My working title for this article was “Beads and Booze”, but the topic is much broader, so I’ve adjusted it into a question:
What role do special events have in bringing people into the downtown and into the downtown businesses?
The answer is a bit complicated. Despite the inflated financial impact numbers that some special event promoters throw around, the benefit to the downtown is often negligible.
We currently have six general types of events in New Port Richey:
- Events in Sims Park / Orange Lake
- Events in Sims Park that spill out into the downtown
- Downtown events
- Races
- Events in Railroad Square / Cavalier Square
- Parades
The first group of events are centered in Sims Park / Orange Lake. Generally speaking, they are confined to the parks, although they sometimes expand into the Gloria Swanson Parking lot as well. Car shows that circle the lake require some traffic detours. Otherwise, the roads generally stay open.
These events are going to need to make some adjustments going forward as the Swanson lot is in regular use by the businesses in the Incubator and will likely be heavily used on a daily basis as the Hacienda and Sims Park projects get started this fall. Fortunately, there are other places that can be used for carnivals and the like.
People coming for an event in the park typically go straight to the park and then straight home afterwards. The popular movies in the park series are a good example of this behavior. That is not to say that the movies series is a bad thing. To the contrary, the free movies in the park offer young families a great entertainment value. The complete lack of positive impact on the downtown doesn’t have to be the case. For example, it wouldn’t take much to create some commercial tie-ins between the movies and local restaurants.
While these events don’t particularly help the downtown businesses, they don’t generally hurt them either.
The second group of events spill out into the downtown. A good example of this will be the Bike Fest coming up October 10, 11, and 12th. My initial reaction to Bike Fest when it first came to town wasn’t particularly positive, in large measure because of the rowdy reputation that Bike Week in Daytona Beach had developed.
The Bike Fest here has been a much more subdued event with few problems. I’ve adopted the attitude that, if motorcycle owners want to park their very expensive toys in front of my store, that’s okay. My job is to entice them to come in and spend some of their money in my store. The restaurants and bars have generally benefited from the Bike Fest and the organizer, the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce, has gone out of its way to get the downtown business community involved this year.
The third group of events are the downtown events that require road closures, generally Main from Bank to Adams and Grand from the lake south to Delaware. The recent Night In The Tropics is a good example of this configuration. These events are potentially either the most disruptive or the most helpful, depending on how they are configured.
Downtown cruise-ins and car shows typically take up the parking spaces, but leave the middle of the road and the sidewalks open for foot traffic. Like the Bike Fest, some of these events have provided a significant revenue bump for the local restaurants and bars.
The Night In The Tropics and a few other events we’ve had downtown have set up vendor tents on the sidewalks and the sides of the streets, blocking access to the local businesses. This doesn’t have to be the case. While a lane on Main Street needs to be kept open for emergency traffic, there is absolutely no reason why vendor tents couldn’t be set up smack down the middle of Grand, routing the the event foot traffic to the outsides and right in front of the businesses. These businesses need to be encouraged to schedule special store hours to coincide with the events.
The fourth group of events are the races. The best known of these is the Rap River Run, although there are a number of others, including the upcoming Gear Link Criterium Races in October. With the exception of the Gear Link event, the road closures are early in the morning and have a minimal impact on local businesses or the residents of the neighborhoods the races pass through.
Much like the events in the parks, more could be done to create commercial tie-ins with local businesses, particularly the restaurants. The demographic profile of the racers fits one we want to encourage to come downtown. The typical triathlete has a six figure income. The typical bicycle in the Gear Link Criterium costs several thousand dollars. The person who will drop $25 or $30 to register for a 5k event isn’t going to think twice about spending that or more for dinner.
The fifth group of events are the ones held on Railroad Square or Cavalier Square.
Cavalier Square is probably the most underutilized park in the city. It is well hidden and it has been a while since the last special event was held there. The Dulcet Restaurant is currently in talks with the city about leasing Cavalier Square for outdoor dining and entertainment.
