Spring has sprung. While there are no floods, we could use less rain. We are excited to launch the summer season in Burlington. In the meantime, the BBA is continuing its work on our Strategic Plan and will be looking to add new initiatives. How would you like your BBA to focus our advocacy work? Let us Know!
Here is how we advocated for you over the past month...
The amount of people and activities that have been seen around the waterfront lately can only mean one thing… summer is almost here! If you haven’t had a chance to see what is new, get the scoop by attending our Waterfront “FAM” Tour on June 6. In the meantime, here is an update on some of the fun and interesting happenings around Burlington’s greatest natural resource...
You may recall that last November the BBA launched the Best of Burlington On-line Auction which helped spread the word about Burlington to places as far away as San Fransisco. This September, we're going to do it again! In order to get ready for that, we are previewing a select number of items specially geared towards the summer season!
Check out the auction preview for a chance to win:
...and more!
It's Time. Let the Bidding Begin...
As the weather warms, Church Street has come alive. There are new businesses, coming events and projects abound. Here is a brief update on some the happenings on our mall...
BBA Sustaining Member, FairPoint Communications, Inc., has kicked off “Heroes in Our Community” as a way to recognize the great work of Vermont’s nonprofits.
The Queen City Police Foundation will be holding their annual fundraising breakfast on Monday, May 21 at the Hilton Burlington. Created in 2000, the foundation helps to support the Burlington Police Department and further community relationships by providing equipment and technology and supporting community involvement.
"Their work is important to businesses in Burlington because when the police department operates efficiently, it means better response times, better police presence and better collaboration between the department and our business owners," noted Kelly Devine, Executive Director of the BBA.
You can help support this mission by attending the fundraising breakfast, held in recognition of the caring, commitment and sacrifice of local law enforcement. Reserve your table or seat now for the Annual Queen City Police Foundation Breakfast on Monday, May 21 at the Hilton Hotel in Burlington.
That big empty retail space across from the bus station on Church Street? Filled. City Sports, a retailer of athletic gear that originated in Boston, held their Grand Opening Event May 6...
“Vibrancy,” says Kelly Devine. “That’s what events like Hoopapalooza contribute to both City Hall Park and the City of Burlington.”
On Saturday May 5, a number of teams raised money to compete in City Hall Park, each hula hooping to their favorite song or choreographed hoop dance...
Prescription Drug Take Back Day Returns - 1,000,000 pound mark to be eclipsed
Join Burlington and the rest of the nation work towards emptying our homes of unneeded medications. This Saturday, April 28, the Burlington Police Department will participate in the 4th Annual Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
Residents of Burlington can drop off their extra medications at the police department from 10:00 AM to 1:30 PM, which helps to keep the drugs off the street. Brooke Hadwen, of the Burlington Police Department, noted that “there has been strong support from Burlington residents each time we’ve participated in the event.”
To do your part to keep drugs off the streets in Burlington, please participate in this program.
Passion. Commitment. Advocacy. Economic Vitality. We ARE the Burlington Business Association.
Watch the video to learn more.
Members: Tweet this video. Post this video. Share this video with your friends. We're all in this togethor.
It may have taken a few years to lay the ground work for the Burlington Electric Department's "ConnectCity Burlington," but the first "smart meter" was installed on April 23rd in just 5 minutes...
As the Planning and Urban Design Collaborative works toward creating a master plan for the city, public input remains important...
The 2012 Waterfront Map is getting closer to completion. Read the full story to view or print out a sample of this year's map!
As reported by the Burlington Free Press, "The 2012 Burlington Business Association annual dinner Thursday night began with a rendition of “Here Comes the Sun,” the Beatles staple, to indicate the dawning of a new age for business in the Queen City.
It was sung by Rich Price, digital strategy director of Select Design, and local musician Peter Day. That inspired Gov. Peter Shumlin. “I promised my staff I wouldn’t do this,” Shumlin said before belting out the first few lines of “Here Comes the Sun” prior to making his opening remarks at the event held at the Hilton Burlington.
On Thursday, April 5, in front of a sold out crowd of over 430 business leaders, the Burlington Business Association (BBA) announced the two newest appointments to its Board of Directors...
City Hall was alive on the night of April 2, 2012, as Miro Weinberger was sworn in
Four local police departments, UVM and the Uncommon Alliance released the results of a two year analysis of race-data collected from motor vehicle stops...
