Old Orchard Business District Advisory Commission

Old Orchard Special Business District Advisory Commission MEETING MINUTES APPROVED MEETING DATE: Tuesday, October 9, 2018 LOCATION: City Hall CALLED TO ORDER: 8:03AM MEETING ADJOURNED: 9:05 AM NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, November 13, 2018 NAME PRESENT ABSENT Joe Fichter, Chair X Angel Venegoni X Claire Winkler X Mary Jane Armstrong X Holland Saltsman X Robert Weber X John Barr X X Steve Zielinski X Vacancy Bud Bellomo, Council Liaison X Mara Perry, City Liaison X Also in attendance: Marianne Furhman – Webster-Kirkwood Times Detective Fred Bell – Community Engagement Officer, Webster Groves Police Department Fran Sudekum – Administrative Support APPROVAL OF MINUTES Motion to approve the September minutes as was made by Mary Jane Armstrong, seconded by Bob Weber, motion was unanimously approved. VISITOR COMMENTS Marianne Furhman, Webster-Kirkwood Times – Ms. Furhman presented background on the Webster- Kirkwood Times and their holiday advertising options to Commission Members (see Appendix A). DISTRICT ADVERTISING Commission members decided to continue what the District has supported with Holiday advertising in the Webster-Kirkwood Times as they have in the past. In addition, they would like to look at adding promotional District support outside of the holiday season, such as a back-to-school campaign, promoting the gazebo concert series, or running an Old Orchard page. ROOFTOP LIGHTING Stribe Electric is putting together a schedule to install the rooftop lights. The first group will be on the buildings from Weber’s Front Row down to Balkan Treat Box and from the Commerce Bank to Tei Too. To acquire the written owner commitment, Mara Perry is preparing a spreadsheet listing building owner information and their cost of the lighting and will generate the letter for Commission members to gain additional commitments for the next group of installations. Mara was able to find a light vendor at a discounted price. The lights will be on a sensor from dusk to dawn. STREETSCAPE UPDATE Mara Perry shared preliminary design drawings of the Streetscape Project showing such things as sidewalk design, new lamp post placement, movement of Ameren poles out of the sidewalk. AT&T will move their wiring for free; the City is still negotiating with Ameren and Charter. Sidewalks will be ADA compliant. New easements will be needed. The design of the new decorative lamp posts will match the existing decorative ones in the District. BANNER DESIGNS Summer banner designs have been approved; Spring and fall banner designs are will be forth coming. HOLIDAY EVENTS Trick or Treat – The Trick or Treat event is on Saturday, October 27th from 3:00 to 5:00 PM. It is a joint event held in both the Old Orchard and Old Webster Business Districts. Two e-blast email messages were sent to all Old Orchard businesses for which the City has email addresses soliciting their participation. The open rate for the two e-blasts averaged 43%. The only cost to participating businesses is the cost of supplying trick or treat candy. In Old Orchard, any business within the District’s boundaries is eligible to participate. At the time of the commission meeting, a dozen Old Orchard business responding indicating they would participate. American Cleaners Hwy 61 Roadhouse Boulevard Hair Co. Naked Boot and Shoe Circa Properties Sky Stone Conservatory of the Arts Civil Alchemy The Frisco Barroom Colonial Village Pharmacy The Novel Neighbor Gas Mart Weber's Front Row Participating businesses put the supplied Trick or Treat poster in their window to let trick or treaters know they are participating. Once all the participants are known, Mara will create a digital map of the businesses. Promotion of the event will be done thru Facebook and Twitter. A Facebook event has been created co-hosted by each district; businesses can easily share the Facebook event to their own Facebook pages to help promote the event. It has been shared to the Explore Webster Groves Facebook page. Info from the event page and its stats at the time of the commission meeting were shared (see Appendix B). Currently, the Old Orchard Facebook page has 2,300 followers, Old Webster has 3,500, and Explore has 4,000. On the 27th, during the day, Civil Alchemy is holding their new Fall Festival with pop-up vendors in the back of their business and into one lane of the public parking lot. The event takes place all day and will overlap the time of the Trick or Treat event, so they will also have trick or treat candy available for trick or treaters. Holiday Festival – Commission members decided to hire Amanda Galloway again this year to pull together the Holiday Festival in Gazebo Park; Santa and his mailbox, lighting the Holiday Tree at dusk, music and/or caroling. The event will take place on the same day as Small Business Saturday, which is always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year it falls on November 24th. CITY UPDATE • The Gerber Chapel location project is slated to be approved for two one-story buildings, a bank with a VTM and one for retail. • Rolling Ridge needs to supply additional information on their project before it has another hearing at the Plan Commission. • The Auto Beauty location projects has been approved and will be submitting construction drawings soon. • Construction continues at the new Firenza Pizza and Balkan Treat Box locations. • The YMCA location project goes before the ARB next week with its latest design; may see construction drawings in January. • Work on code amendments continue. NEXT MEETING Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 8:00 AM – City Hall. ADJOURNED Meeting adjourned at 9:05 AM APPENDIX A APPENDIX B