In the last month since the City of St. Joseph elected to step up on behalf of the business community a tremendous amount of progress has been made, and the City Commission will get a detailed update on that progress at their meeting tonight.
Kristen Gundersen, Community Development Director for the City of St. Joseph, will update several initiatives that the commission authorized to assist the community’s businesses seriously impacted by weeks of shutdowns during the pandemic.
Back on May 18th, the St. Joseph Downtown Development Authority entered into a contract with Holt-Bosse for several different services geared toward helping the downtown merchants. Also, on that day, the City Commission directed city staff to negotiate a contract with the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber and CrazeVR to create a virtual shopping experience of the downtown, and directed staff to work with adjacent business owners to allow the use of Pleasant Street east of Main Street as an outdoor dining area called Pleasant Street Plaza. Gundersen is providing the city with a synopsis of the activity that has occurred at the commission meeting tonight.
In remarks prepared for the commission, Gundersen says that for the development of Pleasant Street Plaza, the staff has worked with adjacent business owners to review and finalize the plan to use the portion of Pleasant Street east of Main as a plaza area from noon on Fridays through the close of business Sunday. 221 Main and Silver Harbor Brewing Company plan to begin to use the area beginning this Friday, June 26th.
The team at Holt-Bosse have developed a campaign name and logo branded, “Come See St. Joseph” along with a website at www.seestjoseph.com which will have links to the virtual downtown experience that was created by CrazeVR. The new website will be promoted once the downtown virtual experience has been completed.
Gundersen says that St. Joseph Today was able to provide email addresses of their members that have locations within the downtown, and city staff has been working to expand the list to include all businesses.
There are now 105 contacts, typically ground floor retail tenants, in the system, and Gundersen says, “It is envisioned the email list will remain active and supported by City staff in the future.”
A nine-page informational handout was delivered to open businesses along with being emailed on May 26th, including information and an introductory letter from the City of St. Joseph along with tips for reopening one’s business and how to use Google business along with SquareSpace for the creation of a website. Since May 26th, weekly email blasts have been sent with new information and links to obtain additional information for operating during the pandemic.
Gundersen reports that the first of three videos has been finalized and will be released shortly, with Mayor Mike Garey as the narrator. The video welcomes people back to downtown while promoting guidelines associated with COVID-19, and two additional videos are planned.
Additionally, Holt-Bosse is promoting the first free webinar for businesses in the community, which is scheduled for this Thursday, June 25th beginning at 11 am.
Meanwhile, CrazeVR has been working to complete the virtual experience for those wanting to visit or learn more about downtown. It is expected to be completed and available on the website before July 1st. Once that is up and operational, work will begin on promoting the additional services being offered for individual businesses.
Additionally, the Southwest Michigan Chamber has introduced a new initiative Southwest Michigan Safe to help promote businesses that are operating in accordance with recommended standards. A website to learn more about that program was created and is available at this link: www.swmisafe.org
The Chamber also has information regarding reopening businesses at this link in partnership with several other organizations: http://www.berrienreopens.org
Cornerstone Alliance has also added information to their website at http://www.cstonealliance.org for businesses to obtain information and support in several areas.
The photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market, is a screen shot from a brief panorama link at the new Come See St. Joseph website.
