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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-01-18 City Commission Packet Materials - C2. MT Tourism Grant Application with MOTD for Historic Main Street District1 REPORT TO: Mayor and City Commission FROM: Phillipe Gonzalez, Historic Preservation Specialist Chris Saunders, Policy and Planning Manager Martin Matsen, Director of Community Development SUBJECT: That the City Commission Ratify the Montanan Tourism Grant Submission to Complete the Bozeman Historic Main Street District Update Project. MEETING DATE: October 1, 2018 AGENDA ITEM TYPE: Consent RECOMMENDATION: That the City Commission Ratify the Montanan Tourism Grant Submission to Complete the Bozeman Historic Main Street District Update Project and Development of a Digital Walking Tour Application. BACKGROUND: As part of the Bozeman Historic Preservation Program, the Bozeman Historic Main Street Historic District Update project seeks to leverage funds to update the existing Main Street Historic District and develop a digital walking tour marketed towards non-resident visitors. This project is supported through the current Strategic Plan 4: A well Planned City, 4.2.D. “Promote continued investment in the city’s inventory of historic structures relative to ongoing infill and redevelopment.” Additionally this goal is stated in the current Growth Policy, Chapter 8:3.1, “Build upon existing cultural assets such as historic districts, parks, arts festivals, the arts community, and MSU to strengthen the local economy.” UNRESOLVED ISSUES: None determined at this time. ALTERNATIVES: None determined at this time. FISCAL EFFECTS: The Commission has allocated funds for the FY19 to survey historic resources within Bozeman. A portion of these funds along with awarded state grant funds, a 1:2 grant award totaling $39,999, will be utilized to complete the project. Attachment: Montana Tourism Grant Application State Historic Preservation Office Letter of Support Report compiled on September 20, 2018 Commission Memorandum 9 1. Project Description The Bozeman Historic Main Street District update project seeks to professionally resurvey all properties within the historic Main Street and surrounding areas, update the existing National Register of Historic Places district nomination and showcase the modern district through a digital walking tour hosted on the city’s Visitor webpage. The digital walking tour will engage Bozeman visitors from around the world on the unique historic built environment of downtown directly from their smart phone as they eat and shop along Main Street The city of Bozeman’s historic Main Street has been the cultural center of the city since its founding as an agricultural community and commercial center. With a well-preserved historic building stock reflecting nearly 140 years, the Main Street Historic District serves as a proud representation of our shared history. Main Street is host to several blocks of historic buildings housing unique shops, restaurants, offices and personal residences. Through this historic built environment it serves as a physical link to an older Bozeman while serving the needs of a modern economy, tourist destination and the fastest growing city in Montana. Additionally, Main Street is a major draw for tourists to shop, eat and stay while visiting Bozeman and along their route to the Greater Yellowstone area. The Gallatin Valley has received record breaking number of visits by non-resident every years since 2014, culminating in nearly 2,000,000 visits in the year 2017. Maintaining the historic sense of place on Main Street that attracts visitors from all over the world is a priority for the city and will ensure Bozeman maintains its unique character while it continues to grow. The city has consulted with both the Montana State Historic Preservation Office and a local cultural resource firm, to confirm that the resurvey and updated historic nomination will cost approximately $40,000. This will include the survey and documentation of approximately 60 buildings within the commercial historic core and an addendum to the existing 31 year old historic district. The associated digital walking tour will be completed by our GIS team who have already developed a successful walking tour of Bozeman’s properties individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Heritage Tourism is a key component of Montana tourism, economic development and downtown vitality. According to the Montana Brand Research publication, non-resident visitors who have interest in historic sites constitute 34.7% of target markets. This group also has higher incomes, stays longer in Montana, and is defined as a lucrative niche segment. The Market Brand Research also identifies “authenticity” as a distinct asset. This documentation and tour project will reinforce Bozeman’s commitment to retain its 10 authentic, historic resources and convey that history to the public. The Bozeman Historic Main Street update project seeks to offer a local avenue for “history buffs” to experience a western town’s history within the comfort of Main Street. 2. Project Promotion The Bozeman Main Street Historic District Project will produce a digital product that is accessible from all devices at no cost and will be housed on the City of Bozeman website Visitor Tab, a webpage for non-residents of the city to explore Bozeman’s accommodations, activities and nightlife. The Visitors Tab receives tens of thousands of click-throughs yearly of interested potential tourists who are looking to spend time in Bozeman, providing a large exposure to the digital walking tour. Additionally, City of Bozeman employs a communications director promoting city information through various social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, and a developed relationship with local media outlets. These tools have proven excellent ways to communicate with the general public and have worked in the past to promote various efforts within the Community Development department and Historic Preservation division. The development of the survey of the Main Street Historic District and creation of the digital walking tour will be advertised through these channels to ensure the success of the project. The City of Bozeman Historic Preservation Program has created several strong working relationships with various non-profit and educational organizations that seek to promote history, historic preservation and local history within Bozeman, including the Gallatin History Museum, The Extreme History