Ideas floated for next year

Last weekend’s Taste of New Zealand marked the fifth major festival that closed off Main Street downtown this year, part of a package that included the first three months of Surf City Nights as well. But as the economic development money to Main Street granted by the City Council dries up, those who organized such festivals are reorganizing and seeing how to continue what worked.

Downtown businesses are taking a breather after a hectic year, but many ideas are afloat, said Downtown Business Improvement District Executive Director Connie Pedenko.

“Right now everyone is a little exhausted and we’re regrouping our thinking on what to do next,” she said. “But our ambassadors are looking at other ideas. They talk about chili cookoffs and matters of that nature.”

On the city’s end, data and surveys from the year’s closures will go to consultant RRM Design Group, which has been hired to update the city’s Downtown Specific Plan, a road map for future development in the area stretching far beyond just Main Street.

The Taste of New Zealand, for example, may return in the future with the help of sponsors, said Nova Punongbayan, a project manager for the economic development department.

“I think something like the New Zealand event is something we would like to do again,” she said. “The Taste of New Zealand is about establishing a better relationship with our sister city. It takes both ends in order to be able to come together and do this.”

If the goal was getting downtown to work for itself and with the city better, Punongbayan says it’s succeeded. The Downtown Business Improvement District has incorporated, is making plans for itself, and is paying for half of a much cheaper Surf City Nights, she said.

“The partnership between the downtown businesses and the city has improved dramatically since last year,” she said.

That was when the Surf City Nights and street festivals plan was conceived as a compromise, after downtown businesses decried a plan by former Mayor Dave Sullivan to close Main Street permanently as a pedestrian mall. But none of the data from the year’s trials will be used to consider a permanent closure of Main Street, Punongbayan said.

These days, businesses and sponsors are more interested in trying to continue what works, she said.

“I think that now that people actually saw the event happen, they think, ‘OK, we can make it better next year.”

What would make things better? According to Pedenko, business owners like to feel involved and know what’s coming, as well as having a highly polished event. The economic success of weekly Surf City Nights, as well as starting a program of block ambassadors to voice concerns and keep people informed, has improved people’s connection to the festivals significantly, she said.

“We’ve had people from the get-go say, ‘No way, no how,’” she said. But now, “They’re very much a part of it. They see what it’s done for the community spirit.”