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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHOCVB Board Meeting Minutes 091521 DocuSign Envelope ID:B2DC797D-600C-4C85-8BB9-5EA21BEBA9AA For Approval October 27, 2021 Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau Virtual Board of Directors Meeting September 15, 2021 Meeting Recording: https://orangecountync.zoom.us/rec/share/8KsdxPxm-IAfuPmKYKaDQfpikdlhgPZMrAAae- CAwvTVt6A2LgCvwaVDd rTNCjiQ.cpM70xtW BwC9FAl u Board Members Present: Pam Hemminger,Aubrey Williams,Tanya Moore, Sharon Hill, Kayla Dempsey, Mark Bell, Anthony Carey, Lydia Lavelle, Beverly Jo Payne, Mark Sherburne, Daniel Mayer, Spring Council,Jon Hartman-Brown, Matt Gladdek, and Sally Greene. Not Present: Manish Atma and Lili Engelhardt. Staff Attendance: Laurie Paolicelli, Patty Griffin,Tina Fuller, Susan Rice, Leslie Wilcox, and Shannan Campbell. Also present: Lee Davis,Jon Parker, and Jessica Herrschaft-Clean Inc. Barbara Foushee, Mayor Pro Tem,Town of Carrboro. Tim Hoke. Call to Order Chair Anthony Carey called the meeting to order at 8:04 a.m. Approval of Minutes Chair Anthony Carey requested a motion to approve the August 18, 2021 minutes. Mark Bell so moved and Pam Hemminger seconded the motion. With all members in favor,the minutes were approved as submitted. Executive Director's Report - Laurie provided an update on the new location of the Visitors Bureau to 308 W. Franklin Street, which is where CholaNad Restaurant used to reside. Currently,we expect to move in December 2021. We collaborate with UNC's Visitors Center and try to provide services that they don't for the growing population that needs things outside of UNC. So many people love to hear about the music industry locally,that, as you may recall,James Taylor has agreed to record a welcome video and talk about growing up here and the music industry this area has given birth to. We have a 7% 'wide by 5' LED screen to greet people when they enter. We cannot have visitors taking selfies singing "Carolina on my Mind" and posting on various social media platforms due to copyright laws. Instead,they've sent us a life-size cover of his album "Before This World" and fans can stand next to it and "take a photo with James". - We are all still struggling with mid-week business. Organizations are just not meeting in-person yet. The meetings& conventions sector of our business is in crisis. Laurie requested that Chair Carey appoint a committee specifically committed to looking at pivoting a group sales plan. - Chair Anthony Carey motioned the board approve a subcommittee to work on group and corporate business to grow the Sunday through Thursday business. Mark Bell seconded and all members voted in favor. DocuSign Envelope ID:B2DC797D-600C-4C85-8BB9-5EA21BEBA9AA Presentations Clean Design, Inc. Curiosity Campaign Updates Presentation - Laurie advised that we are working on marketing planning now for the shorter, colder winter days ahead that illustrates outdoor seating, lights, heating, etc. A shared campaign with Carrboro and Hillsborough about outdoor restaurants for the winter. New Business/ Roundtable • Kayla Dempsey—Director of Mktg. & Dev., North Carolina High School Athletic Assoc. (NCHSAA) - The North Carolina General Assembly has brought a new measure that would remove NCHSAA's authority to administer high school sports in the state. Kayla advised that it passed the Senate so it is now back to the House. It is currently in a House Education Rules Committee. It does not dismantle NCHSAA's authority to run high school athletics in North Carolina but it does still have many stipulations. We are trying to work with just the State Board of Education to create a Memoranda of Understanding. The Senate has mostly driven this but we have had good reception from the House and continue to be hopeful that it can be worked out in the House and with the legislators. - Fall sports started August 1. DHHS came out with an article about clusters within school athletics and the data was a bit skewed in that they said the majority of school clusters were within athletics but some of that data was from June through August when only sports were happening on school campuses. - Orange County has been looking at possibly pausing football and requiring vaccinations for student athletes as well as some other stipulations based on COVID-19 restrictions. That did not pass. We are seeing other schools debating whether they are going to require vaccines for student