I mean that's when I did when our son was on the stead of it be that's tell me a year and a half programs that you have to feel like once you know yourself a little bit welcome to the August eleventh twenty twenty-five meeting of the Lafayette Downtown Development Authority.

Executive Director Keating, may we have a roll call vote?

Director Barnes, Chair Kagan.

Here.

Director Hardy.

Director Hubler.

Is that Albert?

Oh, I stumbled on that one.

Hubbard.

Director LeCo.

Here.

Director Mundine.

Here.

Vice Chair Rogers.

Here.

Okay, first on the agenda is public input.

If any member of the public wishes to speak, please state your name and you'll have five minutes to speak.

Okay.

Seeing no members who wish to speak, I'll now close public input.

We'll now move on to approval of the July 17th, 2025 meeting minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes?

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

That passes.

Okay, moving on to presentation and workshop.

The first agenda item is the presentation of the Lafayette Downtown Development Authority logo options.

I'll now turn it over to Executive Director T.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm really excited about.

Well, I say that all every single time, I guess.

I'm really excited about tonight because we have a lot of fun agenda items.

And the first one is I'm going to be welcoming Emmy Hall, who's going to be going over some options for potential Lafayette Downtown Development Authority logo.

She's done a lot of work, including all these fun stickers that are on my computer.

And so I engaged Emmy to think about what some potential logos could be.

And so worked with Emmy.

Well, Emmy did all the work.

But the idea is that we're trying to establish a distinct, fun, and professional visual identity for the DDA that reflects our mission, supports communication efforts, and complements the existing Old Town Lafayette identity.

So we have four design concepts.

We don't have to pick one tonight, and I'm going to be giving y'all a survey later to fill out.

But wanted to have Emmy have the opportunity to present these and give you some background for the little design details.

And so she'll go through the design brief, logo references, options, some next steps and discussion.

So with that, I'm gonna drive the presentation and turn it over to Emmy.

Thank you, Bridget.

So Arts and Lafayette, as far as inspiration goes, I think was my top uh contender, uh driver in the seat.

Uh Festival Plaza is the heart of downtown.

And so looking up at the sun sails, there was this really nice shape that started to come into motion.

So that played a lot uh as far as a couple of the design um creations.

We wanted to represent the preservation, but also the enhancing of Old Town.

So something that has a timeless element to it was important.

Uh, and then also creating pathways to ownership.

This goes back to what the GDA is here for and what they represent, um, but also something that helps us look forward to growth because Lafayette's done some growing paints.

You guys might be aware of that.

Uh Bridget, next slide, please.

So, as far as what a good logo does, at its core, it needs to work well on web, it needs to work well printed.

Uh, as far as this one in particular goes, it needs to work with the city of Lafayette and the Old Town logos because they will probably be seen a lot uh in close proximity, and then work within a current color palette because that color palette's pretty strong.

Um I also wanted to give you guys some horizontal and vertical options because sometimes your output needs a different format.

So having a design that works in different orientations, but also you can tell like it hasn't been modified too much was important, and then uh cohesive next to frequent partners, including the ones for the businesses in Old Town.

So, as far as logo research went, that's usually where you start once you get your brief, is let's look at some other downtown logo references.

So these were ones that are either in close proximity or ones that were in inspired by some weekend.

So our first option.

I just showed you guys these in color and then on a black background.

Uh this was inspired by the balloons that you see when you come in town.

It also represents kind of a you are here icon, and then if you look at just the shapes in general, it comes kind of to a little merging of a T.

So bringing people together.

Uh this is what it looks like on black, so pops really nice.

Here are some options to show you what so when we talk about the typography, Futura is the classic.

You'll see this on one other design.

Um, and then there's some two other options as well, but it's really uplifting.

The blue lifts things up, it's refreshing.

Um, that you are here icon, I think could be represented as you belong here in Lafayette, which is part of the City of Lafayette's brand.

Um, and then it creates that coming together.

So Bridget and I came up with some options to show you guys uh what it would look like in motion as a gift, uh, what it would look like if we needed to do just like one solid color, vertical and horizontal.

And then uh if we were to put it into web applications, I wanted you guys to see what it looks like on the current Old Town Lafayette website, and then what it would look like on documents, swag, etc.

And then the last slide here for this one is what it looks like in between these two.

So still calling back to the old town logo, the city logo.

Design two is really fun.

They're all fun.

Uh so this is inspired by the the interior looking up in the sun shade center.

Uh, it's also a couple L's for Lafayette grouped together.

It creates a sunburst.

Uh, here's what it looks like in black and white.

Again, they all pop.

I want them all to have the same level of intensity.

Um we're using Futura again just because it's a classic, but it's very bright, it's very refreshing.

Um I think it also represents the different parts of the community being brought together because I think that diversity is super important, and being able to represent that in the logo.

Uh you'll see that in a couple other designs as well.

And then we'll go ahead and show you what it looks like in motion.

Not like a what is that, the doom uh circle on an apple icon.

That's not what we're going for here, but I wanted to see what it would look like.

Motion icon itself, I think could be really strong on you know, think of it like on a little polo.

That would look super short.

Um, and then show you guys the next slide.

Works pretty well again with what we have already represented.

So yeah, I wanted to, I wanted all these to blend.

So color palette stays the same, look super sharp, vertical and horizontal.

And then there is betwixt the other look.

Okay, option three.

This one uh we went more with like an arts uh element.

So we've got some buildings represented using some paint strokes.

Uh there's also a little secret L D D A in there.

So a lot of layers to this one.

Uh looks pretty sharp against the black background as well.

The um other pieces of this when it's in a grayscale, which I've got some handouts here, so you guys can see, it creates kind of this nice night like element.

Uh so if there's anything that we're doing at the end of the day, uh it's like you turn on you turn on the party lights and ready to go.

Um, the font on this one is railway, which is also already used on the old town website.

Um, so that could be implemented pretty seamlessly.

It really highlights the artistic focus of Old Town.

Um then here is what it looks like.

I wanted to show you guys what it looked like with the paintbrush handle because that is a piece that I think could be implemented in a couple fun executions, and then horizontal vertical, and then a little bug as you call it, which is just that graphic image by itself.

Um, still seems pretty strong.

This one fills the width of that space pretty good.

Thank you, Burke.

And then right.

Cool.

And then option four.

Uh we're going back to that sun sale element.

Um, I think the star icon here, it's more of the silhouette that is at the inside shape of the sun sails, but the little puzzle pieces or the pie pieces around it, I think really represent coming together as a town and help building the pieces that make that shape.

Um, this icon I think could work really well, like tessellated as a textured background.

Um, to keep that in mind if you're thinking of different applications.

It's really bright and refreshing.

Again, it builds that sense of community.

That star icon, very similar to the balloon, uh, says you are here, so if you're seeing it on a map, it's right there.

Um, so a lot of a lot of different elements, I think, depending on which one you guys look to go with can be represented, just going back to what you think is the main focus of what the DDA represents.

Um, yeah, that one's really fun.

I liked I had fun with the gifts, you guys.

They're very exciting when I saw them.

Those are new.

So, yeah, uh fits well on the web page.

Works pretty seamlessly with our documents and potential swag branding.

I'm getting ready for my like bags and everything.

I've been thinking about the DDA bags.

The polo's really exciting.

This one's the other one.

So you guys these are yours to take.

Um you might not actually know all those, but um these are for you to sift through.

I have options that show you what it looks like in black and white or grayscale.

Uh sign of a good logo is that if it doesn't look good in black and white, it's not a good logo.

So take some time to look through those.

Uh the notes of the PowerPoint for you know the typography used, what senses it's supposed to invoke are in the top corner of each of those pages, and then Bridget will send out that survey and you guys can vote.

Uh, is there anything that looks out to you guys about any these they're so great, thank you for doing that.

Yeah, you guys appreciate it.

I'm excited for that.

I think it's gonna be a fun new season.

Okay brush, use central strikes work.

Yeah, yeah.

I will tell you, I didn't give you anything that I wouldn't want sent to production.

So you're not gonna hurt my feelings if you like one over the others.

Take those back so they're not using away.

Yeah, so um thank you, Emmy.

This was a really cool product to work with you on.

And uh, as you can see, I'm a big fan of that.

Um we're so lucky that we have a graphic designer in-house and use a lap yet, and so this was a really cool opportunity to be able to work with her on it.

Um so she's in here.

We have any initial thoughts or questions that we want to ask her.

And um, you know, I also want to be able for you all to have time with them to like look at them and really think about one stands out to you, or you know, I like this one, but maybe tweak this.

Um so I'll send out that survey, and then if there is a clear preferred option or options, we can bring that back and kind of have that discussion.

But wanted to open it up to see if there's any other questions or comments for Emmy.

Sometimes no notes is good.

I will just ask that you guys keep in mind you know who your audience is for this.

Sometimes personal preference can get in the way of a good logo, and sometimes you just have to sit aside and be like, okay, what are my personal feelings for this?

Like, are they relevant to who we're trying to reach versus is this going to evoke something in our target?

Yeah, so keep that in mind as you're thinking about them.

I think that's helpful advice.

It I feel like we're gonna, you know, we're in that it it's like when you have too many pictures for opening day, like it's a good dilemma, right?

They I could imagine all of them um working, which is really exciting, yeah, and it all makes it seem more real, not just because of I want that bag, but yeah, about where you have these logos are gonna be, about who who's gonna see them.

Yeah, like so.

I think they're all usable is what it message we want to get across when we're using the paintbrush or what I'm putting in it, are you know maybe that's gonna speed to that quite of taking those down and how just the pieces brandable without the letters too something to like because we're gonna be doing things on the street where it may not always have the ability to put all the warning having that piece that brand hold that people can identify when it's stamped with that that oh D we did that you know that was happening with one thing.

Yeah, it's quite a mouthful, yeah.

Yeah, all of those icons are bugs depending on you know what your terminology is using.

I wanted them to be very distinct, like we were looking at what Laura has done in the past and you know the hopscotch uh piece that happened, like I could see a spray painting, you know, not permanently, but it's a fun thing.

Any one of these designs, and because they're so distinctive, like they're gonna be recognizable as the more we get it out there, the more the people see them.

So just say we didn't think about audio of uh a lot of fun, I'm gonna focus on visible people shopping and the customers of the city.

Um, but I think a lot of the work that we're doing also be really focused on small business solar professional.

These all seem very fun and playful.

Um I don't know if they quite speak the professional level.

So we should like think about that too.

Yeah, and look at them in black and white.

See if the black and white evokes something different besides because the colors I think themselves are very playful, and that's what creates that sense of whimsy, but they can also be super professional and super entrepreneurial driven depending on how it's being represented.

Thank you.

Cool.

So I'll um send over that survey probably tomorrow.

Um time with it.

There's a clear preferred option, then um you know we can have that discussion.

But if there is a couple that rise to talk, we can figure that out.

Um yeah, I'm really excited about this logo, particularly because um as much as I love our old town logo, there's so much to it, and so being able to have something that is clean and new and also still playful because we are a very vibrant district, um, is exciting, and it just means like a new chapter.

So um thank you, Emmy, for putting these together, they're incredible.

Um we'll be in touch soon.

Cool.

Thanks, guys.

Have fun.

Yeah, thank you.

Just one more question before we close this out.

Can you see over time a slide select?

Otherwise, we like to walk over a lot of festival color that start the building, it all just looks kind of to me that it looks like things.

Can you see should we think we'll forward about that and what that might like before we try to rely on?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's we're an entity, right?

And then how do we visually wanna be represented in the physical environment of Old Town as well in our downtown area?

And so does that mean do we need to think about redoing our parking signs or way binding?

Um, there's a lot of different opportunities to think about how we physically represent this logo, also yeah.

I think the other thing of the banners that we just completed for economic development.

Uh the color schemes used were pulled from a lot of the local buildings, the city's color palette, and then the old town color palette.

So these have been tested.

And if we need to change them, we can also do that too.

Yeah, great one.

Cool.

Thanks, Sammy.

Yeah.

Great.

Very good.

So yeah.

I'm gonna let's go through a second to have to be.

Um I practiced.

Okay.

So next on our agenda is the presentation of the Old Town Lafayette Marketing campaign.

