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Following you will find the goals and objectives as determined by the Cottage Grove Main Street Program’s committee. These ideas fall into the four main areas of focus for the Oregon Main Street Program.

Organization

Goal: To provide leadership and encourage participation in developing a comprehensive downtown revitalization organization using the Main Street Approach®.

Objectives:
• Create and implement detailed work plans for Design, Economic Restructuring and Promotional projects.
• Develop a funding plan to support projects.
• Create a volunteer development plan to implement projects.

Design

Goal: To enhance the pedestrian environment and encourage visual improvements through good design compatible with historic features.

Objectives:
• Improve attractiveness and define gateway from Highway 99 to Main Street, create archway or mural: “Welcome to Historic Downtown”.
• Encourage common blade signage for main street business and develop grant pool to support change over.
• Develop directional signage for downtown parking.

Economic Restructuring

Goal: To strengthen and broaden downtown’s economic base.

Objectives:
• Assist existing businesses and give them the tools they need to succeed.
• Address underutilized/vacant buildings
– Target professional services to fill vacant buildings.
– Link to low interest loans for new businesses.
• Encourage more consistent business hours

Promotion

Goal: To promote the downtown as the community’s social, cultural, and economic center.

Objectives:
• Create business cross promotions packages: hotel, restaurant, theater tickets
• Develop and promote events that bring people downtown
• Enhance downtown marketing efforts through Feelin’ Grove-y booklet: 2 page spread promote downtown 5000 copies.

For more information on how you can participate or contribute
contact Kristin Sanger, Economic Development Coordinator with the Cottage Grove Area Chamber
kristin@cgchamber or by phone at 541-232-9953

Business owners who are looking to improve their bottom line have a new resource in Cottage Grove. Cottage Grove is the pilot city in a pilot program offered by Pacific Power.

Pacific Power would like to assist business owners in Cottage Grove to reduce their energy costs. They are offering a free consultation and walk through your location to help determine how their Business Energy Incentives program could assist your business in reducing energy costs.

The field energy consultants will be in Cottage Grove monthly starting today March 30, 2011. If you would like a consultation, contact Mark Seiler at 541-890-6850 and he will arrange a meeting to start assisting you with determining all the many incentives that are available to your business to save money on energy costs.

“Downtown is the heart and soul of any community—at least it should be,” stated Sheri Stuart, Coordinator of the Oregon Main Street Program, at the Cottage Grove Oregon Main Street Program Kick-Off Meeting. Cottage Grove was recently chosen to participate in the Transforming Downtown phase of the Oregon Main Street Program. The kick-off meeting was held in late January to determine the goals that will drive Cottage Grove’s Main Street efforts for the next two years.

“The first step in this process,” emphasized Stuart, “is identifying what the community sees as priorities for the downtown area.” Stuart outlined that the work force to put these plans into action will consist of volunteer community members that will be organized into four committees based on the Main Street Approach: organization, economic restructuring, design and promotion. She emphasized that the primary goal of the Oregon Main Street Program is to build high quality, livable and sustainable communities that will help grow Oregon’s economy.

More than fifty interested participants showed up for the meeting, packing the conference room at the community center. There were business and property owners from the downtown area and many were simply interested community members. One of those, Marv Krush, moved to Cottage Grove five years ago with his wife seeking a small town atmosphere, which they feel they found here. Krush came to the meeting because he was interested to learn about the potential changes that would be made by Cottage Grove participating in the Transforming Downtown phase of the Main Street Program. He appreciated being able to offer his opinion.

Stuart introduced the attendees to the comprehensive four-point approach of the Main Street Program. The program offers guidance and technical assistance in achieving the goals that are chosen in each of the four areas of focus and the community will be responsible for designing its projects and for implementation to achieve the goals that are set.

A primary goal of the program is halting the spiral of disinvestment by injecting vitality into the downtown area. The community would like to maintain the businesses that are already in the downtown area, as well as assist in determining what would be the right mix of businesses to fill in the gaps.  The Economic Restructuring Committee will be responsible for recruitment of businesses and for developing a comprehensive recruitment strategy. Business clusters were looked at as a way to fill vacant spaces. Stuart stressed that the Main Street approach must always be comprehensive because any one tool or technique alone will not revitalize a downtown area.

There was talk of enhancing Cottage Grove’s appeal to visitors by creating downtown entrances on both ends of Highway 99. Creating a consistent design standard for marketing businesses in the downtown area was also a repeated point. The need was recognized for a more consistent theme under which to market Cottage Grove and the need for a coordinated approach for events being held in historic downtown. People expressed a desire to have one central calendar that allowed all interested parties to see what other events were happening and when.

Some businesses expressed a desire to do cross promotions with other local businesses. It was also suggested that business owners create package deals so that when someone was shopping at one downtown business they would be encouraged to go to other downtown businesses.

Having more outdoor community space in the downtown area was expressed as a way to have the citizens of Cottage Grove take more interest in the downtown area. Another suggestion that had a lot of support was making Cottage Grove friendlier to bicyclists by creating more parking downtown for bicycles and hosting large-scale bicycle events. This is something that will occur this summer when Cottage Grove hosts Cycle Oregon for an overnight stay during their week-long event for more than 2000 bicyclists in September 2011.

