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Main Street Reimagined Podcast
This is a podcast for dreamers, creators, developers, and entrepreneurs to learn, share, and be inspired to change your community through small business.
Main Street Reimagined Podcast
Episode 48: Transforming Main Streets: The Sandusky Success Story with Eric Wobser & McKenzie Spriggs
In the heart of Sandusky, Ohio, something remarkable has been unfolding over the past decade. What was once a seasonal tourist town primarily known for Cedar Point has transformed into a vibrant year-round destination with a thriving downtown.
Luke Henry sits down with Eric Wobser and McKenzie Spriggs of the Greater Sandusky Partnership to uncover the strategic vision, practical tools, and collaborative spirit that fueled this renaissance. Their conversation reveals how combining public investment with private initiative created a powerful engine for community revitalization.
"Communities often think their challenges are unique and their assets are common, when the reality is the opposite," Eric shares, highlighting how Sandusky learned to celebrate its stunning waterfront location and historic downtown while addressing familiar post-industrial challenges. Through strategic tax initiatives that dedicated funds specifically for economic development, housing, and infrastructure, city leaders created a financial framework that made renovation of historic buildings financially viable.
McKenzie reveals the critical importance of strategic event programming to maximize business impact. "We chose Thursday night for Party at the Pier. Our businesses are already busy on Friday and Saturday. How do we start the weekend early?" This thoughtful approach to driving traffic when businesses need it most has helped extend Sandusky's season far beyond summer months.
The conversation doesn't shy away from challenges. Navigating resistance to change, balancing downtown investments with neighborhood needs, and developing local talent rather than importing solutions have all been part of Sandusky's journey. Yet through persistent communication, relationship building, and celebrating small wins, the community has maintained impressive forward momentum.
Whether you're a small business owner, local official, or community champion, this episode offers practical insights into how intentional collaboration can transform Main Streets anywhere. Listen now and discover how telling your community's story "from a place of strength" might just be the catalyst for your own local renaissance.
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#CommunityRevitalization #PlaceBasedStrategy #SmallTownInnovation #EconomicDevelopment #SanduskyStrong #CreativePlacemaking #GrowthMindset #RebuildAndThrive #CommunityAssets #StrategicInsights #ChangeAgents #UniqueCommunities #DowntownDevelopment #InclusiveGrowth #ResilientCities
When you have something that happens like make it big, like go, don't be afraid to like go big on it. And I think the second thing is telling your story from a place of strength. That doesn't mean that you don't work on your challenges. You absolutely do that, but you have to celebrate the things that make you special. And trying to tell your story from a place of strength trying to tell your story from a place of strength.
Speaker 2:This is the Main Street Reimagined podcast, a show for people ready to turn visions into realities and ideas into businesses. Hey, I'm Luke Henry and each week I lead conversations with Main Street dreamers who took the leap to launch a business, renovate a building or start a movement. The leap to launch a business, renovate a building or start a movement, their ideas, their mindsets and their inspirations, as well as some of the highs and lows along the way. This is a place for dreamers, creators, developers and entrepreneurs to learn, share and be inspired to change your community through small business. Enjoy the show. To change your community through small business. Enjoy the show. Hey friends, luke Henry here.
Speaker 2:This is the Main Street Reimagined Podcast. Thanks so much for being with us this week. I am excited because this week I am on location. I am in Sandusky Ohio and I am here with my new friends, eric Woopser and Mackenzie Spriggs at the Greater Sandusky Partnership. Hey guys, thanks for being with me. Hey, luke, hey Luke, howdy, howdy. So we are looking forward to a great conversation.
Speaker 2:If you haven't been to Sandusky Ohio, I have really fallen in love with it here. Those of you that have been following along with some of our journey. We recently added a short-term rental here in Sandusky and we've enjoyed it my family and I, as well as some of our team members and we are excited to be able to really explore this community, to get to know the people here, and, as I started asking around town, who's who's who's moving and shaking, who's doing great things and what has led to some of the success here in Sandusky these two names started coming up all over the place in those conversations, and so particularly the Greater Sandusky Partnership, and I want to first learn from them, or hear from them and their words here. What is the Greater Sandusky Partnership and what are they doing here that's making a difference? So, eric, would you kind of take that, just give us a flyover of what is this organization doing.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and first of all, thanks for coming to Sandusky Luke. We love when people make an investment here, but also help tell our story.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:The Greater Sandusky Partnership in in some ways is a very new organization, but in other ways, it's a very old organization because we're built from the foundation of the Sandusky Chamber of Commerce, which started in 1899 and eventually became the Erie County Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 3:But several years ago, local civic leaders in the private sector, along with some public sector leaders, wanted to really scale up economic development, which led to a few-year conversation about bringing together some smaller organizations, including the Chamber, our downtown Main Street organization, erie County Economic Development Corporation and ultimately, a few others, and so just two years ago, those organizations actually signed an MOU to come together and to create the greater Sanoski partnership. I started as the CEO in August of 2023, and we undertook about a year long strategic planning process to see how we were going to actually put those pieces together and emerged from that as a regional chamber of commerce that focuses not only on Sanoski and Erie County but the surrounding region, but also provides comprehensive economic development services, ranging from you know placemaking with what you see downtown, all the way to the broader, you know ingredients of a strong, vibrant regional economy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So this is a really kind of unique concept. I mean, I've seen somewhat similar things in some other communities, but, you know, really unique and you've got a lot of things going on and you've got, you know, quite a team, as I, you know, walk through the building with you here today. Uh, it's been interesting seeing you know all, all the people and and all the different roles and you know you're you're covering a lot of ground. So, uh, you know, first off, um, where did this? You know, what was the impetus for moving in this direction? To kind of take all these different organizations that are kind of moving in the same direction but really bring them under one umbrella here.
Speaker 3:I think it was the idea of what we needed to really go to scale.
