Appleton Downtown

Downtown vitality through promoting and managing Downtown events and promoting a clean, safe and friendly environment is another area that dominates our task list. Events generate foot traffic for the businesses and provide additional opportunity to showcase the distirct. Our events typically generate support dollars for the organization however some are strictly designed to drive traffic to the businesses and are not considered fundraisers. The Downtown summer farm market, which featured 86 local and regional vendors, the heid music summer concert series featured top local acts and put on 14 free live shows. We hosted a new event called night market and it was also free to attend featuring culutral performances, artistic experiences, live music, vendors and food. Our events included a variety of walking culinary events including death by chocolate, soup walk, cultural cuisine walk, craft beer walk, wine walk, and cafe walk. These events are designed to get people moving around the district and visit venues.

We support programs for the recruitment, improvement and retention of approximately 206 property members in Downtown Appleton. Bid building improvement funds are designed to improve physical appearance. In 2023 the bid distributed $31,248 for building and signage improvements and $7900 in new business support grants from the business improvement district. The bid marketing grant program is a retention effort and is available to any business in the district. $6490 was distributed for marketing support, also bid funded. Support for business recruitment through our searchable online property tool helps connect building owners with potential tenants or buyers. We also supported a new resident and employee welcome packet program. All programs are bid supported. We continue to partner with the city of Appleton to execute the Downtown plan chapter 14 of the city's comprehensive plan.

Our efforts in district marketing are focused on showcasing the Downtown as a destination for business, arts and leisure. Advertising ranges from image marketing to event marketing that draws thousands of visitors to our Downtown. We use a variety of avenues including radio, digital billboard ads, print ads, tv ads, kiosk and window displays, and social media. Our social media advertising includes email, eblast, a web page with 183,287 visits, facebook with 24,000 likes, growing engagement of 230,921 and instagram with 8,200 followers. We produce an annual Downtown guide and distributed 12,000 of them to visitors and local residence, expense of $7475. Weekly communication to the businesses and general public keeps everyone informed on issues and happenings in the district. $75,965 of our marketing and printing expenses are covered by bid funding. A storyology process was completed with a2z design agency $11,000. A total of $110,903 was invested in marketing and printing. The Downtown guide and small business saturday attract cooperative investment of $28,625 from Downtown businesses and sponsors.

Our partnership with riverview gardens care program continued to provide general cleaning services to the Downtown district. In 2023, the program provided 612 hours of sidewalk cleaning service, with 131 bags of trash collected. We contracted with pfefferle management for 246 hours of additional cleaning services including graffiti removal. We also provide the flowers for the sidewalk planters, edison lights at the intersections, and lights in houdini plaza. The program is bid supported.we provide a gift certificate program for the Downtown. 2295 certificates were sold with a total value of $67,369.in partnership with valley transit we support the Downtown trolley in Downtown and the riverfront. In 2023 we were awarded a grant from the convention and visitors bureau to fund our portion of the trolley. Additional expenditure was for the public brochure.