The city spent something in the neighborhood of a million dollars streetscaping Railroad Square and installing railroad crossing arms that can be used to block off car traffic during events. Greater New Port Richey Main Street has held some First Friday Farmers Markets there and a couple of special events this past spring were sponsored by the bars (First Down Sports Bar and Fitzgeralds).
The sixth type of events are parades. Generally speaking, there are three parades that go through the downtown each year.
The Gulf High Homecoming parade is relatively small and only disrupts traffic for a few minutes at any given location.
The Holiday Rotary’s Christmas Parade is quite a bit larger and attracts a decent size crowd. This event is held in the evening and doesn’t have an adverse impact on downtown businesses other than creating some parking issues as the barricades go up before the parade. Some of the families coming to town for the parade can be counted on to visit the local restaurants.
Unfortunately, more than a few folks come down to the Christmas parade with the idea that it is best enjoyed while under the influence. We routinely have to clean up all the beer cans left behind. The choice of music by some of the parade units also leaves something to be desired (eg. “Ride Sally Ride”, the lyrics of which involve trying to convince Sally to take of her clothes and lie down on the couch). Not exactly the sort of Christmas music I remember when I was growing up.
The third annual parade is the Chasco Fiesta street parade. For all intents and purposes, the downtown comes to a complete standstill on Chasco parade day. You simply can’t move. The parade is huge (often three hours or more in length) and, between the beads and krews that bring their party floats, has taken on a bit of a Mardi Gras flavor. The parade is extremely popular and people start staking out places along the route days in advance.
Unfortunately, quite a few people bring their coolers and start on their favorite adult beverages hours before the parade arrives. Alcohol abuse during the street parade is well recognized and the Chasco Fiesta organizers wisely avoid contributing to the problem by not selling beer in the park on parade Saturday.
So what do we get from all of this?
Many of the events in the park, including the Chasco Fiesta, bring in some amazing musical acts. These events showcase local talent, bring in some up and coming recording artists, and some of the groups I remember from years ago. These events are a good part of what makes New Port Richey what it is. They provide both great entertainment and often help fund some very worthy local non-profits. What they don’t do is provide much of an economic boost for the downtown business community. We either need to agree that we are okay with that or work with event organizers to better promote local businesses.
The races are relatively low impact and bring a lot of folks to town. The athletes typically have lots of disposable income and we need to find ways to get them to spend some of that income here.
Street Parties like Night In The Tropics and Bike Fest, as well as car shows can be positive draws to the downtown. They are relatively low impact and could be made to showcase the downtown businesses with a little coordination between the organizers and local businesses.
We need to re-think what we want our parades to look like. In my opinion, the transition of both the Chasco and Christmas parades from local floats to professional floats from out of town has not necessarily been an improvement.
I plan to address the general issue of alcohol and special events in the coming weeks, but allow me to make one rather bold proposal this week: The city should promote regular block parties in Railroad Square with specific provision made to allow folks to walk out of the adjacent bars without fear of being arrested for carrying an open container.
If the bars want to pony up for outdoor entertainment, let them set up stages at either end of the Square. Otherwise, just set up extra tables and chairs in the street and chill out.
Allowing monthly or even weekly block parties on Railroad Square will require some adjustments in the city’s alcohol ordinance, but that is coming up for discussion next month anyway.
Using Railroad Square for regular block parties would do more to cement New Port Richey as a downtown entertainment destination than anything else I can think of. Use of the section between Grand and Adams would require almost no city services as volunteers could be taught how to drop the crossing arms. Expanding the party from Grand toward Bank would require some minimal traffic control by the police department and public works.
Finally, if our goal is economic development, perhaps there are better ways to spend our money than on special events. Some of the events are worth supporting as valuable parts of our cultural mix, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing that they are going to solve the issue of attracting businesses downtown.
In response to the city’s financial problems during the Great Recession, we axed financial support that was supposed to pay for Greater New Port Richey Main Street to implement the Main Street Program, forcing them to concentrate on fund raising by holding more special events and essentially ignoring everything else. We compounded the problem by cutting back on event support, telling the event organizers they could make it up by selling booze in the park. In 20/20 hindsight, things didn’t work out the way we expected. I believe we need to revisit both of these decisions.