Speaker 3:We had a wonderful process in which several of those same businesses and philanthropic organizations and the local government came together to build the Bicentennial Vision Plan for the city of Sandusky, which was really a blueprint for how we could not only celebrate our bicentennial but use it as a vision to work backwards from and as we approach 2018, and McKenzie was a big part of the implementation of that as we approach 2018 from the city's perspective I was the city manager at the time and some of our business partners.
Speaker 3:It's like, if everybody has demonstrated the capacity to plan together, to invest together at this level, it shouldn't go away with the coming and going of the bicentennial. And so, really, cedar Fair at that time. Now Six Flags our current chairman, duff Mielke, was working there at the time and he really helped pull together a group of business leaders that said, okay, let's not just start from scratch, let's take these existing organizations, and, of course, that's always a complicated conversation between the staff and the boards, et cetera. So it took a good three years of his and others' work, but it was really with that idea of when we work together, big things are possible for this community and region.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just love seeing that where and it's not easy to put aside the history of different organizations, put aside agendas, sometimes egos, for sure, and all of that, and really bring together that shared vision. And it's not easy at all to kind of get all the people and then there's kind of the legal and tactical side of putting together an organization. So it's very impressive what you're doing and really just starting to come off the runway. It sounds like for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know we the again. It'll be two years for me in August and so much of the time has been actually the formal integration of those organizations and developing this plan. But you can really feel it congealing now into something that is started at. You know we're leaving the runway and we're taking off and it's really really exciting yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. So that's a little bit about the Greater Sandusky Partnership and I appreciate that, that basis of understanding. So I want to kind of rewind a little bit and hear how each of you have come to this place of, first of all, love and passion for the city and the greater community. Love and passion for the city and the greater community, which is obvious, as I've, you know, spent a little time talking with you, but also how professionally you've kind of come through different roles to land you here and it seems like to be very well equipped for the work, the work that you're doing together. So so so, starting with you, eric, tell, tell us a little bit about your, your history and your background and what landed you here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel bad. Mckenna's probably heard me tell this story a hundred times but, I grew up in and around Sandusky, ohio.
Speaker 3:Like many folks in these sort of smaller communities throughout the state in this part of the country, you know, left at 18 with feeling it was a great place to grow up and not necessarily knowing if life was going to bring me back here, ended up at Ohio University studying political science but not really knowing what I wanted to do with that.
Speaker 3:So I was planning to go to law school but then right around my junior year and honestly it was through picking up the newspaper. I was a big at the time Cleveland Indians fan, now the Cleveland Guardians, and this was I don't want to date myself, but before the easy access to ESPNcom. So I would buy the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the local little professor book shop and I would buy it for the box scores. But then I ended up picking up all this great information at that time about what was happening in Cleveland to revitalize it and to be a part of bringing the waterfront back or the neighborhoods back, and almost immediately that sort of application of my political science education to this idea of seeing it at a local lens as opposed to a state or a federal lens.
Speaker 3:Something clicked for me and I still ended up going away to law school at the University of Michigan, but I kept moving closer and closer to this idea of feeling really passionate about the revitalization of Great Lakes you know, post-industrial cities.
Speaker 3:So eventually I was going to go work for a corporate law firm in Cleveland, but I postponed it because I had an opportunity to take a job in the mayor's office as a project manager for the chief of staff, which I did for four years focusing community and economic development issues, and then pivoted from that to take over the development corporation in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland where I lived, and did that for about five and a half years and there we were working backwards from the west side market centennial and we did a community vision around that.
Speaker 3:And just something happened at that time where I'm like gosh, I would love to be a part of doing something like this in Sandusky, where I grew up and I had started a young family and we're coming back more and more often. So I was able to connect with incoming city commissioners at that time and it took a while but eventually came back a city manager, a really nontraditional city manager, because my background was much more on community revitalization than it was on public administration. But I was honest about that and I think that was the direction they wanted to go in and so really just kind of hit the ground running. You know, knowing what I did know, but also not worried about what I didn't know. And we figured it out and we've had an incredible now 11 year run, alongside many entrepreneurs and civic partners.
Speaker 2:And we've got a long way to go, but we've covered a lot of ground in that time as well so you started in city manager role around. Was it 2014? 2014. Okay, okay, so you've really seen things mature significantly since then. I mean, would you say that's about the time that you really started to see some interest in revitalization in downtown? Yes and no.
Speaker 3:I would say, like any great success story, it was 40 years probably in the making and uh, what called me home?
Speaker 3:and it really did feel like a vocation to me and the idea of getting here was so important to me to be a part of it. But there were entrepreneurs that were starting out and we're kind of you see that spark and it's so critical to have that spark, but it really felt like the city wasn't doing its piece. And then one of my best childhood friends, a guy named Joey Castle from New Departure Films if you don't follow him on social media, I would he was making these beautiful sort of videos, not trying to gloss over Sandusky's challenges, but showing them as they were. But they also oozed of its potential and I remember watching those from Cleveland and being like what am I doing here?
Speaker 3:I need to get home and be a part of this, and so that led to my own journey. But so it's so important how the storytelling is contagious, and it was really his storytelling, as well as that spark of imagination of these entrepreneurs downtown, that made me want to come back and be a part of what was happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that gives me goosebumps hearing that story. I mean, I resonate so deeply with that. I mean it's so so, so important and it it just takes a few people, passionate people, to get the ball rolling, and maybe they weren't the same people that were doing all the work, you know, but they started to inspire people towards a vision and a passion for it. So so McKinsey here. Um, this is the longest I've ever heard McKinsey be quiet.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to go twice first, but it's, I can share the microphone.
Speaker 2:I'm teasing her because, uh, if, if you've not met McKinsey. I've had the pleasure now, uh, a couple of times and she's so energetic and has such great energy and always has a a wonderful word to share. So I'm not saying that she's sharing idly, but so I've got to tease her a little bit. But I'm going to give give you some time for sure here to share also your story.
Speaker 1:Believe me, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so let's hear it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm really lucky because my story, eric, is a crucial part of.
