Best Organization Pandemic Response – Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc.
The year of 2020 had promised to be the best yet in Downtown Excelsior Springs, Missouri. With sales tax numbers reaching a high of 14.87% higher in 2019 than any other year and downtown visitation on the rise, we knew 2020 was about to explode. And then, on the evening of March 18, 2020 our downtown world was turned upside down when we received our first notice from the Clay County Public Health Center that businesses would be shut down for 14 days. Only ten day later, on March 24, 2020, a Stay At Home Emergency Order was issued, mandating all residents stay at home except for essential activities for a period of four weeks. Little did we know that this COVID-19 pandemic would continue to challenge business operations for the next 14 months.
In March of 2020, the Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. threw their year’s action plans out the window because no one knew what tomorrow would bring. Our operations rapidly changed and resulted in a drastically different method of supporting our small businesses in the Downtown Excelsior Springs, Missouri Historic District. Immediately we became the community liaison for emergency order interpretation, reopening guideline interpretations and helping our small businesses understand the mandates that were put into place.
DEP’s first action was to create the “Show Love, Support Local Guide”. This was not only a Downtown Excelsior Springs resource, but also served as a roadmap for the entire community of Excelsior Springs. The phrase, “we’re all in this together” rang especially true under these trying circumstances. The Guide allowed us to share business operations and modifications, openings, postponements, closings and various ways in which the public could support our business community. DEP then placed signage throughout the community to promote the importance of shopping local during the pandemic.
As DEP navigated the pandemic, we continuously sought new innovative ways in which we could support small businesses. To ensure that the community would not forget about the business who contribute so greatly to the vitality of Excelsior Springs, we began brainstorming. DEP’s creative solutions included photo diaries of a day in downtown, featuring window displays, business owners, business storefronts and day to day operations. We assembled video montages of messages from business owners to consumers, with themes such as “We’re Missing You” and “Merry Christmas.”
With daily updates and amendments to state and county emergency orders that affects, funding opportunities and business operations, DEP launched a Monday Morning Merchant Mingle series using the Zoom platform. Every Monday morning our Executive Director met virtually with the businesses of the district. During these mingles DEP was able to share resources that would assist businesses. Our Executive Director went above and beyond her customary role to help businesses interpret programs such as Personal Paycheck Protection, Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loans and other grants that became available.
In addition to the group merchant mingles, DEP worked individually with each downtown business to determine strategies for reopening and operations that would help find the light at the end of the tunnel. We even hosted daily e-commerce website ribbon cuttings to promote small business efforts to get online and provide an opportunity for support to consumers and residents.
The Organization Team in partnership with the local Chamber of Commerce put together a business grant program, “One Town One Team”, designed to assist businesses with hardships faced during the shutdown phase of the emergency order. This grant program allowed the two organizations to supplement rent and mortgage payments, utility bills, and employee wages. Over $10,000 of forgivable grant money in assistance was awarded to businesses. This team also launched a Downtown Raffle program to raise funds for the organization when many events were cancelled. This new program generated an additional $10,000 in program revenue.
The Economic Vitality Team immediately created a deferment plan for existing loans to various downtown businesses to alleviate any pressure those loans might have created for those businesses in such an unprecedented time. As a result of DEP’s efforts, the Downtown Excelsior Springs historic district opened more new businesses during the pandemic than it lost.
The Design Team created a downtown coloring book of all of the downtown businesses and buildings and promoted it as the answer to art class for so many parents homeschooling their children while schools were shut down. To ensure that Downtown Excelsior Springs remained a pretty space during the shutdowns and reopening stages, we coordinated a social distancing planting day to be able to add color throughout the streets of downtown. It was also the perfect time for a downtown banner upgrade.