Um I'm really excited.

Okay.

Lisa and CJ from Cloud Marketing.

Um Waffe Urban Renewal Authority started this effort of marketing in the downtown because of COVID.

Um we we did a survey for businesses and asked them what sort of support do you need.

And this was about 2021.

And a lot of what we've heard was um we need people to know that we're open for business.

We want people to know what's happening down here to not only remind our residents to come back to the downtown, but also visitors and from nearby communities.

And so we uh released a request for proposals um and got some great responses and uh selected cone marketing.

And so they've done some really um great and creative work these past couple years of just creating these channels from scratch.

And so um they created a website, a Facebook, uh, Instagram, um, and they've also just done a lot of district wide activation.

And so with Laura winding down in the DDA or any meta, um marketing is something that the DDA will be um charged with of what we're seeing, and so wanted to um invite Cone because they've been working in Old Town for a couple of years behind the scenes to share what they've done and also give some metrics as far as the impact that they've had, and um, you know, you some of you might be you know followers on Instagram or seeing the website, but um being able to give Calm the opportunity to go through all the work that they've done, I think will be really great.

And this is gonna be a casual presentation, so please jump in throughout if you have questions or um wanna uh hone in on something, they have a ton of metrics on the back end.

So if we want to geek out, we can totally do that.

Um so with that, I'm gonna turn that over to the same CJ.

Great.

Thank you so much for helping us.

Um, one, I think Emmy set us up real well.

She talked about Project Hopscotch, she showed the website, so I felt like we got a little preview into what we're about to go through.

And to CJ and I are just two people from a team that works on this account from two designers, we have an SEO specialist, we have a website specialist, um, we have writers and social media people, and so we will do our best to answer all of your questions.

Um, but if there's anything super technical that I personally can't answer, we'll make sure to get those answers for you from the rest of those people behind us.

They wanted to come.

They did.

I told them so they could only review.

Um, so yes, we're here to kind of cover everything and um hopefully kind of give you a really big overview of what's been going on.

We have about 50 slides.

So we'll try and go quickly, but not so quickly that we pass over things, but please interrupt at any point and um jump in and ask questions.

Um talk about our first sort of entry point into this project, and um one of the first impressions that we got was this wasn't going to be a project like other downtown districts that we have done.

It wasn't these massive goals of becoming this major tourist hub.

It was really rooted in a lot of authenticity as it related to just show people how amazing we are.

We don't need to like excuse it from the rooftops, but people need to understand what is happening here and how amazing it is.

And so um when we sat down with Bridget and the rest of the Laura team, um, these were kind of the major themes that came out of the overview of what the project looked like.

And it was really about community identity isn't built, it's shared because it already exists.

Um, connection is what drives action.

You know, visitors follow stories, not signage.

They want to know the fabric of the place, what they can experience, what it feels like.

Events matter a lot here because they're very personal, and that visibility supports economic vitality.

Traffic awareness, connection is really what we were trying to accomplish.

And when we started this process, we knew that we couldn't just go to the internet and do some searching.

We had to sit down and get to know the business owners, the people who live here.

And so we started with some surveys and stakeholder interviews.

And you can kind of see on the right hand side all the people that we talked to.

So we did those one-on-one interviews in addition to surveys across all of the businesses.

We wanted to get some cultural insights directly from the people who work and live here.

What we started to understand is that there were very much shared desires across those groups.

Spontaneity, soul, connection were three big pillars that popped up.

And so we took all of that information, we tried to boil it down to okay, what is going to be our guiding light or North Star as we start to put together a marketing plan.

And at that time in 2021, coming out of COVID, it was celebrate spontaneity, fuel collaboration, support inclusive storytelling, promote wayfinding through experiences, and prioritize the people of Lafayette.

From there, we put together a pretty robust marketing plan.

And as Bridget started to kind of allude to, these are on the left hand side are all the different touch points that we sort of came out of the gates with.

Or to share their stories.

Or to share their stories, exactly.

And so we built from scratch the website, social media blog.

We come quarterly to take photos so that we can keep those images fresh.

We built out a newsletter, we have done several community activations, we've incorporated video, and we've worked with at that time Laura with some signage and community material ideas.

So there was a lot of upfront work that had to get done.

And we came out of the gate with some huge foundational wins.

I think one of those being that there was this unified brand identity that very much felt like it came from the inside out.

We built a website that has all of the information anybody would need to understand what's happening in Old Town Lafayette, has a directory, events, and maps.

We grew the social media accounts from zero to 4,000 followers.

We started a storefront stories video series, and we created a repeatable framework so that we could keep people informed almost in real time on what's going on.

And so we'll get into more detail and kind of show you show and tell a lot of these channels here now.

But before we jump in, any questions about kind of the history.

No?

Okay.

All right, this is where it's gonna start to get deep.

As we mentioned, on the right-hand side is all of the ongoing work that Code is doing on behalf of Old Town Lafayette right now.

We do keep a very steady rhythm of information.

We have a very open channel of communication with all of the business owners.

So it's very easy for us to quickly get what we need to, and they're pretty familiar with us at this point.

So when we pop in or shoot them an email, we get pretty good responses.

But we're gonna start our little journey with community activations.

Um these are what we kind of call real life moments that bring people together.

Um of the first massive projects that we took on was building out this map that we keep updated pretty regularly, probably somewhere around quarterly as businesses change out, come in, shift.

Um, but as you can see here, this has every single business categorized by sort of what purpose they serve within the community, um, and allows people to kind of see all the different um activation or activities and stores and whatnot uh throughout Old Town.

This is probably more helpful for people who are coming in from outside of Lafayette, but just shows the depth of kind of experiences and businesses you have here.

Um the first activation that we did coming out of COVID, which Emmy previewed for us was this idea called Project Hopscotch.

This is that same map, but this one also had the hopscotch locations on it, which are the little hashtags.

Um, that's what spurred the creation of this map.

Um, but when we sat down to kind of figure out what activation could we put together coming out of COVID, there was a lot of different goals that we had for this.

There was wayfinding.

There was trying to understand which parts of the community had less traffic.

There was supporting the local arts community.

We wanted to make sure that we were representative of different ethnicities and different uh languages.

We wanted to make sure that it was pulling people out and back into into Lafayette.

And so we came up with this idea called Project Hopscotch, which allowed us to work with the local artists to design 10, I believe, hopscotch courses that we then laid out throughout the district.

Um each one of these hopscotches had a QR code on it, so that um when you scanned it, it would automatically trigger a donation to an art scholarship.

But what it also allowed us to do was to see which parts of the community were seeing less traffic and which parts of the community have more traffic.

Um so it was actually very valuable information that we were able to gather from it.

Um we put these posters together that were in both English and Spanish that the um businesses could put in their windows.

We went through a whole public relations effort.

Um we were in the Denver Post, Colorado Hometown Weekly, Daily Camera, Macaroni Kit.

We were able to raise $1,600 to those QR codes.

We had more than 3,000 landing page visitors in four weeks.

Um we started to spark some conversations on social media and next door, and we were able to really pull that artistic vibe of Old Town Lafayette through the design of the of the hopscotch courses.

Um this was our first kind of foray into activations, and it was a huge success and fun, and obviously Emmy remembers it, then it must be somewhat memorable.

Well, especially coming out of COVID too.

Yeah, the play a little, you know.

Any questions on those?

No.

Okay, so the next activation that we launched was something called Storefront Stories.

Um this was also very intentional.

We were coming out of the holidays, there was a lull.

People had shopped and been out and about and were probably a little tired at this point.

And so we were trying to figure out how we could get in front of them and drive them back into some of these business storefronts.

And so we partnered with one of your local um influencers, Jonathan at Kaleidoscope, and he did a six-part video series where he would go in and interview the business owners and create these very organic, um, very fun, and you know his personality, I'm sure.

Um, very engaging videos with some of the business owners throughout town.

And um this was just a way to remind people that even though it's January and February and it's cold, there's still some amazing stuff to come out and do and see.

And so it was really fun working with Jonathan, and we've continued to work with him on several projects um since then.

He's a force of nature.

He is a force of nature.

We enjoy him very much.

Um, but for example, I could show you.

Sorry, I keep forgetting that I have all of this stuff saved on here.

Via Colorado, we have a lot to explore and a lot to discover.

So we are telling storefront stories.

Today we're visiting Cherry's Cheesecakes, which is just off public road at 11 North Harrison Avenue in the lumberyards.

We're here at your place, Cherries Cheesecakes, and you're here in Old Town Lafayette.

What brought you to Old Town Lafayette to open your shop?

Well, my husband and I had catered here before and sold my cheesecakes and everything, and the people were great, and we had a good turnout, and we always sold out of cheesecakes.

Tony, you were saying that you have over 100 varieties of cheesecakes.

Yes, I do.

What have you found like the sort of Lafayette, Old Town Lafayette business community to be like?

They're great because it's just like they will send me customers, I send them customers, and we work together as a good collaboration with helping each other, and that's what I love about being in this community because we love to help each other out.

And is this your first bricks in order business, even though you've been making these cheesecakes and perfecting these recipes for so long?

This is your first bricks in order, right?

It is.

That's cool.

Is it exciting?

It is.

This is what I should have been doing a long time ago.

But this is the perfect time for me to do this.

And I love it.

I could not have chosen a better community to be in.

Tell us.

Yes, just a little step out of one of the videos.

I think we did six of these.

Um I have to figure out how to get back to my presentation.

Oh, um, and so just like I said, a snapshot of some of the stuff that we have done to try and showcase the community, get people out and about, um, and show the kind of energy of the people that live and work here.

Questions.

All right.

One of the um things that is no.

Before you, sorry, before you go on, I just want to say I think that in something like Old Town, it's the kind of thing where when you're there and you're walking around, you can really feel it.

And it's trying to translate that to a virtual digital environment is really challenging.

And so that's why I love these little things.

It's because you can really see the personality, the vibe, all that.

Um, and which is one of the reasons we've gotten to know so many of the business owners so well over the past few years is we do a monthly blog.

Um, these are for just discovery and amplification of the businesses that are here.

It's hopefully a valuable thing for them because it gets them more exposure.

Um, but this just showcases sort of the little system that we've created as it relates to the blog posts.

If we go to this one, Box Glove is one of the recent ones that we just did.

Um, we work really hard to make sure that we are linking out to a lot of the other businesses, especially if they're partnering together to I think in this case they were doing some like lavender-infused cocktails, and I just think it's very cool that so many of the businesses collaborate.

Um, we also work hard, and you might think some of these are long, but we want them to have some really saturated SEO and drive people to the sites.

Um, and you'll see a lot of those metrics coming up and kind of slides down the road.

But you know, we run, we do a whole QA with them before we do these blog posts.

We run it past them to make sure that they're comfortable with them.

Um, we allow them to kind of, I always ask them what's your vibe, what's your tone, what's your style, so that we can write in that sort of you know, vein that they feel like it's coming from them and it's coming from their business.

Um, we also then make sure that those blog posts are posted to the website.

Then we link to the bio so that they can get to the blog posts easily.

You can see this one was a very popular one.

People are clearly very excited about Box Glove because it got one of the highest engagements of any of the posts that we've ever done.

And just oozing positivity.

Everybody that interacted with it is clearly very excited about this, about this business.

And to add to the blog posts, um, so uh a lot of you know Isabella who's on my team for icon development, and she's been doing a great job managing all the old town work and working with home.

When a new business comes into town, um, one of the things that we do as far as business attraction and getting them like launched is we want to make sure that we have a blog post for them, that they're featured on the website, that we do some big social media pushes just to get that story out there, you know, who they are and why they're choosing Lafayette.

Um, and you know, Isabel and I also just in our regular retention work, sometimes we'll hear businesses say, I'm I'm struggling right now, and I need more traffic, and it's an opportunity to also re-engage um with marketing to try to just get their stories out again.

Um so Isabella and I from the City of Technology development um stand our perspective use this also as a tool to just make sure that we're doing business retention and also attraction, and then also hold businesses when they're expanding too.

So um, it's it's been a fun tool to be able to just get more awareness about what's happening in Old Town.

Well, and with every one of these posts, um Lafayette generously donates 250 dollars for us to do a small ad campaign so it gets them even further reach, just kind of put a asterisk or a star next to this note.