Speaker 1:But I grew up locally and I had the honor of working in Washington DC for two summers and that's where I really fell in love with cities generally, just as places that are cultural and diverse, and I lived there without a car and so when I was thinking about home, basically Sandusky is the nearest city and it had a lot of potential, and I met Eric in a meeting and I think he saw potential in me too and we sat down and had a beer at Small City, basically in its opening year, and he was just like what, if you came to work for the city of Sandusky and we could work and develop this potential together.
Speaker 1:And I thought that especially I was pretty young at the time, in my early 20s, and to just I feel like Sandusky, I know now, is this magical place where individual people can play a big part, which is one of the things that makes it so special. But the idea that if I wanted to have a yoga studio in downtown, I could go, try to find the people that do that and bring them to downtown and change my city, that felt really special to me and I think that it has a lot of geographic attributes. It's physically downtown on the water and that's pretty unique. And to Eric's earlier point, joey has done a lot of storytelling there. I've seen it now in enough drone photos that I know it's really unique compared to a lot of places, and it's. I love the Great Lakes, I love freshwater and I feel like it still has a lot of untapped potential which we are lucky to work on on the private side now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool. So you all ended up working together at the city and then you came over here to GSP, also in kind of the opening time frame, or was it more recently?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually took the job as overseeing Destination Sandusky, which was kind of the evolution of the Main Street organization, and when that became part of GSP it was actually, so right now I am technically the longest GSP employee. So I asked Eric to come back and work here. But no, so that became part of the GSP umbrella and so I get to continue working on Main Street type initiatives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, and you're working on those Main Street initiatives where all Just city of Sandusky, or is your role also spread to some of the other areas?
Speaker 1:It currently is in Sandusky, or is your role also spread to some of the other areas? It currently is in Sandusky and Huron. Um, but I I think that we have a pretty large city contract and so, uh, we have services that we have to provide and we're happy to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yeah. So, um, you know, understanding that GSP, like, does serve a greater region, I acknowledge that. But our conversation will probably center around the city of Sandusky here for the most part. First of all, it's what's out the window, and you know what I've become familiar with in our, you know, few months of really exploring around here and meeting people and exploring businesses and understanding some of the story of how what came to be now is has been really fun and exciting. So we'll kind of focus here.
Speaker 2:But I'd love to hear a little more about that progression. So you kind of alluded to it, Eric, where, in 2014, you saw that spark coming. There was some storytelling, there was some kind of vision casting that was going on with some folks and, and maybe the earliest businesses were starting. Tell us a little more about. You know it's a. It takes intentional effort. We've certainly seen on, as you mentioned, both on the public side and the private side. You've got to have both in order to be successful. How did you, how have you seen that recipe come together? What have been some really key ingredients that if, if you were prescribing it for someone else somewhere, you would say, hey, here's a handful of different things that are critical to making sure that it succeeds.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And, and you know, before we were getting started, you kind of said that these communities all have so much in difference and are so much in common.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But yet they think they're all unique.
Speaker 1:Right, that's one of the things.
Speaker 3:I've learned in really having the opportunity to do this at a neighborhood scale in Cleveland, in the Ohio City neighborhood, I realized there were a few ingredients that were replicable, and one of the things that I have learned in this is that communities often think their challenges are unique and their assets are common. Have learned in this is that communities often think their challenges are unique and their assets are common, when the reality is the opposite of that. In my case, and that were. You know, many cities like Sandusky, like Marion, et cetera, face very similar challenges, but the assets that they can rebuild around are more unique. The best practices are out there.
Speaker 3:And so, from us, in our perspective, in Ohio city, which was not unlike where you found Marion, there, I think, there was 40% business vacancy. It was this great historic neighborhood on the edge of downtown Cleveland, but yet it hadn't achieved its potential, in spite of really great efforts over 30, 40 years again, of people trying to preserve buildings. And so when we came in, we really did three things, and these are the things that were replicable to Sandusky. One was we really engaged the civic institutions of the neighborhood, the sort of anchor institutions that weren't going anywhere. We had a hospital, we had St Ignatius High School, we had the Westside Market, and we worked with them to build a vision that we worked backwards from. I'd say. That's the second thing is to really create a strong and compelling vision that you're going to identify resources to invest in and that's critical too. But then, ultimately, the identity of the neighborhood and the ability to succeed is really driven by those entrepreneurs and the people that are staking their flag in it. So our whole identity in Ohio City and then again when we came back to Sandusky, was how do we celebrate these entrepreneurs and really work in this perspective, from the city's perspective, to create an environment that they feel like they can belong in and thrive in?
Speaker 3:So what we did in Sandusky is we looked to our own assets, which, of course, start with Lake Erie and being a tourism destination, but we found those anchor institutions Firelands, health, savista Bank, cedar Point, the local foundation community and I think it was really the coalition of that group, as well as the city itself, that had been missing from what was happening. Nobody would come here and not see the potential, but yet we hadn't realized that the answer was for us to invest in ourselves and so, I think, getting that group around the table and building a vision to work backwards from and then ultimately passing a tax increase in 2014 called Issue 8, which was an increase in the admissions tax and the income tax, where we set aside specifically funds for economic development, housing and what we called catalytic infrastructure, as well as just providing general services. That actually gave us resources so that when we did the bicentennial vision, we had resources to actually begin implementing from the very beginning of its passage in 2015.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what kind of tax increase was that?
Speaker 3:It was a quarter percent income tax increase.
Speaker 3:And we're very fortunate in Sanesco we have a 1.25 percent post-tax increase because we do generate so much consumer-based revenue from tourism and admissions and lodging and parking taxes.
Speaker 3:So it was a 1 percent increase in admission and a quarter percent increase in income.
