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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-06-18 Business and Economic Development Committee Minutes • BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE TUESDAY, 7UNE 18, 2002 Meeting Minutes Councilors Attending: Frank Farrington, John Rohman, David Nealley, Gerry Palmer StafF Attending: Ed Barrett, Jonathan Daniels, Rebecca Hupp, Mike Dyer, Rod McKay, Norm Heitmann, T.J. Martzial, Peter D'Errico, Stan Moses, Sally Bates Others Attending: Doug Clendenning Meeting convened at 5:02 p.m. 1. EMMC Request for powntown Parking Lease Bates presented a request from EMMC for up to 200 parking spaces at $33 per month, from July 1 for up to 6 months, roughly $7,000 per month. This is a • similar agreement to the one EMMC had during the period that they were constructing a parking garage on their property. Farrington asked if with the Folk Festival coming, would there be enough spaces. Parke Clemons of Republic Parking has already notified EMMC that on the Friday I of the Folk Festival, they will need to find alternative parking. i The staff recommendation was moved and seconded for approval. � 2. Downtown Occupancy and Housing Development Report. ; � Barrett noted that the Committee had requested this information a few months ; ago, and we were waiting to present it during a time when the agenda was not lengthy. He said that 300 units of housing have been added to the Downtown - area since the 1980's. � � Bates said the Occupancy Rates have improved over the last two years. Non- � retail space use has dropped a little, however retail space has grown at a ; moderately steady pace. f� [ Rohman questioned the occupied versus vacant space percentages. Bates ' � pointed out that the combined retail and non-retail space overall occupancy - space was 77%. � � i • Farrington asked if any retail or housing units were lost, to which Bates replied no. Nealley wanted to know if anything on the horizon would significantly change the Downtown area. Bates said that her department continues to promote Downtown as a place to live and do business. The only significant tenant coming into Downtown within the next few weeks will be the Bangor Museum Center. Paul Cook, a new Bangor Center Corporation director, said that never has Merchants Plaza been so full. The Stetson block has not had a first floor vacancy in a long time, whereas it used to have several on a regular basis, and most of the rooms upstairs are full as well. Bates said that Downtown is `�feeling like" the right environment for a lot of people and continues to grow. Mike Curvin, owner of the Colonial Theater in Belfast, has recently purchased a theater in downtown Houlton, but is interested in downtown Bangor. Bates noted that he was a for profit enterprise, which she favors for the added tax revenue. Rohman expressed his surprise that the numbers were not higher, because of all • the Downtown activity. Barrett said to keep in mind that the comparison is only for a two-year period. If you were to go back to the 1980's the numbers would be significantly difFerent. Barrett noted that there is still approximately 14,000 sq. ft. of the Freese's building that we would like to see filled up. A lot of the Grant's building remains vacant, partially due to the County having an interest in purchasing this for County office space. Farrington noted that getting some of these older buildings up to code could be difficult, and maybe not practical cost wise. Rohman said that on a national level that there had been rezoning so that the older downtown properties could come under different code regulations. Barrett said a statewide efFort got derailed, and we have gotten around it by being willing to invest in properties to make up the difFerence for redevelopment for office and residential. Bates said that there have been a couple of interests in people putting their business on the first floor and living on the upper floors. 3. Bass Park Report a. Lease Extension — Bangor Historic Track � I I • Dyer stated that the Bangor Historic Track has requested an agreement for the 2003 Racing Season, as they need to be approved by the State Harness Racing Commission. This would be a contract extension of one year. The motion was moved, seconded and approved. b. Bangor State Fair Update Dyer said the fair opens July 26, 39 days away. He said that Brad Paisley's songs continue to rise on the charts, and he's hoping that by the concert, his song will be number one on the charts. We have sold 2100 tickets, which has paid for him, and with 200 more tickets, and we will be out of all the expenses including advertising, and will be in a money making situation from then on. We could make $10,000 if we could sell 2800-2900 tickets. According to Bob Duschene of WQCB, for the first time in history, two Portland radio stations are sending busloads of people to the Paisley concert at the fair. The Contemporary Christian station in town wants to bring in a well-known Christian artist, Rebecca St. James. Because she is expensive, we had resisted doing this, however the radio station has come forward with a financial guarantee for her expense. She has been added to Tuesday evening. Dyer said sponsorships are coming in • slowly, due to the attention of the Folk Festival. In-kind contributions however are up, including free advertising from the media. Pre-sale passes for the fair will go on sale July 8 for $15, and we have partnered with the Bangor Daily News for pre-sale advertising, with coupons. There will be a fair program insert in the July 18 paper. Dyer passed out the latest fair schedule, which shows that Sally Brewer has really filled up the schedule with something for everyone. 