More Input on Columbia's Streetscape Project

City staff once again presented an overview of the proposed Main St. Streetscape Project--this time to the Columbia Rotary Club--and answered more questions from members of the business community:

1. Why not make Main St. one-way and Rapp one-way (suggesting that this would create traffic circulation around a “town square” and would allow angle parking)? The current project scope does not include this re-routing of traffic--which would be a major project in its own right--but the team will take the idea under consideration.
2. How will this project maintain available parking along Main St. and how will it allow for future growth of businesses in the district? The Civic Progress Committee raised this concern during its review of the project last March, and the project team has reviewed the design accordingly--further study may be required to address the long-term parking needs of Main Street merchants.
3. Will the sidewalk expansion and bump-outs choke traffic lanes? The current roadway is extremely wide, so narrowing the overall roadway will tend to slow down traffic, but the proposed sidewalk changes (two feet added to all sidewalks and eight-foot bump-outs at some corners) will not reduce the lane width for moving traffic.
4. Downtown Belleville’s decorative light standards look very similar to those proposed for Columbia’s project, and they appear (to the casual viewer) to be placed too close together in Belleville—how will Columbia’s be different? While the light standards in both cities come from the same manufacturer, Columbia's will be five feet taller and will be spaced further apart in keeping with Illinois Department of Transportation requirements (Belleville's Main Street is owned by the city while Columbia's roadway is owned by IDOT).
5. Columbia’s light standards will support banners and other decorations throughout the year courtesy of the Columbia Chamber—how will the project orient the hanging equipment so as to prevent damage from passing vehicles? Banners currently in place hang over the street and have not suffered damage, but the team will consider turning the hanging brackets so that decorations are internal (over the sidewalk) rather than external (over the street).
6. How will the street trees be maintained (observing that this could be a major undertaking)? Lewisites (the landscape architects for the project) is selecting trees that will look good, grow at an appropriate rate and to an appropriate height, and reduce required maintenance.
7. How will the City and its partners minimize disruption to Main St. merchants—and help them keep their doors open? That's the purpose of the outreach effort--to communicate throughout the process, helping merchants and others to know what's coming and develop an action plan collectively and in advance!

Leaders Promote Arts Growth in Area

The non-profit arts industry, with $36.8 billion in annual revenue, is a potent force in economic development nationwide. Communities large and small across the country have integrated the arts into their economic development arsenal to achieve a wide range of economic goals.

Should Columbia choose to follow these examples, some local leaders are emerging to carry the effort forward:

Christina Sterman and other community members have recently come together to found Artistic Expressions, an organization established to "provide an outlet for our youth to express, grow and share artistic talents" in Columbia. Members are redeveloping a house near Metter Park into an arts center and are planning an Opening Celebration on Sunday, May 24th--the same day as Maifest.

The Monroe Actors Stage Company's production of "Nunsense" has been nominated for six awards by the Arts For Life Theatre Recognition Guild, which honors excellence in community musical theatre in the St. Louis metropolitan region. "Nunsense," which was the MASC season opener in September, is among the five shows nominated for Best Musical, Small Ensemble, for 2008. Director Lynn Venhaus has been nominated for Best Director, and performers Tammy Duensing (Sister Robert Anne) and Liz Sawyer (Sister Mary Amnesia) are up for recognition for Best Actress in a Comedic Role. For technical achievement, the set design team of Venhaus, Sawyer and John Campbell are nominated, as is Tim Foederer for Best Lighting Design.

With artistic talent like this in the community, Columbia has a good foundation for growth in the arts.

Columbia, We Have Ignition: Streetscape Outreach Launches!

The City of Columbia launched an aggressive new public outreach effort yesterday in support of the upcoming streetscape project on Main Street. Key City staff and a representative from Oates & Associates, the project's lead engineers, presented to a standing room only crowd at the monthly meeting of the Columbia Chamber.

Presenters said that the City and its partners will deploy public forums, one-on-one meetings with business and property owners, press releases and community newsletters, direct phone access to the contractor, and a Twitter feed over the next several months to keep up communication. The staffers and elected officials in attendance (Mayor Kevin Hutchinson and Alderman Candace Hejna) solicited and answered questions from merchants and property owners in the audience:

1. How can we have better pedestrian connections between Main Street and outlying areas of the city? Mayor Hutchinson explained that the City adopted a Bicycle & Greenways Alignment Plan in 2006 to link areas of Columbia together, and that this plan requires future funding to complete.
2. How will sidewalk width change and what's the width of the bump-outs?When completed, the new sidewalks will be two feet wider in most areas than they are now, and the bump-outs will be eight feet wide.
3. Will the stamped brick be slick when wet and will it be more difficult to walk on due to its texture? Those sections are not designed to be walked on--the areas designed for pedestrian travel have been examined and approved by an organization that works to improve accessibility.
4. How can my business survive the disruption of major construction? That's the purpose of the outreach effort--the City and it partners will be working with individual businesses, the Chamber, and others to keep communication strong, as well as to help plan and execute joint activities that will help keep business traffic moving.
5. Will the Chamber lose its banners and decorations that have been mounted on a different style of light standards? Alderman Hejna related that the City Council had asked to have the standards raised by five feet to accommodate the street decorations.
   

Obama Takes Stimulus to Main Street

Small businesses historically have created about 70 percent of the economy's new jobs. That's why many economic observers have to date criticized the federal government's stimulus program for focusing, they say, on Wall Street rather than on Main Street.

