At the Feb. 25, 2025 meeting of the City of Tacoma Economic Development Committee, David Schroedel, executive director of the Downtown Tacoma Partnership, presented the organization’s annual report and asked the committee to note trends in revenue, safety and activation services in the downtown business improvement area.

The Downtown Tacoma Partnership (DTP) is a business improvement area (BIA) that assesses property owners to fund services downtown. Schroedel told the committee the organization covers roughly 120 blocks and that assessment revenue is about $1.9 million annually, with roughly $200,000 in additional revenue from contracts and sponsorships, for total revenue near $2.1 million.

Schroedel said about 70% of DTP’s spending goes to Safe and Clean services, with roughly 15% for administration and another 15% for economic development and welcoming services. He said clean-team crews remove about 10,000 pounds of trash from downtown streets each month and that the partnership’s safety staff responded to nearly 2,000 safety incidents in 2024.

The presentation highlighted three trends: residential and retail growth, increased demand on clean and safety services, and event and market programming. Schroedel said downtown added roughly 2,000 multifamily units between 2022 and 2024 and that about 2,600 additional units are in permitting or under construction. He credited that residential growth with supporting retail and new openings; DTP reported 19 new business openings in 2024.

At the same time, Schroedel warned of rising graffiti and tagging. He told the committee that DTP removed about 2,000 tags in 2021 and roughly 5,500 in 2024, and said that volume “is unsustainable for us at our current level of service standard.” He described the organization’s standard of removing tags by the next business day and said the increase has strained resources.

Programming, partnerships and markets

Schroedel described event highlights (a block party attended by roughly 8,000 people, the holiday Snow Globe attraction and new businesses such as Flatstick, which purchased a building downtown) and DTP’s recent decision to take over management of the Broadway Farmers Market after market organizers signaled they needed help. He said the market previously drew up to 100,000 visitors in 2019 and that DTP staff are exploring how to rebuild vendor and visitor numbers; the market will restart in April with new management.

Schroedel outlined partnerships with the City of Tacoma, the Tacoma Convention and Visitor Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce and other local groups. He described DTP’s role in field-level services (sweepers, clean teams, safety outreach), landlord engagement to lease storefronts, and marketing to attract businesses and visitors. He characterized DTP as a hyper-local service provider controlled by property owners through a ratepayer board.

Council members asked about enforcement and coordination with the Tacoma Police Department; Schroedel said DTP used to reimburse the city for two bike officers downtown and that changes in state law and enforcement priorities diminished proactive enforcement for low-level offenses for a time. He said that shift, among other factors, contributed to higher tagging and that some legislative clarifications have since changed enforcement rules.

Schroedel also noted that DTP’s assessment rates and revenue per block are among the lowest for BIAs of similar footprint, and that property owners have consistently supported renewal ballots (99% approval among returned cards at the last renewal). He asked for continued city partnership on retail advocacy, clean-team support and other downtown services.

The presentation closed with an invitation to committee members to visit a class or graduation for the brownfields training program, and with discussion of upcoming EDC agenda items including reauthorizing Tacoma Creates and a March 25 meeting on that topic.