Cherry City Cafe now serves liquor and is offering crawlers $5 cherrybombs during their stop on the crawl. Friday night karaoke is a staple at Cherry City, so plan on bringing your “A” voice for cherry-oke singing fun. Here’s the pub crawl schedule:
6:00 p.m. Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar
6:45 p.m. Copperjohn’s
7:30 p.m. Magoo’s Sports Bar
8:15 p.m. Pete’s Place
9:00 p.m. Cherry City Cafe
10:00 p.m. FlipSide!
Creative Pub Crawl
We are rapidly approaching the final Creative Pub Crawl of Year 2. Superheroes will be bounding through downtown Friday, June 17, as we bring the second year of downtown economic development programming to a close. Based on the wristband count and collected emails, we estimate that more than 2500 people have participated, spending $100,000 in 22 participating venues.
We want to especially thank our biggest supporters who were there since the beginning; Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar, Copperjohn’s, Magoo’s Sports Bar, Pete’s Place, FlipSide and Straight From New York Pizza. Also, gratitude goes out to those that let us stop in sometime along the way; The Brick, Brown’s Towne Lounge, Cokie’s Landing, Hallie Ford Museum of Art and Grand Vines. New venues that we visited during that time included Jonathan’s Oyster Bar, Willamette Noodle, Old Spaghetti Warehouse, Downtown Market and Deli, Half Time and ƒ/stop Fitzgerald’s.
Sadly, The Space, Coffee House Cafe, Cafe Noir, 6 Ultralounge and Allessandro’s are no longer with us.
We are considering a format change to the Creative Pub Crawl starting in July. The venues are becoming too full on Friday nights, where they were emptier when we started in 2009. Bringing people downtown on Friday nights was the primary goal of the Crawl so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Now what? We are receiving requests to move to Saturday afternoon and night, creating “special crawl” and visiting other parts of town. Please help us decide by completing our SURVEY at salemdowntown.net
Third Saturdays
With the failure of Go Downtown Salem and Salem Downtown Partnership to get along and apply for administrator of the Economic Improvement District (EID), efforts by property owners to represent downtown are on hiatus. City Council formed a subcommittee consisting of Mayor Peterson and Councilors Bennett, Tesler and Cannon to “take baby steps and wrap their arms around downtown stakeholders” to see if we can all just get along. The meeting schedule and actual agenda are yet to be announced but the intention is to have the problem solved by October 2011. First Wednesdays and Summer in the City, currently run by Go Downtown Salem have been cancelled. Salem Downtown Partnership, founded in 2005, has yet to produce any programming in six years. It appears that the only reason for the existence of both groups is to control the $300,000 budget that comes with EID administration, with economic development secondary to control.
This is the exact situation that caused business owners, property owners and artists to form Salem Creative Network and Salem Downtown programming in 2009. With no budget, we have grown economic development programming to include the Creative Pub Crawl, Willamette Valley Wine Walk and initiation of the Hospitality Zone Assessment process. Cultural Creative programming efforts include Cherry City Music Festival, Ignite Salem and Doug’s World. Greening Salem programming includes Solarize Salem and Megawatt Project.
Not surprisingly, business owners are interested in economic development downtown. That’s why, starting on June 18, we are starting a new program tentatively (send us your creative name suggestions) named Third Saturdays where we will combines elements of our other successful programming to retail owners downtown.
Each Third Saturday will include a live television and internet broadcast of Doug’s World (4:00 to 6:00 p.m.) visiting a different downtown district (State Street Merchants, Court Street Merchants, Salem Center, Reed Opera House, Restaurant Row, Diamond, Creative, Fashion Districts, etc.) to showcase creativity in retail stores. This will be followed by an all ages concert at Ike Box, courtesy of The Space Presents. Email us if you have ideas or would like to volunteer.
