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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-21-10 Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) Board Minutes Downtown Business Improvement District Board Meeting Minutes 4/21/10 Due to a lack of a quorum of the board, the April meeting of the Downtown Business Improvement District was cancelled. This cancellation was approved by the BID Board. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 19, 2010. Executive Director’s Report Business Improvement District Board April 21 2010 BID Renewal Update To date I have received 68 signed petitions representing 63% of the owners by square footage. I was planning to ask the City Commission to consider the Resolution of Intent to re-create the th BID on April 19, but the City attorney found an issue with half of the petitions. 30+ owners had failed to indicate their capacity in relation to the corporate owner of record. I proceeded to begin contacting owners and getting documentation of their ownership capacity. I am still trying to contact a small handful of owner but this “capacity” issue should be resolved very soon. I will be rescheduling to submit the petitions to the City Commission in early May. Downtown Explosion Recovery Appropriations City Commission awarded the funds requested by the F & H Building project to add a third floor on March 8, 2010. The Legion declined to be considered for funding due to the Federal requirement that they would have to halt all construction until the Environmental Assessment could be completed which would be a minimum of 60 days. The CC decided that the requests made by Jalal Neishabouri could not be accommodated due extenuating financial circumstance involving his properties at the blast site. Ann Bates withdrew her property from consideration CC earmarked remaining $180,000 to be invested in alley improvements that would benefit all of the properties between North Bozeman and North Rouse. The City is working through the Environmental Assessment required by HUD. Downtown Explosion Alley Project I orchestrated a meeting to discuss the potential components of the Downtown Explosion Alley Improvement Project which will be funded by the HUD-EDI federal appropriation awarded to the City of Bozeman for projects related to the explosion. The meeting was attended by John Vandelinder (COB Streets), Dustin Johnson (COB Engineering), and Chris Saunders (COB Planning). We identified the following alley improvements to be included in the Downtown Explosion HUD- EDI Appropriation Proposal: Repave entire alley Replace bridge railings Construct/Install dumpster enclosures Install employee bike racks Side-street streetscape improvements This provides a wonderful opportunity to design and implement what a pedestrian-friendly, aesthetic alley could look like in downtown as is recommended in the Downtown Improvement Plan. To this end, I will be calling out to the architect and planning community to attend an alley design workshop that will develop a sketch book of potential alley improvements. Many of these concepts will be implemented behind the explosion site as part of this project, but will also serve as the template for future alley improvements elsewhere in downtown. Northwestern Energy Downtown Funds The three-way agreement between the City of Bozeman, Northwestern Energy and the Downtown Partnership to transfer NWE’s $50,000 from the COB explosion clean-up to the Partnership has been finalized and signed. I established an oversight committee consisting of myself, Heather Bellamy of Northwestern Energy and Jennifer Allain of First Security Bank to oversee the allocation of the funds. I established a “Downtown Enhancement Fund” under the Partnership at First Security Bank. Anna Rosenberry, COB Finance Director informed me that the check was signed and mailed to the Partnership on Monday, April 19, 2010. These funds will be invested in the downtown wayfinding signage project and/or the Bozeman Creek/Public Parking Lot project. Flower Basket Program Update I have ordered a total of 156 flower baskets from Oak Gardens, which is an increase of 10 baskets. As is the case every year, I will coordinate with Oak Gardens about the installation date which depends on “predicting” the last frost—usually the first week in June. I will send out the Flower Basket Sponsorships information the last week of April. The info will go to our 500+ recipient e-mail list serve. I will also physically mail 39 directly to past sponsors nd and interested new sponsors. Last year’s due date was May 22, but this year I will send the th information out earlier so the due date will be May 10 which will allow me more time to follow up and hopefully secure more sponsors. Maintenance Program Update After a year of excellent service, our primary BID maintenance employee is stepping down. Josh did a wonderful job by taking the maintenance of the district very seriously and his dedication has been apparent throughout the past year. I recently hired Brad Harris as our full-time maintenance employee. I feel fortunate to have found another “rock star”, as Brad is passionate about downtown. His wife, Amy Kirkland, owns Altitude Gallery (134 East Main), so Brad truly appreciates the value of a beautiful, well-kept downtown business district. Brad has already begun to work part-time and will come on board rd 30 to 40 hours a week beginning May 3.