4. Airport Report a. May Passenger Statistics Hupp discussed that passenger service was up again for the month of May, by 7%, while the rest of the nation continues to be experiencing a downward trend. Hupp attributes the increase to the new Delta connection flights and other increases in capacity. During May of 2001, ComAir was on strike; therefore we did not have any Delta service. The decrease in American and USAirways this year is due to the 99-100% load factors they were operating last year. Hupp noted that two things an aircarrier looks at when they're making their airport decisions, one, yield, how much they make per passenger per mile, and the second is available capacity. If you have a high yield it's okay to have a lower capacity utilized, however we are getting into a situation where we are not using all of the available capacity that we have in the market. Realistically if it's not � utilized they may put it somewhere else where it may be utilized, and get a • better return on their investment. The AP ran an article about how smaller airports are doing better than us, however Bangor did not get any press from this, even though we are smaller than Portland and doing better than them. Hupp presented a news release depicting Michael Boyd's comments from his recent presentation and the fact that Bangor is one of the fastest growing airports in the country, percentage wise for passenger growth. Rohman asked on the passenger loads, if her area of concern is PA, ACA, and AEJ. Hupp said that these were low, however, Pan Am runs older equipment which is less expensive to run, and they are happy with Bangor's market. We could stand to gain some market share, with Pan Am pulling out of some other markets. Barrett asked how USAir service is doing. Hupp said that people like it, Philadelphia is one of our top destinations, and some of their load shares could be seasonal. Nealley said that the airport should promote themselves, if the Bangor Daily is not going to print great news that we are 3rd of 140 national airports. • b. Air Service Update Hupp said that the return of CommutAir to our market would bring the Continental connection back to Bangor. This will ofFer a total of 5 carriers to Bangor, which is significant for a community of our size. This route will go from Bangor to Albany. We are meeting with American Eagle on July 2 to review the Chicago proposal. Other carriers are not expanding into new markets. Rohman asked if when flying into Albany on a Continental connection, where is your connection from there. Hupp said that you could fly into LaGuardia, and bypass Boston. . c. CommutAir Lease The Committee approved the CommutAir lease. d. T-Hangar Project Progress Report Hupp said the final proposal would be a 10-bay hangar. We have had 16-18 individuals request to enter into lease agreements for these facilities. The cost will be $280,000 for the airport. We are waiting on permits. � Rohman asked that Hupp bring in the final proposal showing the breakdown. � Hupp said that this is a storage facility for aircraft in a hangar shaped like a T, for small private aircraft. Nealley asked about private aircraft flying into Bar Harbor, to which Hupp replied that they do so because that is their end destination and to save time, and that they would not be interested in flying to Bangor first. However, Bar Harbor is not conducive to landings during inclement weather. Hupp said that various celebrities, political figures and Fortune 500 companies use Bangor for stops, and that the airport always tries to promote Bangor during these stops. Hupp said American Eagle is going to all jets beginning on July 2"d, in response to the competitive environment with Delta connection service to Boston. The runway project is proceeding. On July 8th, an inaugural event will take place. She also noted that they were having a Travel Agent Event on June 27t" to recognize the work that they do. Rohman noted that it would be very helpful if we could get some council members to attend the Travel Agent Event. Nealley asked about the importance of travel agents, and whether it would be better for travelers to go directly to the airline to book their flights, and weren't some agents referring clients away from Bangor. Rohman said this is precisely why • the council should be there to promote the City's interest in BGR. Barrett noted that we do have links from our website to check airfares. Hupp said it was important to keep travel agents as our allies. 5. Report on European Trip —Jonathan Daniels/Rod McKay Daniels presented a first draft of a briefing sheet/overview of their week in the Netherlands. From this report, he briefed the committee on their week's activities. He stated that he worked with Rick Morin, an international business consultant. Morin had put together a weeklong program, allowing them to meet a variety of government officials and private industry officials. Daniels said that in many respects, he and McKay were doing the State of Maine's work in educating them. Once they realized where Maine was, and Bangor in particular, in relation to Canada and the rest of the United States, there was a lot of general interest. The meeting adjourned at 6:28 p.m. I � � � � � i