Working to restart the economy's engine of job creation, President Obama announced yesterday that the Treasury Department will invest as much as $15 billion to boost lending to credit-hungry small businesses. Under the new program, the Treasury Department will buy as much as $15 billion in loans made by banks and guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA); the SBA's loan volume has fallen from roughly $20 billion a year to below $10 billion this year, projections show. The funding for the program will come from the government's $700-billion financial rescue package enacted last fall.

In addition to buying loans, the administration is proceeding with plans to eliminate fees for borrowers and reduce fees for lenders in its two signature small-business lending programs and to increase temporarily the percentage of each SBA loan guaranteed by the government. The Internal Revenue Service also released information Monday on a provision of the stimulus bill passed last month that would allow small businesses to use losses incurred in 2008 to get refunds of taxes paid on income earned as far back as 2003--an increase over the former two-year limit.

Main Street Twitters Over Streetscape Project

Columbia's Civic Progress Committee has set up a up a feed on Twitter.com to keep members of the community abreast of progress in planning, funding, constructing and promoting the Main Street streetscape project. This electronic "bulletin board"--the first of its kind in the nation for a streetscape project--is part of a larger outreach effort that is launching this month.

Twitter is a website where a sender can broadcast very short messages--140 characters, maximum--to anyone who’s signed up to receive them. It’s like a cross between a blog and a chat room. Twitter feeds can be accessed from a variety of platforms--in other words, followers can receive its short messages from a website, via email, even over their cell phone or Blackberry device. Local governments across the country are experimenting with Twitter as a means to inform the public about hearings, impending legislation, events, and other public doings. This is the first time that any group has deployed Twitter for informing followers about a streetscape project--what the feed refers to (in Twittereze) as "tweets from the street".

Public outreach on the project will continue to rely on existing venues like the City's website and traffic from a recently-launched Facebook page, as well as more traditional activities like door-to-door canvassing of business and property owners along Main Street. The Columbia Chamber will host an informational briefing about the project at their luncheon next Wednesday, March 18th, at Bully's Smokehouse.

'Stimulus' Comes to Main Street

The Wall Street Journal reports today that many cities, counties and states across the nation are launching home-grown economic-stimulus plans aimed at spurring local spending and keeping small businesses afloat during the recession.

Strategies are as diverse as the local governments employing them, including:

• Cutting corporate taxes;
• Paying residents to shop in local stores;
• Giving real-estate brokers bonuses for bringing tenants to empty strip malls;
• Reducing fees on new development;
• Critiquing local restaurants and giving owners feedback on how best to bring in customers.

Leaders of many struggling cities and states say they can't afford to wait for their slice of the federal pie. Although their tax revenues are declining, forcing some to slash budgets and, unlike the federal government, they're constrained by balanced-budget requirements they're floating bonds, raiding reserves and shuffling money among various accounts to free up capital for local stimulus efforts.

Guarded Optimism Accompanies February Retail Sales

In February, chain store sales across the nation stopped declining as fast as they have been for the past several months, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). Too soon to call it a trend, but retail experts are viewing the figures with guarded optimism.

Warm weather conducive to spring merchandise sales, lower gas prices and leaner inventories helped many chains recover some from the economic doldrums of recent months. Wal-Mart led with a year-on-year comparable-store sales rise for the month of 4.5 percent--the big box retailer's best performance since last June, when sales rose 5.8 percent (February represents its fifth consecutive month of traffic increases). Department store and specialty apparel chains fared the worst, down 9.8 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. Luxury department stores were hit particularly badly, with sales down 19.2 percent.

ICSC expects March sales nationwide to be flat to one percent off from a year ago. ICSC is the global trade association for the shopping center industry, representing 70,000 members in the U.S., Canada and more than 80 other countries.

While recovery may be beginning, it is spreading faster in areas considered essential by most consumers. Fast food, discounted apparel, haircuts and cable television are four items people won’t cut, according to a survey of about 4,000 consumers by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Among items respondents consider expendable are luxury handbags, specialty apparel and high-end cosmetics, and they say they can dispense with fine dining as well, according to the survey. Some 80 percent of respondents said they refuse to give up Internet service, 64 percent said they would hang onto cell phone service, and 61 percent would cling to cable/satellite television--come what may. Ninety-two percent said they will give up luxury handbags for now, and 91 percent said the same about specialty apparel and cosmetics.

NRF is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services.

Report from Chicago

City of Columbia staff joined more than 1600 other economic development professionals this week in participating in the 2009 National Main Street Conference at the historic Palmer House hotel in Chicago. This year's event focused on the emerging role of social media in supporting revitalization efforts across the country.

One highlight of the event was a rousing address by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, who affirmed the vital role that Main Street programs play in stimulating his state's economy. Other highlights included:

• A "nuts and bolts" presentation on how best to plan, fund, facilitate and evaluate a successful streetscape project, offered by Donna Dow, manager for the Main Street program in Durant, Oklahoma;
• Advice from Tom McGilloway, a landscape architect, on how to make the best use of open spaces like parks and trails;
• A new approach to facade renovation that restores whole blocks at one time, presented by Randy Wilson, director of design services for the Mississippi Main Street Association;
• "Every Business Has a Billboard," a session led by Main Street Arkansas Small Business Consultant Mark Miller, that tied signage and advertising, and social media into a strategic bundle;
• Great new ideas for promoting restaurants, boutiques and antique shops presented by Blagica Bottigliero, a social media consultant.

Columbia's Civic Progress Committee will enjoy an overview of these presentations and more at their next meeting.