Solarize Salem II
We are starting the second round of Solarize Salem on Wednesday, June 1, 12:00 p.m. at the State Capitol steps. We are looking for 50 Salem-area homeowners interested in buying or leasing a solar system for their rooftop. The 2010 program
attracted 400 interested homeowners with 52 joining the co-op and installing 165 kW of solar energy. After testifying in at the Joint Tax Committee last week, it’s apparent that drastic cuts – 97% (RETC goes from $34M in 2009-11 to $1M in 2011-13) are in store for the Residential Energy Tax Credits, which homeowners applied toward their solar systems. We favor transitioning the energy program to the feed-in-tariff pilot, similar to the successful Germany model. There is currently no framework for this transition.
The changes will take effect on July 1, 2011, so if you’re considering solar, please check out our program before then.
Thanks for your interest in social innovation and reply if you have any questions or concerns.
Ross
More changes are coming downtown over the next few months, especially with the future of the economic improvement district (EID) which may have no administrator on July 1. All efforts to award the EID property tax budget to a qualified group were put on hold during the May 9 Salem City Council meeting, when Councilor Bennett’s motion to form a subcommittee passed unanimously. Mayor Peterson is scheduled to select the subcommittee members “sooner, rather than later” in an effort to address the toxic climate created by divisiveness between property owners downtown.
The Salem Creative Network provides creative solutions for social innovation. Our Salem Downtown programming focuses on establishing a prosperous environment for nightlife and creating the greenest downtown in the USA. We have openly approached all stakeholders downtown (City of Salem, Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, Go Downtown Salem, Salem Downtown Partnership, other property and business owners) with the goal of creating a hospitality zone and have largely been ignored.
We anticipated the potential dissolution of the EID and hosted the “Creating a Sociable City: Mobilizing Stakeholders” seminar in February and invited all stakeholders to get together and focus on the FUTURE of downtown together. While representatives from each group attended the event and agreed on its value, only the Creative Pub Crawl venue owners were willing to help fund the $3250.
Downtown Strategy Summit
We are continuing with the hospitality zone assessment and have scheduled the Downtown Strategy Summit on Tuesday, May 17, 6:30 p.m. at the Salem Public Library Loucks Auditorium to present stakeholder visions for the EID and the future of the downtown hospitality zone. Go Downtown Salem, Salem Downtown Partnership and the Salem Creative Network will explain their strategies for downtown.
Please make plans to attend, listen and contribute to the future of downtown.
Solarize Salem II
We will kick off round 2 of Solarize Salem on June 1, 1:30 p.m. at the State Capitol steps. Our contractor will be able to offer unprecedented pricing and and special program for homeowners without the upfront capital outlay. Stay tuned and join us at the kick off!
Doug’s World
Our media outreach, f-stop.tv, has produced hours of television programming about renewable energy and downtown nightlife. Doug’s World, filmed its 16th episode last week and now broadcasts in HD. We will begin live monthly broadcasts downtown in June. Check out the show on Comcast Ch. 22 every Thursday 6:30, Friday, Monday at 9:00 and Saturdays at 11:30.
Creative Pub Crawl – Storybook Characters
The big bad wolf is crawling May 20 and we have a new venue – Old Spaghetti Warehouse. Join us as we improve the downtown economy one drink special at a time. 6:00 Venti’s 6:45 Copperjohn’s 7:30 Magoo’s, 8:15 Pete’s 9:00 Old Spaghetti Warehouse, 10:00 FlipSide!
2011 Cherry City Music Festival
More than 100 bands descend on the hospitality zone to entertain in 13 venues over the three day event. Most performances are free. We will be broadcasting live from downtown on Comcast Channel 22 for 12 hours during the festival. Watch us online at livestream.com/dougsworld.
We need volunteers for band hospitality. Help us out and volunteer here.
Noise ordinance
On Monday April 11, the Salem City Council will conduct the first hearing for the proposed noise ordinance, which will consider the downtown parking district as commercial and set the decibel level at 65 between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. We think 65 dB is a step in the right direction. There are others, however, that adamantly oppose this and want the levels set at 45dB! Show up at 6:30 to show your support for a hospitality zone.
