Archives

Downtown Revitalization Committee Meeting

Thursday, December 2, 2021 @ 5 p.m.

Next Meeting: Thursday, January 6 @ 5PM

In attendance were Tracy Brookshier, Stan Schwartz, Amber Grote, Donna Ellison

Downtown Marketplace Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

Red chalet is ready to rent, just waiting on electric to be finished. We plan to sponsor an ad for it after the holidays on facebook to gain more interest. We are moving forward with the purchase of a new chalet. It will be just a bit smaller than the blue chalet. PLTC is building.

Thanks to Tony Windmiller, he picked up two picnic tables that were donated to us and also made some repairs to them. As well, Peoples Savings Bank is donating a new picnic table as well! STILL LOOKING for someone to assist/donate a small pavilion stage.

Downtown Marketplace Mailer Campaign:

We have received $1,700 in donations from our mailer campaign so far. We sent out over 100 letters to businesses asking for $100 monetary donations.

Shop-2-Win Downtown Punch Card Raffle: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Check our facebook page for the event or online at the chamber website.

Holly Jolly Festival/Living Windows: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

We only had one contestant, BG Times. They won the $100 first place prize money (donated by Community State Bank). We did not charge them the $10 entry fee.

Downtown Christmas Tree Activities: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier & Brittany Henke

Christmas ornaments are still for sale at BG Times and Full Throttle Nutrition. Bikes for Tikes is coming back; Brittany Henke is collecting donations and will be periodically setting things out by the downtown Christmas tree.

https://bgchamber.org/area-information/downtown-revitalization/ www.facebook.com/bgdowntownrevitalization

Tracy Brookshier – Chairperson – 314-971-5886   tbrookshier@pikecountyhealth.org

Next Meeting! Thursday, November 4th, 2020 @ 5PM

Downtown Revitalization Committee Meeting

Thursday, November 5, 2021 @ 5 p.m.

Next Meeting: Thursday, December 2nd @ 5PM

In attendance were Tracy Brookshier, Stan Schwartz, Christina Orf, Brittany Henke

——————————————– PROJECTS ———————————————-

Downtown Marketplace Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

Downtown Market Place Chalets: Red chalet is move in ready! We are getting a bid for another chalet from PLTC. This chalet will be almost the same size as the blue one as I have had multiple people interested in something larger.

Concrete planters: We have decided on finding a way to get the posts needed for planters on the square done cheaper. 3B is unable to do more of them any time soon and elsewhere we have been quoted $500 each.

Seating/Entertainment: Tony Windmiller has agreed to pick up two picnic tables that are being donated to us. As well, Peoples Savings Bank is donating a new picnic table as well!

—————————————- EVENTS/FUNDRAISERS ———————————–

Farmers & Artisans at the Downtown Marketplace: Project Lead: Dana Gordy

We asked for feedback on facebook from everyone and received no responses. Will try again next year. Trying to sweet talk WilCals Kitchen into making our downtown lots their “home base” for the future! 😉

Downtown Marketplace Mailer Campaign:

We have received $850 in donations from our mailer campaign so far; we have also created a facebook page for this. We sent out over 100 letters to businesses asking for $100 monetary donations.

Shop-2-Win Downtown Punch Card Raffle: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Check our facebook page for the event or online at the chamber website.

Holly Jolly Festival/Living Windows: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

WE NEED PARTICIPANTS!! TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS! GET BUSINESSES AND ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED!!! Cash prizes for participants have been donated by Community State Bank again! We want AS MANY windows LIVE as possible for our community!!!

Downtown Christmas Tree Activities: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier & Brittany Henke

Stan Schwartz had the great idea to sell ornaments for people to decorate and put on our downtown tree once it is up. BG Times and Full Throttle Nutrition will be the pickup/purchase spot for these. ALSO THE BIKES FROM SANTAS ELVES ARE COMING BACK! Brittany said she has already had people and businesses interested in helping and our secret elf from last year said he has lots of bike ready to go!

ALL of these activities will be posted on the EVENT FB PAGE!!!!