This is the only paid advertising that we do.

So when you start to see some of the metrics in later slides, just keep in mind that 90% of those metrics are fueled through organic efforts.

This is the only paid component that we really do.

Um, and it didn't again, it's just to get a few extra eyeballs on some of these new businesses and give them a little kind of head start as they're starting out in Old Town Lafayette.

So those are boosted posts.

So the organic post right here on the left, that's the one we just post on our website organically, and then that one on the right, this is open now.

That's the one we put a little bit of money in behind and and kind of broadcast it to the bubble around Lafayette.

So we don't go too deep outside of this, but we keep it really tight into the kind of community area.

So this is where you're gonna start to see a whole bunch of numbers.

Um, but the blogs have been a really powerful tool for us to drive engagement, support the merchants.

Um as of right now, we have 993 blog users, more than 1200 blog sessions.

Um average duration is a minute, a little over a minute and a half.

So these are all just numbers, but I guess kind of to keep in mind is that um we are up with return visits year over year.

So each year we're seeing more and more people come back to the website on a regular basis.

Um also a very great stat and why these blog posts are so kind of valuable is that um the blog is driving 50% of our organic search, which means that's how people are finding our website without using paid efforts.

Um social media drives 25% of the traffic to the blogs and direct traffic.

So people who are going back to read the blogs because they know they're there is at 22%.

So they're performing at a high level, they're getting people to the website, which means those merchants are getting seen.

On the right hand side, that's just a list of the most popular blogs since we started them this year.

Um, but really overall blog performance in 2025 is showing stronger engagement, better time on page, and more return traffic, which means that people are liking what they're reading.

It's a little hard for me to read from here, but the total blog users of nine.

993.

These are all-time user readers of the blog this year.

And also um, for you all I emailed over this presentation just when they started.

So if you want to follow along, feel free to open up your computer.

Yeah, don't skip too far ahead.

Oh, yes.

Um, social media calendars and creative assets.

So while the blogs are really intentional, planned, making sure that we're spotlighting new businesses coming in.

Social media is where we get to be kind of in the moment, real-time storytelling, um, have a lot of fun with visually what we're doing, um, and highlight things that are happening in the moment.

So I'm going to just link out to our Instagram page just because it's an easier channel to review than Facebook.

Um, but this is where like everything happens as it relates to showing some love to maybe a business that's been here for a while and hasn't had exposure, you know, showcasing the actual people who operate these businesses and what drove them to do this, um, showing what events are coming up, the artwork goes over really really well as it relates to kind of drawing attention to um like the art on the street.

We try and have fun with it.

So, like for these, a lot of times we'll put a little riddle in there of like where where is this located in Lafayette?

Also trying to get them to get out and go and look for some of these um different pieces of art.

This one is a very popular one, by the way.

Yeah, we're all doing the direct.

Yeah.

So, you know, we try and mix up the visuals, we pull from the partners when they're running events, we pull images that we've taken over the past several quarters.

We're obviously showcasing these um blog posts.

We try and you know, highlight a whole bunch of different um businesses, the different events.

So the farmers market also crushes it on a regular basis.

But you know, we like to have fun with this, and we've shifted our social media strategy a little bit over the past year, well, six months of 2025 to just kind of test a bunch of different kind of creative ideas or themes or topics.

Some of these are kid related, some of these are focusing on businesses, but um it is uh working because the the numbers are seeing massive increases over the past six months of us just kind of exploring and having fun with what we're putting up there.

Um there's a lot of numbers here that I'm not going to go through one by one because we might be here all night, but as you can just see from these percentage columns, this is how much increase in all of these different metrics that we've seen over the past six months.

Um, and over here on the right-hand side, that kind of gives you context into what those metrics mean.

Um, but if you were going to just boil it all down.

If you look at a small downtown district with a very hyper-local audience, um, we have over 4,000 followers right now, and three to five organic followers is often considered very strong, especially when those followers are engaged locals.

Many comparable districts plateau under 2,000.

Um, and we aren't doing much ads ad spend.

So you have a very engaged community.

Um, the quality of the audience, so actual community members, local business owners, and visitors really does matter more than the raw number.

We want to be in front of the people who are actually utilizing Old Town Lafayette.

Um, again, what makes this impressive very minimal ad dollars?

It's very authentic.

We have very consistent engagement.

The engagement rate is between two and six percent.

Um, and we're at 6.12%.

So if you look over here on the right, these are the benchmarks for a downtown district of your size, where most are versus where Old Town Lafayette is.

So we're doing well, and you've got great followers.

Yeah, you're in the top tier of small organically grown destination accounts.

Questions.

So hopefully this opens because I logged into it before, but we've done seven newsletters.

So we didn't start doing these newsletters until April of 2024.

We started with the list of 231 recipients and we're at this number's actually already outdated.

We're about 1,215 subscribers now.

And these newsletters are performing at two times industry standard.

So why wouldn't I just think people like the content?

I mean, you can see right here.

Um typical open rate for a newsletter is 21 to 25%.

We're getting 46% open rate.

Um industry average for clicking through.

So there's a lot of different links throughout these newsletters.

Typical click through rate is two to two and a half percent, we're getting 6.7%.

So I can actually open up one of the most recent newsletters.

Um, and you'll see this might look confusing, but we test when the best time is to send a newsletter out.

So, for example, in Q1, when we sent it out, we immediately got a 44% open rate.

When we did the Q2 one, we sent it on a different day, saw that it only hit a 32% open rate.

So we did a resend to everybody who did not open it the first time, and we're able to boost those numbers back up to kind of that average of between 45 to 50% open rate.

Um I think we can actually see the campaigns.

Um this was view campaign, the most recent newsletter that we did.

Um, so this one was showcasing all the new art in the streets.

We linked out again to every uh or to a variety of the different um pieces of art, including the artists who made them.

Um then we showcased the most recent blog posts to again try and drive people to those blog posts if they hadn't read them yet.

Um and then we did a kind of perfect day in Old Town Lafayette.

So uh recommendation of what you could do morning, afternoon, and evening, and again, linking out to a lot of the different businesses and trying to get them some coverage and some exposure.

One theory on like why engagement in particular could be higher here than somewhere else, is what Lisa was saying earlier about the ad spend.

These are people who really do care.

You know, the followers really do care, the subscribers really do care, they're not necessarily bought and paid for, you know.

Yeah.

Um then we try and list all of the upcoming events within a reasonable time frame.

And I think this is also a really cool thing just to see in a snapshot of all the diversity of events that are going on here.

Um, but really something for anybody.

Is that done via the whole process?

Yeah, I will get to that.

How do you determine what you're going to include in your social media channels and newsletters?

I work very closely with Isabella, and we meet what, like twice a month, and we talk about um businesses that have coming in, some that maybe haven't gotten as much love recently, some that need a little bit of help.

Um, Isabella always knows what major events are coming in.

Um we had talked about hey, let's kind of it's summer, let's show what a really fun day in summer might look like.

Um, when we get into the next quarter, we'll talk about like what's coming on in the fall and um what business.

I know there's some new, there's a new craft business that's coming in, there's like the I business that's coming in, and so we work together to kind of figure out what's going to be featured each week or each quarter.

Yeah, and they put together like a social media calendar, and so they'll send it over, I'll provide any feedback, comments, say hey, you can include this, remove this.

It's we work together to kind of put those calendars together.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh this one's a quick one.

So seasonal photography.

We come once a quarter with a professional photographer.

Um, and we capture what's happening seasonally in Old Town Lafayette.

And so when we came at the I think this was first quarter of this year, we came through when we took a picture of all of the new artwork.

This is what we use to source content on our website, our social media channels, in our newsletter, so that it feels current to what's happening in Old Town Lafayette at that time.

So those were the new public art.

When we came at the end of Q4 last year, we went through and really captured almost at least probably half of all of the different um businesses inside interiors, outside interiors.

So again, this is all stuff that the businesses now have access to, and they can use and have fresh photography of their businesses and what's going on.

Pardon?

Second column.

Yep.

Yep.

Did you provide the photos to the businesses?

We can.

They can access them.

But I mean, I can figure they were like ones they can use.

And so I was like, oh yeah.

Yeah, we got the Requeen.

So this was one when we went inside and captured some photos as well.

Yeah, our photographer went a little crazy, the end of Q4 going around town.

But all right, the website.

This is kind of the big one.

So this is really our digital front door for businesses, events, and experiences.

Again, a lot of data.

So for total users, just January through July, we're at 8,000.

A typical benchmark annually for a district website of our size is about five to ten thousand.

Total sessions is 10 and a half.

You know, we're just performing on a really strong level as it relates to the number of people that are coming to the site, engaging with the site, staying on the site, and visiting multiple pages on the site.

Our highest traffic pages, and this is where we'll kind of answer your question, sir, is the events page.

And as far as the process for people to get us those events, they can click here on submit an event.

All they have to do is submit this form with all this information.

We get that, and within about 24 to 48 hours of business day, we can get that event up onto the website.

I will say that one of the things with events page is we want it to kind of be a special event.

And so if um we've had some times where we realize that what someone is asking to put on the events page is probably better for just social media posts and stories if they're having like a special that night or something.

Um so we we we want to be able to use different platforms for different ways to promote them.

So sometimes we'll do just like Instagram or Facebook stories or reels, and then we'll do an event if it is like the farmers market or uh a special music event.

Um, we try to make sure that we have those different platforms.

Yeah.

Um they people have been great.

I don't know if it's summer months, maybe more's going on, but we've got a huge influx of events um over the past probably couple of months, which keeps things very interesting on the page.

Yeah, I was just gonna ask who I think I missed this.

These statistics are based on which are they national social states or are they local?

They are national statistics based on small downtown districts, but they're scoped across the whole US.

Um hold on, let me get to that.

So, yeah, it's not just Colorado based.

Okay, that's what you're asking.

Uh yeah, yeah.

So it took benchmarks for small downtown districts across the country, and a lot of it being like with organic.

So, like I said earlier, we don't do a whole lot of paid.

Um, we would rather use the money for more organic, more authentic, more stuff, honestly.

And so without using any paid content, we're really still exceeding districts who are actually using paid.

Um again, I think that goes back to who old town is, which is a very authentic place, very community-driven, and people can sense that because they aren't getting blasted with ads for Old Town Lafayette.

Um how are people getting to our website?

So, as far as the top trafficked websites, our pages within your website, events is number one things to do, um, which kind of categorizes public art, alley tours, walking trails, splash pad, museums, theaters, and music.

That is a high traffic one.

The directory is a very high trafficked page.

This is where people can come in and actually see all the different businesses that exist.

So the direct traffic to the site.

So if you're taking all the people that come to the website, 21% of those people are coming direct.

Benchmark is really 15 to 20%.

That means people are just typing in your URL into their search engine.

I want an independent dessert place, or I'm looking for an independent bookstore or a coffee shop.

They're finding Old Town Lafayette because of the dense amount of content that is on your website.

Benchmark for SEO-driven visitors is really 35 to 40% 45%.

We are at 55%.

And we're right there in the upper echelon of the benchmark, which is about 10 to 20% of visitors come from social media.

But again, this just goes to show that getting people to your website is really meant to drive merchant and community support.

You're getting a lot of local SEO wins as it relates to impressions.

You're getting 755,000 organic impressions.

That's year to date, so starting January of this year.

Benchmark for similar size districts is really as 100 to 300,000.

You have a number one rankings for hypo-local queries.

So when people are searching for things like pottery class near me, live music near me, local bookstore near me, old town Lafayette is showing up at the top of their search.

Just really quickly, I just want to give they're not.

No.

And the next few slides are really just giving you a quick preview into how we operate and how we work together with Isabella and Bridget.

We work under a monthly fixed fee retainer, which basically means that there are no surprises.

You know exactly what you're paying each month, and we will get that work done whether we go over the hours or not.

That fee covers strategy, content, social media, design, reporting, website maintenance, photography, um, you know, and we come out to Lafayette once a quarter, mingle with the merchants, show our faces, have some fun.

Um there are no surprise hours.

We do quote special projects separately.