Speaker 3:But we dedicated about a half a million a year to housing, about a half a million a year to economic development and about a million a year to housing. About a half a million a year to economic development and about a million a year to infrastructure, as well as those additional services. And again, that took a lot of work with Cedar Point to support that because the majority of that admissions tax comes from them. But then we were able to the success which we can talk about between 2014 and 2021, we doubled down in 2021. Cedar Point voluntarily agreed and supported doubling the admissions tax from four to eight percent and adding an eight percent parking tax, for the new vision that had been created at that time is being implemented by the city currently. But it was really getting that partnership together and using those public dollars to invest alongside the private sector and to support those entrepreneurs. That really helped us to say, hey, this is who we're going to be and we want you to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it could be easy for somebody listening to say well, you know, gosh, yeah, it must be nice to have Cedar Point in your backyard, have them being, you know, such a contributor to the tax base, which I'm sure it is. But I'm sure there's challenges that come with that as well. But, regardless, tell us a little more about some of those initiatives that came from that planning. You know, when you're talking about supporting entrepreneurs and you know talking about catalytic infrastructure projects and economic development, I'm sure that there are some tactics that could be taken away that any city could implement. So let's talk a little bit about what, again, really was the difference that made the difference you feel?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what I will say is, of course that gets to the assets being unique. We do have some unique assets, but I've seen other communities rallying and even finding revenue from different places that they can reinvest, and so that's what we had kind of going for us. But there was a downside, I'd say. Sandusky's identity forever was that of the place where Cedar Point existed and a place where we had a GM plant and a Ford plant. We no longer have the GM plant and the Ford plant but because of that we never really had a strong civic infrastructure, I would argue, and that's not to diminish the efforts that had taken place. But we looked at other communities that didn't have nearly as much tourism as us. Many of them were ahead of us from a quality of life and a downtown investment and it hit us In some ways we'd had a resort mentality that focuses inward and the perspective of out-of-town-based companies that employed folks here and we hadn't had to really develop our own vision. So that was the piece that was missing.
Speaker 3:And when we developed that vision, of course we were building on other things. We were building on other things, like it was a matter of putting funds into small businesses, getting programs specifically to support the ability to renovate vacant buildings in the downtown, investing in housing. But I think we focused a lot on the infrastructure needed for the downtown things like the renovation of the Jackson Street Pier and Shoreline Drive. We actually, as an early project, moved our city hall into a mixed-use development on the southern edge of downtown, away away from the water. That included departments and storefronts, so it really was a roll-up-your-sleeves mentality. What is the infrastructure that we needed to really drive the community forward? And then how do we get these buildings in a place where they can house visitors, residents, businesses and then really work back from there?
Speaker 3:And again, I think it was a huge celebration. We actually put funds into public art and marketing and programming and were able to use tourism-based dollars to do that, and that helped create an identity. And Mackenzie again can tell part of these stories. But things like getting the governor to have a state-of-the-state address here in 2017, being named America's Best Coastal Small Town in 2019, those little things along the way mattered because we believed in ourselves again, and I think that was the biggest thing was we went from a period where people thought we talked about things that never happened to a place where things were happening. Sometimes it felt like they were happening too quickly, which is a challenge we can talk about later for much of the population, but I think that cultural mindset change which was based on that was really hard fought projects made a huge, huge difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Some some really great things there that I want to maybe dig into create their own events.
Speaker 1:It's been something that's been really successful here. So, like I mean, even this year with our Tommy Boy Fest, last year we celebrated the eclipse, like I know that we're thinking what is the big thing for 2026? And it's just always having something exciting to look forward to. But we had several key things in 2017, with the governor coming in 2018, with the bicentennial In 2019, did we? That was America's.
Speaker 3:Best Coastal Small Town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were named America's Best Coastal Small Town. So just every year I feel like there was something to celebrate and we've gotten a lot of national attention for some of the things that we've done, which has been pretty cool changing making election day a national holiday. That was picked up pretty broadly. But, just like you said, making your own weather and when you have something that happens, make it big, don't be afraid to go big on it. And I think the second thing is telling your story from a place of strength. That doesn't mean that you don't work on your challenges. You absolutely do that. You have to celebrate the things that make you special and trying to tell your story from a place of strength. So we've actually done a lot trying to celebrate the pioneers that were those early adopters, trying to find the people that moved into downtown first or back into downtown, and so just sharing those personal stories, but telling that from a place of strength.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many communities, I think, are limited by what used to be or what isn't today, and I just really love how both of you have talked about you know, something I've talked about in the past too, which is asset-based appraisal, where we're looking at, you know, what are the things that we have, but not the things that we lack, not the thing the next community has and does well, like what's what's really our thing, and so I love you know, particularly you talking about events. I've always said that that events are a mainstay of a downtown, and small businesses, main street businesses, need to do events. If you're listening to this and you're, you're doing things in downtowns or main street businesses, you've got to be doing events, and and they don't have to, you know. I think what you raise here, mckenzie, is just that they don't have to be anything like really big or like legitimate, you know. I mean, some of them are just made up, things that are just for fun you know, and it's just, you can just make a day a holiday, you know, that's.
Speaker 2:You know. Know an official holiday perhaps, or in your case, you said you made one official, but you know, like you know, bring your, your dog to the ice cream shop day. You know, we did that back when you own an ice cream shop and it was like it was wildly popular and it's just like. This isn't even a thing. I mean, we just made this up on a thursday and decided to do it on friday and I mean people are coming out of the woodwork to bring their dog to get ice cream.
Speaker 3:People want to be a part of something. We live such virtual lives now that the ability to connect in a real place, particularly downtown, around some idea like that, is really powerful, I think.
Speaker 1:I also think I learned at the city especially, but working alongside the planning department and the economic development department, everybody has a role to play. So, like they at the city did a really great job transforming our public spaces and we put a lot of money into economic development, but then you actually need somebody to bring it to life on a day to day basis, and so everybody has a job to do, and if we all do our jobs well and communicate, you're probably going to end up in a good place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so OK, okay, yeah, those are, those are really great. So many things to that. I'd love to go down the rabbit hole here on. Talk a little bit more tactically. When you're talking about housing projects, facade improvement projects, supporting small businesses, can you talk a little more about what specifically the programs that you felt were moving the needle?
Speaker 3:Sure. So with the Issue 8 Economic Development Fund, which was what was passed in 2014, the city created sort of a catalytic project fund and our goal at that time because we had so many vacant or underutilized historic buildings in the downtown. But yet we were seeing and I was coming from a Cleveland market where you know it costs the same in Sandusky to renovate a historic building, but yet the returns from that renovation weren't necessarily quite the same as you'd get even an hour away in Cleveland.
