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HomeMy WebLinkAboutcclc.min.0321181 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 21, 2018 Chairman Steve Fante opened the meeting at 8:34 a.m. Commissioners in attendance: Steve Fante, Bill Dinsmoor, Terry Butler, Amanda Tanaka, Kiki Raj, Angi Wang. Absent was Charles Cunniffe. Staff present: Nicole Henning, Deputy City Clerk; Linda Manning, City Clerk; Mitch Osur, Parking Services Director. Public Comment: None. Board Commentary: Ms. Butler mentioned BLK MKT and said they have guns hanging on the wall being presented as art and found it to be somewhat offensive regarding the current state of things. Ms. Manning and Ms. Tanaka agreed that this is to be viewed and considered as art. Mr. Fante said they will be gone this week or next since it is just a pop up. Ms. Tanaka said they had a pretty wild opening party and the place is affiliated with Michaela Olson, a young local, of Maker and Place. Ms. Raj entered the meeting. Mr. Osur said he had seen a lady who was selling gun art and she was super busy and the art wasn’t inexpensive so guns must be in right now. Ms. Raj brought in a RFTA survey with her and she wants everyone to fill it out. Mr. Osur brought the Council schedule with him to pass out to the board and went over the upcoming council meetings. He mentioned there will be a board and commission work session on March 27th and that it could be CCLC on that date. He also mentioned that the Wheeler board and ACRA have been in so far and Council decided they want the Wheeler to be advisory instead of an authority board. Mr. Fante asked when CCLC is expected to meet with council. Ms. Manning said that after this meeting, the date will be set, but probably not on the 27th of March. Mr. Fante put together a list of goals that have been sent to him from the other members, which he shared with the group. He said he wanted to go over them and then vote on the most important ones so they could find a better focus. He said the main ideas were for welcome baskets, to establish a database, send out a monthly newsletter, which could be a great hook to get people to realize CCLC exists. Mr. Osur said he spoke to some business owners about a database and newsletter this week and many of them loved both ideas. Ms. Wang entered the meeting. Mr. Dinsmoor asked what the current outlook is on working with ACRA moving forward. Mr. Fante sent an email to Mr. Klanderud and did not get a response back, but he later saw Mr. Klanderud on the mall and said they don’t want to have anything to do with us so right now he doesn’t see a link, but thinks it could change in the future. He doesn’t think it’s the time to do it now and feels that CCLC needs to better define how they want the relationship to function in the future. He doesn’t feel like there was ever a 2 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 21, 2018 clear idea of what Mr. Klanderud expected or what CCLC expected from him. The goal is to mend the relationship with ACRA and we can define what this means later. Mr. Osur said it is suggested that everyone attend the council meeting so they we have full representation when it’s CCLC’s turn to meet. Regarding outdoor dining, it is Mr. Dinsmoor’s wish to lobby the city to bring this process back under their purview. He noted that they are the only ones that cared before about al fresco dining and saw it to fruition and is a big deal so he thinks it should be back in their hands. Ms. Manning reminded everyone that maybe it’s not about who is managing the outdoor dining, but where it is happening, such as, against the buildings, in the middle, staggered, etc. She said that moving forward, it will change with the pedestrian mall project so CCLC has an opportunity to try something different this year. Sort of the “living lab” term that Council loves to use in order to try some different things and see how it works. Mr. Osur added that where he thinks CCLC can help or make an impact is by going out and talking to retailers about what bothers them and what they want to change, conducting surveys with them, etc. He also noted that Mr. Fante and Ms. Wang have a good beat on how the businesses are feeling. Mr. Dinsmoor said when CCLC has been most effective is when they invite peer on peer to meetings to discuss issues. Invite a block or part of a block at a time to see how retailers are feeling about certain subjects. He said they’ve always had considerations for those businesses when they were planning al fresco dining. Mr. Osur suggested bringing the “establishment of code of Aspen business excellence”, that is developed, with them to make sure they follow this code. Mr. Osur said the ice castle