So, like for example, Project Hopscotch was sort of its own entity because there was printing and um we did bags and we did posters, and there was just a lot more kind of involved with that.

But we always have those conversations before to make sure that we can fit it within the budget that we need to.

Um, what an agency does, kind of all of these things, at least what we're doing, so all the strategy and planning, the content creation, social media management, um design and creative, the website updates and maintenance and the community integrations.

And then I think why all of this matters is that we believe, at least from the data that we have been seeing, that managing all of these different channels and touch points leads to economic strength, local pride, neighborhood visibility, and a shared identity.

Um so we aren't coming at this as like a big promotional thing as much as it is really the information hub of the of the community.

Um, and this is just kind of a summary of everything we just went through, but you have questions you'll get the whole deck.

I was gonna say I really appreciate seeing this because um a lot of it I just didn't wasn't aware of as a as a business owner.

And I don't know if that's my uh lack of engagement or my uh my tuning into it or why I'm missing that.

But it's really encouraging to see everything we go on Dot's book.

Thank you.

It's been a blast.

What do you think you would um I don't know if it's due differently or do more of or less of as you know as we transition from Laura to a DDA and have voter approval of a DDA, but also lots of um understanding needing to be out there and misunderstandings out there and um and new economic um climate.

I mean, how how do you approach the sort of district of old town and and the entire development of it district um differently?

So a lot of this was fueled by the planning that we did coming out of COVID, and I think we've been in a little bit of a holding pattern for about the six past five, six months as there's been going through the process of RPs and whether or not that we're gonna continue.

I think we are definitely in need of starting over where we did the first time.

The surveys, the one-on-one interviews or a lot of new businesses.

I think there's a much different sense of where the concerns lie than three years ago.

Back then it was people are afraid to leave their houses, they've forgotten that we're a community, they've forgotten that you know we exist.

You know, in some cases there was blight in certain areas that there were concerns about, and so we were able to have those conversations with them and build a plan that specifically addressed those concerns and issues.

We would need to do that again.

We need to sit down with the community again three years later now.

It's going to be a whole different set of this is what I need, um, this is what I'm worried about.

Um, and we would build the plan customized to that.

But not, I mean, it's the same playbook, you know.

Right, we would start with listening.

Um, you know, uh one of my favorite things is when we do the blog posts is sitting down with the business owners and hearing their story, the origin story of how they came up with the business idea, um, why they chose Lafayette, why they do it for their customers.

I've never once spoken with one person who said I'm here to make a million dollars.

They're all here to bring something and contribute something to the people who live here, the people who visit here.

Um getting out and being able to have those conversations.

We're very, I feel like people are very transparent with us.

Um the other thing that's also very cool, at least when we did this three years ago, a lot of times you get very divergent opinions on things.

There might be some things where people are like, oh, I wish they would fix this, or I wish that was different.

But for the most part, everybody said the same thing.

We are a community, we want to help each other, we want to lift each other up.

Um we want to be a place that people feel good and welcome.

Um, I don't think that's gonna change, but I think as far as you know, Hawkscotch was an activation that came out of wayfinding and getting people moved through the city.

There's going to be a new goal now.

What can we come up with to help solve that?

I want to echo what you said, but this is good to know because I didn't I don't think I'm getting the resources and things available as a business owner through this, then I think what it brings up for me is as I guess part of my thing is the DDA is how does how do we make it so that all of this information is getting to the uses of the world of the folks that are operating businesses or it's not because I know if I'm getting like an email, I'm probably not getting it, you know, because it's like you have to sift through the hundreds of those to get to the ones that actually are and it doesn't hold tight priorities, so it's like easy to miss stuff.

It's also it's to add to that tie, it's also hard because you all are focusing on running the business, right?

And doing your own personal social media, and you know, Cone does a pretty good job of being able to repos stuff, but um, it brings up something that we have on our work plan of like what's our small business toolkit for the downtown area.

So when we engage with businesses or do follow up visits, they know like these are the five things I need to know right now with the DDA.

Like this is the grant that they have, this is the marketing that we can tap into, these are the photos or whatever.

Um, it's a good point that you you all are focused on your business.

That how do we continue to get this word out as a resource?

We try and send an email out.

We don't want to be obnoxious once a quarter, maybe once every six months, depending on if we're starting to see things dip down to the business owners reminding them to submit their events um to follow on social media.

Um that comes from City of Lafayette.

Comes from Cone.

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, which is probably why maybe it gets missed sometimes is who told I don't know.

Right.

But we also try and do a little tour of of the town whenever we can.

I remember we were here not too long ago, and I wandered into this little holiday store that's in the HVAC building, and I was like, my gosh, it's so cute.

And I was talking to them and telling her all of the resources that existed on the website and that she could submit events and um she was like, I had no idea.

And so we do try and get some FaceTime with people and remind them.

Um is it is it done through Cone?

Is that just a logistical thing that it's done that way, or we found that it works better for engagement to come from instead of coming through some sort of city type portal?

No, I don't think there was I think it was just when we first started, we did the surveys with everybody and we had a pretty good response.

I think it said in there like 50% of the businesses.

So um if there are a lot of you like a little quicker and nimble by just being the ones that have that back and forth communication, um, especially because if there's someone who wants to do something with like research on social media or events, like I would be the one that just said, all right, talk to cone because they're the ones that are managing all of this.

But it's it's also a good point too.

Yeah, you need to build that relationship so everyone knows who they are.

Yeah, or yeah, either somehow have it properly communicated, or I just wonder how many people would like I open the city emails determine whether it pertains to me and move on.

Yeah, you know, like a cone email.

I just probably wouldn't know what she's selling marketing, you know.

This is not right, yeah.

But it could it could come across as oh, they're just trying to sell me something.

Yeah, so I I'm just wondering if it changed if it would change or have a different impact or engagement.

Yeah, but like if it's coming from the DDA, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Well, and it would give yeah, the DDA a way to engage as well.

Sorry.

I don't know, that's fine.

Um I I appreciate the understanding that it's time to like go back and figure out what the next phase approach would look like, the plan.

And I I think a lot has changed, and I really appreciate the bring out from the dark ages of COVID.

Um at this point, uh, I'm curious to know if there are cone tools that weren't turned on because it either wasn't appropriate at the time, wasn't effective, or didn't exist that we don't know about yet that could be turned on now.

Are there things that have been waiting in the in the quiver or there's tools that are waiting in the quiver?

I think when we were doing things like Project Hopscotch and storefront stories, and we had a few other ideas kind of in in the Arsenal uh love love letters campaign.

Um I would love to get back to some of those activation type events.

Those I think for when we would see those big spikes of people following on social media or people subscribing to newsletters.

We haven't been physically out in the community for probably a couple years.

Um I think that would be a big one.

I know when we submitted the RP, we had put some ideas in there as far as like ongoing social media activations.

I think one of the things we put in there, and it's been a minute, so bear with me.

But this idea of I think one of the things we love is that so many businesses work together to create something.

So, like um Lafayette Days was created by Romero's, but pulls in all of the different businesses, or um, you know, Ventry opening up Fox Glove and pulling in the local businesses to help create the cocktails or with Punch Buggy or with Ghost Box.

So this idea started to kind of come to fruition where we were like, well, could we use that as a way to kind of fuel really unique experiences that are already working together?

So could we come up with like only in Lafayette type of you know, date nights, family nights, etc.

and use that as a promotional tool to kind of get people to come in and explore.

I do think there's a lot of collaboration things that we could lean into because it's already happening organically, and I also think there's a lot more physical events or activations or initiatives that we could go back to, which I think would help again just build your channels, build your following, and hopefully maybe address some needs that are new from the past three years.

But I don't think there's any like brand new channels necessarily that we need to tap into.

We're getting a lot of touch points with what we have.

I mean, we could talk about expanding to like TikTok, for example, or we could not talk about um putting some more money behind some of the campaigns.

But again, I would want to make sure that we weren't we were doing it in a way that felt authentic to Old Town Lafayette and not just doing it because it exists.

One of the big things when we were figuring out like the language and the vibe of the marketing and a lot of the one-on-one conversations we have with businesses is this idea of we we don't want to be too polished, we don't want we want to kind of be rough around the edges and it wants to feel like our downtown, it doesn't want to feel like a marketing firm came in and is doing all this work.

Um and we've tried to be pretty cognizant of that, especially with like not having it be like too clever, too kitschy, like making it just feel like old town.

Um and with anything that we've done, we've tried to have that lens, and every once in a while, like we have to like come up with it with a fresh device to make it feel like it's authentic.

Yeah, I'm kind of thinking on uh the alley if we activate alleys, like I I would think a new way to activate it might look to cookie cutter and re repurpose if we did these the same types of things to activate alley.

So uh maybe it's not new tools, but yeah, going back and rethinking like what is actually what what the alleys do and how do we take advantage of what's already being uh done in other alleyway activation activities and move forward with that?

Yeah, I think like I would love to be able to come up with some new in-person and on-site physical activations.

I know one of the ideas we had last a couple years ago was this love letters thing, which was kind of activating the alleys.

It was taking uh empty wall spaces and creating a space for people to be able to kind of share their favorite Lafayette stories.

Um I mean, we have some ideas in the kind of bank that we could pull out, but I think the first step would be re-engaging with the business owners and the people who live here and getting a fresh sense of what they care about, what they need, what they want to try and accomplish.

Alpha on the shelf when that was done, was that something else?

What was the question about L from the shelf?

Um they're still doing find the Alpha.

Yeah, well that so that's been what that's old, right?

Yeah, yeah, well before these.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's not us.

That's something that happens from the inside out, I think.

Yeah, but you could you could take advantage of what how well that worked, and then you have an armadillo on a bus or something.

Or our Yeti.

No, it's a small.

I was like, oh, okay.

Obviously, you're not gonna use an armadillo.

That'd be good.

Well, I mean, Armadillo's like a desert animal.

It is very Texas, yeah.

What do we try to say with that?

Okay, forget that.

I mean, it's this like so, like a lot of the work that we've just been talking about is digital, right?

And they're especially as we talk in our work plan about wayfinding.

There are ways to move people through physically in your experiences and activations.

Um, they are very expensive to do those things, but they are very cool.

Um, and it kind of makes you unique by being able to have those different seasonal things.

And also those activations are used as a way lots of times to solve something else.

So, like, for instance, with Popscotch, we were interested in where do people spend most time throughout the district, and so we were able to see that there were goals in different areas.

Um, there's also different ways of engaging through activations to try to solve something or learn something more about how people use physical space.

What did you do with that information once you identify those spaces?

Um, I not surprisingly there was a lull like south of Emma, and there was like a lull on Simpson, and so trying to make sure that people still know like those stories and those businesses in those different areas.

Well, that's also the reason why the map came to be you see all those dots, and all of a sudden you're like, oh wow, there's more up there than I than I thought.

Um it gives people to kind of that do our current like wayfinder size have like QR codes that lead us to this kind of stuff.

Is that someone we don't have so never mind?

We have finding um you know, our our wayfinding right now is very auto-oriented, it has parking signs, and then we have district markers, you know, we have a highway 37 sign, we have a Simpson sign, we have you know a painter for a lot here, but we are in like desperate need of rebinding for many different reasons.

Yeah, okay.

Questions kind of outside of this, but um obviously a lot of this is about like engaging the local community and local business owners.

I'm curious though, like Lafayette has a lot of events that brings in big numbers of people from outside of Lafayette, like the Peach Fest, R Dine Out.

Um have you guys experimented with or talked about doing any kind of marketing strategy to like re-engage people who come into town for these events with local business owners that like most of the time we might see 10 of those people but doing some like retargeting or something?

We yeah, we absolutely can do that.

I will say when we initially did our surveying and conversations with the business owners, there was an interesting sort of united sentiment, which was we don't want a lot of we don't want to be bringing in a lot of visitors.

I think that's probably changed since then, especially with these big events, but we can absolutely retarget, but to retarget, you have to have paid advertising for it, right?

Yeah, so we would just need to rethink our strategy as it relates to do we want to integrate a paid approach into this where we have been almost entirely organic um up until now.

But yes, we can re-engage visitors, we can even like you know, look to see you know there's specific pages within the website that are more focused towards visitors that when they come there, we can push stuff back out to them.