athletes but that has not passed anywhere yet and no one has paused athletics yet. • Mark Sherburne—General Manager,The Carolina Inn - In general, we came off a really strong summer. Much stronger than the market had originally thought. Leading into the fall,with the football schedule, is definitely very strong. Lots of pent- up demand for people to come out. Weekends are very healthy. Mid-week is where we are struggling for business. We are thankful weekends are strong but those are just two days per week and we need assistance with the other five days. - Matt Gladdek shared that he has noticed on teleconferences that people are teleconferencing from all over and posed the question, is there a marketing opportunity to invite people to work remotely from Chapel Hill? Target out-of-market people who may be rural and missing human interaction to come to Chapel Hill for vacation and add a couple days to their vacation to work remotely from here. - Chair Carey responded that the Siena offers a day package "Work from Italy" in which you get a room for a day, with beverage service and food support, get out of your home space, and be in a comfortable and safe space to work remotely from. • Mayor Pam Hemminger—Town of Chapel Hill - Rosemary Street new parking deck groundbreaking was yesterday. It should take about a year. - The office building that is going where the Wallace Deck currently is is going through the review process now and will hopefully be approved by December. - We are excited about new tenants coming into the newly renovated 136& 137 buildings. We can't say whom yet. Those buildings should be finished by the end of March, early April. They will have an outdoor amenity where the RR Grill was and a couple other things too. It is going to look very different. 2 1 P a g e CHOCVB BOD Meeting September 15 , 2021 DocuSign Envelope ID:B2DC797D-600C-4C85-8BB9-5EA21BEBA9AA - Downtown Together is having a big meeting on Friday with UNC Board of Trustees to announce the plans for all the things we are putting together to spruce up downtown and bring companies here. - We just had a housing study report presented to the town council on Friday. We don't have the actual report yet but I'll let you know when we have it. The big takeaway is we don't have enough housing for young professionals and middle-income people. We have many needs in town but that was the biggest need. Also,we are looking at projects holistically vs. piecemeal to create a sense of community. People want places incorporated with places to gather, places to walk, etc. That is part of the downtown reimaging too- places to gather. With the new parking deck, we are opening up two parcels to make pocket parks, which will offer some interesting new ways for people to gather. - Rosemary Street hotel—the proposed extended stay hotel behind the old town hall, has been pushed-off until October. It will come before Town Council in October. - A few other projects percolating that Matt from Downtown Partnership can tell you about. - FilmFest919 is coming October 18-24 and tickets are selling out fast. It is going to be huge because there are a number of directors and actors attending this year's film festival. They have created a new bar, a container bar, at the Carraway Drive-in, where people can hangout beforehand. - We are starting the Estes Road multimodal pathway plan in late September so look for signage coming out for that. • Matt Gladdek—Executive Director, Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership - Every Friday and Saturday we have musicians playing downtown through October. - Carolina Brewery is having Oktoberfest on September 26th in the parking lot across the street. The Downtown Partnership is supporting that by paying for a DJ and a band. - Festifall is occurring over three weekends vs. one day in October on 10/15, 10/23, and 10/30. - Henderson Street in downtown will be closed down on October 161h for a downtown tailgate and block party before the UNC—Miami football game. - We have just kicked-off redoing all the downtown planters. Once that is done, we will be adding additional planters with more flowers and color. •Tanya Moore— Associate Vice Chancellor, UNC-Chapel Hill - From all accounts,this past first home football weekend at UNC against Georgia State was a successful weekend. We have not seen a spike in our student COVID positivity numbers. - The big news from Tanya is that her boss,Joel Curran, Vice Chancellor of Communications, announced yesterday that he is taking a position with the University of Notre Dame. • Commissioner Sally Greene—Orange County Board of Commissioners - Eno Arts Mill Grand Opening is on October 1st from 6:00 p.m.