Speaker 3:The rents were lower. And so we had to figure out how to piggyback off of, say, the state and federal historic tax credits or conservation easements or whatever the new market credits, whatever was out there, and so we used our catalytic project fund to basically provide a 10 percent equity infusion up to a certain amount I think a million was the largest one. We did for the Fike building, which is an eight story vacant building that was renovated about 40 apartments by Maroos Development. But we were literally putting 10 percent equity as an incentive to help get those buildings off the ground.
Speaker 3:And often that was piggybacked with what they were getting from other sources.
Speaker 3:But it also kind of was a good calling card to be like say hey, they're serious about this, and then we try to make it easy. And then from a small business perspective we could make grants of up to $150,000, but more than usually in the range of $25,000, whether it was helping with tenant build-out or facade restoration or signage, typical Main Street-type programs, but making sure that there was local skin in the game to sort of incentivize that coming together. And alongside that I think to Mackenzie's point and your point they saw that the infrastructure was coming you know the Columbus Avenue project was just finishing, shoreline Drive, jack Street, pier and they saw that Destination Sandusky was being stood up and was doing programming and doing events and marketing the district on a day-to-day basis. And it was really those ability to help get these buildings back on the market while at the same time showing them there was a support of, there was a vision in place that people wanted to be a part of, and that vision was crafted with those local entrepreneurs who were there at the table.
Speaker 3:You know, painstaking sometimes, but we were able to get to something that I think people are excited about and hopefully is just the beginning of what's possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are incredible incentives and I mean they worked. Clearly, you know, I mean based on what I'm seeing downtown today, you know, eight or 10 years later, it's significant. So I mean that's really exciting. So that's a great way to get projects started, it's a great way to get businesses started, but you know that's not going to sustain someone.
Speaker 2:And so I know you know McKinsey, a lot of your work has revolved around, again, events and supporting those businesses. Tell us a little bit about how you approach trying to support those businesses from that ongoing basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I have a deep love of small businesses. I've now worked in that space or alongside them for about 10 years now, and so I feel like we've gotten to know each other really well. I married a small business owner, but I think that we came from a perspective of how do we activate our downtown and so, for example, things like the Jackson Street Pier, we decided to move a lot of our programming specifically to the pier and then, when identifying days like Party at the Pier, which is a free concert series, again using some of the tax dollars created by tourists that then go towards having a cool thing for tourists to do, but also that our local residents get to enjoy. But when we chose that day, we didn't want it to be a Friday or a Saturday. Our businesses are already busy that day.
Speaker 1:So, we chose Thursday night. How do we start the weekend early and I think that we've actually seen that be really successful then communicating really well so that the businesses also are not investing in live music, for example, on Thursdays. But how do they have specials? How do they be open? So, working really closely alongside when we're inviting a lot of people in, like with the eclipse celebration that is a shoulder season for us. It was on a Monday and asking every single business to please be open. If we're going to have a big alert and say come here, then we want to deliver on that experience.
Speaker 3:So Ironman's another good one with the businesses, Some businesses opening at as early as what 6 am.
Speaker 1:Oh, even earlier. I think some make breakfast sandwiches at 4.30 am, and so we're almost to the point where during our busy season, there's something almost every night of the week Mondays you have free movies, tuesdays is a free concert series down at Washington Park. Wednesday is our new sunset celebration Again, like creating your own weather, we have great sunsets. Why not just come out once a week and celebrate it? Thursday Party at the Pier, our Farmer's Market goes until the end of October and there's also free exercise classes Saturday morning.
Speaker 1:So again, just trying to find things or times of the day, and then we draw people down and hopefully then create that spark and then know that we want them to walk around and go in to shop. It's funny because in a lot of rooms I try to talk to people about events as economic development, and I think that that really resonates If something is not working. If we are just bringing people down and then they leave. That's not what we're going for. So how do these drive traffic into businesses? And that's something that we evaluate all the time.
Speaker 3:And if I could just briefly, because I think it complements these things and is part of both, what has been a successful ingredient but is critical going forward is we also really focus on anchor projects that we thought. You know one of the things that's great downtown Sandusky in some ways is like a Cedar Point in that nobody passes. You know you're going to Cedar Point because you're on your way there. You can't even find it unless you really kind of go out of your way. Our downtown is not off of a highway. It's not in the way really to anywhere else.
Speaker 2:You have to come here as a destination.
Speaker 3:So traffic isn't really a driver. We have to have things that bring people down in addition to the waterfront, and so the city hall project I mentioned. We partnered with Cedar Point Bowling Green State University to build a tourism attraction management, a four-year university program for 80 students, resident students and about 200 students. In that degree program we brought Shores and Islands, our destination marketing organization, back downtown. The Pier and the Pathway Project are other examples of infrastructure designed to be anchors, but currently we're working very hard on the renovation of the Seneski State Theater, which is a beautiful anchor and this kind of gets into your. How do you balance out seasonality? We need year-round residents. We need year-round anchors and year-round activities. The state theaters are built in. They're busiest in September through May when the tourism goes away.
Speaker 3:And then we're also working on an anchor downtown hotel project two flags, a Hampton Inn and a Home 2, with a conference center that can support up to 400 people, right next to the state theater in downtown. So it's like how do we figure out what those anchor attractions are that are designed to be year round and complimented by all that programming so that we just have give those businesses more people here more often that they can tap into?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Well, and listening to each of you talk about these things, it's like it's it's so, so great. I mean it's on point with what I believe is is going to continue to work. But I again I could hear people listening to this and saying like, well, gosh, yeah, I mean it sounds like you've got a vision and just everyone's cooperating. Um, I can't think that it's quite that easy. Uh, you guys are kind of yeah, Winking to each other where it's like, uh, you know, you can say, you know, we're having this event, please be open. But you can't compel anyone to be open and you can say, hey, this would be great for our community to have two hotels that are there by the theater and convention center, and all this can work together. But there's a lot of stakeholders that have to come. Maybe the city doesn't own the land. You're not necessarily even the city anymore. So it's like, how do you get the stakeholders to the table and how do you compel everyone to move in this direction?