As always, unless you are a fellow council member, I’d love to hear your comments. In deference to Florida’s Government in the Sunshine laws, my colleagues need to wait for a public meeting to talk to me about anything I write here.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor
City of New Port Richey
Hello Rob: We just wanted to tell you about something we used to really enjoy doing, and that was going to the Farmers Market. We’re wondering if having something like that, once a month, would be a good draw to downtown, especially with Florida having an almost year round growing season. Just a thought.
Best wishes,
Bill and Pam Kaplan
Main Street doesn’t try to do the Farmers Market during the summer months due to the heat. The Market Off Main has been running weekly Friday night events in the Spoonbills parking lot at Main and Lincoln. Quite a few of the non-produce vendors that were in the Farmers Market are there every single week (eg. Cassie’s Cookies, Doggy Cakes, Gunner Leather).
Good article. This has always been an issue on which you and I have agreed.
I’ve never really understood the attachment with the parades. At this point I consider them to be a net negative rather than a positive, but I understand there is some tradition. The failure, I should point out, is that people like myself seem to avoid them, and some other events downtown, like the plague. If I go downtown for Bike Fest, am I going to find twenty somethings? My suspicion is that it will be a generally 45+ crowd.
I would say the same for the carnivals that have come to town the last couple of years. I went down there last year and was, frankly, appalled. It wasn’t that long ago that someone was stabbed there on Bank Street if I’m not mistaken. Not that it’s that unsafe anymore but the culture there is still pervasive.
In any case, I’ve read your last few articles and my first question would be: “What exactly **is** the direction and focus we should be taking?” You talked about what makes New Port Richey different, but never really made a determination. I’ve had a lot of discussions about rebranding the City, but no one seems to want to step out there and say “This is it. This is what we should do.”
So what should we do?
I had a conversation about it today. I think that New Port Richey isn’t doing enough to try to cater to a younger audience. The new white table cloth restaurant, and efforts with the Hacienda are all well and good. So is the work on Sims Park, but it’s a critical issue with many people my age and younger that we don’t want to do things the same way that they were done before.
We don’t want to have to drive cars around town. We want to work close to where we live. We want a sense of community in our immediate neighborhood, not a mile away at the library. Getting involved has certainly helped me with that sense, but I haven’t seen a large number of others coming out to be part of it because I believe they’re going elsewhere.
Jon,
I’ve talked around the subject of focus, most directly on August 3rd ( https://robmarlowe.com/filling-the-empty-storefronts/ ).
There are a number of things that we can and should do to sharpen that focus:
1. Recognize that we are an entertainment destination and build on that. Actually using Railroad Square regularly is a part of that, as is nurturing our performing arts and restaurants. Bringing in the right type of events to Sims Park also fits here.
2. Recruiting the right businesses to move to town. The SMARTstart Incubator proved that there is plenty of interest in situating high tech businesses here. The average age of the folks working in the incubator is a lot closer to your age than mine. Most people can’t name the largest non-governmental / non-healthcare employer in the city. It is a high tech firm.
3. Making use of our natural resources to draw visitors. See my note from July 27th https://robmarlowe.com/on-the-water/
4. Making it possible for people to live and work within walking distance of downtown. When it is eventually finished, Main Street Landing serves this purpose, but what about now? The second floor of the two blocks of the buildings on Grand south of Railroad Square used to be apartments. There was discussion as recently as last Tuesday night’s CRA meeting about trying to get some of those underutilized spaces converted back into apartments. The downtown overlay district in theory makes the downtown more retail friendly by moving the professional offices a block or two away. Those professional offices are in buildings that used to be homes. We need to look at this.
5. We should promote the fact that we are a traditional town without rows and rows of little houses all the same. See my article https://robmarlowe.com/pleasant-surprises/
In the very near future, this is what I believe we can say:
We are the place to go for dining and entertainment.
We are the place to go for fun on the Cotee River.
We are the place for high tech firms to take root and grow.
We are the place for families to come for an authentic hometown where they can live and work.
We are not there yet, but we are close enough that we could be soon if we put our minds to it.