On Monday, March 27, several BBA members and Marketplace business owners testified during the "Public Forum" time slot at the City Council meeting...
On the evening of Tuesday, March 20, several business and community members attended the Public Safety Committee meeting to support proposed changes to the City’s Panhandling Ordinance.
Kelly Devine, Executive Director of the Burlington Business Association, discussed economic development on WCAX on Thursday, March 16.
The votes have been cast; the results tallied. Three different Burlington Business Association awards will be presented at the 34th BBA Dinner and Annual Meeting on April 5th at the Hilton, Burlington.
On Tuesday, March 13, Executive Director was featured in the Comment and Debate Section of the Burlington Free Press. As a Burlington stakeholder, Devine was invited to discuss her "hopes for the future under teh Weinberger administration."
Here is what Kelly had to say...
On March 8th more than 60 members of the business community filled the Burlington Police Station for the BBA Safety and Security Summit. Beginning at 7:30 AM, BBA members networked over breakfast, discussing business and safety and security concerns affecting their businesses.
About 1/3 of the Farmer's Market will move out of the park and on onto Saint Paul Street this coming spring. Since striking a preliminary agreement at he end of February, the BBA has continued to work with downtown businesses, the city and the Farmer's Market to create and implement a plan to allow some market vendors to set up on Saint Paul, instead of in the park. Most recently, about 15 representatives of the groups met on March 13...
Two new ordinances that impact downtown business were introduced during Burlington City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting on Monday, February 20...
Thanks to Pomerleau Real Estate, the Church Street Marketplace and Alliance Françoise of the Lake Champlain Region, you can communiate better with your French speaking visitors for only $50.
We are less than 30 days out from the March 6th Burlington mayoral election. Based on news headlines such as "Wright would replace CEDO head" in the Burlington Free Press, it looks like a new mayor won't be the only change in the city this spring. The BBA is continuing to follow the key issues that are a part of our 2012 Strategic Plan:
Did you know that there nearly 9,000 parking spaces in Burlington?
Even when Burlington is at its busiest, there are still over 1180 available parking spaces downtown...
Last week, over 300 people stopped into 1 Cherry Street to visit the home base of and participate in the planBTV Charrette. Throughout the week, businesses and citizens weighed in on the changes they would like to see occur in the Queen City. The charrette was the culminating effort to finish Phase II of planBTV – Downtown and Waterfront. The comprehensive planning project, which began last winter, wants “to identify, understand, and address current barriers to the creation of new infill development.”
During 2010's tourist season, visitors to the Burlington area enjoyed a creative outdoor art exhibit featuring nearly 40 painted cows dotting the region. This coming May, Citizens Bank, The Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, Church Street Marketplace and The Burlington Business Association are at it again. This time around, these organizers won’t be putting cows on display, but bears.
Its a new year and with upcoming elections and on-going Burlington Business Association initiatives, it is a an exciting time to be involved in Burlington politics. The BBA is continuing to follow the key issues that are a part of our 2012 Strategic Plan:
Read about BBA advocacy in each of these areas.
BBA Holds Mayoral Debate
Mayoral candidates Miro Weinberger and Kurt Wright kicked off the campaign season at the 10th Annual BBA Business Summit at Champlain College on January 5, 2012.Nearly 200 people registered for the event which featured the first debate between the two candidates and a networking breakfast, which the candidates also attended.
During the debate, Wright and Weinberger faced questions from all sides...
Four days after City Council narrowly voted in favor of implementing a Downtown Smoking Ordinance, Mayor Bob Kiss vetoed the ordinance, calling it "bad public policy."
Burlington businesses are always looking for different ways to spread the word out about the great things this region offers to residents, students and/or visitors. With that in mind, eighty businesses recently donated items to the BBA’s Best of Burlington on-line auction.
The auction, which ran from November 11 to December 12 on biddingforgood.com, generated quite a buzz, due in part to the promotion efforts of the BBA, who ran ads for the auction on the WCAX and Burlington Free Press websites and sent out over 5000 auction emails.
All told, between people following, watching or bidding on items, the action had 412 active users who placed 663 bids on 109 items. After the bidding was complete, there were 80 winners from three cities in Canada and five states in the U.S., including eight winners from Massachusetts and a lady from San Francisco who won a stay in a Burlington hotel! In Vermont alone, 28 different zip codes were represented by bidders.