We cleaned up inactive admins from our facebook page. Myself, Brittany Henke and Christina Orf will be the admins to our facebook page going forward.

https://bgchamber.org/area-information/downtown-revitalization/

www.facebook.com/bgdowntownrevitalization

Tracy Brookshier – Chairperson – 314-971-5886   tbrookshier@pikecountyhealth.org

Next Meeting! Thursday, November 4th, 2020 @ 5PM

The basic take aways:

• Chalets are gaining more interest and we may have all three rented in the very near future. Likely going to do another mailer campaign to raise more funds needed to purchase our next one.
• Texas Tushies opens up today in grey chalet.
• Looking for free Christmas trees, old, lights not working, doesn’t matter, we want to add some more to our downtown winter wonderland! Let us know what you have
• Still looking for help getting bids for picnic tables and accepting donations of gently used picnic tables !!!! Spread the word!
• Going to try and start an ornament fundraiser. Stan is going to see if BG Times office can be the “hub” for these purchases. Families can come and buy one, decorate it how they want and put it on our trees. Thinking around $2-$3 for a small ornament and maybe $10 for BIG ones! More details to come.
• Farmers & Artisans Market ends Oct. 22^nd!
• Shop-2-Win Downtown Punch Card Raffle is HAPPENING NOW! Get on our facebook or chamber website to learn more!
• Planning to continue the LIVING WINDOWS at the holly jolly festival again this year!

Read the full meeting recap here >>>

Downtown Revitalization Committee Meeting

Thursday, July 1st, 2021 @ 5 p.m.

Next Meeting: Thursday, August 5th @ 5PM

In attendance were Tracy Brookshier, Christina Orf, Stan Swartz, Amber Grote & Rebecca Grummel

——————————————– PROJECTS ———————————————-

Benches on the square Project Lead: Brittany Henke, Tracy Brookshier

No new updates – NECC Building Trades class was working on 4 more planter/benches for us; unsure on a completion time as they no longer have an instructor. We already have 3 people ready to sponsor these.

Downtown Dream Project Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

The lots that we have downtown have plans to create one large event/public space. It consists of multiple projects consisting of:

• Downtown Market Place Chalets: Water and sewer hookup is in the works for blue chalet, anticipated to be done late june. Juice bar is working on getting ready, may be August before they open. Thanks to Ed Kerns Construction for donating the concrete and labor to set peirs for the red chalet and the new chalet that will be arriving the afternoon of 7/2.
• Downtown Entrance Building: (no new updates) We discussed that we likely will not have the funds for this project for a while, with lumber prices continuing to rise. We accepted the bid to build this from Dempsey Construction. The estimated cost was less than $14,000.00 last year and we are sure it is more now. This will be the glorified entrance to our lot space. It will have event storage, ticket window, windows to display upcoming events and a breezeway full of plaques for our donors.
• Liberty Theatre Stage: (No new updates).We are hoping to get this done fully through donations. The stage we are thinking will be a simple deck platform roughly 20’ x 16’ with a roof to use for entertainment. We have reached out to the Lions Club assistance. If you know of anyone interested in helping please let us know.
• Concrete planters: We have a concrete planter agreement made up. It will be uploaded to the website when finalized. Any that our committee or the chamber puts out on “public grounds” will be sponsored for 4 years for $450 and we will manage everything. If there is a business within BG that wants one we are considering it a “private planter” which will cost $1,000.00. We will arrange the planter and post and the purchaser will be responsible for hauling and making it their own. We are also offering tiered pricing for the concrete planters alone for businesses/organizations outside of BG, they will be responsible for pick up and hauling as well. No post included. MURALS have started on the planters on our lots, Sheri Grote is anticipated to be complete before heritage festival. We are awaiting more posts from 3B to complete the ones at the courthouse.
• Seating/Entertainment: (No new updates) We have requested picnic tables of some sort, new or gently used to place on the gravel portion of our lots. Cole Branstetter has reached out to some that may be willing to build us some.

In total these projects will cost us roughly $50,000.00 once complete. We will continue to do fundraisers until complete.