Speaker 3:It isn't easy and it isn't a straight line forward. There's a step forward, a step back and honestly, you know I would have thought if you had said, hey, you're going to get this much done in collaboration with everybody else in a decade in Sandusky, I would have thought we were all ramping up to speed up. But in some ways the progress itself has brought additional pushback from folks and I think some of it's fair and genuine. It's like they see a lot happening in downtown. They're like, hey, what about the neighborhoods? And we could do a whole other show on the investments that Sandusky has made in the neighborhoods.
Speaker 3:But I think from a political perspective we almost need to see 10 things happen in the neighborhoods for every one thing downtown to balance that politics out. We're also not a community that has a you know we're the county seat but there's a really strong identity that is independent of Sandusky in this community and so there's a little bit of a regional it's not all about Sandusky approach and so we deal with politics in the city where maybe they we have a harder time getting them to understand what's in it for the whole city as downtown becomes that sort of central gathering place for the region here, and there's the stakeholders downtown that worry about parking, but then we've actually had a hard time, too, getting regional stakeholders to view downtown as the asset that it can be not only as a destination, but as a critical talent attraction and retention tool for economic development.
Speaker 3:And I think we're getting there, but the politics are tough. And none of this has been easy and even think we're getting there. But the politics are tough and none of this has been easy, and even fighting to sustain it now is not easy. In part, I think that is as much. What spurred the businesses to create an organization like ours was to make sure there was a strong advocate so that populist politics didn't drive the decisions of local governments, not only in Sandusky, but throughout the area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean again just trying to make this as practical and tactical as possible. I mean, you know, how are you dealing with pushback challenges? You know people not coming alongside the vision, is it you know? Town hall meetings? Is it you know? Is it vision sessions? I mean, what specifically are you using as tools?
Speaker 3:All of the above and our board chair Duff uses a statement positive pressure right Like we can't. The easiest thing to do is to not move forward if something is controversial, and I think the mentality that we take is we have to find a way to do the hard things, but we want to encourage and bring people along as positively as possible so you don't lose relationships along the way to make the next one harder. But the bicentennial vision was all about engagement. The whole strategy behind that was what's your vision for Sandusky's future? And then, when we did the downtown master plan in 2020, very similarly In fact, we're actually hosting tonight a forum about the appropriate use of the lodging tax, which will be at the Jackson Street Repair downtown Sandusky, because there's been some sense that the lodging tax should be redirected from promotion and economic development and marketing to infrastructure and public safety, and it's really a modest amount of the overall revenue generated by tourism, and so it's a matter of educating people that we're getting great sales tax return on investment from the lodging tax investment.
Speaker 3:We're getting great income tax investment and property tax investment. Those are big here too, so it's constant communication with stakeholders. Investment we're getting great income tax investment and property tax investment. Those are big here too. So it's constant communication with stakeholders, it's constant education of the public, and I wouldn't say we always do it great, but we're working really hard to be intentional about making sure that we engage.
Speaker 3:But I think the hardest part is when you get to that decision point. It is easier for stakeholders elected officials in particular, that are hearing from a lot of their constituents that they don't like something, to say no, and we have to find ways to help them say yes. And the last thing I'll say and, mckenzie, if you have anything to add to this, please do what I mean to dominate is those who are the loudest voice in opposition often don't represent the majority of the community. So when we've been on the ballot and we have in several instances, the public has shown up and reelected city commissions that have made hard choices, validated the existing system of government, we had approved bigger projects going forward, and so we genuinely believe that the busy people of the community are in support of what we're doing, because they demonstrated the ballot box and that gives us, I think, the heart to kind of keep pushing, even when it feels like we're not making as much headway as we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's hard work to do. Criticism is the price of leadership, and I think that that's literally hanging on a wall right above my desk, that I have to be reminded constantly.
Speaker 1:We should put you in our group chat because we go through some Winston Churchill quotes sometimes.
Speaker 3:Mackenzie's husband, ryan, sent me a quote and I was feeling sorry for myself one day, and it was a Winston. He said you have enemies. Good, that means you stood for something once in your life at least once in your life, I think.
Speaker 2:And I love that quote. I literally just read that last night and was sharing it with my son. We were talking about it. So, yeah, what would you add to that, mackenzie?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think from working on the ground with a lot of the businesses, a lot actually happens when you bring people together, and so we have really regular merchant meetings where we talk about all sorts of stuff. So we try to do it topic-based too. So if people have ideas, or how do we leverage the new sports centers that were built, for example, knowing that they're drawing people in at a time of year where we know that it's really difficult for a lot of our businesses? So we get together pretty often and I will say I love working on the private side now, because the conversations are very honest and there are a lot of tools under our belt that we've used. So we have a placer AI that helps us get real-time data as to, like, how many people are coming to our downtown, and we are very critical with that Like.
Speaker 1:So just not being afraid of the answers if you're asking these tough questions, but we have seen that our season is actually the spike is not as significant as it once was, and so we're really elbowing our way into the shoulder seasons and showing that that is working.
Speaker 1:And while I think that for a long time, sandusky had the reputation of you need to make your money during those three summer months or whatever, and that might still be true, but it is hopefully getting easier, and so we're just putting a lot of attention into the shoulder seasons, activating those, and I'm actually very excited for you and your family to experience your first fall up here, because I think it's even better than summer. But I think getting people together, whether that's casually over a beer and I think that Eric and I and a lot of the people we work with are very happy to just sit down and talk about things but then getting the group together too and saying we're all going to try this initiative together, and that's almost where I recognize that small businesses, they are their own boss for a reason, and so working with that and and knowing that and and just allowing people to come to the table when they're ready, um, has been really helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I, I definitely hear a a theme with each of you just being on the the focus on communication, education, iteration and feedback, where you're putting the information out there in different ways. Some people are going to receive it, well, digitally, others face-to-face, others over a coffee or a beer or whatever, and so, man, that's so critical and it sounds like it's not, as you said, been a straight shot, but it's over time, you know, moving in the right direction. Sure, what are some other, you know, maybe things that we haven't talked about, that have been challenges that maybe you expected, maybe some that you didn't, as you've encountered this journey that you've had to figure out how to work through.