Um absolutely we can do it if we want to add that sort of paid component into the mix.

Yeah, and to that question, like I forget how much you sent the city of Lafayette gifts for each post that you do promote just a couple hundred dollars, yep.

Um, and I assume that's just budget related to like what's been agreed upon with your retainer with the city of Lafayette.

Yes, and okay.

Well, and that's another thing is that sorry, a real quick thing um with Laura.

So this is all done writing the Laura.

Yeah, yeah, just trying to understand the like how you guys have approached it.

Yeah, and if there was to be a new contract with the DDA, the whole budget gets re-looked at again.

How that money is distributed and used and leveraged based on new goals, new kind of witch lists and what the business owners and the people here are expecting to see.

Um, so yeah, this is really all based on a plan that came out of 2021.

So you're due for a refresh.

I think the people that are coming, like it they're coming whether we want them to or not.

It's like how how are we intentional about why they come and what they come for and where they go when they come, as opposed to just Lafayette Yeah.

I mean, I have a feeling things like the farmers market are bringing a lot of people outside of Lafayette in.

Um businesses like the Yard and Foxglove are probably bringing people from outside in.

Um I think another thing is I I've heard just through like our own work is that there are people who live on the border of like let's say Lafayette and Erie, and they say Lafay is the downtown that I go to rather than Erie.

Um, and so that happens a lot, whether it's Anthem or Erie, um, or even as Louisville Superior, like all of our downtowns kind of work well because we have different guys and different things, and so it's cool.

Is it all of them?

I'm gonna show you guys something quick if I can figure out how to get back to it.

Do you have a question?

Yeah, I just I think that the biggest struggle for me has been the lack of communication with the businesses, okay.

And like we have actually two very good examples here because I'm a small business owner, there's four of us here.

Um and two of the small business owners were like, I had no idea any of this was happening.

And so I think to move forward, I feel like we really have to evaluate that question of like how are we engaging with people and how can we make this and the DDA could be part of that, right?

But like I mean, I I was like trying to find newsletters from you guys and see like what the communication was like, but I'm not really finding it.

Um so I'm wondering how you guys might be able to change that in the future.

The only we do you're subscribed to the news builder?

Yeah, I think so.

You should get it then.

I mean, I can go through and look to see the the ones that have listed, but um oh no, I'm sorry, I'm not talking about that newsletter, it's like like to communicate with the businesses.

If you're like hey guys, you know, what's going on in your business and how can we support you?

I feel like that's what's been missing.

Okay.

I mean, the last one we sent was probably the end of 2024.

Um I mean that brings up like a really good point, faith.

Like we we started this and wanting and wanted cone to be an extension to be able to run with this advantage this, and we had the approach of we want this to be quick and nimble.

So let's cut out the middle person for you just to go directly to them.

But if that's not working, like the DDA can have its own email handle where it's coming from us and they can see the responses and try to like figure out different ways of communicating with businesses, so it's a tool that's being used.

Yeah, it just seems like we need to have more engagement.

Like I think I heard you guys say that you probably come quarterly to the downtown, but it feels like we need somebody who's like here all the time, like going in the businesses and taking photos and like really engaging on like a day to day or week to week level.

It feels like quarterly just is hard to really like develop those relationships.

Okay, yeah, I think it goes, I mean, because I would say like the initial relationship came out of like duress, you know, trying to figure out how to create a situation now.

It's like how do we manage what's here?

And I think that is you know, we have an up a unique opportunity as the DDA because we are brand new, like obviously we have to tell people who we are too in our story.

So there's a large part of us explaining to the community who we are through this marketing process, right?

I mean, I think it it does there is gonna have to like you say be somewhat of a hand holding process on our end to be able to actually be you know make sure that this that it is a boobs on the ground, you know, we're getting the most efficiency, but I'm probably getting ahead of myself because that's the conversation for like do we do this or do we do it, or how do we you know um make it most effective?

Yeah, and and uh the comment about boots on the ground being the most effective, like it's hard to argue with that.

There always does have to be that those can the various connections to the online digital platforms, too.

And you know, those bridges it're never a hundred percent, and so it's it's these are really important conversations to hear.

Well, the email didn't come through, or I didn't know about this because that's where sort of on the back end you've got to connect those dots to the physical to the digital.

Right.

Do you have any sort of maybe I just missed it, but like demographic data or who is your target audience and seeing who engages most with maybe everything in general, but each each um kind of specific area.

Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you um blog versus newsletter versus social media, but if you were to just look at Instagram as a quick snapshot, um 63% of your followers are women.

Um your age group is really 25 to 54, makes up the biggest market.

This is where I find the information to be even more interesting is where are they coming from as far as surrounding areas?

So obviously you got Lafayette as your top driver of followers, and you have Broomfield, Denver, Erie, Boulder, Louisville, Longmont, Arvada, Thornton, Superior, North Glenn.

I'll tell you you don't see that tight of a geographic radius for social media that often.

Um I've ran these kinds of pages for small districts in Maryland, small districts in Chicago, and you're you're getting people from Minnesota, Los Angeles, like all over the place that are following some of these accounts.

I don't know how or why, but your followers live around you.

Um which is excellent because that's who we want to be talking to.

Um, this kind of just shows you the number of views, so they may not be engaging in a way that's like they're liking something or commenting something.

This is how many people are seeing your social media accounts on a regular basis.

Um you have high engagement, but yes, from a demographic perspective, you're getting your pulling from your surrounding areas.

That happens all the time.

Like that's a different state, I'm sorry.

But we've got a point to seven percent from New York.

Right now, yeah, otherwise they're all they're all right here in your little pocket.

So looking at time, um, this has been super helpful to have Cone come in and also is a fellow who's been doing a lot of great work helping manage this.

Um, is there any other uh questions?

You know, this conversation is gonna be ongoing, especially as we talk about our work plan and our budget and strategy for how the DDA wants to take on marketing moving forward.

Um I wanna want to thank the Cone team as a fella for all our work on this.

Um and it's it was fun for me to look back at all the work that we've done since twenty twenty one and also to reflect that it was a different goal at the time.

Um and we have these really great foundational platforms now, and how do we want to use them to our advantage moving forward?

Well, thank you guys for letting us join you.

We want to take a two, three minute break roads as we shuffle things around.

If you guys have follow-up questions, just send them our way.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thanks.

Thanks, guys.

Lisa, you were so good, driver.

I thought for sure we were gonna go.

The big thing with this is the word draft.

So um this is really based off of um the work that we've done today and my first um pass at what a work plan could look like.

Um and so today we're gonna be um looking at this draft work plan for feedback and discussion.

You know, this is a casual conversation, so if I miss the mark on something, or we need to expand something, this is just the first version of this.

Um so I'm gonna throw an agenda, we're gonna talk about the intent, and then we're gonna review the different priority areas, talk about next steps and discussion.

Um I will also say that um you'll see in a second here, but this work plan goes hand in hand with our budget, which we're talking about afterwards.

Are you excited?

100%.

Oh I just feel so seen right now.

Definitely heard.

Yes.

Okay, so the intent of the work plan.

Um we have our action plan here, and this in a way is almost like you know, the city's comprehensive plan, they have that forward-looking document.

This is also supposed to be very forward-looking.

This will probably get updated every five-ish years just to re-evaluate what's going on.

And so then the work plan is taking our action plan.

What are we gonna actually accomplish?

And this looks in a very different sort of time horizon as far as a one to two, maybe a two to three year time frame.

Um, and so the one that I put together is really looking at um the end of this year to next year, what do we want to start doing?

So it's meant to be a flexible living document that guides decision making, supports transparency, and provides uh and communicates progress.

And so the idea is that we're having this framework for implementing early actions that advance the district's long-term goal.

So some of these things might be very small check mark, but helps lay the foundation for something larger that we're trying to accomplish.

Um, it also helps allocate funding and resources on with priorities while also being adaptable to new opportunities.

And the adaptable part's really important, and faith knows this from being on Laura that we could be really focused on like this is the project that we want to spend some energy on, and then an opportunity comes in and it's like this is the opportunity that we need to be focusing on.

So it's a really flexible document.

Um, it's building off of our priority areas, um, the six uh uh key priorities within our action plan, but then I also added governance and DDA communications because that's really important, especially with this foundational um first couple of years.

So, in looking at how this is formed, you know, we have our action plan.

Um, we went through that prioritization exercise and workshop, and that was really helpful for me to just hear from you all.

Like this is important, this is not as important.

Um, this is the role that we want to take with this, this is a passive role that we want to take with this.

And so that really helps me think about how we can put together a plan.

Um, and with that priority workshop, then I'm developing this draft work plan and a budget that complements it.

So I thought about doing this where it's combined into one, but it really made more sense to separate it.

So we'll go through the the work plan and then we'll do how how does that inform the budget and both our introductions.

So we'll have another meeting in September where we refine based on all this feedback.

So um have it printed out here, and I'm just gonna go through each section.

Um, ask clarifying questions, um, tell me if something is missing or something uh didn't miss uh or miss the mark, um, and we'll just kind of go through them.

So um for uh business support and retention, um maintain a business directory on the visit old town Lafayette website to track and promote small businesses.

That's something that we we talked about.

Having that directory that is always up to date.

Um we talked about explore and launch a small business grant program to support capital improvements and other business needs.

We talked about some professional services like architecture or so you know, this is the work plan item of like what does that include, right?

Um, and so then I would be coming back at a future meeting and saying this is a draft program and getting other feedback on it.

So it's like a sub thing within the larger plan.

That's a great question.

Um, this was something I think Ty brought up of host a yearly networking and happy hour hosted by the DDA, and um thought this was a great idea as far as like having it be a brief presentation about the latest things that are happening, and then an opportunity for businesses just to get together and hang out.

Oh, just on it there was a yearly probably frequently enough to establish relationships and quarterly business.

So you're saying do a quarterly quarter.

Okay.

All right, initiate uh targeted outreach to businesses with property owners, especially those with vacancies to build relationships and alignment.

Um this is more just this is a priority, and so we want this to be something that is on top of mind this this upcoming year.

Uh create and promote a small business toolkit for DA businesses.

And so um this is you know, the city has its own small business toolkit, but what is one specifically geared for if you're in the DDA district, what are what is the targeted um programs we want you to engage with, and so it's probably the list of what's in the city's one, but more focused maybe on the marketing or resources that I can provide and have a different look and feel to it, so um you know who who you're working with and how to work with the DDA.

I just call it out all try to not say as much more.

No, no, no.

This is this is supposed to be keep keep coming in.

This one in particular, um I think it's more than a toolkit.

Um I think there's an advising uh to it.

Um I work for older county as part of a base program, and our model is free service businesses.

We go out there, we we have our own um rebate fund that we can also really try to give up good advice and connect on all the loops.

Right.

So they can get a repay from Excel or take advantage of a program from the state, but we're kind of a one-stop shop for all of those things.

So I feel like in this scenario, we ought to be able to like it doesn't have to be you all the time, but if we're each long going out of a meeting with business, social safety because you know all the stuff that co-marketing is but do it and how you can engage with it.

Right.

Usually we have programs available to see whether it's our program or whether it's the city's program or feel like there's a lot more hands-on approach we ought to be like that's a that's a great point, and something that it reminds me of um the idea of uh different block captains that we talked about with some of the other DDAs.

I mean, you all are all our different geographical areas, um, but we can also, you know, it's not just you know, me trying to hit every single business, but you know, if if Tom can take the ones near him, right, and arm you all with this, what this toolkit is and being able to know what the talking points are.

So I think that that's a great point.

So not just um promote it, but also uh be able to arm everyone with the information of how to connect those dots and partnerships.

That's great.

I think the word advising was good word to add in there.

Okay, that's great.

And then um begin groundwork for loan gap financing or pathway or ownership pathways for businesses to buy real estate model after successful programs and other colored cities.

Um this is gonna be a really big one to do, especially since um we are probably gonna be one of the the leaders in creating something new, but it's something that's super important, and so that's why I say groundwork, because if we have a clearer vision about what is possible by the end of next year, I think that that is a huge win.

Um so for those are the ones I have for small business support and retention, and it does hit all of those um key things that we have for quick wins and what I think some of the longer term can come in.

