THIS BLOG HAS HAD MORE THAN 800,000 UNIQUE VISITS

SINCE IT WAS LAUNCHED MORE THAN A DECADE AGO

The vast majority of my posts have to do with Universal Design and creating a better built environment for people with disabilities.

Posts have touched on planning, urban design, transportation engineering, landscape architecture, economic development, sustainability and related issues.

I have tackled public policy and held politicians’ feet to the fire.

I have shared more than 4,000 images that I have taken on work on five continents.

The cumulative word count of my posts would fill 11 300-page books.

Here's to more travel photos, human-centered advocacy and plain language interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and more.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 28

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

RESOURCES

National Main Street Center https://www.mainstreet.org/howwecanhelp/resourcecenter/covid19resources

Ball and Chain https://ballandchainmiami.com

Oakland BID https://onlyinoakland.org/supportoakland

Salud Juicery Oakland http://www.saludjuicery.com/oakland

Strong Towns https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/3/30/building-strong-local-economies-without-cheesecake-factory?rq=cheesecake%20factory

Crystal City BID https://www.crystalcity.org/covid-19

Gibbs Planning Group https://gibbsplanning.com

Central Square BID https://centralsq.org/blog/regional-impact-study-relief-measures

Off Their Place https://offtheirplate.org/

International Downtown Association https://downtown.org/covid-19

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 27

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Crozier cited Brookings Institution data that found more than a quarter of small businesses are at risk of immediate shutdown and over half are vulnerable to severe disruption or shutdown.

The data showed women entrepreneurs and small business owners of color are particularly at risk.

“This crisis shows us exactly how much we value our local, independent Main Street businesses,” she said. 

“Without added and expansive federal action to preserve our small business economy, Main Street will wither, and Wall Street will seize an even greater share of our economy.

We run the real risk of corporate consolidation and monopolies being the only ones able to survive a prolonged crisis. 

If we want to support the small businesses that invest in their local communities, and provide good jobs, rather than extract from them we need to protect the backbone of our economy."

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 26

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

“Small businesses have long been the backbone of our national economy and of Cherry Creek North,” said Nick LeMasters, CCN BID president and CEO.  

“With the largest concentration of independent business in the intermountain west, Cherry Creek North has long-served as an example of a unique, diverse and highly-personalized neighborhood experience.  

It is our highest priority to ensure that our community retains relevancy in this ever-changing market so when the time comes to welcome back those that visit, work and play in Cherry Creek North, we can do so as a strong and resilient neighborhood.”

Sarah Crozier, Senior Communications Manager at the Main Street Alliance, said Congress must create a policy response that is on par with the severity, scope and potential duration of the financial crisis that small businesses and their employees are facing.

“The current small business relief programs are too complex and underfunded. They are not delivering urgently needed aid fast enough,” she said.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 25

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

The Cherry Creek North BID, the first BID created in the state of Colorado, represents a neighborhood five minutes north of downtown Denver that touts the largest and most diverse shopping space between Chicago and San Francisco.  

Out of the 260 retail and service businesses in CCN, 70 percent -- just more than 175 -- are small retail businesses.

“It is imperative that we provide accurate information about available grant and loan programs to our constituents. We have created a Slack portal and opened it to the entire business community,” said Jenny Starkey, Senior Director of Marketing & Community Relations for CCN BID.

The BID invited critical resource providers to the virtual platform to ensure businesses have direct communication with representatives from the Mayor’s office, City Council, the Denver Metro Economic Development Office, Denver Chamber, Cherry Creek Chamber, Small Business Administration and Denver Police.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 24

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Smith said small, locally-owned businesses are finding very innovative ways to keep moving forward:

·        

      A hair salon in Alexandria, Virginia is delivering a small bottle of customer’ hair coloring solution, plus some shampoo and conditioner, to their homes, then following up with Zoom meetings to walk them through the process of touching up their roots.

·        A bar in San Antonio is offering drive-through cocktails and bottled beer and wine. With a $30 purchase, customers get a free hot dog from the hot dog stand next door and a free bottle of Stella Artois.

·        A personal chef and caterer in Metuchen, New Jersey now makes family-style meals serving four to six people and, when delivering them, offers to deliver products from other downtown businesses as well.

·        A professional photographer in Cincinnati is donating her services to other small businesses to take photos of their merchandise for their websites.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 23

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

“It is vital is to level the playing field between small, locally owned businesses and big box stores. Main Street businesses are largely shuttered now and are conducting business in new and innovative ways to minimize person-to-person contact and to keep everyone safe,” Kennedy Smith said.

“But, because they sell groceries and pharmaceuticals, big box stores have continued to let people in -- and to let them in to all their departments. 