Bringing Interactive Art Downtown: Project Lead:

(No new updates) A couple businesses downtown have already had fun with this idea, we hope to have places to add these in the future.

Historical Walking Tour: Project Lead: Brittany Henke

(No new updates). Brittany has gathered a good amount of Bowling Green History for this project and we discussed getting the information on some sort of plaque to add to the planters that we are already working on in order to save money; the planters would then serve double duty!

—————————————- EVENTS/FUNDRAISERS ———————————–

Food Truck Fridays: Project Lead: Danielle Orf and Tracy Brookshier.

At this time, we have decided to offer food trucks to use our lot for serving food and just ask them for enough notice so that we can help promote them being there.

Shop-2-Win Downtown Punch Card Raffle: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke

We did this again fall 2020, still only profited a small amount (around $100) but we feel we will continue each year as it gains interest.

Downtown Hoedown: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke

Anyone willing to volunteer; we need assistance with set up, it will begin at 1pm on Friday July 9^th. We could also use a few more to help during the event and with clean up after. Please let me know if you can help.

Champ Clark Heritage Festival/Paint the Street: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

No New updates – We have decided not to do a beer garden/concert this year. The few volunteers we had the last couple years doing it don’t have the energy as it made for an extremely exhausting day. Instead we are just going to continue with the Paint the Street event during the festival as it went over well the first year we did it. This year everyone will be open to paint during the designated time. There will be an entry fee and cash prizes again for votes taken via facebook. We have plenty of left over paint from the previous year, so we will only need to purchase brushes again.

————————————— OTHER BUSINESS —————————————–

Vacant buildings on the square Project Lead: Brittany Henke, Tracy Brookshier

New update as of 7/2/2021: We have found someone to help with registering our downtown buildings as historical sites. We are starting with the Pike County Genealogical Society & Museum. We will then work with building owners who may need assistance. This will be HUGE for our downtown as it will then open up many funding opportunities to these buildings for repairs and maintenance! YAY!

Old news: The old Peoples Tribune building is for sale by Jim Turner. There is an office space available to rent by Jim Wells right off the square. Bill Allen has been working on the Ben Franklin building and hopes to have 2 businesses open within it by the end of the year. We have not heard anything new from Mario on the old Dos Primos building. Chad Perkins is supposed to be getting us information regarding his available store front. Travis Dixon owns the building that is behind Ann Layne (next to Spring Hollow Coffee) and is hoping to have it ready to rent by this fall. I have not reached out to Spring Hollow lately for an update regarding their building remodel.

Grants Project Lead: Sarrah Gigous, Brittany Henke

(No new updates)We have been told that we have someone working on a grant for our committee that would potentially give us $6,000 to put towards our downtown marketplace projects! Keep your fingers crossed!

https://bgchamber.org/area-information/downtown-revitalization/

www.facebook.com/bgdowntownrevitalization

Tracy Brookshier – Chairperson – 314-971-5886   tbrookshier@pikecountyhealth.org

Next Meeting! Thursday, August 5th, 2020 @ 5PM

Find more meeting minutes on our DOWNTOWN PAGE.

Downtown Revitalization Committee Meeting
Thursday, June 3rd, 2021 @ 5 p.m.
Next Meeting: Thursday July 1st @ 5PM

In attendance were Tracy Brookshier, Christina Orf, Stan Swartz, Amber Grote & Jessie McMorris

——————————————– PROJECTS ———————————————-
Benches on the square Project Lead: Brittany Henke, Tracy Brookshier
No new updates – NECC Building Trades class was working on 4 more planter/benches for us; unsure on a completion time as they no longer have an instructor. We already have 3 people ready to sponsor these.

