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Meeting Notes

posted Oct 15, 2009 8:02 AM by Heather Trim [ updated Oct 18, 2010 11:19 PM ]

Archived Notes

posted Oct 15, 2009 7:59 AM by Heather Trim [ updated Oct 18, 2010 11:16 PM ]

Sunday, September 19, 2010

June 28 Meeting Notes

Sisters Tara Esplinoza and Sabrina Rinderle own and run Queen Anne Dispatch, which is a long-time business that is a neighborhood fixture and community gathering place started by their mother Jan in 1987. They discussed the challenges/barriers of running a business on Queen Anne as well as the successes. Overall, they do not find that there are any particularly large barriers to running a store in Queen Anne. There are merchant associations and good police presence. 2009 was their most successful year ever and they think that part of that was due to strong support from the community. They have been significantly involved in community events – school rummage sale, community center, auctions, and feel that their name and faces are out there. They get positive feedback from shoppers say who pay the surcharge on postal services (because a private business) because they prefer having the improved service level.

Some factors:
• In the past few years, they changed the merchandise to fit the neighborhood and economy. Added some less expensive gifts and dresses.
• They changed the location of the store from the south end to the north end of Queen Anne Ave a number of years ago. They have found that the northern of the Avenue is more resident-based with many more walking residents.
• Seems like more kids in the neighborhood. Schools are full
• Would like to be able to shut down the street for some street fairs such as Holiday magic and the art walk (like they do in Ballard). The challenge is that the bus line runs down the Avenue.
• They have generally found that personal word of mouth has been their most valuable marketing tool. Have steered clear of mass media. Do not use yellow pages. Valpacks did well – very expensive but you can track it.

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• Most of their business dollar-wise comes from off of the hill. (People come from a ways away to shop there).
• College students go there to buy gifts. These students are also going to Starbucks.
• They work hard to get locally made lines and then train staff members to be able to talk about the merchandise. A lot of stores try to find unique things, but they try to support the NW reps. Tries to keep the money local. Unfortunately, many of the affordable lines are not locally made.
• Holiday season – is roughly 30%
• They let people bring their coffee in – coffee shop is good for business!
• Promoting QA businesses. For example, Nordstrom takes a special shuttle bus to the cruise ships to transport customers. Could there be something like this for Queen Anne stores. In “Where” magazine there was a page ad for Queen Anne stores.
• Across the street, the game store owner (Blue Highway Games) goes into the schools and does events. Game tables with numbers. Game night ($5). Cafeteria table filled up with his games. His approach is “retail with an experience.”
• Holiday Magic event is expensive but very popular. For example, it costs $100/tree for the lights. Halloween candy can be as much as $200 per store.
• The biggest challenge for the QA businesses is rent. Landlords have not lowered their rents here as they have done in other parts of the city in response to the economic downturn. Have lost a number of businesses. There are a number of empty storefronts and this ends up also hurting the remaining businesses.

What can Sustainable Queen Anne do to help QA businesses?
• Sense of community. It would be great to do profiles of each business and their owners, including the history of each business and its connection to the neighborhood. If we know the owners, it would make a huge difference. Basically, a picture of the owner and a little story. These profiles could be put on free-standing signs outside of each store. And could be included in an online version
• Survey. They are not sure why people come here to shop from other neighborhoods. If we did a street-side survey we could figure out what is drawing people to QA to shop and then help enhance that. And for the neighbors who shop there, we could find out what their thoughts are.
• Special benefits for the community. We could develop a community card. Or create a card in which people would get 10% discount if they live in the zip code.

Our second special agenda item was a presentation by Alex Sawyer and Jennifer Grove, who are with Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (SEED). They are interested in helping launch a project called Solarize Seattle. Solarize Seattle is a volunteer-driven community effort designed to bring solar energy to Seattle homes, wherein interested neighbors will come together to enjoy significant savings through the bulk purchase of solar electric panels. Queen Anne looks like it would be an excellent pilot neighborhood for this effort.

NW SEED is a nonprofit organization that works on helping create community-based energy solutions. They helped Seattle City Light win a Solar America Cities grant to overcome market barriers to solar energy. As part of this, they held a series of community workshops , “Solar Works in Seattle!”– these were always sold out!

They are now interested in helping promote neighborhood-based solar program for Seattle which would take advantage of state and federal incentives. This program is modeled after a successful program initiated last year, Solarize Portland. Within 8 months, Solarize Portland quadrupled the amount of solar electric systems in the city by using a bulk purchasing and social based marketing model. It is based in neighborhoods/coalitions with neighbors taking pledges (signups for a three month time frame). In the first neighborhood, Southeast Portland, they had hoped to get 50 sign-ups. They installed 150 systems. The process involved developing a neighborhood steering committee, signing up neighbors though a significant neighbor-to-neighbor outreach effort, publishing an RFP, reviewing the bids and hiring a single contractor. Through the power of bulk purchasing, they brought the installed costs down. The system is connected to the grid and your meter spins backwards.

Solarize Portland learned that the program’s success is not about the price – it is about social connections (the neighbor-to neighbor connection). Solar does work here in Seattle (Germany is the world leader in solar and they are greyer than us!). Most homes will not cover all of their energy usage with their system. An average residential solar system would produce about 3000-4000 kilowatt hours per year, which is 30-50% of a residential usage. Seattle residences average 9000 kilowatts per year. After installing a system, however, people often try to further decrease their energy usage

If QA starts a pilot – we have a different set of incentives than Portland. The common themes are the bulk purchasing model and the federal incentive; Washington’s state incentives differ from Oregon’s. One of the main things that came out of the effort in Portland is that it is a community event. WA incentives sunset – but are always up for renewal.

Discussion
• Can historic buildings have them? A. Unknown
• Concern that rates go down but then the rates go back up.
o We have really cheap power because we have hydro, compared to the rest of the US. Therefore prices ARE going to go up over time. So getting a system in place will help be a safeguard against higher prices in the future.
o Also utilities are regulated on a state basis; states have set goals that in law for the utilities. They must produce more and more from alternative sources. Wind is doing well now because it is the first round, but bigger leaps are coming next.
o CA is only state in the union in which energy usage has not increased in 20 years because they have done so much conservation. Utilities are helping with that in a direct way.
• Look at energy bill and you see “green power.”
• We should include a question about clotheslines in our QA neighborhood survey. Also look at tree canopy. We are low (in tree canopy) compared to a lot of eastern cities. The new low-rise zoning proposal will greatly reduce the setbacks which will impact the trees
• Concern about light pollution.

Next SQA meeting is October 25.

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