—9:00 p.m. It is free but entry is timed so go to the Orange County website to register. - Sally mentioned, upon hearing our Clean Advertising video was shown to the Chapel Hill Town Council, she would be interested in showing it to the Orange County Commissioners, especially since there are several new commissioners on the board. • Mayor Pro Tern Mark Bell &Shannan Campbell, Economic Development—Town of Hillsborough - Shannan also encourages board members to attend the Eno Arts Mill grand opening. - Last Fridays continues to be a strong monthly event for Hillsborough and the Hillsborough Arts Council has been doing a great job running Last Fridays. - Several events going on in October including Botanist& Barrel's annual Apple Festival. 3 1 P a g e CHOCVB BOD Meeting September 15 , 2021 DocuSign Envelope ID:B2DC797D-600C-4C85-8BB9-5EA21BEBA9AA - The Colonial Inn continues to do strong business. - Hog Day is cancelled. - There's still this big unknown around the fall and winter. The Hillsborough Chamber is not planning on doing their annual home tour in December and they are still deciding on whether to hold the annual holiday parade. - Mark Bell updated everyone about Ayr Mount. The Classical American Homes Preservation Trust moved their national headquarters to Ayr Mount. The home is not currently open for tours but the grounds are still open, including The Poet's Walk. They also own Occoneechee Speedway, a .9 mile former NASCAR track,the second of all the NASCAR racetracks in the whole country, and is a beautiful place for a walk. - Burwell School's building has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places and they will have a ceremony in October for that. - The Orange County Historical Museum is open and they have a couple permanent exhibits including one called Quilts. - Shannan posed a question on how to get messaging out about vaccination requirements at restaurants and businesses, as the weather gets colder and customers will likely being moving in-doors. • Mayor Lydia Lavelle &Jon Hartman-Brown, Economic Development Director—Town of Carrboro - Annual Carrboro Music Festival has been cancelled. - The other Carrboro fall festivals are up-in-the-air and decisions on those will be coming in the next few weeks. - Cat's Cradle has started doing concerts again. They are doing some indoor shows but they have also started doing some outdoor shows. - The Town of Carrboro is allowing outdoor public gatherings. We have some events coming up in the Carrboro Town Commons. Our Special Events Committee is requiring event organizers to encourage masks and checking with the Orange County Health Department to ensure their events are safe. - The North Greensboro St. roundabout is finally finished. - We are seeing a lot of construction in downtown Carrboro with the installation of Google Fiber but that is just about wrapped-up. Unfortunately,Verizon will be coming through doing the exact same thing. So, expect to see delays in the upcoming months. - Mayor Lavelle advised that the Carrboro Town Council has started back up with their meetings last night. • Dan Mayer—Executive Director,The ArtsCenter - This weekend we are sponsoring the 2021 NC 10BY10 Play Festival. There will be eight performances. This is a local tradition of ten plays for 10 minutes by 10 local playwrights. We've been doing this on and off for over fifteen years. We are co-sponsoring this with OdysseyStage Theatre. We have a mask requirement and we are implementing a rolling vaccine requirement. - We are up and running for some of our programs. We have about sixty-five kids enrolled in after school classes. We also have adult classes and all students are required to be vaccinated. - We are looking into adding a virtual school to our program in collaboration with Durham on school shows for kids in schools. - Please join us for our virtual gala on October 2"d Next meeting: Wednesday, October 27th 4 Page CHOCVB BOD Meeting September 15 , 2021 DocuSign Envelope ID:B2DC797D-600C-4C85-8BB9-5EA21BEBA9AA Meeting adjourned at 9:02 a.m. DocuSigned by: DocuSigned by. (' P"UU-W F -7 6" 7B 336F17DD54EC Minu es reviewed by: Minutes accepted by: Laurie Paolicelli, Executive Director Anthony Carey, Chairman 10/27/2021 10/28/2021 Date Date 5 1 P a g e CHOCVB BOD Meeting September 15 , 2021