Speaker 1:Eric, I actually was going to encourage you to just talk about change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing was, you know, having grown up here but having been gone for most of my adult life and then working in Cleveland, where the attention paid to any one community within it is less so, you know, sadesky is a small town and people care about small towns in different ways, and often I think they're a little more averse to change in small towns because you have fewer people that maybe come from somewhere else, and so for us it's been feeling passionate about these sort of what we'd call best practices or ideas and knowing that the status quo has not been serving Sandusky communities like it well for the last 40 or 50 years.
Speaker 3:But running into that, it's really hard for people to come to grips with what change actually means To your point, whether it's putting a hotel in a parking lot or turning a parking lot for ferries into a pier as a public space, which was way more controversial than you would have thought it would be you have to sort of figure out how to pace the change in a way that people can accept, while you're also trying to accelerate the amount of change the community can handle, because we have so much ground to cover, and that's been a constant balancing act and challenge.
Speaker 3:And when you guys figure it out and Mary and, and, and you know cause, I think it's just part of the process, right, and and, and I think some of the some of it is is genuine, like a lot of the fear of change is genuine, sure, but then you also have people who, maybe for political reasons, uh, will stoke those flames and it's really trying to sift through. Where is the legitimate and genuine and real concern and how do we address that and learn from it and make alterations and compromises that are designed to maybe not do it exactly the way we want it but in a way, the community can live with and continue to move forward? And then how do you push away the less genuine concerns that are really just out there because someone's trying to create a platform for themselves to stop something from happening?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Such a tension there between kind of bulldozing people on your way to a vision versus the folks that have legitimate concerns and making sure that you're listening to those and making sure they are in fact genuine, that can be difficult to decipher sometimes.
Speaker 3:We talk about the goalpost movers, where you keep marching towards them, they just keep pulling. It's like Lucy and Charlie Brown, where you keep running to the ball to kick and they keep pulling it away. And I think that's how many times have we tried to work with people? Several times, and you realize you never actually quite get to the end zone with them, and so you've got to figure out how to move forward without them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really tricky. Others you'd add there.
Speaker 1:The other challenge, and I'm very excited because I think that the city has laid a really strong groundwork with a lot of the infrastructure projects that have happened, but I actually think that now the effort needs to be on the private side to fill some of the vacancies, and so we actually have a retail initiative that we're working on together with the city. Something I'd love to talk to you about even on the side and you and I talked through that.
Speaker 1:We live in a place where we have access to every main big box store, and so retail is a really critical thing and it's also difficult. So it's critical and hard, and so just figuring out what are those things that make an interesting downtown and then finding the right people and the right incentive package to make it all work. And so I'm excited to be on this side now and get to work on some of those things, because I think you've seen a lot of the really great infrastructure laid in place and so it's a great time to then choose to invest.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. How much would you say that is related to just relationship building, and how have you went about that as you've went, I mean with your local developers, the business owners, other stakeholders in public and private sectors?
Speaker 3:It's all, at the end of the day, it is all about relationships, and I think this pivot from city management to the chamber has been a big reminder of that for me, because at the city you have formal authority and I think there's a lot of people that have to come with you because either they need you from a regulatory perspective or an incentive perspective, whereas from the chamber's perspective, when we're trying to be sort of an invisible hand that guides the community forward in positive ways, we lack all of that formal authority and it's been such a reminder to tend to these
Speaker 3:relationships and not that we didn't, because, to your point, relationships with potential investors, real estate developers, entrepreneurs, other local governments that are all part of that capital stack that can be so complicated, people that provide the financing, and really a great team of people, whether it's the staff we hired at the city or the staff we're building at GSP and then watching them as they gain skills and talent.
Speaker 3:Because that was one of the biggest things for me is coming to Cleveland, to Sandusky, I think. At first I thought I'm just going to get a bunch of people from Cleveland to come with me and the reality is it's hard to get people to move, probably from Columbus to Marion or from Cleveland to Sandusky, and it's also not the right thing. So we sort of developed our own talent ecosystem of locals and maybe created some skill sets through experience that didn't exist in this particular community before, and now they're taking those skill sets to other communities or to nonprofit partners, and so I think that's one of the sort of gardening of people and creating experiences and skill sets that didn't exist and then watching them flourish and whether it's as an entrepreneur or a nonprofit partner has been really, really exciting to see.
Speaker 2:I think that's an important point for some of the communities that are just starting on the journey. You know, I think so often it's easy to look to other communities and say, gosh, I'll just go and try to get that from there. You know whether it's a developer, whether it's a small business. But the reality is like that very rarely happens. In my experience having, you know, visit a lot of communities it's almost always where they turn back inwardly, it's the individual path and you realize it's not necessarily the tactic or the program or the project.
Speaker 3:It's the, the, what happens along the way to carrying out an idea. And even just sitting here listening to mckenzie today from where she was 10 years ago, uh, like that gives me such pride because you know, and it's not to say that like but she has developed here where she easily could have been in a Columbus or Washington DC or anybody else in the world and she has learned to do things that she can lead on her own and she teaches others. You should see the interns that she supports here now and they leave and they write her love letters platonic love letter, but like, literally just the difference that she's making in young people's lives and it's really paying forward a difference that some of us were able to make in helping her learn how to do this stuff, and that it's going to exist here now, I think, for generations if we continue to sustain it, and it really didn't until this last 10 or 15 years, exist in the community in the same way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gardening in your own community. I do love that that's saying, and even McKinsey to your point. I mean it's like so fascinating. Where you started in the in the public sector and then, through your husband, who were getting ready to interview on our next podcast, you've now really gotten pulled into the front lines of small business and have seen from yet another vantage point. You know, I think you just have a very unique perspective because you're seeing kind of the same situation from multiple sides, right? And so what do you think that that does for you and your ability to relate and just to continue to try to help good things happen in the community?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel really lucky. I mean, I feel lucky to get to know a lot of very smart people. I feel lucky that I get to meet people like you on their way into town. With my being married to a small business owner, I really intricately understand the highs and lows that small business owners feel and how, when you're riding high you know you're like maybe let's do the next thing, and when you're riding low, you're like I might live in my van you know, and and that that that is a pretty universal thing, I think, felt by all small business owners.