While Main Street bookstores, toy shops and clothing stores are scrambling to find innovative ways to continue serving their customers and to bring in revenue – big box stores freely let customers wander around and pick up electronics, clothing, books, toys, tires, housewares…while also buying groceries.”

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 22

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

“This means that you need to make restaurant take-out more than a commodity.  

It needs to offer an emotional reprieve from the isolation we're all experiencing,” he said.   Can you bring the meal to their car curbside in a unique way?  

Guests are looking for a human connection and a reason to smile.  You can do that while still delivering a predictable and consistent experience.”

Kennedy Smith is a Senior Researcher with the Independent Business Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a non-profit that champions the need for humanly-scaled institutions and economies. 

She said Congress, state and local governments, foundations, civic institutions, crowdfunders and customers must get cash to small, locally owned businesses to keep them afloat – because most have less than a month of cash reserves on hand.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 21

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Chad Emerson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Downtown Huntsville, Inc., said a quick lesson learned is that small businesses able to quickly evolve in crisis will do better.

“We've found that the restaurants that create the most predictable and consistent experience are the ones that are rewarded with return business,” he said.  “Are your online menus and hours of operation accurate? 

Do you answer phone and online orders in a timely way?  When a customer chooses you to spend their more scarce dining dollars…when you say you'll have it ready curbside, they don't need a James Beard-level meal -- they just need James Beard-level customer service.”

Emerson it is often easier and less expensive to have groceries delivered and to cook at home.  He said small businesses owners should challenge themselves and their teams to make the curbside delivery a simple yet fun experience. 

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 20

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

The International Downtown Association underscores the importance of partnerships with local government, which can ensure quick turnaround on temporary rule changes to allow more ease of conducting business during COVID restrictions. 

Downtown Santa Monica instituted a temporary change in parking ordinances around restaurants to allow for easier pickup.

BIDS from Milwaukee to West Palm Beach have created lists of dozens of virtual events and activities to do, many powered by the local community. 

Milwaukee Downtown is working with museums, performing arts centers and universities to stream performances and lectures to strengthen community ties online. 

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 19

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

“There is a glut of vacant shopping centers and office parks, and they need to be repurposed into dense, walkable mixed-use centers,” Gibbs said.

“As regional malls are closing, many of their prime retailers are seeking downtowns to remain in the market.  There are opportunities for cities to attract those prime retailers if they implement a business recruitment plan.”

The Central Square Business Improvement District in Cambridge, MA partnered with two other small business organizations to create Grassroots Relief for Main Streets, a statewide campaign for legislation to support small businesses, arts organizations and non-profits.

The BID quickly partnered with local restaurant owners to provide food for the social service providers within its boundaries.

In one week, Tracy Chang (James Beard award nominee) and her team at PAGU made 900 meals for the shelters in Central. 

Chang quickly helped launch Off Their Plate, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring restaurant jobs and feeding the frontlines. It raised $2 million in a month.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 18

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Robert Gibbs is a professional planner, landscape architect, real estate advisor and author of Principles of Urban Retail Planning. 

Based in Birmingham Michigan, he has consulted on more than 1,000 projects spanning all 50 states, including retail evaluations of all design, planning, parking, signage, management and policy issues to improve the shopper experience and improve sales.

“DDAs are essential for competitive shopping districts, especially now.  Cities without DDAs will face a slower recovery than others,” he said of development authorities. 

“DDAs can offer marketing for restaurant carry-out, on-line shopping and especially their service businesses.

He said DDAs throughout the nation must prepare extensive post-recession/pandemic marketing plans to launch the moment things start to return to normal. 

To endure the crisis, Gibbs said landlords must offer free for several months and then reduce rents to 10 percent of gross sales. 

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 17

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

The Crystal City BID has organized drives, produced informational webinars and launched a “Hometown Heroes” initiative that rewards the efforts of helpful community members with gift cards to local small businesses.

“We are actively encouraging and empowering the community to support those local businesses that have remained open for carry-out and delivery. We set up a webpage that aggregates operational information so that area residents can easily access it,” Gabriel said. 

“We have also partnered with local government to designate nearly a dozen pick-up/delivery zones throughout the community to make it easier - and safer - for people to patronize these local establishments.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 16

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Tracy Sayegh Gabriel is an urbanist, planner and place-maker who serves as President and Executive Director of the Crystal City Business Improvement District, which enhances the vibrancy of Arlington -- Virginia’s largest downtown.

“We are working with fitness studios and cultural institutions in the neighborhood to develop a line-up of BID-sponsored virtual programming,” she said.

“It is a lifeline for our small businesses that are struggling to make ends meet. These online events provide residents with new avenues to stay both mentally and physically healthy as they adjust to life spent predominantly at home. “

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 15

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

“Places with strong local economic ecosystems will endure and recover,” said Marohn, who often writes about the inequity of heavy incentives given to national chains with no local roots – by cities that do little to nothing to level the playing field for locally-owned businesses.