Downtown Dream Project Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier
The lots that we have downtown have plans to create one large event/public space. It consists of multiple projects consisting of:
1.) Downtown Market Place Chalets: Water and sewer hookup is in the works for blue chalet, anticipated to be done late june. Juice bar wants to open by end of July. Kyle Scherder agreed to get piers in place for red chalet and new chalet.
2.) Downtown Entrance Building: (no new updates) We discussed that we likely will not have the funds for this project for a while, with lumber prices continuing to rise. We accepted the bid to build this from Dempsey Construction. The estimated cost was less than $14,000.00 last year and we are sure it is more now. This will be the glorified entrance to our lot space. It will have event storage, ticket window, windows to display upcoming events and a breezeway full of plaques for our donors.
3.) Liberty Theatre Stage: (No new updates).We are hoping to get this done fully through donations. The stage we are thinking will be a simple deck platform roughly 20’ x 16’ with a roof to use for entertainment. We have reached out to the Lions Club assistance. If you know of anyone interested in helping please let us know.
4.) Concrete planters: McCoy Thompson was hired to work on solar lights and getting them finished. We are creating an agreement for concrete planter sales. Murals will be painted on concrete planters by Heritage Festival.
5.) Seating/Entertainment: (No new updates) We have requested picnic tables of some sort, new or gently used to place on the gravel portion of our lots. Cole Branstetter has reached out to some that may be willing to build us some.
In total these projects will cost us roughly $50,000.00 once complete. We will continue to do fundraisers until complete.

Bringing Interactive Art Downtown: Project Lead:
(No new updates) A couple businesses downtown have already had fun with this idea, we hope to have places to add these in the future.

Historical Walking Tour: Project Lead: Brittany Henke
(No new updates). Brittany has gathered a good amount of Bowling Green History for this project and we discussed getting the information on some sort of plaque to add to the planters that we are already working on in order to save money; the planters would then serve double duty!

—————————————- EVENTS/FUNDRAISERS ———————————–
Food Truck Fridays: Project Lead: Danielle Orf and Tracy Brookshier.At this time, we have decided to offer food trucks to use our lot for serving food and just ask them for enough notice so that we can help promote them being there.

Shop-2-Win Downtown Punch Card Raffle: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke. We did this again fall 2020, still only profited a small amount (around $100) but we feel we will continue each year as it gains interest.

Downtown Hoedown: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke. WE NEED AS MANY VOLUNTEERS AS WE CAN GET! Please give me a heads up if you plan to help out! Hoping to start set up at NOON on July 9th! We will also need help tearing down and cleaning up! Chamber website has been updated with all the relevant information. We need at least another $1,000 in sponsorships to make the profit we did last year. Tshirt presales and sponsor deadline is June 25th. We have Mernas Kitchen, A Taste of Philly, Aloha Pizza Truck, Sugar Shack so far for vendors. Have reached out to kettle corn vendors again as well.

Champ Clark Heritage Festival/Paint the Street: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier
We have decided not to do a beer garden/concert this year. The few volunteers we had the last couple years doing it don’t have the energy as it made for an extremely exhausting day. Instead we are just going to continue with the Paint the Street event during the festival as it went over well the first year we did it. This year everyone will be open to paint during the designated time. There will be an entry fee and cash prizes again for votes taken via facebook. We have plenty of left over paint from the previous year, so we will only need to purchase brushes again.

————————————— OTHER BUSINESS —————————————–
Vacant buildings on the square Project Lead: Brittany Henke, Tracy Brookshier
(No new updates) The old Peoples Tribune building is for sale by Jim Turner. There is an office space available to rent by Jim Wells right off the square. Bill Allen has been working on the Ben Franklin building and hopes to have 2 businesses open within it by the end of the year. We have not heard anything new from Mario on the old Dos Primos building. Chad Perkins is supposed to be getting us information regarding his available store front. Travis Dixon owns the building that is behind Ann Layne (next to Spring Hollow Coffee) and is hoping to have it ready to rent by this fall. I have not reached out to Spring Hollow lately for an update regarding their building remodel.

Grants Project Lead: Sarrah Gigous, Brittany Henke
(No new updates)We have been told that we have someone working on a grant for our committee that would potentially give us $6,000 to put towards our downtown marketplace projects! Keep your fingers crossed!

Downtown Bowling Green

www.facebook.com/bgdowntownrevitalization
Tracy Brookshier – Chairperson – 314-971-5886 tbrookshier@pikecountyhealth.org
Next Meeting! Thursday July 1st, 2020 @ 5PM

Downtown Revitalization Committee Meeting

Thursday, May 6th, 2021 @ 5 p.m.

