04-23-25 EDC Agenda Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – FEBRUARY 26, 2025 10 Commissioner Gronquist said she would be happy to help with any planning. Senior Planner Fransen summarized that Chair Murchie will put together a proposal timeline for a future event and present it at the next meeting. She encouraged the group to continue to brainstorm. She is going to put out a follow-up poll to Commissioners, if they want to continue with the visits. If there is interest, she will split the remaining addresses between Commissioners who are opting in to continue. She understands availability can vary from fall vs. spring. Work planning will continue, to include the breakfast event in the fall. Commissioner Gronquist said there is something on social media regarding a business that opened in Arden Plaza. The narrative on-line is that the City Council is shutting them down. She believes the area isn’t zoned properly and the City needs to address it. Senior Planner Fransen directed that if anyone has questions about that specific situation, they should reach out to City Administrator Jagoe. Senior Planner Fransen concluded that next steps for the business strategy have been established. Discussion of the business breakfast will be forthcoming at the next meeting. 6. COMMENTS AND REPORTS A. Report from Staff None. B. Report from the City Council Council Liaison Rousseau said that Council has traditionally cancelled the second meeting of the month for January, February and March. She would love to have more meetings to get through all the items on their priorities list. Council Liaison Rousseau updated that there was an ice relay held in Arden Hills the previous weekend. She explained that an individual came to a PTRC Meeting to talk about this event. There are only seven events like this in the entire world. Vermont is the only other place where one of these relay events are held in the United States. There were 100 participants from 6 different countries. PTRC has interest in building community gatherings like this. Arden Hills has Rib Fest. The organizers of this event has indicated that he would like to see this be an annual event. She sees events like this building community. This can generate pride. She sees the economic value of these activities. It draws people into our businesses. Council Liaison Rousseau attended a Gateway Visitors Bureau onboarding for their board members. She doesn’t serve on that board, the Mayor serves on that board for the City. She encouraged the group to consider intentionally moving their activities and events. She would like to move them to within a three week period, or so, to really try to market that in a way that they can talk about it a little bit more and provide that to people in the Fargo area and people from Duluth like to come here. There is data that Chicago is another place that visitors are from. They come into the business, spend a night at our hotels, and spend money in our community. Their data indicates that January through March has the lowest amount of hotel occupancy. The president of this group made her aware that there is a regional grant. He thought this would be a great