Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Downtown Revitalization topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Cosmont outlines downtown marketing push after retail conference; resident urges plan to get buyers for local properties
Summary
Cosmont Companies presented a quarterly update on downtown revitalization, highlighting marketing one-pagers, ICSC outreach and hotel interest; a resident during public comment said local property owner Peter Arth’s sales activity means the city needs a clearer strategy to attract buyers and learn from past business failures.
Ken Hero of Cosmont Companies presented a progress update on the city’s downtown revitalization strategy, describing outreach, marketing materials and developer contacts made at the ICSC retail conference. He said Cosmont prepared concise, double-sided one-page marketing pieces with facts about the city and downtown properties and used QR codes to give quick access to property information for brokers and hotel chains.
"We call that BEAR as an acronym, and it's involved some ongoing conversations with retailers, restaurants, developers, hotel chains, brokers," Hero said, noting follow-ups from Monterey negotiations and plans to attend the Las Vegas ICSC show in coming months. He told the council Cosmont can prepare a hotel-specific market study and a hotel marketing piece to provide prospective developers and lenders with occupancy and average-daily-rate data.
A resident who addressed the council during public comment urged the city to add a strategic element to its revitalization work that specifically explains how the city will encourage buyers to acquire downtown properties. "Peter Arth is removing himself from the location here in Dunsmuir selling properties," the speaker said, urging a plan for getting businesses to move into, or purchase, those properties and recommending a post-mortem on past business failures to shape recruitment efforts.
The presentation and the public comment together framed the council’s near-term actions: staff and Cosmont will continue follow-up with interested retailers and hotel chains and report back periodically; the council asked for further marketing materials and indicated interest in seeing any hotel study or targeted outreach pieces once prepared.
