IF Downtown Development Corporation (IFDDC)

Idaho Falls Downtown Development Board Meeting held November 2, 2021 at 9:00am in the Arts Council conference room. Those in attendance: Jake Durtschi, Jill Hansen, Brandi Newton, Kevin Josephson, Tasha Taylor, Kasi Nelson, Kevin Josephson, Antonio Meza, Greg Crockett. City Councilman – Jim Francis Staff – Catherine Smith and Juan Hernandez Jake presented the minutes of the October meeting and with no changes, Jill motioned to accept, Greg seconded. All voted in favor. Brandi – financial report - $25,000 BID came in and is a 3-month distribution that will cover expenses through January end. We will learn more as parking rotation comes and goes we will learn more of how that is all going to work. We hold events to bring people downtown and to follow our mission. The events cost – Oktoberfest yes it made us money. Majority of funds made from the events is then transfer to the Foundation to do projects such as the murals. Funds from the events (fundraisers) are spent on downtown improvements and projects. Motion to approve the financial report - Brandi; Greg seconded; board approved Kasi Nelson introduced – she is head of operations at Fisher Technologies; has organizational talent and focused on the important things. Served this last year as President of the Civitan’s. Jake nominated her to be a board member. Kasi oversaw a very successful Alive After 5 with income netted at $73,000 but costs were up 30% this year and shortened the season by two weeks. Insurance and security, beer costs up. 100% donated to projects that are voted on by the board. Wednesday is the best day during the summer for such an event. Jake – motioned and Brandi seconded board approved her to be a board member. Fallbrew this Saturday Nov 6th from 12 -5pm same footprint as Alive after 5. More social distancing can happen there. Jake asked how is street closure process? Must do a permit request 45 days before event and when using the same space each time it is easier. Specifics of traffic flow is becoming more detailed. Renee has given us the list of things we have to have and do. Emergency access – 20 feet of space that can be cleared of people quickly in case of an emergency. 2AM logic and Country Whisky are the bands coming. Can always use more volunteers. Ladies Shopping Days – MCS produces 150 bag for us each year and we got swag to go inside – Caramels from The Caramel Tree, handmade soap from Handmade Idaho, lip balm from Poppy & Pout and the passport with coupons – cost is $35 per coupon page to offset those costs. Had 30 ladies waiting at Great Harvest the first day for their bags. Monkey survey – no response but received a few emails. Chesbro indicated they saw no increase in shopping that day but Splash had 17 new customers come in. It’s a mix on the feedback. One question on the survey was ‘How did you promote it?” Bounce back coupons will be good on Shop Small Saturday. It is a big win for us. Tasha – so many more people downtown on Saturday. Four retails stores not open at 10:00am – they missed out as we were ready to shop! Crawl-o-ween – coupon page sold for $10 each online or could be bought night of. Pachangas and Pie Hole Pizza participated. Crawl thru the bars. This year we had a costume contest with 4 categories. $50 gift certificates and a $100 grand prize. We closed the contest at 9 pm and we posted the winners on Facebook at 10:00. 150 people bought coupons. Tony – it was very successful. Have you talked to any of the bars to see how they thought it went? No – I have had no complaint calls. Will do a Monkey Survey. Brandi said maybe we from the board should call and see what they say. Maybe they would give us a different response than if they were talking to Catherine. Was there signage on the streets for these events? No - We had posters. Chamber of Commerce shares out our info. It was suggested that we provide hotels with a flyer saying this event is happening and make use of sandwich board advertising. Welcome to Downtown sign across Broadway – T-Mobile is doing a large grant and we can hopefully request a $100,000 grant and it will cover the engineering costs too. Trees downtown - 8 trees died the past 2 years and have been replaced. Some have some crazy branches that will be trimmed. Dave Lawrence could not warranty the trees after two years. Worked with the city planted 64 trees and loss is usually about 10% and Dave was very generous with the work he did. Is our percentage of loss higher? No it is just a difficult environment to plant a tree in and get it established. Parks and Rec paid for them to be replaced. We water more regular and fertilizer. Holidays - New light display downtown with lights going across the street on Park Ave. and A Street. LED lights. Colonial to Caramel Tree and Hopkins Roden to Odd Fellow. The Arts Council - we can use their power. We can have them up year round – permission from fire department. Jill – merchants donate to have more lights? Anticipate we will get call with more people wanting lights by their buildings. Reach out to more property owner. We may look into changing out the color of the lights to go with different holidays. Light poles are being wrapped with garland and we need I F Power to keep those lamp pole lit. Tree lighting at 6:00PM Friday Nov 26th – Skyline group musicians will perform – the DEC will have a booth craft show that Friday and Saturday – trolley rides from 2 – 5:00pm. Mayor will be out of town and Jim Francis also out of town. The Shop Small Saturday proclamation will be read and the display of lights on Memorial will be turned on that same night and we will have hot chocolate stations. Going to ask business to stay open later. Swag coming from American Express. There are also two sold out shows Fri and Sat. at Colonial that weekend so lots of people downtown. Find Santa’s Puppy – first Saturday on Dec – starts at noon – families go find 21 different businesses that are hiding a puppy Trolley rides 1 – 4 at Civitan Plaza every Saturday in December and Brady’s is sponsoring it again this year at $2,000 4th of July Parade route – was looking at moving it to a new route for safety concerns. Catherine suggested having it run from Freemen Park to SnakeRiver Landing and they are saying it would be a very difficult route. It looks like it will not be moved. Chamber just needs more help. City of Ammon now does the winter light parade. Anas - Dec 9th city – New comprehensive plan - 2013 was the last one – it is a new plan. Areas of Impact. Action items will be what will affect the downtown. Jim Francis - Has Bud reached out for parking? Yes signs still 2 – 3 weeks out. GIFT – Idaho Falls Transport 6 to 8 vans that will respond to peoples calls and take them where they need to go. Have you thought about ways to charter it to bring people downtown? Park on Yellowstone and then ride in employees? It will be managed under Chris Fredrickson’s office. Anas received an award yesterday – for his bravery during the unfortunate incident in Zoning and Planning building. Adjourned at 10:00am The next board meeting will be held December 7, 2021 Respectfully submitted Jill Hansen – Mala Lyon