isn’t going to be an option here moving forward. He met with the guy who puts it on last week and it’s not a viable option. Ms. Raj brought up improvements to Winterskol and Ms. Manning said that going to speak with the City’s Special Events department might be a good direction to go with this since we can’t really discuss with ACRA right now. Mr. Osur brought up the Saturday Market and said there needs to be a better process for approving vendors and more formal guidelines or a rating scale set up so they have reasons to tell people why they didn’t get in. They need a more defendable score sheet of determined criteria. Mr. Dinsmoor mentioned setting up a BID and said it would need an official vote to create a district to tax yourselves for a specific purpose and there is no opting out. He continued to say this is a big picture item for down the road and said some of us pursued this ten years ago. They had hired a consulting firm out of Denver to help put it together and said when they brought it to ACRA, they were initially in favor of it and then they weren’t. It basically creates an entity which represents all businesses and they have a government relationship by statute. It can be a dynamic and powerful thing. Mr. Fante said there was a BID in Cherry Creek when he had a store there and that it helps promote the area. There’s millions 3 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 21, 2018 involved and said it could be an option as a way to pay for the mall renovation, improvements, arts festival, etc. and said there are good and bad things to it, but overall, he thinks it’s a good idea. Mr. Osur continued saying that CCLC needs to decide their position on pop ups and define it and then recommend to City Council how they feel about it. He said they need to define exactly what a pop up is and what a trunk show is. He said, in his opinion, if the lease is six months, it’s great for business, but the one-month leases, not so much. Mr. Osur said that he and Ms. Manning have spoken privately and are happy with the direction CCLC is headed. Ms. Tanaka’s top five goals: expectations, events, Saturday market, alleys, signage Ms. Raj’s top five goals: events, alleys, pops ups, Saturday market, pedestrian mall including outdoor dining Ms. Butler’s top five goals: alleys, database, Saturday market, events, pops ups Mr. Dinsmoor’s top five goals: database, events, Saturday market, pedestrian mall, alleys Ms. Wang’s top five goals: expectations, pop ups, outdoor dining, Saturday market, alleys Mr. Fante’s top five goals: database, newsletter, code of aspen, prepare for council meeting, alleys The Top Five Goals are officially: alleys, expectations/constituent outreach/newsletter, pop ups, events, Saturday Market Mr. Fante said now that the top five goals are determined, the next step is to assign responsibility by each person picking a number one and number two choice that each person would like to work on. Ms. Raj’s top two choices: alleys and Saturday market Mr. Dinsmoor’s top two choices: events and alleys Ms. Tanaka’s top two choices: constituent outreach and a newsletter Ms. Butler’s top two choices: alleys and pops ups Ms. Wang’s top two choices: pops ups and expectations Mr. Fante’s top two choices: constituent outreach and newsletter Everyone can contribute alongside Mr. Dinsmoor on events. They felt Mr. Cunniffe would be ok working on events and the Saturday Market, but can verify with him next time. Mr. Fante suggested that for groups that have three people, they should have a group leader. The expectations chair will be Ms. Wang and Ms. Henning will assist on creating the newsletter and sending out. 4 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 21, 2018 The alleyways chair will be Mr. Dinsmoor. Ms. Raj will be the Saturday Market chair and reach out to Ms. Strickland on this. I told her that I spoke with Ms. Strickland about the decision-making process regarding vendors for this year and she agrees that something more should be done and more time put towards choosing the vendors so she will be on board with a new system. Mr. Fante said that next time he would like to break up into groups to discuss the topics and he said to feel free to discuss on your own to come up with plans and ideas. Ms. Manning noted that a potential meeting for CCLC with Council could be on June 6th. Mr. Osur reminded everyone of the Castle Creek project starting on April 2nd and going through June 10th. It will start back up in August through September and that will be bad. MOTION: Mr. Dinsmoor motioned to approve the minutes from March 7th, Ms. Wang seconded. All in favor, motion carried. ________________________________ Nicole Henning, Deputy City Clerk