Consultant contract could be cut for more façade funding
Next year could bring a new approach to downtown revitalization for Lansdale.
Council members heard a preview recently of several tactics the town’s economic development committee would like to try in 2025, including ending the business development consultant contract and pushing toward a ‘Main Street manager’ model.
“We’re presenting some things that can really help drive what we’re trying to do in Lansdale, which is improve Main Street, and improve the quality of life for residents and businesses,” said councilman Andrew Carroll.
For the past decade-plus, the town’s economic development committee has been tasked with finding ways to spur development, fill storefront vacancies, and pursue tactics that could keep or attract new business. That group’s efforts have yielded programs including the town’s economic development incentive, which provides a discount on electric bills for businesses that create or keep jobs in town, and a façade improvement grant program that matches the cost of certain signs and upgrades to building exteriors.
In 2022 the committee asked council to hire Stephen Barth, an economic development consultant tasked with meeting business and property owners, finding solutions for vacant properties, and promoting development.
In the two-plus years since, the consultant has reported on the results of those meetings, marketing initiatives and beautification pushes throughout the town, while staff and other council committees have developed an online map of vacant properties and discussed an ordinance that could fee or fine absentee owners whose storefronts have stayed empty.
Dropping consultant
During his economic development committee report to council on Oct. 2, Carroll said the committee would like to consider for 2025 not renewing the contract with Barth and looking into ways "to employ a full time Main Street manager," an idea discussed as far back as 2011.
"This could potentially be an internal position, although more likely would be a position through a third party nonprofit. There are also potential grants available" through various state programs that could help offset the costs, he said.
Other recommendations from EDC for council to consider would be to increase the committee's annual budget, from $25,000 to $50,000 per year, with much of the current budget being used for the façade grants.
"The additional $25,000 would be used to bolster the façade grant program, as well as be used for borough-wide marketing initiatives," Carroll said.
The fourth goal is increasing the match amount for the façade grant program from the current $5,000 cap to $7,500, which the councilman said is "an effort to attract larger improvement projects, and put our dollars on Main Street, where they can really help."
More money for facades
Council President Mary Fuller asked if there would be any limits to where the façade grants would be used, such as just on Main Street, and Carroll said they would apply to any business in the borough, so long as it meets criteria set out by the committee. She then asked if the EDC was asking for any immediate increase in funding for 2025, and Carroll said that's part of why they're making the requests of council now, when departmental budgets and line items such as the roughly $60,000 consultant contract for Barth are reviewed.
"We're not asking that all of that money be directed back into the EDC, but that some of it come back for us to use, for the efforts I mentioned," he said.
Councilwoman Carrie Oglesby asked where the funding for the new manager position would come from, and Carroll said that's part of what the committee want staff to investigate in 2025.
"What does a program like that cost? Who would administer it? Would it be run through the borough directly, or through a nonprofit? These are good questions, and I don't have a direct answer, but I feel that I would rather start to look at other options than continue to spend $60,000 a year when I, and my (committee), feel we're having a diminishing return on that investment every year," he said.
A sign listing contact information for leasing the vacant storefront on the first floor of a Madison Apartment building in Lansdale is seen in December 2021. (Dan Sokil - MediaNews Group)Main Street manager
Borough Manager John Ernst said staff have looked into programs offered by the state Department of Community and Economic Development that do offer grants toward a formal 'Main Street Matters' manager program, as well as funds for "many different aspects of managing and revitalizing your downtown."
"Anywhere from support of a Main Street manager salary, to investment in property improvements, investment in planning grants, investment in implementation. They say that the grants that are available, do not necessarily hinge on whether or not you are a member, or an approved community, within the DCED program," he said.
The state-supported manager program carries a five-year commitment, he said, and staff are starting to contact other communities that have taken part in the program to learn more about their do's and don'ts.
Mayor Garry Herbert added that a longtime goal of his — a vacancy ordinance meant to spur new plans from developers — could help fund the new tactics.
"What can we do with the fee money that is generated? One of the things that we can do is some form of economic development, with that money. It can't be one-to-one, meaning the manager we hire's whole salary (couldn't) come out of the fee schedule, but it could be part of the fees we generate," he said.
Councilman BJ Breish added that he was glad to hear "a lot of really brilliant ideas" coming from the committee, and Fuller said as a former member, she was glad to see that group taking initiatives to spur the town.
"This is probably the most conversation, and most council interaction, in the 13 years or whatever that this committee has been in existence. This is one of, if not the, most robust conversations, and hats off. I am really excited about the direction of this committee," she said.
Lansdale's borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Oct. 16 and the economic development committee next meets at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 21, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.
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