The desire to bring more locals downtown was expressed repeatedly. Business owners were open to anything that brings more people downtown to see what the businesses in the area actually offer. This came back to the idea that there was a need for more communication among interested parties concerning promoting downtown Cottage Grove with a consistent theme, which participation in the Main Street Program will help support.

The focus of this initial meeting was outlining goals and objectives that will meet the needs of the community. Future meetings will further define these goals and outline what are achievable objectives to attain these goals.

Learn more at the follow up meeting on March 29, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. in the Shepherd Room at the Cottage Grove Community Center at 700 E Gibbs Avenue.

Written by Rose R. Miller

Cottage Grove, Oregon is a town that is primed for business growth and development. An ideal location with I-5 access is only one of many factors that influence its readiness. Invested stakeholders from organizations like the Cottage Grove Economic Development Committee (EDC) and the Economic Business Improvement District (EBID) are making a great impact.

The EBID was organized in 2001 as a tax assessing 501(c) 3 organization that beautifies, promotes and organizes the downtown area from River Road to Gateway Blvd. In 2004 there was a desire for the EBID to broaden the scope of its supportive efforts in Cottage Grove and that was when the EDC came under their wing. The goal of the EDC is contributing to the sustainability of the Cottage Grove area by stimulating economic development and employment through uniting local, county and state organizations. Both the EBID and EDC are comprised of local contributing business and property owners that are invested in Cottage Grove’s economic future.

If you ask Matt Parsons, Chair of the EDC, what he feels is most important for people to realize about economic development; he will tell you, “It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time to see results. It requires both patience and a long term view. It is an ongoing effort over time, requiring many participants.”

The EBID and EDC spurred the development of the Economic Development Partnership (EDP) in 2008. This new partnership includes the EBID, EDC, City of Cottage Grove and the Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce. The EDP is responsible for reviewing future goals that are presented by the EDC and they are also responsible for developing a sustainable economic development program. They have recently earned Cottage Grove acceptance into the Oregon Main Street Program’s Transforming Downtown designation. This program is assisting the EDP in its efforts to revitalize the heart of Cottage Grove’s central business district.

Several resources were developed by this coalition as part of a strategy to better promote Cottage Grove to interested businesses. Their most valuable tool is the economic development website, www.growingthegrove.com, which highlights all of the advantages of doing business in Cottage Grove and houses the community land inventory, a comprehensive list of commercial/industrial land and properties available in Cottage Grove.

In November 2010 the EDC hosted the First Annual Economic Development Summit, bringing together a diverse range of community leaders who worked together in round-table brainstorming sessions on how to focus the efforts of all these groups in order to achieve the long term goal of economic sustainability for this community and its constituents.

Many great ideas and perspectives were presented at the summit, such as redeveloping the City of Cottage Grove’s revolving loan program. This would help with business development and job creation. It was also suggested that Cottage Grove make efforts to attract new industry and aim to be the Silicon Valley of those chosen industries. The CG Chamber is fielding all leads that come in and work is being done to assess what industries that Cottage Grove would best support and then to reach out to companies in those fields.

The EDP is currently focusing their efforts on new objectives, including the rebuilding of the revolving loan fund in order to help businesses expand and make necessary improvements. They also plan to develop incentives to support the growth of local businesses and to attract new businesses in order to increase employment opportunities. They are also coordinating the effort to improve and develop our historic downtown area by joining the Oregon Main Street Program and inspiring local key organizations to participate in this process.

The primary objective of the EDP is to focus on job creation through education, marketing, recruiting and other supportive resources. The EDP intends to be self-sustaining by raising monies through individual, local, state and other sources to support economic development efforts on behalf of Cottage Grove.

Written by Rose R. Miller

Running a business is hard work; there is no denying that fact, even more so when your business is what is considered a “small business.” Many owners struggle along thinking that they are alone in their desire for their business to be successful. In Cottage Grove you see a different scenario, where businesses are receiving extra support and resources through a coordinated effort by the Economic Development Partnership. They want businesses in our community to thrive and feel supported and they have put forth a great effort to fulfill that.

The partnership has provided an opportunity with Lane Community College Business Development Council (LCCBDC) to offer a small business management class to business owners in the Cottage Grove.  The class is a 9 month course titled Strategies of Success. In the February class, the steps of preparing a business plan were explored with an emphasis on the needs of the business owners in attendance. In addition, the class was enhanced by a guest speaker, Kiaping Zhang, a business and economics librarian from the University of Oregon.

Zhang gave the class a list of resources, which can be accessed at the UO library homepage by searching the library site tab for Cottage Grove. There you will find a wide variety of business and demographic databases as well as a list of business planning resources. An interesting point was also made about the databases that are available if you go directly to the library.

The next class will be focused on marketing and public relations. There was a marketing plan worksheet passed around for people to bring back next time that focused on topics such as setting goals, defining the target market, assessing the internal and external environment, determining your competitive advantage, creating and delivering a marketing message, planning the timing and budget for the marketing campaign, implementing the plan and, of course, review and revise. More on that next month! 

Many of the resources available to the S.O.S. class are also available by contacting the LCCBDC directly at 541-463-5255 or visit their website at www.LaneBDC.com  

Written by Rose R. Miller