Is there is there something that we want to highlight more or feels like isn't on here?

Is there a reason that the PowerPoint says small business support and retention and this says business support and retention?

It's a is small.

I mean, is it all it's are we using?

All small deliberately.

Yeah, I mean, um it's small business support.

Yeah.

Okay.

We're not taking calls of Walmart.

Yeah, yeah.

Are we defining are we defining small or so?

Small business is something that is every sort of program that engages with small businesses, kind of have a different threshold.

Like we have a small business capital grant program within the city, and it's 30 employees or less.

Um, you know, uh the Boulder Small Business Development Center has a different version of small, it could be um I'm I know that I'm not giving the right number, but you know, it could be even larger than that, it could be 50 or 60.

You're still in that startup phase, right?

Um, and so we don't have a definition for this.

I think the intent for small businesses when I say it is our downtown businesses are all small businesses, there aren't any chains.

Yeah.

Is that true?

Maybe Tao Collie.

Do you turn into anything?

Yeah, they change it to tangerine also.

Yeah.

But um that's fair.

The the traditional corporate chain that they are not.

Yeah, they were built from local.

I guess that's the point, is like maybe I can say local and small businesses.

If we want to, I mean, I mean sometimes it's kind of document, right?

I don't think yeah.

It's not, but I mean, I when I say small businesses, my idea of it is the small businesses that are in old town, it's not excluding everyone, it's just the makeup of what we currently see.

But you're right.

I mean, Ghost Box is part of STEM and acreage and they are turning into a very large business.

Um so if it's helpful, um I can say locally owned and small businesses to kind of encapsulate the makeup of our downtown.

Uh yeah.

I mean, I know small businesses feel some way about it, you know.

They I've I've had people make the distinguishing difference with the ghost box situation and be like, well, is that even really qualify?

You know, because they know the attachment to acreage and that kind of thing.

So love franchises.

Yeah.

And I mean, we're going to find that we're gonna be doing work with both those larger entities and the smaller entities because of what we're trying to accomplish.

Right.

If there is a vacant lot that needs a lot of support because financially it doesn't pencil out for the vision that we want, it's gonna be a large one.

We're probably gonna partner with someone bigger, right?

Um, and it we're gonna see different sorts of um businesses, local developers, right, who are trying to do their first project.

Um, we're gonna see redevelopment, we're gonna kind of see everything.

So I think I think your point of like the intent behind it matters as far as we're not excluding anyone.

Or it's like if we get the big person, our goal is to direct them to help the small person.

You know what I mean?

Like you're building big, but make sure we leave some space for the small guys that are trying to get into the pieces, yeah.

Yep.

Intention out of cool.

Okay, uh land use and character.

Um so conduct property owner outreach to identify redevelopment or first sale opportunities, and this also kind of goes into the pathways of ownership of making that connection early.

Um, maintain a district property inventory with vacancy and ownership status.

Um we're already working on this, which I'm really excited about.

I was able to connect with our GIS umite.

Yeah.

Uh and so we we're gonna create a GIS map that has all the information about the business, the contact, their license, their zoning, um, but also have an opportunity for me to provide notes as far as what is going on, so I'll be able to have a digital behind the scene platform that um if you all are interested in engaging with too, we can provide access.

Um support redevelopment for uh filling key vacant sites.

Um, you know, we have some some bigger sites right now with the Chase Bank, the Avon Retail, which is next to City Hall, and the former Lafayette Flores.

And so this was something that we just talked about.

It's important to fill those visible sites, and so making sure um the DDA is in those opportunities, either you know, trying to connect with businesses or figuring out what are barriers for filling them.

Um assemble and distribute a packet of funding tools and other support currently available for redevelopment, including site-specific TIP options, and so you know, we are in some state um zones too with an enterprise fund and also an opportunity zone, they provide state rebase.

There's pace, um, there are historic preservation grants out there, and so if someone is wanting to come in with a difficult site knowing all the different tools that are available that is more you know uh adapted reuse or development or redevelopment focused, um, and also hopefully we're figuring out how we can engage in those projects too, just based on where we are.

Um, because that's something that we hear all the time with Laura.

Um we've just we've heard is so what's available, right?

Um, and so being able to clearly distinguish not only what's happening with the DDA but other programs around.

Um, we find that it's you need to cobble together different tools and funding sources to get a project done.

Um and then lastly, um leave with the city's planning and building departments and begin to prepare clear guidelines for redevelopment support, including expectations first or preservation, meaning benefits and design standards for new development.

Um this is really meant to have me be able to help with just the the new building process, like building process as far as getting a building permit or going through land use, how can I be almost that you know uh planning liaison or building liaison to help navigate businesses or um you know local developers trying to get a project done?

How can we try to break it down for them in a clearer way just to help projects along?

Does the city planning and building department include like the board, the what's it called?

The what's it called?

The planning commission.

So this would more be um internal city staff figuring out like is there an easier way to like break down the process and have guidelines for you know working with them to make sure that especially since we're rewriting our land use code, how can I help businesses and developers understand what the city's process is and be there to kind of troubleshoot and ask questions, so not necessarily planning commission.

Um can't wait.

So the with the GIS system, we can fit we can put in physical attributes and characters.

Um I'm assuming we can use the data to sort the data.

Um I'm hoping that we have tools to integrate the business performance with the physical attributes that we have.

I could especially because of my role with economic development city.

I could, and it couldn't be public, but I could look at sales data and see trends if there's areas within the district for individual businesses that are thriving or flat or are down.

Yeah, I would I would love to map that because when we push into uh redevents and redevelopment, I'm like, huh.

There's gotta be I mean, redevelopment could really shake up our the success if if we aren't aware of like key infrastructure uh structural reasons why people are getting to where they're getting and we inadvertently decide to redevelop in a way that impinges upon the success of the businesses where they are.

Yeah, um, so it would just I think it would just be great to map over have a pro have our uh sales and business success and performance mapped across physical layout so we don't block a street or put up a you know mirror that blinds people and they crash into that's not gonna be.

I get what you're saying.

It's just like trying to be like a little bit more intentional of if we're making a bigger district-wide decision about is this area need some love or are they doing great?

Um it's just another data point that we can be using.

Yeah, so we can pull people in if they know that there's a specific area that's doing well and they're looking at opening something to the area that you also can use that data to support why they should be able to do that.

Yeah, and it would have been good when the stop signs, the lights went out, the stop signs went in, and people lost their control over the you know stop signs on public road and roundabouts might come through.

So it's it's like an impact on like people's full of business.

Yeah, yeah.

That's that was it.

Cool.

I'm glad we have access to GIS.

Data is power.

Data is in Facebook.

All right.

So with marketing activation, uh review cones, old town marketing campaign to access ROI.

We we've done the review part, um, but we still need to have a continued conversation and goes into the next one as far as finalized district marketing approach by exploring hiring a full-town full suite of consultants, so a comb that has you know uh everything, or a staff member for the DBA that has some marketing capabilities.

So we're gonna have a like specific meeting around that, or what so in our next meeting, or it's either our September or October meeting, we can have a full kind of roll up our sleeves and hash it out.

Okay, yeah.

What is the time with calling content?

So um, we're able to provide extensions.

Um I would love to be able to have a plan in place before the end of the year.

Yeah, right now it's month to month, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a fun one.

Yeah, and then uh evaluate the city's banner program, uh, like full and gammy banners and define the DDA's potential role.

Banners were something that were in the action plan and the city's time to bless you.

I see get some new banners, and so what is our role?

Do we really care about banners that we want to be the one that like approves what goes up and when and blah blah blah blah?

We want to have a passive role.

Um, there's different roles that we can take with it.

So for creativity and culture, um, find opportunities to support additional public art and murals.

Um and then in looking at a potential budget, which we'll see in the next presentation.

Um, I think we have an opportunity to be able to create a district-wide creativity and culture microgrant program to support um events and arts and cultural programming.

So this is something similar to the small business, you know, I would come up with a draft proposal for what a microgrant could look.

We could review it together and um bring that forward, but some initial ideas is you know, we have the Lafayette Music Festival, or we want to fill vacant storefronts with activations.

Um there could be a cool pop-up thing or street performance, and I you know, I think that is too.

Yeah, I I've heard lots of times it's like, well, how can we what sort of support can Laura give?

And it's been limited, and so being able to have a defined program might be really helpful for just our creative um community and what is available for support.

I thought I remembered from our last meeting that we kind of recognize we have a pretty strong arts organization in town, how much to do what yeah later on top of that, or how do we level that it's a great point, you know, there's an existing um like public art grant program.

Um, and so um I think that the the micro grant part is really like taking more of a backseat rather than a driving force in it and more of a a more supporting role of um is there something that doesn't fit into these other grant programs that we could help support.

I feel like the Lafayette Music Festival is really good example for that one of like we have this whole thing, we can use funding, you know, to kind of like keep it going.

So it could be this sort of like you know, it has structure around it, but also some open-endedness of for what people could like apply for it for.

Yeah, we've also found through Laura that even when we have grant programs available, not a lot of people apply for them or take advantage of that, and maybe that's about communication as well.

Um, but having like a maybe a few different things so that there's just more opportunity for people to get access to it.

Yeah, and we can try to have like a clear purview of like how do we want to help these events?

Do we only want to help with marketing?

Do we want to help with accessibility, like paying for bike corrals?

Like there's different ways that um, you know, I know that uh like R9 out has a long list of things that the city just can't support them in doing, and so is there something that we want to help provide them with?

Um so it's it's thinking about what are these existing programs doing and what is what is missing that we could help fill that void.

What about something like the little banking club test?

Yeah, right.

I don't know how they're funded or what they need or if they're all set or whatever, but it's all the coolest things about yeah, that's a great example, and also you know, this idea in the action plan talks about like having these different like activations in vacant storefronts, so not only window painting, but maybe there are different pop-ups in them that have a smaller shelf life, and how can we help you know for a month activation if someone has the idea?

That's a great point.

I'm a little concerned that we're walking a fine line when we use the word culture.

Uh it could it could this easily I think could lay over our marketing strategy, and just go a little worried we're gonna do start using different cultures as tools, right?

Um how so um taking something that's inherently significant culturally in Lafayette and using it to advertise a sale that we have in our window without asking, you know, if it's okay to put that so like Walmart selling shooting stuff, yeah.

Thank you for an example.

That's a great example.

No worries.

I and I just want to hear it right now.

Something looks a little like, hey, you know what?

Maybe that's not for us to use in the way we're using it.

Yeah, I think that's our our responsibility to be intentional, like you know, if there's a grant program and or some sort of micro grant for helping, and I come and say I want to do a Juneteenth festival, like I think that'd be great, but I think if you know it might be a little different if you showed up and said you wanted to throw a Juneteenth festival.

We might have to look at it differently to figure out the why.

But yeah, I mean I think that that's part of our responsibility as the deviated, you know.

Screen I mean, doesn't it?

Is it is it the word itself?

Well, I think it yeah, it could because the arts and cultural resources department specifically, you know, is there to understand how do we take into account culture for the city?

And that's one of the things I think Lafayette's known for is recognizing, like, hey, you know what?

There is something that maybe has been overlooked and could be supported.

And the ACRD does a great job of that commission.

And uh what we've done in downtown what we've done in old town and do I think across the city is recognition, you know, recognizes that we very much support cultural um differences and uh like our kind out is very supportive of what we produce and I I feel like much of what we're doing is supporting business activity with the DDA.

So call it it's easy to accidentally culturally appropriate bits and pieces, and I and we're I think we'll be it'll be obvious.

Yeah, just wanted to say it right now.

Yeah, I I think it's the goal is to make sure that the messaging is focused more towards letting people who generally may not do it, you know what I mean?

Like having some sort of event to promote your culture isn't something that people are just sitting around the house thinking about doing, you know.

I don't think, you know.

Um, but if they knew that there was something that would support that idea, it may spark the idea in them to do, you know.

We have a Lebanese community, maybe they'll do some some sort of Lebanese thing for their, and I'm just using that as an example.

I don't know that we do, right?

But us getting the messaging out that these are things that we do that are important to us, you know, we do want to know all the different cultures that make up our community, and we have this to support you, kind of exposing everyone else to what it is is your culture, right?