The Promotion Team made the difficult choice to cancel nearly all of their large scale events during the year of 2020. But as the reopening phases were released, their creativity started to blossom. They turned Sippin’ Into Springtime into Sippin’ Into Summer. The formerly a one-day event became a four-day, two weekend event to break up the number of attendees to fall within guidelines. They moved their BBQ & Fly-In on the River event to an alternate location outside of downtown so that occupancy limits would be honored. They hosted a “One Stop Trick or Treat Drive Through” event to still bring children and families to the streets of downtown. Over 1,500 bags of candy were handed to children dressed for the holiday in the backseats of their cars. With there being no possibility of children seeing Santa, DEP sponsored a “Letters from Santa” program where each letter received a personalized response from the North Pole. They also aired a special reading by Santa himself of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve from Santa himself. The community beloved Lighted Christmas Parade was converted to the Lighted Christmas EDARAP that brought 2,759 vehicles through the streets of downtown in November. They hosted a virtual Mayor’s Downtown Rooftop and Tree Lighting Ceremony and for the entire Christmas season were able to host a socially distanced drive through Lane of Lights. In addition to event modifications, this team created the new “Downtown Downloaded: The Excelsior Experience” video blog series that is used to promote downtown businesses on an online platform.
As reopening guidelines started to loosen, the DEP Team recognized the importance of hosting our annual dinner celebrating all things Downtown Excelsior Springs. Since it is always an outdoor event, the comfort of attendees was heightened. The organization themed this annual dinner, “Lemons to Lemonade” and throughout the evening raised funds for the organization while celebrating our small businesses of the district and their resiliency and recovery efforts. In addition to the typical award categories, new awards were added to the list to showcase and celebrate recent efforts. Those included the ‘Best Pandemic Pivot’, ‘Best E-Remodel’, ‘Social Media Maven’, and ‘Exemplary Employer’.
The Website Team secured a grant from the Missouri Division of Tourism to better promote reopening of our community. The organization captured an additional $7,500 to use in showcasing the community through print, digital, billboard and social media promotions. That use of those funds and that program resulted in an additional 11,568 click throughs to the www.VisitExcelsior.com website. This team was also able to offer half price advertising opportunities to businesses purchasing space in the 2021 Experience Excelsior Trip Planner through the use of CARES Act Recovery Dollars. Additionally, through CARES Act Recovery dollars received from the City of Excelsior Springs, they offered free website ad space to all businesses during both, 2020 and 2021 to better assist businesses with their online presences throughout the pandemic.
As we began to see some normalcy return in 2021, many of DEP’s operations returned to pre-pandemic status, but many of the new concepts and ideas stayed, as it was learned that they are equally important and beneficial to the business community of Downtown Excelsior Springs.
While there was a decrease in visitation of 27% and a decrease in sales tax revenue of 11.6% when comparing 2020 to 2019, there has been an increase in visitation of 6.5% and an increase in sales tax revenue of 18.9% when comparing 2021 to 2019. There was a 24.1% decrease in overnight visitation in 2020, but an increase of 2.3% in 2021 when comparing each to 2019. In 2021 downtown event attendance reached its highest performance resulting in record economic impact for downtown businesses.
The Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. continues to be innovative in creating additional opportunities for the business district of Downtown Excelsior Springs, Missouri. We have recently acquired a contract and ARPA dollars from the City of Excelsior Springs for economic development services using Placer.ai. We also received $50,000 in ARPA funds from the City of Excelsior Springs to administer an ARPA Façade Grant Program for Downtown Excelsior Springs. The $57,828.88 awarded will result in a private investment of $130,144.42 over the next 12 months. Additionally, we secured $200,000 in ARPA funding from Clay County, Missouri to administer a county wide marketing matching grant program that will directly result in increased reach and visitation to Downtown Excelsior Springs. We are working with Missouri Main Street Connection and its Downtown Strong grant program to complete a wayfinding study with consultant Russ Volmert and a Real Estate Redevelopment Strategy with consultant Joe Borgstrom.
DEP’s diligent work and creative efforts to effectively support the businesses of Downtown Excelsior Springs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in an ongoing wealth of opportunity. For all of the foregoing reasons and for its outstanding service to its community, the Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. clearly merits the Best Organization Pandemic Response award.