Project and the Bozeman Preservation Advocacy Group. These groups have partnered in the past with the city in order to promote and share historic preservation projects. The City of Bozeman and these groups will work to share Bozeman’s historic resources through the use of the digital walking tour. 3. Community Master Plan Historic Preservation has been a community priority since the genesis of the preservation program in the early 1980s, after the demolition of several notable buildings. Historic preservation as a planning tool has been a continuous and core component within several growth policies, and our heritage resources are recognized as an economic asset to city. Within the most recent Bozeman Community Plan, a document that functions as a municipal growth policy, historic preservation is explored in CH. 8: Economic Development, Goal ED-3. The rationale statement reads, “High cultural, educational, and outdoor recreational values are commonly cited reasons for people to visit or live in Bozeman. Protecting and 11 building upon existing strong assets leverage other efforts for economic development.” Further the Objective 3.1 instructs to, “Build upon existing cultural assets such as historic districts, parks, art-festivals the arts community and MSU to strengthen the local economy.” The Bozeman Main Street Historic District Update project seeks to modernize our National Register Nomination of the city’s most popular historic district and showcase the results through a digital walking tour marketed towards non-resident visitors. This project aligns with a long stated goal to promote historic preservation and our historic districts in order to promote economic development. 4. Partnerships Based on the nature of the project and the past experiences by city staff in similar projects the City of Bozeman is confident it can execute and successfully complete the historic district nomination update and create the digital walking tour within the proposed budget and within an eight month timeline from the point of hiring a qualified consultant. Staff within the Community Development Department and Historic Preservation Division have a combined experience overseeing cultural resource projects with qualified consultants within Bozeman and the Gallatin County and will utilize that experience to ensure a successful completion to the project. The Bozeman Historic Main Street District Update project was developed as part of the Bozeman Historic Preservation program initiatives to maintain up-to-date historic data and educate the public regarding Bozeman’s historic resources. The City of Bozeman is assuming all financial contributions to the project through the Community Development budget for fiscal year 2019. 5. Preliminary Reports Once Montana Tourism grant funds for the Bozeman Historic Main Street District and Digital Walking Tour application project are awarded a Request for Proposal will be released by the Community Development Department. From past experiences an RFP can be written, approved by the City Commission and publicly noticed in a short period of time allowing for the project to remain with the allotted time frame. 6. Project Timeline 1. Grant Funds Awarded 2. Request for Proposal (2 months) a. Once grant funds are awarded an RFP will be written, submitted to the Bozeman Historic Preservation Advisory Board for review and submitted to the Bozeman 12 Commission as a Consent Item for final approval. After approval the RFP will be noticed for a period of three weeks. 3. Consultant Selection and Project Work (4 months) a. A cultural resource consulting firm will be selected and put under contract to complete the survey of the Bozeman historic downtown (approximately 60 buildings) and rewrite and submit a National Register nomination to update the existing nomination form 1987 to the Montana State Historic Preservation office for review. 4. Digital Walking Tour Development (2 months) a. With the completion of the updated Main Street nomination the Community Development Department alongside GIS and I.T. departments will work to build and release a digital walking tour that will be accessible for non-resident visitors to explore and engage along the Bozeman historic Main Street 5. Promotion & Closeout a. With the completion of the digital walking tour a vigorous publicity campaign will take place to ensure its success with non-resident visitors. Project Timeline Total: 8 Months 7. Measurability of goals, objectives and projected outcomes. With awarded funds for the resurvey of Bozeman’s Main Street Historic District and the development of a digital application to allow non-resident visitors to experience the rich historic downtown will increase their overall time spent along the historic core. Generating interest regarding individual historic structures around the downtown area will encourage non-residents to investigate shops and side-streets that may not have been visited otherwise, increasing the foot traffic to local businesses. Creating a product that is currently unavailable to the heritage tourism population, who regularly seek historic sites out of the city, will grant them an opportunity to explore historic Bozeman. With the assistance of the IT Department the close monitoring of the data will allows us to determine how best to direct our continued marketing strategies of the digital walking tour. As described the digital walking tour will be housed on the Visitor’s Tab on the Cities Website. Current analytics show the “Downtown Bozeman” and “History” links on the Visitor’s Tab receive the majority of click-throughs on the tab from the main site totaling nearly 5,000 page views in the past 12 months. It is projected that a large portion of this traffic will utilize the Bozeman Main Street Historic Walking Tour. The previous work experience of the Preservation Program, GIS and IT Departments will ensure the smooth completion of the product from start to finish. The Preservation 13 Program has had much experience working with hired cultural resource management consultants to complete similar types of projects that have resulted in 10 historic districts and 46 individually listed properties on the National register of Historic Places. With the assistance of the GIS and IT Departments an ESRI Story Map of all Individually listed Properties (https://www.bozeman.net/government/community-development/historic-preservation/historic-properties/historic-register-of-individual-properties) was created and hosted on the historic preservation webpage and has shown