So I think that has to do with the messaging that we put out as to what that means for us as the DDA, right?

Yeah, and I think we do, the city does, and I think we're there's and I love the fact that we have yeah, this line item down.

So I don't think we can still think we're tripping over anything, it's just it's I think it's just important to recognize, right?

Like the intentionality behind it, and um, you know, we are we have a sign outside City Hall that says we're building an inclusive community and making sure that as the downtown we're also supporting those different diverse events.

Yeah, more than ever.

Yeah.

Great.

Um okay, so a couple more.

So uh public space and place keeping, um, establish an ongoing partnership with the Lafayette Farmers Market.

Um, establish a work plan for updating downtown weight finding, which is something that we all felt was really important in our last workshop.

Um, explore the feasibility of a formal parklet program on public road.

Um right now, the only sort of outdoor cafe seating that we have is with Teo Cali, everything else is on site, and so um we talked about opportunities for more dining, and so there's a lot that goes into it, and so I put this as a potential work planning thing, it's something that the city's also interested in exploring.

Um, so I kept it pretty broad as far as the feasibility of is this something that we want to do or even with forward with.

So part of that is not like far as this dining city.

Uh it could be seating, it could be dining, and typically they're in the parking spot.

Yep.

Like think downtown Lewisville.

Okay, yeah, so it's a little quick.

Yeah.

Um, and then continue funding holiday lights in old town through a contract partnership with the state Lafayette.

I've heard people say they want the lights up all year.

Yes, I've heard that too.

I'm not sure the scrolls and like that.

It's very there was a saw the first um Christmas ad.

Oh, really?

Some game on Sunday afternoon in a national.

Yeah, like a Disney Christmas.

So get going on those lines.

They're round the corner.

Yeah.

Um connectivity infrastructure.

So in this discussion, we talked a lot about being advocate for um these projects.

So me with the city's public works department to review the multimodal transportation plan to advocate for continued investment in the district as opportunities arise.

Um so this is really really me taking that role of making sure that I'm attending these meetings, whether it's Dr.

Cog or with CDOT, um, who are just regional groups.

Um audit and transfer existing parking lot leases from Lorette to the DDA, and then review existing conditions and alleys in the district and determine the desired vision for upgrades in the future.

And this is definitely a forward looking thing because upgrading the alleys will take a lot of capital.

Um, we need to develop more of a to fund balance, but at least understand what is the current state of everything today.

And then the last one is governance and DDA communication.

Um, and so this is really who we are and how we want to talk about ourselves.

Um, so finalize the DDA branding and launch a communication strategy as far as what our logo is, where we want information on what website, uh, email, determine what platform for hosting DDA resources.

Um there are a bunch of different options which I can present to you all in a future meeting as far as what other DDAs do.

Some of them have it housed just on the city's website, some have their own website, some use their downtown website.

Um we have a Lafayette, Lafayette Listens is the city's engagement platform, which is really great if you want to do community surveys or get some project information out there, and we have one for the DDA related to how we formed the DDA, but it would be good to refresh that page, and so if we ever want to do a survey with the general community, we can use that platform.

Um create a bookings webpage to meet with me, and this is a great opportunity for if there is a business that wants to set up a time to talk about resources.

Um, there's an easy way to get that set up, and then um this is me meeting quarterly or biannually with key partners, the city, the chamber of commerce, arts and cultural resources, any sort of key partner that engages with the downtown.

Um, provide an annual report on the DDA impact and financials, um, which aligns with a lot of our transparency goals, and then um we can create a dashboard to track the DDA progress on the action plan, and this is something that I would love to do, particularly because when I started with Laura, it was the last five years, and it took a lot to figure out what we've done.

Um, and so being able to establish that up front to just every year track the progress and the projects and where they are.

Um, and so that's something that can live on the website and just be uh transparent communication on our progress.

Yes.

I think that's where what I was talking about earlier with the GIS mapping that cross would be the annual report impacts and financials.

Yeah, there's a way that we can share broader sales tax data in that as well.

And thank you.

And um the organic success organically of the plan that Cone used.

It's extraordinary, it sounds like don't want to mess that up.

I don't know, it's it's it's interesting.

That kind of really blew me away that it was so much of it was organic, and I and I'm wondering how closely that's associated with the hometown feel, as that people actually don't say this gently.

Um they know that what they like and they go out and they engage in that how do we still capitalize on that maintain that connectivity.

So I'm just talking about that.

No, I think it's really important, especially as we try to figure out who we are as an entity and what do we represent for Old Town?

How do we engage?

Like while um, like we have our action plan there.

It I know that sounds weird, but we we do want to create a brand of being accessible and easy to work with and excited, and it's and preserving this hometown feel, and so I think it's an important point to make.

Yeah, I think the marketing situation is gonna be interesting because I'm with faith.

I think it definitely has to be a little more like hands-on, you know, it's like it's gonna be weird if we try to launch right the DDA and explain to people what the DDA is, and if someone shows up and says, I'm from so and so and I work with the DDA.

You know, people are like, Well, how connected am I with the DDA if I'm going through you to get to them kind of situation?

And that's a lot of this board and me, right?

It's it's not just me, it's also this board, and what are our different roles in it?

Right.

Yeah, great.

So that is the draft work plan.

Um it's draft.

And I can send out a survey for you guys to fill out if there's some more feedback, but at first glance, is there um is there anything that we're missing with the work plan?

Do we want to off?

Are there any comments or questions?

I also put together um just a focus timeline for when I think start these different um initiatives may happen.

That um really it's just to say we can't all do this day one, and it's gonna have a sort of cadence throughout the year.

But would love to open up to see if you guys have any initial thoughts about the work plan.

Seems very ambitious.

So I think we will lean on you to be honest about your workload and um because these are exciting days as you mention at every meeting, and that can that's a heady feeling, but also like we want you to be realistic about I appreciate that.

Yeah, um, I also think in governance, it's probably belongs in in governance and communications.

Um reminded me, I've been thinking about this remind me when you talked about the board's role in the community too, but also um I think it's very helpful for boards to have an annual opportunity for self-assessment and reflection, and then to build that into the yeah, the life of the DDA.

Yeah, we um with Laura, we've always uh skipped a December meeting and have had a holiday happy hour.

Um, but you can't really talk about work stuff because then it turns into a meeting.

So we can build that into also just November as far as a wrap-up.

I think that's great.

Yeah, but a friend skipping.

And then half the other December after we discuss that.

Perfect.

Great.

Any other initial thoughts?

Looks really good.

Great, yeah, cool.

Um, so we have one more thing, and I'm gonna we're gonna get through this, okay?

Because no one needs to be here past 8:30.

Um, so if we're good, we're gonna continue with this train of thought about introducing our budget.

So we have our work plan, and how does our budget align with it?

Um, so I'm gonna present the draft um budget for feedback and discussion, and we'll have a budget every single year.

Because we're at the the tail, the middle of this, we still need to create a budget for this year because we are gonna receive funds, and then we also are approving the 2026 budget, so that's why it's two years, normally it's just one year.

Um, and then so I'm gonna talk about the the process, revenue, expenses, key outcome, and initiatives, next steps, and discussion.

Um, and because this is the first time that we're looking at a DDA budget.

Feel free to ask questions throughout it because there is an art and science to putting these together that I've learned with my work with Laura.

Sure.

Um, okay, so with the process, this is governed through state statute about how budgets are developed, who approves them, and when it needs to happen.

So the oversight of the downtown development authority is the governing body, which is our city council, and they're ultimately the one that approves the budget.

So tonight I'm introducing a draft budget, which is based off of our work plan and the work that we've done to date, and I'm here to get feedback, and then at our next meeting, I'm revising anything that we need to do, and then presenting a recommended budget to you all, which you will um make a motion to approve the recommended budget to council.

Then I will go to city council at their first meeting in October, and this is actually when the city also introduces the citywide budget to council.

Um, and so I'll this will be something that they review and provide feedback, and then at their October meeting, they will approve the budget through resolution, and then it gets filed through the Colorado Department of Local Affairs DOLA.

So if there's a there's a timeline for when this all needs to happen.

So we have revenue, we have expenses, and so with revenue, um, we've seen this graphic a bunch, so I'm not gonna go through it, but the main source of our funding with the DDA is through tax increment financing, both our property tax and our sales tax.

We're lucky because we are coming in at the tail end of another special district ending, and we're able to get some startup funding through our urban renewal authority.

And so at our next meeting, I'm gonna be bringing forward an intergovernmental agreement that talks about the funding that Laura is going to be giving to the DDA and generally what it can be spent on.

And the idea is that it's supposed to be not prescriptive as far as we spend this amount of money on this, this amount of money on this.

They understand that things change, and so they want to give a framework for how the intent of how this funding should be spent.

And so it's roughly gonna be around two million dollars, and that is dependent on a couple things that Laura's wrapping up, but also they're receiving the tail end of their property tax tip because it comes in chunks throughout the years, so we don't know exactly what that last bucket's gonna be, but it's roughly gonna be about two million dollars, and that's supposed to be for startup funds for the first five years for the administrative fee, the parking lot program, which Laura currently has.

They want to be able to provide funding for small business support, whether that's capital grants or other programs and district support such as MARPIN, farmers market holiday lines.

And so some provisions on the right is you'll see in this budget that through our IG with the city, we have a ramp up period for our administrative fee.

Um, that is to fund me, being in this room, legal finance, every IT.

So there's a ramp up period for the first five years, which you'll see in the budget.

Um we have existing leases with the DDA or Laura, which need to be assigned to the DDA, that will happen at a separate meeting, and then that you know, looking at how much those things cost, there's roughly around $300,000 each year to cover core services and support.

So that's for 2025, we're going to get that funding.

For 2026, we're gonna get some other funding because we're actually gonna be able to get TIFF, which is exciting.

So we have a projected revenue of about a little under $150,000 for what we think our first year for TIP revenue is gonna be.

Um, and it also includes uh interest that we'll get for funds in our bank account, and then also um miscellaneous revenue, which I'll go through in a second.

And so you can see in this pie chart here, these early years, there's kind of an interesting balance of where we're getting funds.

Where you know, typically um this graph is equal of sales tax and property tax, and those other things are really small, but because we're getting some interest and also some loan repayments that you'll see, it's kind of even done.

So for property tax.

Um, I printed out the sheet for you, and so you can follow along here, but you can also just follow along with me talking.

Um, we have to budget out what we think we're going to collect in property tax and in sales tax, and a lot of it's unknown.

So it's based on historical trends that we've seen.

So we looked with Puma and also our previous chief financial officer about how Laura did each year with the base assessment and reassessment and the increment, and that trend was surprising that it was similar throughout a lot of the years.

So, based on what we think our reassessment's going to be, we can imagine what the increment might be.

Um, and so it's around $21,000 for that first year.

And so our base is set this year, and so we won't see any increment until next year.

It also in this whole growth scenario for the property tax, we're imagining that we're gonna have a limited amount of growth in property tax because of limited amount of infill and limited density and mix of uses.

We've also looked at economic cycles and just growth rates in the past 10 years can't be sustained.

So there's a lot of work that goes into it's probably gonna not be a lot of money, it's probably gonna be 21,000.

Um, for sales tax, um this is also based on what we've seen in old town and then citywide trends.

Right now, we're seeing the city's flat in sales tax, um, and we're seeing better growth in old town, but we I tend to like to take a conservative approach with budgeting.

Um, so what is exciting is we know what our base increment is now.

So our base increment for the sales in old town is 1.75 million dollars, and that is what the sales were collected from February of 2024 to January of 2025.

And so I'm projecting that we're gonna be conservative and just grow by two and a half percent.

Um, and so 43,000 for sales tax.

It's probably gonna be more, and it's gonna be more because we have a lot of products that are coming out online this next year with the optometrist, Clea to Grill.

Um, there are some businesses in the lumber yard, um, and so it's it's probably gonna be more, but I'm gonna take a conservative approach and just see how we do for fund balance.

Again, um, the term fund balance is like a savings account or a checking account cushion for municipal entities.

So when I say our fund balance, it's what's in the bank account that is our cushion.

Um, we're allowed to tap into our fund balance, we're allowed to spend down our fund balance, especially because Laura's gonna give us an influx of it.