Creative Pub Crawl – Saturday Night Fever Friday April 15
Get down tonight! We have two new stops on the crawl this month, Magoo’s and Cherry City Cafe. And we’ll see what Half Time’s got for us, too. Bring your disco balls and platform shoes!
6:00 Venti’s cafe and Basement Bar
6:45 Copperjohn’s
7:30 Magoo’s
8:15 Pete’s
9:00 Cherry City Cafe
9:45 HalfTime
10:30 FlipSide!
Clean Energy Rally and Lobby Day
We’re celebrating Earth Day on Friday April 22 with a Clean Energy Rally and Lobby Day at the State Capitol. Please volunteer to talk to your elected officials about the importance of Oregon-produced power for Oregonians.
Friday April 22
9:30 Training at Local Government Center 1201 Court St NE
11:00 Rally on Capitol Steps
12-4 Lobby your elected officials
Reply if you’re interested and email jamie@climatesolutions.org to coordinate the lobbying effort.
See you downtown!
Wear some green or expect some pinching.
6;00 Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar
6:45 Copperjohn’s
7:30 Downtown Market and Deli
8:15 Crawler’s Choice
9:00 Pete’s Place
10:00 Flipside!
It seems that changes are happening faster than ever and we’re doing what we can to keep up! This Salem Creative Network update will cover:
1) Salem Downtown
2) Megawatt Project
3) social engagements
4) volunteer opportunities
5) board meeting
Downtown
We recently hosted the Responsible Hospitality Institute for a Sociable City seminar. More than 20 downtown and city leaders attended to discuss the process of developing a hospitality economy downtown that would address the inter-generational and inter-cultural need for a third place to socialize outside of home and work. With the current Economic Improvement District structure in question, it may become necessary to develop and implement our plan independently.
We will have a follow up meeting in mid-March to discuss our options.
Megawatt
The Megawatt Project is off to a surprisingly good start. We submitted our first project (Magoo’s!) to the Department of Energy for the Business Energy Tax Credit. It’s a lottery process, so we’ll know soon if we are moving forward. We have 266 kW of renewable energy projects and 7 businesses interested in energy upgrades for lighting, HVAC and refrigeration. Contact us if you are interested in the program.
Upcoming Events
February 24-26 8th Mid-Valley Video Festival at Northern Lights Theatre Pub, F-stop Fitzgerald’s and CCTV.
March 18 Creative Pub Crawl – Leprechauns
April 7, 8, 9 Cherry City Music Festival
Volunteer Opportunities
We are looking for volunteers for Salem Downtown programs, Megawatt Project, Doug’s World television production and Cherry City Music Festival. Email ross@salemdowntown.net.
Board Meeting
Our next board meeting is 4:30 p.m., Thursday, March 3 at F-stop-Fitzgerald’s. We’re working on a few housekeeping issues including changing the nonprofit from a member to a non-member organization. We are also looking to build the board, so attend if you’re interested.
Hey you Wild and Crazy guys! The schedule has been finalized for tonight’s Saturday Night Live pub crawl. We have a new venue, Coffee House Cafe. They just got their license and are creating a happy hour just for us – $2 Caldera IPA, Bear Republic Red Rocket and Racer 5 PLUS $1 off all beer and wine. Let’s show them some love, Pub Crawl style.
Here’s this month’s list:
6:00 p.m. Venti’s Basement Bar
6:45 p.m. Copperjohn’s
7:30 p.m. Coffee House Cafe
8:15 p.m. Pete’s Place
9:15 p.m. Brown’s Towne Lounge
10:15 p.m. FlipSide!
Here we are at the end of a whirlwind year making Salem a better place to live. Join us 6:00 p.m. Friday, December 10 at Coffee house Cafe for a Salem Creative Network holiday party! The all-ages event will offer an opportunity to reflect on the old year and plan for the future. Let’s celebrate!
