A Hotel is Just One Step in a Mile Long Journey

There has been a lot of talk the last few years about recruiting a hotel to Elizabethton and Carter County. But why haven’t we been working on that and what do hotels want? Well, we’ve looked into this and found some interesting information along the way.  In the past Mr. Anderson (former CCT President) and I talked with economists and hotel developers, not only to find out what they’re looking for but to better figure out why they wouldn’t come to Elizabethton.

               

 One thing an economist said about hotels and the role they play in our local economy, and that is hotels serve as an economic indicator not an economic driver. This really stuck with me! To put it a little more mildly, Elizabethton’s lack of hotels indicates to us that we do not likely have enough people visiting the City or County regularly to have a hotel – an economic indicator. Similarly, if Elizabethton or Carter County got a hotel we will not likely see a drastic and sudden increase in visitors and tourism – an economic driver. Keep in mind that less than 20 minutes away from Elizabethton we have a bounty of hotels. I don’t know about you, but when I vacation, I will typically drive 20+ minutes to see some of the attractions!

Believe it or not, a hotel developer is not all that picky! They require a few things – 2-3 acres of land with high visibility, local investors to bring “skin” to the game, and around a 55-70 percent average occupancy rate. Some may take lower average occupancy rates than that depending on the potential of the market. To most, this doesn’t seem like much. Working with Mr. Anderson, the two of us met with three different hotel developers from Knoxville to Nashville and were successful in getting a site visit with one of them. Their feasibility studies, however, indicated that Elizabethton and Carter County did not have enough visitors that would stay in a local hotel in order to maintain the occupancy level needed. Must like retail development, hotel developers don’t care how bad you want a hotel – the numbers have to work.

So what are we doing to try to recruit a hotel to Elizabethton? Well, the City is teaming up with the Chamber of Commerce to gather data and information on our existing hotels, cabins, industries, medical facilities, and other visitor generators. Gathering this data about all potential visitors will give us an idea of how many people are actually visiting Elizabethton and Carter County on a regular basis. We can then use this information to share with hotel developers and get our “foot in the door,” if you will, and have the opportunity to discuss our city and our county further with them. The ultimate goal at this point is to get to a site visit!

Hotels are businesses and just like other business the numbers have to work for them to be successful. But locally we must also realize that getting a hotel in Elizabethton or Carter County will not fix our economic condition. It would certainly be a step in the right direction, but it would be just one step in the mile long journey of developing a tourist industry in Carter County. Working together, all cities, communities, and the county we must create a tourism development plan and start walking hand-in-hand down the same path to fulfill that plan. Only then will we see an improvement in tourism within the County. Let’s talk about it!

The Impact of Signs on the Community

As many of you may know, at the City Council meeting last Thursday Council approved new sign regulations for the city. This is a project that the four people on the Policy Subcommittee of the Planning Commission spent months and countless hours putting together to ensure that safe, fair, and balanced regulations would be implemented.

We all know the importance of having an attractive community. When people first drive in to your community, you want to provide a great first impression. Signs play a role in shaping and creating an attractive community. A sign that is too tall, too big, or too small contributes to an out-of-scale look that stands out in the community. Imagine a sign the size of a billboard for Applebee’s. Sure, you could see an Applebee’s was coming up a mile away, but what would it look like closer up. I would venture to say it probably wouldn’t contribute to the overall aesthetics that we want here in Elizabethton.

The new regulations passed by City Council take a different approach to regulating signs that what we have done in the past. Before, signs were regulated by what they said or what symbols they had on it. With the new regulations, the type of zone the business currently is in will determine sign sizes and height.

Temporary signs will also be regulated in a similar manner. These types of signs are permitted in certain zones, but not in others. In addition, different sign types are permitted as well as off-premise temporary signage. This would allow businesses to display their temporary signage off-premise so long as it would be allowed in that particular zone.

A few changes were also made to help improve the aesthetics of signs. One is the requirement that all permanent signs must have a landscape area around all freestanding signs. This would require bushes, flowers, or simply just grass around the base of a freestanding sign. Freestanding pole signs would also be required to enclose the pole support structure. This will help prevent rusting of the metal and give the overall sign a more pleasant look.

Many of the changes both the Planning Commission and the City Council believe will help make Elizabethton a better, more attractive place to live and visit. It’s important to remember that no sign regulation is perfect, but we believe this is a start in the right direction. We do want to hear from you! What additional improvements can we make to the sign regulations? How would you like to see signs regulated in our community? Let’s talk about it!

From www.ClarksvilleOnline.com.

CCT Isn't the Problem...Lack of Foresight Is

If you are a dedicated reader of the Star, then I'm sure you're tired of continually reading about Carter County Tomorrow lawsuit (as I am). However, I continue to hear a lot of, in my opinion, misinformed talk about how and why Carter County Tomorrow organization needs to be dismantled.

One of the biggest reasoning I hear is that CCT has not done anything since its inception. This reasoning then immediately spills over into discussion about how much better another economic development agency would be.

First, I would argue national and industrial trends suggest that CCT has had little control over the local economy during a majority of its existence. What control they have had has been positive. We've not fully recovered from the Great Recession yet, but our growth pattern matches those of the state and surrounding counties.

Secondly, the only reason CCT has not been able to produce better and more results is not because they are not effective or efficient. It is because our officials have not properly planned or looked to the future. I often pose the question, "Assume we did have an industry wanting to be in Elizabethton, where would we put them? We have no sites."

