Old Orchard Business District Advisory Commission

Old Orchard Special Business District Advisory Commission MEETING MINUTES APPROVED MEETING DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 2017 LOCATION: City Hall CALLED TO ORDER: 8:01 AM MEETING ADJOURNED: 8:52 AM NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, December 12, 2017 NAME PRESENT ABSENT Joe Fichter, Chair X Angel Venegoni X Claire Winkler X Mary Jane Armstrong X Steve Scheipeter X Holland Saltsman X Robert Weber X John Barr X Steve Zielinski X Frank Janoski, Council Liaison X Mara Perry, City Liaison X Also in attendance: Bill Kuntz – Highway 61 Roadhouse Frank Schmer – St. Louis Home Fires Fran Sudekum – Administrative Support APPROVAL OF MINUTES Motion to approve the October minutes as was made by Angel Venegoni, seconded by Mary Jane Armstrong, motion was unanimously approved. VISITOR COMMENTS Freeze Que BBQ Competition – Bill Kuntz and Frank Schmer shared information about this season’s Freeze Que at Highway 61 Roadhouse. This will be the 9th year for the event. It is the 2nd largest and 2nd oldest BBQ competition in St. Louis. Last year 44 teams competed; coming in town to compete from all over. The event received a lot of press. Normally, the event is held in January, but due to a personal conflict they are planning to hold the event in February. Webster University is allowing them to use their parking facilities. • BBQ Teams – These are serious competitors with 6 to 8 in each team; none of which are from Webster, so the event brings in a big crowd to the District just for those that participate. • Competition “Food” – Competitors do not sell or share the food they BBQ. In the past, patrons coming to the event could get a taste of the competitors’ sauces thru a chicken wing sauce-tasting contest. Proceeds of which were given to a charity. • Ideas and Support – Bill would like to get the District more involved with the event. He is looking to the Commission for ideas and support on how to get more District businesses involved, draw more area patrons to the event, and take advantage of all the out of town teams here for the competition. Suggestions: o Tasting samples of the actual food being BBQ’d, not just the sauces, would get more patrons to the event; otherwise they really have no purpose for being there. o A related kid-friendly activity at Gazebo Park would provide a reason and an activity for patrons to be engaged. Frank and Bill have talked about adding a kids cookout to the event, possible with the fire department. They would need help in partnering with the District and the City for this piece. Commission members felt this was a great idea. PARKING • Signs are up on the strip of parking spaces behind the businesses on the north side of Big Bend (North Old Orchard east) as restricted parking for customers. • Signs for the employee and customer parking have been put up in the lot off of N. Old Orchard. DISTRICT BANNERS • New Winter banners have been ordered and will go up as soon as they come in. The design will be the same as the new Winter banners Old Webster created only Old Orchard’s will say “Webster Groves.” The graphic designer for Old Webster, Erin Delanty (owner of Zoey’s Attic), agreed to allow Old Orchard to use her design and reformatted it to fit Old Orchard’s size specs; both at no charge. • The bill for the banners came in under budget. • The new banners are made from marine canvas and should last a very long time. HOLIDAY PLANS • Holiday Festival (Saturday, November 18th from 3 to 5 PM in Gazebo Park). o Amanda Cook-Gallaway has agreed to coordinate the festival. She has been added as an Admin on the Old Orchard Facebook page and has created a Festival Event on the page using last year’s graphics which Mara Perry has updated. Commission members were asked to comment and share the event on their pages. Amanda will do additional posts promoting the event. o Amanda would like to post tie-ins of any Old Orchard businesses doing anything special that day. She also has an open offer to any that wish to set up a table in Gazebo Park during the event. o The lights are up on the tree; tree lighting will take place at 5PM. o Santa is on board. o The mailbox will be delivered soon. This year, the W-K Times may publish a couple of letters. Holland Saltsman may set up a table to do “letters to Santa” during the event. o An ad will be in the W-K Times. o Mara has arranged for the Hixson 8th grade band to play. • Cookie Walk (Saturday, December 9th from 3 to 5PM) o The event takes place in both Old Orchard and Old Webster. o Cookie Walk participant posters have been printed by Joe Rath at Acme Printing; graphics were handled by the Old Webster Trade Association. Mara will get with Joe to acquire some posters for Old Orchard. o Fran Sudekum will send out an email message to the businesses in Old Orchard about the event with the recipe card templates and the location of poster pick up. o An event will be put on Facebook. • Small Business Saturday (SBS) o The District will have a basic SBS ad similar to last year’s ad in the W-K Times as previously budgeted. o The City is hoping to do a kids coloring contest in conjunction with SBS; the page will be available to download from the City’s website. Businesses could print some and have available. • Holiday Advertising o The District uses the borders of the subsidized W-K Times holiday “gang-page” ads to promote the events; first one will promote the Festival, the second will promote the Cookie Walk and SBS, and the third will promote SBS. o The BDC will be promoting Webster Groves during the holidays with social media and television ads. o There will be a social media contest as well on the Explore Webster Groves Facebook page. • District Decorations – Decorations should go up close to Thanksgiving. This year some new characters will be added using repurposed street lamppost globes. As previously stated, new Winter banners for the District will go up as soon as they come in. NEW BUSINESS District Rooftop Lighting - The current rooftop lighting is in sad shape and old tech; it’s time to redo them. • This Year – Maintenance needs to take place to get the current lights on for the holiday season now. MOTION: Angel Venegoni made a motion to hire someone to handle maintenance of the rooftop lights for $300. Motion was seconded by Steve Zielinski and unanimously approved. • Next Year - The Commission would like to proceed with a 50/50 program like the one Old Webster has been using for their rooftop lighting. The new lighting would go all the way to Dale this time and would really help visually tie the District together. The project involves quite a bit of coordination time; City staff cannot take it on. In order to make this happen, someone(s) in the District would need to take this on as part of a Commission sub-committee. o Steps involved: Fund the 50/50 program in next year’s budget. Acquire cost estimates from Stribe (electrical contracting currently working with Old Webster). Send letters to all the property owners in April, 2018. Schedule installation for July thru October, 2018. CITY UPDATE • The façade for the new Naked Boot and Shoe store in the former Puddin Head Books location in Old Orchard is looking good; they plan to launch a website soon. • The Clover and the Bee will be opening soon in Old Webster. • The resubmitted proposal for the former YMCA location goes to City Council. The new proposal is for a three- story development with no commercial usage; Ridge House Apartments. NEXT MEETING Tuesday, December 12, 2017 at 8:00 AM – City Hall. ADJOURNED Meeting adjourned at 8:53 AM