Next Meeting: Thursday June 3^rd @ 5PM

In attendance were Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke, Stan Swartz, Amber Grote & Jessie McMorris

——————————————– PROJECTS ———————————————-

Benches on the square Project Lead: Brittany Henke, Tracy Brookshier

NECC Building Trades class was working on 4 more planter/benches for us; unsure on a completion time as they no longer have an instructor. We already have 3 people ready to sponsor these.

Downtown Dream Project Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

The lots that we have downtown have plans to create one large event/public space. It consists of multiple projects consisting of:

• Downtown Market Place Chalets: We have our first “blue” chalet up and in the process of gaining a new renter and potentially hooking up to water/sewer for them; depending on the cost we may utilize these hook ups to build a small restroom on site. We have the “red” chalet (aka the Santa House) moved into place and Craig Burnett (Forever Primitives) is donating paneling to finish out the inside, as well, Dempsey Construction is donating insulation. Our 3^rd chalet (Grey) will be delivered in 4-6 weeks, we purchased a Cumberland farms 8×12 cabin with porch. We received the $3,000 grant for the chalet project and it cost us $3,690.00. It will be a dark grey with white metal roof and trim.
• Downtown Entrance Building: We discussed that we likely will not have the funds for this project for a while, with lumber prices continuing to rise. We accepted the bid to build this from Dempsey Construction. The estimated cost was less than $14,000.00 last year and we are sure it is more now. This will be the glorified entrance to our lot space. It will have event storage, ticket window, windows to display upcoming events and a breezeway full of plaques for our donors.
• Liberty Theatre Stage: (No new updates as of 5/6/21).We are hoping to get this done fully through donations. The stage we are thinking will be a simple deck platform roughly 20’ x 16’ with a roof to use for entertainment. We have reached out to the Lions Club assistance. If you know of anyone interested in helping please let us know.
• Concrete planters: We have 11 planters lining the edges of our downtown lots. These have all been sponsored and have flowers planted. Additionally, we are commissioning Sherri Grote to paint murals on all of them. We have 1 planter at Kustom Works hair salon, and hope to have more of these lining the side of south court street leading from crossroads to the square. We have 6 more planters being moved around the square near the courthouse steps. We also have a few outside businesses interested in having a planter. We also have a few businesses who are interested in sponsoring. As of right now, of the planters mentioned, they are all sponsored. Once we get more planters in place, more sponsor opportunities will come. Sponsorships are $450 for 4 years. This funds the cost of materials and flowers for 4 years. Businesses wishing to have one that are outside of downtown will need to water it themselves, as we have PCADD watering ours that our downtown now. Bleigh Ready mix is making more planters and has said these will be exclusive to us, so anyone wanting one will have to be purchased through us. ALSO, MASH has donated money for us to purchase hanging solar string lights and they are mostly put up, just a few more to go!
• Seating/Entertainment: We have requested picnic tables of some sort, new or gently used to place on the gravel portion of our lots. Cole Branstetter has reached out to some that may be willing to build us some.

In total these projects will cost us roughly $50,000.00 once complete. We will continue to do fundraisers until complete.

Bringing Interactive Art Downtown: Project Lead:

A couple businesses downtown have already had fun with this idea, we hope to have places to add these in the future.

Historical Walking Tour: Project Lead: Brittany Henke

(No new updates as of 5/6/2021). Brittany has gathered a good amount of Bowling Green History for this project and we discussed getting the information on some sort of plaque to add to the planters that we are already working on in order to save money; the planters would then serve double duty!

—————————————- EVENTS/FUNDRAISERS ———————————–

Food Truck Fridays: Project Lead: Danielle Orf and Tracy Brookshier.

At this time, we have decided to offer food trucks to use our lot for serving food and just ask them for enough notice so that we can help promote them being there.

Shop-2-Win Downtown Punch Card Raffle: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke

We did this again fall 2020, still only profited a small amount (around $100) but we feel we will continue each year as it gains interest.