Speaker 1:I probably think there needs to be a small business support group, but I I feel like it gets to it. It helps me a lot both be empathetic and also see both where I can help. As Eric mentioned, I think of downtown as a district. My job is to help talk about the entire district and every single small business, each one of those 100 small businesses that exist down there, and present them in the best light. And when I do my job well and when the small businesses do their job well, then again that's like a, that's a good matchmake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I know that in one of our prior conversations you made mention of the fact that just the people that are running these small businesses, like you, care about each other. And that really is such a difference maker in the community too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even even yesterday, uh, we were grabbing coffee downtown. She ran out of cash while we were there and we ran and grabbed her cash and I like that happens multiple times a day, uh, all the time in small business environments, and that's something that's really special. That doesn't happen in corpo world.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and somebody that maybe hasn't been in that situation like doesn't exactly understand, but like you know, when you're out of $1 bills and it's a busy day like there's, just it can just ruin you. It's a mess, it's a mess. So having you know friends that are fellow business owners that get it and care enough to help you out and bail you out out, and then you can return the favor, that's a, that's a cool thing.
Speaker 1:And you know that that favor will come, like it always is going to. It's always going to come. It's just a revolving circle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. So, uh, let's talk a little bit about uh upcoming events. Uh, you know, through, especially the you know folks may know about some of the summer things but even looking forward to the fall things that are happening in Sandusky, some of the big ones. You don't have to give an exhaustive list. We can link your website in our show notes. Talk a little bit about what's coming, what's exciting and whether that's projects or whether that's events. Just kind of a little bit of open forum here to share what's next.
Speaker 1:I'll. I'll start with this one and then you can um. So we have a lot of. We are just beginning our season, which is really exciting, so there's something happening, like I told you every day all the time but, we have a Michael Stanley concert or a tribute concert, uh, this Thursday. Um, ironman is coming. In July we have Tommy Boy Fest, which is going to be absolutely huge.
Speaker 2:And when does that take place?
Speaker 1:Yeah, august 7th through the 9th they can go to TommyBoyFestcom and it's the 30th anniversary, and so Tommy really working to save his town. So we're trying to interweave how we've all been collectively working to save our town, but the response on that has been absolutely magic in a bottle. The Daily Show has reached out, yahoo has picked up that more than once, so it's going to be a really great summer on that. There's some exciting news coming with Sandusky Witches Walk this fall, so I don't want to break their news for them, but there's something very exciting planned there.
Speaker 1:And I would just add that you asked a question, luke, about just what are we most proud of, and I think that actually seeing things.
Speaker 1:You dreamt about them and we talked about Jackson Street Pier, and so after seeing that go through the whole process of what it was going to look like and then ultimately get built, and then getting the fundraisers to put in the infrastructure things that we need the stage, the screen, the ice skating rink, all of that and then seeing the public actually use it and now we are in its fifth year of Party at the Pier, that free concert series.
Speaker 1:We know that last year we had 17,000 people attend it, which is very cool and that's almost changed the perspective of a lot of people. So the downtown hotel that Eric alluded to one of our hoteliers was actually at that concert and he looked around and he was like downtown is ready for a hotel, and so just changing the mindset of your own community is very special. I also think it's really great how it is not one thing that is going to save your town in quotes, but it's a lot of these little things adding up over time and so that stack that Eric mentioned and just those projects compiling on top of each other and momentum and just doing one thing after another and saying you're going to do something and then doing it, has been really a huge privilege, yeah.
Speaker 3:The other thing I would add is the Christmas market, which was us. We have the great fall events in Witch's Walk, and then last year the Corso family, in honor of their late sort of patriarch he's someone who grew up here but then has done a lot of development in Columbus came back and produced a really exciting Christmas market that they're looking to bring back this year and I think it's becoming a new Sandusky tradition and I think that's exactly it. It's like how do you roll from one season to the next, one project to the next, and really just keep momentum moving forward, and if that happens, more and more people are going to be attracted to that and find their way in and we're seeing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really good, love that. Well, thank you so much. I, you know I knew that this time was going to go fast and I knew that we wouldn't be able to cover all the ground that I hope to. But you know such a pleasure chatting with you guys and just really inspiring the work that's been done here in Sandusky and more to come and it's exciting. You know the impact that you're able to have, not only for the local residents but the folks that are starting businesses and growing businesses here. It's really exciting to see the teamwork and see it working. You know it's super exciting and I hope you are proud of the impact you've been able to make because it is going to be generational for sure.
Speaker 3:And we're grateful for you coming and helping tell the story. Yeah, join the family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's absolutely been my pleasure. We love exploring here and we're looking forward to many you know days and weekends here ourselves, as well as hopefully bringing some of our friends and family to find all the places that we're finding too, and more to come.
Speaker 1:More to come.
Speaker 2:That's good, all right, thanks so much to you guys. Thank you for our listeners for tuning in again. I hope that you've enjoyed this conversation as much as I have so many people doing so much good work all around Ohio and beyond and we love telling these stories, so thanks for being with us. Please tune in again next week. You're going to hear more from Sandusky and it'll be another great conversation, so we'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Main Street Reimagined podcast. To learn more about Main Street Reimagined Henry Development Group or our work in downtown Marion, ohio, please visit MainStreetReimaginedcom. If you want to connect or if you know someone who we need to interview, shoot us an email at info at mainstreetreimaginedcom. Until next time, keep dreaming and don't be afraid to take the leap.