Welcome to the Downtown Stockton Blog!

Welcome! This is a great place to ask questions about what’s going on in Downtown Stockton.

You may also contact Emily Baime, Marketing Director at (209) 464-5246 or Ebaime@downtownstockton.org. Visit us online at www.downtownstockton.org.

Taste Ultra Lounge – Delayed Grand Opening

We’ve recieved many requests for information on why Taste Ultra Lounge was unable to open as scheduled on Friday October 23rd.

 

On Friday, we were contacted by the City of Stockton and were advised that staff was working hard with the owner/operators of Taste Ultra Lounge on 501 E. Main St. to try to see if they could open in time for the Grand Opening in the evening.  However, the nightlife venue did not have the health/safety, building code issues taken care needed to recieve the Certificate of Occupancy, thus the Grand Opening was delayed.

I appreciate Kevin O’Rourke’s and his staff’s commitment to our downtown which theydemonstrated by personally getting involved and contacting the Alliance.

Alliance staff have had a sneak preview of the inside of the club, and we assure you, it is an exciting and high class addition to Downtown Stockton!

 

Business community requests info on Alliance, Events and Farmers Market

I have a few questions about the Alliance and the Farmers Market that I was hoping you could answer for me… Myself and the other businesses are still struggling with the loss of business and I just want to see if there is anything we can do to remedy the situation before local downtown business’s begin closing down…

1.) What is the official charter of the Downtown Stockton Alliance and who does the organization answer to? 

Response: The Downtown Stockton Alliance is a Property Based Improvement District.  We have a board that consists of  property owners and business owners; City and County representatives are ex-officio, non-voting members but contribute to discussion and public policy issues.  In 2007, a resolution from the City Council renewed the Alliance for 10 years. The majority of the funding for the Alliance comes from property owner assessments (over  $1M), the second highest amount of income comes from sponsorship, then from event revenue then from business assessments ($16K).

2.) How was the alliance formed and when and by whom? 

Response: The Alliance was formed in 1996 and began operations in 1998.  Downtown property owners, business owners and stakeholders formed a Property Based Improvement District; the district was voted into creation by all downtown property owners in 1997.  In 2007, the Alliance was renewed for a ten year period with an approval from 84.6% of the property owners.

3.) Is the organization considered not for profit?  

Response: The Downtown Stockton Alliance was incorporated as a 501(c)(6) non-profit corporation in 1996.  All of the funds raised through the Alliance through special events, sponsorships and assessments used for managing the district and delivering services.

4.) Regarding the farmers market, what are the statistics as far as the businesses that are providing food and retail items specifically regarding their city of origin?

Response: We have 75 vendors who have been accepted to the market this year. The market maintains a commitment to all things local, so you’ll see that more than half of all vendors are from Stockton.
Certified Producers: 29% from Stockton, 50% from cities within San Joaquin County, 7% from Stanislaus County, 7% from Sacramento County, 7% from Santa Cruz County
Bakeries and food vendors: 18% from Downtown Stockton, 52% from Stockton, 18% from cities within San Joaquin County, 6% from Santa Cruz County, 6% from Alameda County
Merchandise and Information: 16% from Downtown Stockton, 54% from Stockton, 24% from cities within San Joaquin County, 4% from Stanislaus County, 2% from Sacramento County
Performers: 96% from Stockton, 4% from Calaveras County

5.) What dates does the farmers market run through? 

Response: Each year, the Farmer’s Market begins on the first Friday in May and ends the last Friday in October.

6.) You have mentioned in the past that other cities have started similar farmers market’s in their downtown areas. What cities did you research and what contact information do you have for them? I would like to contact the local businesses in these areas to see how they have interpreted this event.

Response: The markets that we looked at are the in El Cajon, Pikes Place in Seattle, San Onofre’s market and our local markets. We don’t have contact info because we researched them doing media scans for coverage, looking at their websites and calling their vendors.

7.) Can you please explain to me in your words exactly how the downtown area is benefiting from this event?Specifically what money is coming in from this event and where it is going exactly and how this benefits the downtown area?

Response: As far as the money trail for the Farmers Market, this event is fully funded at no cost to our stakeholders via vendor fees, drink sales, bag sales and sponsorships. The money then goes to our event costs which include printing, staffing, entertainment and supplies. In 2009 alone, Downtown Stockton received over $500k in FREE media coverage associated with community events. In each one of those ad mentions, the focus was on the date and time of the event as well as the referral to the Downtown Stockton website – downtownstockton.org.   

Let’s give you an example of the amazing impact this makes:  since our campaign for Taste of San Joaquin, the traffic on our website doubled and has maintained at that high level. What’s most exciting is that the doubling of the traffic actually changed our top rated pages. Now the most requested/visited page is our business directory. What this means is that when events like the Farmers Market are used to generate FREE coverage – at no cost to our stakeholders – it is IMMEDIATELY translating into more people reading about our downtown business on our website. In addition, a value this event adds to downtown is employee retention and visitor attraction. As shown by the over 350 comments the DSA received when we omitted Farmers Market Food Vendors, employees and visitors alike see the Farmers Market as a key element of their downtown. Maintaining an image as a place that has something going on all the time is what makes citizens consider leasing space downtown, which speaks to the needs of our property stakeholders and is what makes visitors come to downtown. Revisiting the idea of the branding initiative, the DSA’s job is to create “diversionary” activities and events that draw employees out of their offices during the day and draw visitors to downtown at night to allow the businesses to capture their additional spending once they’re here. That’s our half of the partnership. The other half of the partnership that must be honored is a commitment by our stakeholders to participate in activities that are drawing thousands (in the case of the farmer’s market, 1-3 thousand visitors that come each Friday) to our downtown.  The alternative is where stakeholders sit waiting idle in their storefronts for the customers to come to them.

8.) You also mentioned that there was a petition that was submitted to the Alliance demanding that the vendors be re-instated at the farmers market. Can I possibly get some insight as to how many signatures and what these folks were representing i.e. were they market patrons, or vendors/family of vendors etc.?

Response: The petition had 212 signatures from market patrons, collected by a vendor at the market. In addition, we received feedback via email and phone from more than 30 individuals and three articles ran in The Record. Some of the contacts were representing downtown offices and departments. Several said they would boycott downtown restaurants and the market as well as requesting others working in downtown to do the same.

In closing, I want to be clear that the purpose of my inquiry is simply to understand everyone’s point of view. I am hoping that you can show me a viewpoint that perhaps I have somehow missed that would better help me to support this event in spite of the significant loss of business that the local businesses have experienced.