Here’s a run down of what’s going on with the Salem Creative Network:
Upcoming dates:
Monday, December 6 – Noise ordinance 1st reading
6:30 City Council Chambers
The staff re-write of the noise ordinance has a first reading tomorrow night. We hope this is approved quickly so we can begin to develop the hospitality zone downtown. It allows a commercial noise level of 65 dB everywhere downtown until 10 p.m. Please attend the council meeting to watch the action.
Thursday, December 9 – Megawatt Project Launch
11:45 a.m. SEDCOR luncheon Mission Mill Museum Spinning Room
Salem Creative Network will present the Megawatt Project at the monthly SEDCOR luncheon this week. We’ve arranged for some electric vehicle manufacturers (Brammo, BugE, RYNO) to bring their eye candy so people can get a glimpse of the future while learning about biomass, smart grid, financing and Megawatt.
Please attend and support the Network at the area’s largest business luncheon.
Friday, December 10 – Willamette Valley Wine Walk – Network Holiday Party
6:00 p.m. Coffee House Cafe
Our final wine walk of 2010 will feature hot-spiced wine at downtown’s newest watering hole – Coffee House Cafe. Lari DeLapp is excited to finally receive his OLCC credentials and will host us for a soft launch beer and wine service at Coffee House Cafe. We will be there until 9:00 p.m. and then move on to DaVinci’s, Orupa and Bentley’s. Minors allowed until 8:00 p.m. at CHC.
Tuesday, December 14 Cherry City Music Festival planning meeting
7:00 p.m. Coffee House Cafe
We are organizing the 2011 Cherry City Music Festival with Mid-Valley Video Festival. They received a $7500 grant from the city and need help planning and hosting the festival. Please attend if you’re interested in volunteering.
Friday, December 17 Creative Pub Crawl – Naughty Elves in Fugly Sweaters
6:00 Venti’s Cafe and Basement Bar
Whew! Has it been a year already? Wear a fugly sweater and/or bring your naughty elf gear for another night of economic development downtown.
2011 volunteer opportunities:
Tuesday, January 11 Salem Creative Network board meeting
Thursday, February 10 Ignite Salem 5 – Global Ignite Week
April 7, 8, 9 – Cherry City Music Festival
2010 program summaries
Greening Salem
Solarize Salem
Solarize Salem wrapped up on October 31. The bulk solar installation program attracted more than 400 interested homeowners with workshops, events and the lowest price for Oregon-made solar systems. The program was featured on 1A of the Statesman Journal twice, KATU-TV, KGW-TV and nationally on page 3 of USA Today
During the three-month program, 52 homeowners installed 165 mW of renewable energy on their roofs. In 2009, just 10 systems were installed in Salem. Our contractors, Solar City and RS Energy, were very satisfied with the program and other communities (Seattle, Beaverton) are using our program modifications in their current efforts. Also, Adam Stephens Middle School will receive the donation of a 3 kW system ($17,000) from the contractors for educational purposes.
Thanks to all the volunteers, partners and participants that made this program so successful!
Megawatt Project
Our newest program for Greening Salem is the Megawatt Project, a renewable energy and resource management program for commercial, institutional and nonprofit clients. We are partnering with Sanyo Solar of Oregon and local contractors to offer bulk pricing for solar installations and energy efficiency retrofits. We are also creating a workforce development training module with Chemeketa Community College to prepare for the anticipated demand for services. We need volunteers for the advisory committee and program implementation.
Salem Green Professionals
Salem Green Professionals meets every two month at sustainable businesses in the Salem area. We are meeting this week to discuss the future of this program.
Salem Downtown
Creative Pub Crawl
We are planning themes for 2011. Send ‘em if you have them!
Willamette Valley Wine Walk
The wine walk is over a year old now and we’re looking to expand the program to First Wesdnedays. We’ll keep you updated.