Um, and so that is um we're gonna get interest on our fund balance, and that's 52,000 roughly about that two million.

And so um we our financing places that in the high yield interest savings account, um, and it it grows throughout the year, and then miscellaneous revenue.

Um, Laura has some existing economic development agreements with loan repayments for the next five and ten years, and so we'll see a small amount for the next couple years, about 29,000, and then it drops down.

Laura, instead of collecting those loan repayments, just wants to put it back into the DVA bank account.

So that is a lot to digest.

And I'm gonna go through the same thing again next week or next month, but any initial questions about the sources of the revenue for 2026.

Alright.

So now expenses.

Again, you know, when we look at what are we going to accomplish and what are we going to put dollars behind?

We look at our plan of development, we look at what we did in our prioritization exercise, and then we look at our work plan and our budget.

And our budget complements our work plan.

We're allocating funding and resources to accomplish what we want to get done.

So some guidance for the budget.

It doesn't authorize staff or the DA to spend funds.

This is a budget, right?

Um you decide that I'm gonna budget for this vacation, and then you actually go on vacation and you spend the funds, right?

So funds may only be spent by staff or the DA in accordance to our bylaws, our the City of Lafayette's purchasing policy, the executive director resolution, or through DDA approved motions.

So these are just essentially buckets.

Um because new opportunities and needs may arise throughout the year, the buckets includes um I include the budget includes designated buckets for certain types of initiatives, like you'll see in here.

I have downtown development, it could be support for small business grant and grant programs.

So we have these different buckets, so if you need to tap into them, that's what they're there for.

And then also not all initiatives will require financial contribution, some may just be supported through policy coordination or staff time alone.

Yes.

Is that a four?

Like we could we don't have to use the purchasing policy in our bylaws that says that we will default to it, or we can do something else.

Thank you.

Yeah.

If we wanted to create a different policy for how we do procurements, we could totally do that.

But it's a default.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this is for the 2025 expenses, and you can see in this first column here.

We're we're already halfway through.

The Laura's helped with a lot of the funding.

So, really, um, what we have here is 14% is gonna be for operational administration, administrative, we have some for repairs and maintenance.

The repairs and maintenance is related to the parking lots and snow plowing later this year, and then downtown development is if we create a grant program, let's say October or November, and we want to engage with some businesses, we have a little bit of a cushion so we can open the grants early.

So for 2026, and thank you for allowing me to express myself with all these different colors on this ground.

Um, it's branded.

Yeah, I think the red is the only one that's not technically for something else.

Um you can see that a majority of the funding for 2026 is being spent on downtown development.

20% is about advertising and marketing.

We have some funding here for professional services, streetscape, um, cultural arts and community events.

Um, so I'm gonna kind of go through these different buckets and talk about the key outcomes that this budget achieves.

So for the administrative fee, um, it's about 8% of our budget.

This is a reduced fee.

This helps with the staff, IT finance legal.

Um, there's that ramp up period.

So for this first year, it's around 37,000.

Then we have 4% of our budget going to operational administrative items, that's related to printing or memberships.

We have to pay the county treasurer for uh processing our tip.

Um, and then six percent of our budget is um in this repair and maintenance line item, and that's related to the public parking lot program, both doing striping, if there's pothole repairs, and then also some snow plowing.

So I looked at historical data for all of this related to Laura about what was actually spent for the past couple years and put that in here.

So then for streetscape and professional services, um, continuing the downtown holiday light program, so um being able to have 56,000 for that.

Um, that is a partnership with the city of Lafayette, so they will pay for getting city hold-down, and then we would pay for the rest of it.

Um, and there's an existing contract, so that allows us to we there's already pricing that got locked in through a competitive bid, um, so that allows us to continue the holiday life program.

The really exciting thing that I think we can accomplish because of our projected tip revenue moving forward is I think we can be able we can hire a design consultant to start new weight finding in little town, which would be a really cool project to do.

It's something that we're really wanted to do.

And it's just the first phase, and so this would accomplish the first part of the design.

It's probably gonna be a two-year project, you know, 18 months.

Um 2027 would have budget for it as well in future years, and then we can think about how we would want to fund construction.

Do we want to fund it?

Do we want to go to the city and ask for a partnership?

Do we want to look for grants?

So weightfinding was a big thing that we all agreed upon, and so I think an easy win would be to actually start design for it.

Um the other thing I have in here is funding for special district consultants, and this is really when someone approaches us and has an idea we might need some additional financial support to analyze something.

It's just a placeholder in a bucket to be able to engage outside consultants.

Um professional services looks like if we go to the future years to kind of go all over the place.

Yeah.

So I was just curious about why it jumps up and then where you get.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So it jumps up for being able to probably spend um you know 1500,000 on the wayfinding, and then it jumps down because we don't have any projects identified.

Yep.

And so each year you're gonna see me come back with a new work plan and um new funding allocated towards it.

So this was really meant to show those core services, and when we have projects, how does that play into our future years?

It's a great question.

Why is such a bump in parking third year and then it goes right there?

It's a great question.

Um we have to do um parking lot restricting, and so we did it uh I think two years ago, and so we'll likely need to do it again in 27 and just look at what are some parking lots that probably need you know some minor crack seal too.

Yep.

So then for um looking at cultural arts and community events and advertising marketing.

So I have funding in here to be able to do district marketing each year.

Um I had funding in here for establishing a farmers market partnership.

Right now, Laura has provided 25,000 for them to be able to close down the streets every single week, and so um tentative.

Uh, Peter from the farmers market's gonna come and do presentation in September to us.

He just had a baby like a week or two ago, so I just say tentative because I know things change.

Um and then uh also funding here for that creativity and culture microgrant program.

And so, right uh an example is you know, I have 25,000 for the community events line item, that's for the part the farmers market and for the cultural arts programming purchases, that's 15,000 for that micro grant program.

And then the the last key expense is related to um downtown development.

So um it's a it's a very daunting word downtown development, but this is really the a flexible bucket for being able to do small business support through a new grant program or exploring pathways to ownership.

Um, you're gonna see that a lot of big impactful projects probably come from downtown development, and I think development is used both in like developing our business community and then also physical like adaptive reuse or construction or things like that.

So this allows us to have you know small business support every year of 150,000.

So that is something that can be impactful and grows over time.

So that's my introduction to how I think our work plan can align with our budget.

Um, I wanted just to highlight what this budget allows us to do.

It establishes the DPA, helps us establish a small business grant program, continue district marketing, launch a design for a new weight finding program, support the farmers market, continue our public parking lot program, holiday lights, and then create a new creativity and culture microgrant.

So this is our two-year budget.

I gave you the five-year budget, um, and this is just the introduction to it.

And so as I mentioned, I am here to get some initial feedback, um, and then I'll be bringing the recommended budget to you all at the next meeting.

Um I know it's a lot to kind of go through this for the first time.

Um, so I'm happy to answer any questions now, or if you individually want to meet with me to kind of talk through this, I'm happy to do that as well.

I have a super quick question.

Maybe you've already said this.

How much is the monthly fee for code?

So the over for the whole year it's about 100,000.

Yeah.

Now, if we were to get a staff person and we wanted to provide Bennett a benefits package, we would likely have to pay them 65 to 75,000 to be able to have pay a benefit package.

So it's something that I can kind of talk about what are different options of how we spend that.

Yeah, I think that warrants a longer discussion.

Yeah.

For sure.

But this at least gives us we plan to spend a hundred thousand dollars on marketing and figure out how to do that.

The other thing is um we don't have to spend the money in our budget, right?

We we will revise it based on what actually happens.

We can also amend it throughout if we want to you know put something for one lens in the other.

Um yeah.

Yep.

I know we've talked about this, but I just want to mention it to the group with the public parking lots.

One of the things that I think is really important is that we actually like evaluate all of the parking lot agreements and like identify like are they actually are we using these parking lots?

Are we not using these parking lots before moving forward?

Because it's I I think there are some that are not really being used and maybe could um you know go to the wayside, and then also potentially identifying like could we add more bike parking into the public parking lots as well?

Um, or use that as kind of a tool to be like, okay, we'll continue like maintaining this parking lot, but we want to take some spaces and do a bike corral or something like that.

So Bridget and I have talked about that, and I think that is kind of key before we do the next step with the parking.

Yeah.

Does that mean making the taking the parking lots that aren't regularly used and making them the bike kernels?

No, I just mean like, do we need a public private parking lot lease on all of the ones?

Like we're holding quite a lot more than I realized when you kind of told me about some of them.

I was like, that's a public parking lot.

I had no idea.

An example is like we pay to use the loftway floors right now.

Which is now going to eat.

Yeah.

Does he need us to pay for the parking lot?

There's two parking lots.

Exactly.

There's an upper lot and a lower lot.

We pay for the upper lot.

So I think we should just like identify like are these even being used for public parking, and if not, should we terminate that contract?

Or is it the not being used because of the fact that people don't know that they can.

Well, I think that's a huge piece.

Like the signs, nobody sees the signs.

I think that could be part of the wayfinding thing and actually like leading people to parking areas is really important.

But also I think some of them are just like really not in ideal locations.

And yeah, yeah.

It's I think it's a great idea to audit these, especially since now I'm preparing them and about the transfer.

Um my predecessor uh was really good at negotiating different deals, so they're all different.

Um it would be good to one have a standard deal, and we are also um doing a parking analysis for the district right now through Fox Tuttle.

And so that will really be helpful to see the usage of all of them, and are there other areas that we should be focusing on getting parking?

And we'd have to consider if we're looking at it, is evaluating the park limit situation that would obviously take away street parking, which you'd have to direct people to like it's all.

It's all connected.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna throw out that there aren't parking spots that are better for people who are cycling.

Like I love that bike rack in front of Ghostbots.

Terrible transition to get there.

So the you know, there are gonna be some parking spots that have much better connectivity across the city.

So I think a lens of like, you know, is this sh is this a good parking spot for cars, but better for cycles, bicycles and alternative vehicles.

Right.

So uh I think that's a great lens.

It'll simplify some of the challenges with what are we thinking about alternative vehicles and you know, moving through here because some of them are gonna be much easier, more safer and easier and more effective.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Any other initial questions or comments?

No.

Great.

So I'm gonna do a version of this again next time.

Um I won't say the exact same things, but um, I'm gonna look at this again and see if there's any tweaks that I we want to make, but otherwise I feel like this is uh a budget that achieves our work plan.

People get for the other six pages.

I know there's a degrees to the city budget.

Yeah, there's a page.

Yeah.

So then we're moving on to upcoming meetings and staff updates.

So let's hear from executive director.

I haven't talked to that tonight.

Okay.

Um a quick look ahead at our next meeting.

Uh again, we're gonna hopefully have that discussion with the farmers market, which will be really exciting.

Look at the intergovernmental agreement with Laura, um, approving the recommended budget to council, and then also talking about the logo selection.

This looks kind of like a big night already, so I'll talk to Joanne about whether we want to add that marketing discussion to this meeting or if we want to have it in October.

We can we can do either way.

Um then if you're good, I have one staff update.

Um if you remember from our um work with DCI in June.

Um, Colorado Enterprise Fund came to spoke.

Um and Faith and I uh actually met with him just to kind of talk about what the DEA's um goals are with uh pathways to ownership, and we had a really good introduction conversation about what sort of programs they're doing, and they don't have a down payment assistant program yet, but we said this is something that we want to see, is it feasible?

Would it actually work?

Um what are some of our market rate um rents that we have, and then what are some of the the mortgages someone could take on, and is that rent replacement?

And so it was a great initial conversation.

Um and uh we're gonna kind of continue that fact finding um and the conversation with NIM.

So um a great kind of first step with this pathways to ownership concept.

And uh I didn't think you want to add anything to that.

I mean, I was just really exciting.

I think it's a really great place, even just for our small business toolkit to be like this is a resource for small businesses, but you know, who maybe can't find funding through a traditional thing.

Right.

So I feel like just having that relationship with them is gonna be really helpful.

Um those are all my updates.

So we just have one more thing, which is new business directors' reports.

Any directors have um updates you want to share.

Okay.

Thank you everyone.

The time is 8 33 and we're adjourned.