruce Home & Gift has a very fun vinyl sign in their window while they are working in the building. Other ideas are to use chalk or washable paint to do art on the sidewalks. Cherryn Wight did some last year by the Civitan Plaza and has agreed to help us with more. Starting this weekend, she will be down in the Broadway Plaza from 10:00 to noon during the Farmer’s Market doing some art and will have chalk to let anyone who would like to draw. Some ideas some other cities have done it placing hammocks out which would be so fun on our green belt. We have a new business that has 105 scooters available to rent – this is not the city. Last year the City Council was concerned about whether the scooters should be allowed into the downtown. We felt like with sidewalk tables, moms with strollers, people on bikes, sandwich boards all on the sidewalk already that adding scooter that can go up to 15 miles per hour might be too much for our narrow sidewalk. The scooters can come into the downtown as far as Capital Ave then the Geo mapping control turns it off. People rent them and can leave them at any spot they would like to. Tasha said that the scooters have make walking the green belt more challenging. They look fun and kids get on them and just go all over. Brandi said our focus has been to get the restaurants to put tables out and signs, so it was a good choice to not let the scooters come downtown. Greg said there has been a couple of bad accidents in Boise with the scooters. Walking pedestrians is our focus. Brandi suggested that maybe we can work with the scooter owners and see if there is an event we can do where the streets are closed and the scooters could come in on that afternoon. The lighting project is in the works for the parking lots. Wheeler Electric had a covid outbreak in their office and it has put them behind schedule. We would love to see lights in the alleys like at Pugsslane which Gibby and Jim Pletscher have been work on to clean up and possibly expand. Todd with the SnakeBite would like to gate off the alley between his building and Ford’s and make it a nice place. Jim Pletscher has also helped him with some clean up there. Cindy said she has seen other cities with lights and things hung up high and the fun shadows it creates. Catherine said we want to get the Broadway Plaza more active. There has been some confusion as to who owns it, which the city does, but the Oppenheimer Group just want to see it used and enjoyed. We are looking at fun lights and music show at night. Brandi said they used LED spotlights to light up the Colonial in support of the “Save the Stages” project. Catherine said we will be putting the sandwich boards with parking info out as soon as the weather settles down. Sign Pro will be installing a new kiosk on the green belt which is purchased with grant money. We need to work on getting our name and logo out there so people know us. We wrapped the traffic cabinets, but we could also wrap the electric boxes in the parking lots to give people something fun to see. Create interesting things to look at and find downtown. We will utilize the public art committee, but the IFDDC board will have the final say on things that we do. The crosswalk art was approved by the city a year ago, so we will do that. We spotlight ‘the dogs of downtown’ and we are going to start spotlighting ‘the bikes of downtown’ on social media. Catherine will be doing a quarterly email to downtown property owners and business owners. We will send out a list of events, info like the restaurant revitalization funding program, PPP loan info, anything to help people know what is available like that. Marilynne Manguba organized a merchant meeting that was held yesterday. They were going to discuss staying open late for the Gallery Walk. We think this is a great idea for the merchants to help each other and work together. We will be very supportive but feel it best that they take the lead on this rather than the IFDDC. It will take awhile to see a return on the investment of staying open late as it will take awhile for people to know it is happening. Jake mentioned that MarCellar’s has been open on Sunday for the past 1 ½ years and is just now really seeing a following. Brandi would love to see more businesses involved in the Gallery Walk event by staying open late and offering specials to participants. Catherine said the ‘block face’ ordinance is being put before the City Council on the 24th of May. This is an ordinance that you can park on one block for 2 hours then you must move to a different block. People can technically now move their car one inch and it could be counted as they have ‘moved’ their vehicle and can contest a ticket given them. Planning on meeting with Jim Francis again and see if he has any questions before the Council meeting. The question was raised why do this instead of just installing meters on-street. This policy could also be in place so that an employee could not pay for a day of parking on-street, taking up space for customer parking. We see this at the Broadway where employees of Smokin’ Fins pay to park all day. Meeting was adjourned at 9:30am. Our next board meeting is scheduled for June 8, 2021. Respectfully submitted by Jill Hansen, Secretary and Mala Lyon