Downtown Hospitality Zone
We are working with the Responsible Hospitality Institute, downtown venues, entertainers, patrons and the City of Salem to establish a hospitality zone downtown. RHI was instrumental in crafting policy in Austin, Seattle, Phoenix and other cities to improve the nighttime economy of downtowns. Our mentoring city is Lexington, KY where they just transitioned through similar circumstances involving noise issues and expanding retail opportunities.
Creative Culture
Ignite Salem
We are in the process of facilitating the administration of cultural programming from Mid-Valley Video Festival. Ignite Salem 5 will be held during Global Ignite Week with 100 other cities in all seven continents and antarctica. We need presenters. Sign up at ignitesalem.com.
Cherry City Music Festival
The 5th Cherry City Music Festival occurs April 7-9 in downtown Salem. More than 100 bands will perform in 15 venues.
Creative Pub Crawl White T-shirt
Friday, August 13
Wear a t-shirt we can write on and bring some WATER-SOLUBLE markers to share.
6:00 Venti’s
6:45 Copperjohn’s
7:30 Magoo’s
8:15 Pete’s Place
9:00 Brown’s Towne
9:45 Jonathan’s
10:30 FlipSide!
Willamette Valley Wine Walk – Rosé
Friday August 20
6:00 pm Coffee House Cafe
Solarize Salem
Since August 2, 219 people have registered for more information, 140 attended workshops and it looks like there will be 25 co-op members by today, Friday August 13.
Here are the upcoming free workshops:
7 pm Aug 16
Nuts and Bolts
Sean Larkin, SolarCity
South Salem Senior Center
6450 Fairway Av. SE
6:30 Aug 17
Net-metering
PGE Auditorium
4245 Kale St. NE
Bruce Barney
Manager of Dispatchable Generation for Portland General Electric
6:30 Aug 24
Financial Workshop
Lizzie Rubado Energy Trust of Oregon Residential Program
Salem Public Library Loucks Auditorium
585 Liberty St NE
Aug 26
Nuts and Bolts
David Richards – RS Energy
633 7th Street NW
Making friends at the pub crawl.
Creative Pub Crawl ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY – Life’s a Beach
YooHoo! The Creative Pub Crawl turns one year old this Friday, July 23 with Life’s a Beach. So slip on your beach clothes and enjoy some live music while you meet new people, network and vibrantify downtown. Here’s hte schedule:
6:00 Venti’s – Jewelia Owens
6:45 Copperjohn’s – Shy Seasons
7:30 Magoo’s – Foxtrot
8:15 Pete’s Place – Potatoe Famine
9:00 Brown’s Towne – Matthew Price Band
9:45 Jonathan’s – Bold Riley
10:30 Flipside – House DJ
Live music schedule subject to change.
RSVP here
Willamette Valley Wine Walk – Sparkling Wine edition at Rivers Condominiums
Friday, July 30
The format last month seemed to work well with visiting wineries at Coffee House Cafe Backspace, Blind Wine Tasting at a downtown residence and a relaxed walk to Allessandro’s and Bentley’s Grill.
Bring a bottle of your favorite bubbly for the blind wine tasting.
Friday July 30
6:00 Laurel Ridge Winery and Van Duzer Vineyards pour complimentary tastes at Coffee House Cafe
7:00 Sparkling Wine BLIND WINE TASTING and tours at Rivers Condominiums
9:00 Allessandro’s Ristorante
10:00 Bentley’s grill
11:00 Flipside!
Solarize Salem launch at Oregon State Capitol steps
12:00 pm, Monday, August 2
Salem Creative Network’s newest project, Solarize Salem, brings solar installation bulk pricing to Salem residents, businesses and institutions. Learn more about the project meet the selected contractors 12:00 pm, Monday, August 2.
Monday, August 2. A tour of the State Capitol solar installation will follow the presentation.
We are still looking for volunteers to help spread the word about solar energy to neighbors and businesses. Contact ross@solarizesalem.org or call 503-551-2818.
Until August, stay cool!