“The current crisis will also put a large strain on cities’ budgets, and this will be felt most acutely in those places whose finances were already stretched by decades of low-returning development choices and deferred maintenance of overbuilt infrastructure,” said Marohn, whose recent book rails against the unsustainability of sprawled growth. 

“We’ve observed time and time again that the walkable, human scale, traditional pattern of development is the most financially productive approach to building human settlements, and these cities will be the most able, in the long recovery to come, to provide the services essential for their residents’ health and well-being.”

EXPERT COMMUNICATOR

TRUSTED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS AND DOZENS OF SUCCESSFUL PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR CLIENTS

On assignment in Egypt: March 2020

When the 1.3 million-member National Association of Realtors needed an expert writer to cover the COVID crisis from multiple angles for its prestigious On Common Ground smart growth-urban affairs magazine, it reached out to one person.

Steve Wright, Pulitzer-nominated, award-winning writer with 35 years’ experience writing about how cities work, was called on to do the near impossible: interview more than three dozen sources across the nation in barely a week’s time.

He then created the nation’s first comprehensive article on best practices for Business Improvement Districts, Main Streets, Downtown Development Authorities and other agencies charged with saving small businesses while keeping customers safe in the time of pandemic.

Wright not only created a pair of timely stories in fewer than 10 business days, he also gathered glossy magazine images – when servers were down and sources were working remotely – to vividly illustrate his storytelling.

Wrights’ frontline reporting on both urban small businesses and Coronavirus crisis procedures for commercial and residential realtors accounted for more than 40 percent of the text in the entire magazine contributed to by several journalists and published in record turnaround time.

To read the stories and get an understanding of the power of Wright’s writing and marketing communications capabilities, follow this link: 

https://tinyurl.com/yd2xocwd

To talk about how his unique storytelling skills can tell your firm’s story in the most challenging of times, phone Steve direct at 305 776-3231. Or email him at: 
stevewright64@yahoo.com

Storytelling for clients from Biscayne Bay to the banks of the Nile

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 14

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Charles Marohn is the Founder and President of Strong Towns, a non-profit making communities across the United States and Canada financially strong and resilient, and the author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.

“What the current crisis is exposing is not, as some commentators have suggested, some previously unknown flaw in the traditional development pattern that humans have used for thousands of years (and that has endured many infectious disease outbreaks). 

If anything, it is more likely to reveal the extreme fragility of the modern suburban experiment, and the financialized economy on which it depends,” said Marohn, an advocate of compact development.

The engineer and land planner, said when a local restaurant with a local landlord and a much more local supply chain cannot pay rent, it is in the interest of everyone involved to work it out. 

He said national chains that are announcing they cannot pay rent, “sets off a much more disruptive cascade of events that wipes out investors and jeopardizes bond markets.”

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 13

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

OBID also is providing a lot of cleanups of streetscapes and disinfecting of pedestrian “walk” light buttons – to make the area safe for those patronizing the neighborhood.

“We are a dense urban district with no drive-through opportunities, but our restaurants have adapted wonderfully.

Many have removed tables and chairs to make room for customers waiting to maintain the required minimum 6-foot social distance inside while others with smaller spaces have restricted interior access and have set the tables up at the main entrance for quick and easy pick up,” she said.

Petropoulos said the Oakland and BIDs nationwide must create a new narrative of how density and the built environment impacts people, in respect to staying safe during a pandemic.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 12

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Petropoulos said the BID stays in constant communication with its district community – by phone, text, survey, website, e-newsletter blasts and social media – while researching and communicating Covid-19 crisis help available. 

The BID promotes the message to the public that Oakland is open for business. 

“With the universities move to online learning and the closure of our museums and library, we saw a huge decline in the university student, faculty and staff customer and the visitor population so we focused our efforts on the hospitals and on area residents. 

In partnership with our hospitals, we set up a food delivery program Support Oakland, where restaurants gain access to deliver to hospital employees,” Petropoulos said.

COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 11

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

Georgia Petropoulos is the Executive Director of the Oakland Business Improvement District, which describes itself as Pittsburgh’s most ethnically diverse and lively neighborhood.

It is home to: prestigious universities and museums, world-class hospitals, grand architecture, quaint coffee shops, international cuisine and specialty shops.

“Like many cities across the country, our business district has been greatly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and our business owners have put out a herculean effort for survival,” she said. “Restaurants shifted service hours and redesigned menus to focus on takeout and delivery. 

Business owners have been creative with new promotions as well such as Salud Juicery Oakland's "Cup of Goodness" program where the public can purchase smoothies for hospital doctors and nurses.”

“Our business owners are the life of our community and they need our help,” Petropoulos continued.