Downtown Hoedown: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier, Brittany Henke

We are moving forward with this event this year, we have booked our entertainment and are now looking for event sponsors. Chamber website has been updated with all the relevant information.

Champ Clark Heritage Festival/Paint the Street: Project Lead: Tracy Brookshier

We have decided not to do a beer garden/concert this year. The few volunteers we had the last couple years doing it don’t have the energy as it made for an extremely exhausting day. Instead we are just going to continue with the Paint the Street event during the festival as it went over well the first year we did it. This year everyone will be open to paint during the designated time. There will be an entry fee and cash prizes again for votes taken via facebook. We have plenty of left over paint from the previous year, so we will only need to purchase brushes again.

————————————— OTHER BUSINESS —————————————–

Vacant buildings on the square Project Lead: Brittany Henke, Tracy Brookshier

The old Peoples Tribune building is for sale by Jim Turner. There is an office space available to rent by Jim Wells right off the square. Bill Allen has been working on the Ben Franklin building and hopes to have 2 businesses open within it by the end of the year. We have not heard anything new from Mario on the old Dos Primos building. Chad Perkins is supposed to be getting us information regarding his available store front. Travis Dixon owns the building that is behind Ann Layne (next to Spring Hollow Coffee) and is hoping to have it ready to rent by this fall. I have not reached out to Spring Hollow lately for an update regarding their building remodel.

Grants Project Lead: Sarrah Gigous, Brittany Henke

We have been told that we have someone working on a grant for our committee that would potentially give us $6,000 to put towards our downtown marketplace projects! Keep your fingers crossed!

https://bgchamber.org/area-information/downtown-revitalization/

www.facebook.com/bgdowntownrevitalization

Tracy Brookshier – Chairperson – 314-971-5886   tbrookshier@pikecountyhealth.org

Next Meeting! Thursday June 3^rd, 2020 @ 5PM

If you didn’t see yet, we had a great group of volunteers yesterday to assist in finishing up our concrete planters! They look great!! (I may be a little bias tho! 😉 ) We spent just under 3 hours loading fill rock and dirt and installing the sponsor banners. Even though this project is mostly complete you will continue to see it grow. Flowers will be planted in them soon and more planters will slowly be spread out around town. At some point we would like to see some sort of murals painted on these as well! Here is a list of the well-deserved thankyou’s thus far:

• Eolia Landscape and supply for donating the dirt
• 3B Machine and Weld for building the form and banner posts
• Bleigh Ready Mix for making and helping to move the planters
• Perkins Electric, River City Towing and Ed Kerns for helping haul and move planters
• George Graver for hauling and donating the fill rock
• The Rotary Club for their grant to help fund the project and to the members for helping install the posts: Frank Berlin, Kevin Brown, Jim Moore, Nellie & Willard Wamsley.
• The Volunteers that helped fill the planters and clean up yesterday: Christina Orf, Lesli Fox, Ellen Orf, John Elliott, Jessie McMorris, Gregory Knox and Frank Berlin!
• To our 4 year sponsors: Community State Bank, JLev Life, Shimp Storage LLC, Crossroads General Store, Bibb-Veach Funeral Homes, Deters Sign Co., RE-MAX Realty Shop, Bowling Green Insurance, MidWest Pest Professionals, Bowling Green Medical Group, Kustom Works Hair Salon & Parkside Manor.

Overall, our first 12 planters cost $3,180.00. After receiving the Rotary Grant we spent a whopping $180.00 on this project and countless man hours! Our sponsorship funds will help ensure we have the money to keep flowers in them each year.

Our next Downtown Revitalization Committee Meeting is Thursday, May 6^th, 5pm at the BG Community Center!

Join us as we discuss:

• The continuation of this planter project
• Planning for the Downtown Hoedown
• Discussing the progress of the Downtown Marketplace
• Businesses seeking downtown storefronts
• More benches downtown
• Trashcans on the square

Hope to see you there!

THANK YOU!

Tracy Brookshier, Chamber President & Downtown Revitalization Committee Chair Person

CONCRETE PLANTER PROJECT; From the idea to the final product! >>>