to be very popular. Staff is confident these previous experiences would lead to the successful completion of the proposed project. The City of Bozeman’s Historic Preservation Program is charged with the promotion and education of the city’s unique historic resources. The Bozeman Main Street Historic District Update project and creation of a digital walking tour product is part of an overall outreach and educational component of the Historic Preservation Program. It is the goal of the program to continue to update and make historic preservation relevant. Based on previous completed project experience the resurvey of the historic Main Street, rewriting of the historic district nomination and creation of a digital walking tour can be completed in 8 months from the initial request for proposal. Once this initial work is completed the development and content of the digital application can be created quickly, and moved online and advertised through various social media platforms operated by the City. 8. Long-term Project Management The long-term management of the application will be managed by various departments, including the Community Development, I.T. and GIS departments. Staff time will be budgeted from all departments to ensure digital product continues to be maintained, respond to input from users, track analytics and adjust marketing techniques and strategies to ensure the continued success of the digital product. Staff time is budgeted from a general department fund and do not require dedicated funds to maintain website features. 9. Detailed Project Budget-Narrative The budget for the Bozeman Main Street Historic District and Digital Walking Tour are based on discussions with the Montana State Historic Preservation Office, who has assisted communities throughout Montana in completing similar projects. The figures presented below reflect the 2:1 grant and grantee award that is necessary to complete the project. The funding needed to complete the project is broken up into two components, both will be completed by the same consultant under the same contract. The historic cultural resource 14 survey of what current estimates of 60 buildings in the historic downtown core has been estimated at $20,000 and the additional re-write and submission of the district nomination to the Montana SHPO to be an additional $20,000. The development of the digital walking tour will be completed by city of Bozeman staff, funded from department budgets and does not require additional grant funds. Tourism Grant City of Bozeman Match Total Historic Survey, approx. 60 Buildings $13,333 $6,666 $19,999 Re-writing of the Historic District Nomination $13,333 $6,666 $19,999 Total $26,666 $13,333 $39,998 10. Partial Funding The Community Development department has authorized the usage of funds for the fiscal year 2019 for the survey of historic resources within Bozeman. A request for Proposal has not been completed to direct these funds as of yet. A partial grant funding option for the Bozeman Main Street Historic District update project would allow for the completion of the project within the anticipated time frame with the use of these additional funds. 11. Season of Operation Bozeman is a year round destination with access to outdoor activities during the summer months and world class skinning in the winter months. As a result the Bozeman Main Street Historic District receives a consistent volume of non-resident visitors along the downtown streets, creating a strong cultural center for the community. The accessibility of the digital walking tour will create opportunities for year round use, giving non-residents with interest in historical sites and western culture the opportunity to engage in local history, as they use Bozeman as a transitory stop along to other places of interests within the Gallatin region. 15 September 18, 2018 MT Department of Commerce Office of Tourism 301 S. Park Ave. Helena, MT 59620 Dear Tourism Grant Committee, Thank you for the opportunity to support the City of Bozeman Community Development’s grant application for their Main Street Historic District Resurvey, Nomination, and Digital Walking Tour Development project. Bozeman’s historic districts, particularly the Main Street Historic District, constitute the backbone of the city’s cultural legacy – its community identity and unique sense of place are focused upon the historic architecture and heritage embodied in Bozeman’s cherished built environment. The Main Street District also serves as the hub of local tourism, as visitors and residents alike throng to the city’s one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants year-round. In order to make the most of these assets, the city must better understand their resources and convey their significance to the public. This project will accomplish both goals. Originally established in 1987, it has been thirty years since the Main Street Historic District was surveyed in a comprehensive way. Those three decades have witnessed tremendous change across the city and within the district itself, as the municipality has adapted to tremendous growth while embracing heritage tourism as an economic driver. The time has come to take stock of the city’s downtown historic properties, recognize those that have gained significance since 1987, and better understand the integrity of individual properties and the district as a whole. The in- depth research and documentation proposed will inform both city planners and the visiting public. The project will celebrate and convey Bozeman’s significant and rich heritage, thereby enhancing the tourism experience. Support from the Office of Tourism is vital to this project. For decades, the Montana State Historic Preservation Office (MT SHPO) has been proud to work closely with the City of Bozeman to preserve its tremendous cultural places. During that time, the city’s dedication to identifying and celebrating its cultural legacy and commitment to retaining and showcasing its historic downtown has been inspiring. This project will encourage travelers to directly engage with cultural places and scholarship, and offer Montana tourists the opportunity to create itineraries for unique experiences in Bozeman. For these reasons, we strongly encourage the Office of Tourism to fulfill the City of Bozeman Community Development’s grant request to support this project. Thank you so much for your interest, and please let us know if you would like any additional information. Sincerely, Kate Hampton Community Preservation Coordinator MT SHPO 16