Keep in mind that for an industry to be interested in a site it must have water, sewer, electric, gas, and often fiber optics to their specifications, a 4-lane highway, environmental studies completed, the site appropriately zoned for industrial...the list goes on. Finding and developing these sites could easily take 8-10 years and cost hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. If our local governments and economic development agencies started on such an endeavor today, taxpayers today would not likely begin to see results until students who are in the 5th grade graduate high school. That takes foresight!

We need to realize that starting or bringing another economic development agency into Carter County and Elizabethton isn't going to magically make all of our economic problems go away. It will still take planning, foresight, and financial commitments on the part of our elected officials today so that we can have jobs tomorrow. Those hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars will have to be dedicated to develop land if we choose to be an industrial community regardless of what economic development agency is here.

It's easy to point the blame at one agency or one person, when we're not quite sure whose fault something is, but the reality is that it's all of our fault. When our elected officials ran for office and promised jobs we failed to hold them accountable. We made them fearful that spending too much on economic development would result in us not re-electing them. We encouraged a lack of foresight. So what can we do to encourage investment moving forward? How can we encourage appropriate future economic development? Let's talk about it!

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go!

This article was originally written by Dr. Jim Segedy, AICP, Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and a long-time chair of the Small Town and Rural Planning Division of the American Planning Association, for the Winter 2005 newsletter and is not a part of my 'Let's Talk' column. When I first read it I immediately thought of Elizabethton and my hometown of Montpelier, Ohio. How true this article still is today. –ed.

I was at a conference not that long ago and walking around the downtown near the hotel as I often do. Very pleasant. The person I was walking with and I were talking about how the people of this fair town had done such a great job of making the downtown very pedestrian-friendly.

All the ingredients were there: Nice wide sidewalks with brick pavers, street trees, festive banners promoting the downtown, decorative, human-scale lampposts, restored buildings with nice displays, even appropriate traffic-calming devices. I was taking pictures like crazy. But something was missing. It was pedestrian-friendly but there were no pedestrians. Curious, I mused to my friend. Then we looked closer. It was after 5:00. Nothing was open. OK, it’s downtown, office workers want to get home to have dinner and take a nap watching “Wheel of Fortune.”

We went out the next morning. A bright day, the sun was shining, a crisp fall morning. Curious, I mused to my friend – yet again. Still no pedestrians.

‘What could the matter be,’ we asked each other. Ah-ha! It looked great, but there’s nothing there. There are no pedestrian destinations. Nothing to bring out the pedestrians. Sorry, I can’t get excited about heading out to pay a visit to the insurance agent or the something or other office of this and that. What have we done to ourselves? We spend all the time and effort to fix up our downtowns, making them attractive to visit, but there’s nothing there to visit. Downtown revitalization is not just about putting on a pretty face. There has to be a reason to be there. The best design in the world doesn’t mean anything if there’s no one around to appreciate it and there will be NO one if there’s nothing to do.

I thought we had learned some lessons from trying to turn “Main Street” into “The Mall.” Same thing. Even “The Mall” and the big boxes at the edge of town have recognized this.

Look at the new trend in retail – the “Lifestyle Center.” They look like little downtowns. So far so good. They even violate all the rules – you have to walk outside in all the weather (just like downtown and the old Victor Gruen malls) – but people do it. Why – because there’s something to do when you get there. I was talking with one of the designers of one of the earliest “Lifestyle Centers:” Easton Town Center, northeast of Columbus, Ohio. They had all of these public amenities – fountains, reflecting pools, etc. To the attorneys – an attractive nuisance, and a lawsuit waiting to happen. “Don’t let people go near them,” they said. The people said, “What cool places to play and just lollygag.” The people won. You go there now and kids playing in the fountain are part of the excitement. The reflecting pool encourages model boats and general frolicking. People come. People enjoy each other. People spend money. This new version of downtown works.

As we look at our downtowns and wonder why there’s no life in them, maybe we need to look a little deeper. Are we all dressed up with no place to go?

Spring is Coming...and so are Property Maintenance Issues

With each day, the air gets a little warmer, the sun shines a little brighter, and before you know it the grass will be a foot tall and the paint on the siding will be peeling. Sorry to ruin that perfect picture, but in the Planning and Economic Development Department, that's what we think about when spring arrives.

Property maintenance complaints kick into high gear during late spring and into summer. Often times it's people leaving junk or trash lying around their house. Sometime it's a feud between two neighbors trying to get the other in trouble. Nevertheless, property maintenance is one of the biggest problems we have when it comes to housing in Elizabethton. The property maintenance problems help contribute to the lack of quality housing and low home values that data sources suggest we have here. Additionally, unmaintained properties contribute to blight and can make entire neighborhoods undesirable.

Each year since I've been in my current position we have tried to set up our game when it comes to property maintenance. One year we adopted new, modern, nationally accepted standards for property maintenance – the International Property Maintenance Code. The year after that we developed and implemented the neighborhood sweep program where four staff members spend an entire morning canvassing a neighborhood going door-to-door identifying property maintenance issues and notifying the property owner. The neighborhood is then reviewed again for compliance. This programs starts in April each year and end in October. We have seen a lot of success with this program!

Our improvement this year is our online reporting system. Implementing this program will allow citizens and residents to report our most common property maintenance violations online. Citizens can also submit a picture of the property so that the Code Officer can get a better idea of the violation. Once the violation has been submitted, our officer can review and visit the site to determine whether there is a property maintenance violation.

The goal of this program is to make reporting these properties more accessible and not to require a visit to city hall to report a violation. Additionally, it will give our staff more eyes on the street so that we can find violations early before they become worse.

What are your thoughts on the role of property maintenance in our community? What else do you think we can or should be doing to combat property maintenance violations? Let's talk about it!

Visit http://www.elizabethton.org/departments/report_a_violation.php to report a violation.