“We view the auction as a success,” said BBA Executive Director Kelly Devine. “Our goal was to get the word out about the great things in Burlington and 77% of our bids came from outside of the city.” Devine also said that restaurant gift certificates, hotel rooms and entertainment tickets were among the best sellers. “People will have to come to Burlington to redeem those items. We could be seeing the benefits of the auction for quite some time.”
The City of Burlington is in Phase II of planBTV – Downtown and Waterfront. This comprehensive planning project, which began this past winter, seeks “to identify, understand, and address current barriers to the creation of new infill development.” With that in mind, the organizers of the project have created several ways for the public to interact with the planning process and share their ideas.
In addition to holding an art contest and offering a chance to win $50 by completing a survey, project planners are also holding a number of events that the public can participate in this January. The next community meeting will take place on January 19 at 7:00 p.m. Maura Colling of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency will speak at the Williston Town Hall about two recent housing studies.
The contests and community meetings will culminate in the planBTV Design Charrette. This is a week-long, intense participatory process where all members of the community work directly with a multidisciplinary design team, including town planners, architects and engineers, to define a collective vision for the future and create the final plan for the Downtown and Waterfront. The Charette will use the old Ann Taylor storefront (1 Church Street) as a headquarters from January 24-30. For a full list of the weeks events, check out the planBTV website.
BEFORE YOU GO: Get up to date on some of the research that has been done on downtown recently. Watch David White, Director of Planning and Zoning, talk about future parking and the Downtown/Waterfront plan. Also, you can see Tripp Muldrow, a retail market consultant, explain the results of a zip code analysis.
In October, Porter Airlines announced they would offer twice weekly flights between Toronto and Burlington. They named December 15 as the first day the shuttle service would begin and they held true to that commitment as the first flight landed on its scheduled day and time in Burlington on Thursday.
The Burlington Free Press reported that four different ski resorts have helped pay to market the flights and are offering special packages for passengers. Porter has committed to run the service through April of 2012, but their President and CEO said he may consider adding more flights to the schedule because the flights have been well received by both cities. Over half of the tickets for the season’s flights have already sold and while Thursday’s inaugural flight into Burlington was a mix of people associated with the partnership, the return flight was scheduled to take off with several Vermonters.
If you were out and about on December 4 and thought you saw several Santas run past you, you weren’t going crazy. Over 1,500 people registered for and participated in the Inaugural RiRa Santa 5K Run and Walk, according the Burlington Free Press.
For $30, each participant was given a Santa suite, a medal, and admission to an authentic Irish breakfast prepared, donated and served by RiRa after the event. The fundraising event raised over $1,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Vermont.
The race started and finished on Church Street in downtown Burlington. Organizers hope next year's event will draw 2,000 participants.
On December 6, 2011 America’s Health Rankings released their annual report which had Vermont at the top of their list as the healthiest state in America.
The report comes on the heels of some impressive honors for the region over the past year...
The Burlington Business Association held its Annual Holiday Social on December 1, 2011 with a bit of a twist. “out of the blue” was marketed as a 'pop-up' event, which is an event that takes a vacant space and converts and repurposes it for a very short period time.
During the evening, nearly 150 guests were surprised by the event's location and an announcement by JL Reality.
“This woman makes the term ‘high-energy’ seem wimpy.” -BPV
Kelly Devine, Executive Director of Burlington Business Assocation, was featured in (and graced the cover of) the December issue of Business People Vermont. The feature article, which spans the first three pages of the publication, offers an history of the BBA, from how it started to where it is going. It also gives readers some inside information about Kelly’s personal life and the journey she took to become the Executive Director of the BBA.
Said Kelly of the experience, “I am honored be featured in Business People Vermont. They are a great publication and I had a lot of fun being interviewed and talking about the BBA.”
The issue hit the stands on December 6, 2011.
UPDATE: City IMPLEMENTS Reduced Downtown Speed Limits
In October, Burlington announced that the city-wide speed limit would change from 30 to 25 mph in late November. It turns out that "late November" was an apt timeline as the law officially went into place today, the last day of November.
Click "read more" to read the story first published in October, complete with a detailed account of roads that are exempt from this new law. You can also read the Burlington Free Press story to see why Kelly Devine, Executive Director of the Burlington Business Association, advocated for the the speed limit reduction, but not for an additional lowering of speed limits to 20 mph in the downtown core.
Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling discussed Burlington’s growing crime problem on a recent visit to Montpelier, noting that “we’ve had the worst year in history.” According to vtdigger.org, Schirling spoke about some of the issues at the Joint Corrections Oversight Committee at the Statehouse on November 28.
The Burlington Business Association: The Voice of Business in Burlington
This month we are continuing to follow key issues that impact economic vitality. Of course the issue most in the news and on many minds is the Mayoral Race. The journey to select a democratic candidate has made for interesting reading while it still awaits a conclusion. The following issues were on the top of the BBA's Advocacy list for November:
The City of Burlington Police Department (BPD) announced yesterday, November 14, that it has recently received major recognition.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has awarded the BPD the 2011 IACP Civil Rights Award as well as the Excellence in Victim Services Award.
Additionally, BPD announced that they, in partnership with the HowardCenter, were a semi-finalist for the Webber-Seavey Quality in Law Enforcement Award for the Street Outreach Interventionist Program.
After taking a "wait and see" approach, it seems the city of Burlington has seen enough.
Campers in City Hall Park were asked on November 14 to take down their tents and vacate the park after 18 days of occupation.
Outside Today is in the midst of compiling and ranking their list of the country’s Best Towns. This week they discussed BTV on “Outside Television,” a program featured on their website.
It’s easy to see how Burlington is in the running for this ranking, as the criteria Outside Today is looking at includes the combination of culture, scenery and access to the outside.
During the brief show, which you can watch here, the hosts noted that Burlington has been “a stand out town over the years.” They also noted some of the things that make BTV as great as including cheese-making, biking, farming and access to skiing and Lake Champlain.
Said one resident of BTV, “Why do I Iove Burlington? How much time do you have?”
Check out our facebook page to comment on the show!
Help us improve City Hall Park!
For the past two years, the BBA has focused its attention on working with the city to make improvements to City Hall Park. Recently the BBA partnered with Burlington City Arts and others to procure a $50,000 “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Now, the first steps in utilizing those funds are underway. A Facebook page, Imagine City Hall Park, keeps people updated about park happenings and outlines a detailed list of objectives that BCA and its partners hope to accomplish. “Our goal is to bring back a balance to city park… and to create greater comfort and security for all,” the website states.
One of the 6 objectives is engaging citizens in meaningful dialog about the park. Do this, the BCA and its partners are asking for input from the citizens of Burlington. They want to know what you love about City Hall Park and what changes you would like to see made.
To help in this important beginning step, take a brief survey here.
Over the past few weeks, the Burlington International has been in the news several times. As a key player in Burlington's economy and tourism industry, it's strength remains important.
The BBA will be following the developments of these stories, so stay tuned.
More on Toronto, the FAA Inquiry and Birds
As winter approaches, thoughts are shifting towards 2012 and the possibilities a new year holds. With that in mind, the BBA would like to announce that it is accepting sponsorships for 5 major events in 2012.
Sponsoring a BBA event is a great way to promote your organization, gain recognition and align your business with the Voice of Business in Burlington.
The Burlington Business Association: The Voice of Business in Burlington
Several issues recently in the news or before the Burlington City Council have the potential for impacting our downtown business community. Over the past few days, I have been working to learn more about these issues so that I can help keep you informed. Here is the list of issues that I are currently on the top of the BBA's Advocacy list. Click on any of the issues to learn more about the background of the issue. A summary of the BBA's advocacy plan for each appears with the read more link.
For the past two years, the BBA has focused its attention on working with the city to make improvements to City Hall Park.
This summer, Burlington City Arts (BCA) announced that it will receive a $50,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). One of only 51 grants awarded nationwide. the grant will be used to develop an inspired and functional master plan for City Hall Park, a green space at the heart of Burlington’s economic and civic life.
The grant is part of a new NEA initiative called Our Town, which aims to bring together "partners from the public and private sectors to strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city or region around arts and cultural activities."
BCA's partners include the City Hall Task Force, the Burlington Business Association, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Merchants Bank, Preservation Trust of Vermont, King Street Center and the city of Burlington, as well as landscape architects David Raphael of Landworks in Middlebury and Jeffrey Hodgson of the H. Keith Wagner Partnership in Burlington.