How many times and how many ways does it have to be said,” We have to be a destination all the time”. The easiest is utilization of the water resources. Some of the event examples Rob spoke about today are mainly locally attended but there is a huge difference who attendees each one. Visiting two events one in Crystal River and one in Dade City and talking to vendors and others none had even heard of our largest event. Many of them lived as close as Springhill. Last year in Sims Park during one of the Summer events I was talking to one of the vendors who was from Dunedin and he told me they had no idea we had a Downtown as he thought 19 was the only business area we had. There are three major hurdles no matter what happens we have to get over, 1. Communications from what’s going on from Main St. NPR to West and East Pasco are just nonexistent, 2. 30 plus years of disappointment and that just turns into lack of believing that things can change. 3. Planning too short term, you can not build anything without a plan and goals. Some of us remember Disney World plans that would be completed over 30 years.
We can make things happen we just need everyone on board and a plan. We have the right people in place so let’s help them make things happen. Start by attending a council meeting once a month and get involved .
Greg Smith
With the possible exception of Bike Fest and some of the races, we simply aren’t going to see people traveling long distances to check out our special events. The market is mostly local.
Filling the park with out of town vendors sucks money out of the local economy. The most notable exception is Chasco’s use of local non-profits to run the food booths.
II agree that the majority of attendees to downtown functions are local people. To generate a large visitor-tourist crowd requires a massive function that may be beyond the ability of the city to arrange. .Selling stuff is fine but most any age group wants big entertainment, ala county fair style. The need to ‘bust out’ of our current dilemma and do something ‘really big’ is paramount to success. The incidence of professional offices within the downtown area restricts what a visitor might do unless he/she needs an attorney or a financial advisor. Of course quality shops for the moneyed sophisticated tourist has limited potential as a startup may be prohibitively costly. Color me LOOKING FOR ANSWERS TOO!
With regard to “Events Downtown”, the problem or the solution will not be solved or created by events alone. The Problem we have with the downtown is that we have no local “buying power” in our downtown neighborhoods. We have too many rental properties where homes and rental houses are left to decay. Street after street of homes with grasses overgrown and unkempt….homes that need exterior painting and repair….cars and trucks parked all over front yards leaving nothing but dirt in their places. Also junk piled up in the alleyways and people hanging around town with their pants down below their butts. Not exactly welcoming to out of towners OR Pasco residents. It also doesn’t offer any degree of comfort or a feeling of safety for those who have to walk to their cars after and event or a meal in the evening hours.
This doesn’t even touch on the undercurrent of drugs and prostitution. I love this place. This is the place of my birth and of my father’s birth. This place has great bones….a central lake, a river to the Gulf, lots of beautiful trees and all the amenities in place….sewers, water, library, a $14 million dollar Rec Center…..Any developer/builder would love to have a palette like that from which to create a town. Thanks to people like Pete Altman and others with vision we have a great “looking” little downtown from which to grow. However, we’ll never grow unless we rid ourselves of the rot. That should be our focus… Not to dwell on the plusses and minuses of any particular event. We have a whole town to consider…not just the downtown.
Thanks for your comments Chuck.
I don’t see the proposed ordinance regarding parking on lawns on the calendar yet, but I know that it is in the works.
Additional resources for code enforcement are in the proposed 14-15 budget. That should help.
Converting rentals into homesteads would go a long way toward improving the condition of our neighborhoods. People invested in our community simply care more than people who are living somewhere because the rent is cheap. How we go about doing this is the million dollar question. Perhaps we could start by concentrating on neighborhoods that are within walking distance of jobs downtown and work our way out from there until we’ve covered the whole city.
Rob
Chuck,
The proposed ordinance on lawn parking is on the calendar for the October 7th city council meeting.
Rob
I may start looking for a spot downtown if one is affordable for my small spiritual church. We host events quite often and have a small spiritual gift shop. Our current location is in a VERY quiet plaza with almost no foot traffic. We’re looking at hosting health fairs every once in awhile as well as guest speakers on a variety of topics.
Any suggestions on where to look for a small church and gift shop in the downtown area?
There are several possibilities, both in the historic downtown area and in the Palm district (Main between the river and US 19).