Mount Clemens metropolis commissioners on Monday will contemplate making modifications to the Downtown Improvement Authority which are geared toward bolstering its administrative staffing and on-line advertising presence.
The Metropolis Fee is scheduled to vote on an settlement that will contract the town to have a municipal consultant function the DDA’s government director. The settlement would additionally permit the DDA to have using metropolis personnel on its help workers for web site and social media companies.
“We do a pleasant job with occasions, or at the very least we did previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, however the DDA was meant to be greater than occasions,” Mayor Laura Kropp stated. “We try to maneuver from being extra occasions primarily based to working nearer with our enterprise group and offering actual enhancements to our downtown.”
In keeping with the town fee agenda packet, the DDA’s board of administrators can pay Mount Clemens — primarily Group Improvement Director Brian Tingley and help workers — $20,000 a 12 months to behave as the chief director. The setup is much like one utilized in communities comparable to Royal Oak and Ypsilanti.
The DDA hasn’t had an government director since 2012 when the board voted towards renewing the contract of Arthur Mullen, who had served within the $57,000-a-year place for six years. On the time, DDA Chairman Steve Saph stated the choice was a monetary one because the district had misplaced cash as a result of falling property values and the town sought to reclaim a portion of the income district that funds the DDA funds.
With Mullen’s departure, Michelle Weiss, the authority’s occasions coordinator, has assumed the day-to-day operations of the DDA.
Since then, the DDA district’s funds have stabilized to a level, in response to metropolis officers.
“Now we want to add an government director who would supply a imaginative and prescient for the downtown and a roadmap of find out how to get there,” Kropp stated.
Further Advantages
Having a metropolis workers member work as a part-time DDA director will present the group with wanted help at a considerably decreased price, officers stated.
Metropolis officers say the transfer will even:
• Permit for elevated collaboration and streamlined decision-making between the DDA and metropolis administration
• Permit the advertising/occasion coordinator to focus extra on occasion planning and enterprise outreach as a substitute of day-to-day administrative duties
• Permit for succession planning and retention of institutional data if there’s a giant turnover amongst DDA board members
• Foster a collaboration between the town and DDA on social media, branding and advertising efforts. The DDA can pay the town $10,000 for these tasks, in response to the contract.
Mayor Kropp stated one branding effort is to make Mount Clemens often known as “Macomb County’s Uptown.” She stated that slogan shall be utilized in future campaigns.
“In case you speak to our longtime residents, they do not discuss downtown, they are saying ‘We’re going uptown for dinner,'” Kropp stated. “That is a time period individuals who have lived right here a very long time at all times use.
“And to say we’re the Uptown of Macomb County brings out a optimistic vibe. We’re ‘going up.’ It was our Metropolis Supervisor Don Johnson’s concept after some brainstorming,” she stated.
Future Plans
Amongst prime priorities for the brand new government director is development of a Detroit Jap Market-style shed within the Roskopp Parking Lot close to Macomb Place and Pine Road and refurbishing the Cherry Road Mall.
Plans name for development of a 14,000-square-foot shed that will home Farmers Market occasions but in addition would showcase different features such cooking demonstrations and displays. For Cherry Road Mall, work crews not too long ago eliminated dilapidated tables and benches from the mall close to the Macomb Place fountain. Future plans name for the realm to be stuffed with inexperienced house and plantings to make it extra aesthetically pleasing.
Mount Clemens has been working with Kate Bell since June in her function as a fellow with the Group Financial Improvement Affiliation of Michigan (CEDAM) to help in among the DDA’s tasks. That features establishing an out of doors eating program; figuring out funding for downtown public enhancements together with Cherry Road Mall; and creating an inside database of economic properties throughout the metropolis and the DDA district.
It isn’t recognized when security restrictions tied to the coronavirus disaster shall be lifted or lessened sufficient to permit well-liked public occasions comparable to outside live shows and gatherings to renew.
Earlier this month, the fee voted to increase the DDA’s length. The authority’s lifeline was set to run out June 30,, 2021, however the fee moved for a 20-year extension by 2041. That enables tax increment revenues collected from a portion of companies within the downtown district to maintain capturing these funds that finance the DDA.
The transfer comes at a time when downtown is about to expertise a resurgence of kinds following COVID-19-caused closures.
In current weeks, a brand new barbers store known as Deep Cuts has opened, and the Three Blind Mice Irish Pub re-opened below new possession. A boutique vineyard titled Cellar 104 is scheduled to open its doorways for the primary time round Thanksgiving. A brand new espresso store can also be anticipated to open in 2021.
