There's a lot happening in downtown Clarksville, from parking garages to hotels. This week, Janet Wilson and Buck Dellinger join Charlie Koon on Clarksville Conversations to talk about economic growth downtown and how it improves the entire community.
Clarksville Conversations with Charlie Koon
Janet Wilson and Buck Dellinger: Growth Downtown
I've lived in Clarksville, Montgomery County, nearly my entire life, and I've seen a lot of growth and met some amazing people along the way. There's a lot going on in our community, and on this podcast, I hope she had some light on what's going on in Clarksville. I'm Charlie Kuhn, and this is Clarksville Conversation. Janet and Bug are gracing me with their presence on Clarksville Conversation. I'm so glad you are here. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you for having us. Let me tell you, the work you guys are doing, not only downtown, but throughout Montgomery County is really amazing. I know we're going to talk about downtown, but before we do that, can you give us some kind of updates on what's happening out in the industrial park? Can you give us some secrets, Buck? Well, I don't have to give you a secret if you drive on international boulevard. There's literally 10 projects ongoing right now in the industrial park. Some of those are our own projects. We're improving some land. We're putting some road and infrastructure in, but from big items, Hankuk is doing their phase two and three. LG Kim has started their grading. Google has been expanding. We've got work going on around a transload site up in the North Park, but when you, Hoopy, is going to be opening within a year with the Japanese mayonnaise and Donggua. Donggua is on the highway. All these projects are coming out of the ground, and Amazon is going to hire before the end of the year. While Amazon has been completed, they've not gone through with their employment. As we talk about what's going on from a growth perspective, Amazon is going to start their hiring 250 employees before the year is out. And when you talk about all these new and expanding projects, you're talking about probably some higher wages because there's competition, you're talking about many more jobs. And I'm not asking you for the specific numbers, but I know it's a lot. So I think our community should be proud that we continue to grow economically and with our workforce. In all that that we're talking about, when it's fully expanded, it's 3,750 new jobs before 2030. And that's just the projects we have now. That's if we don't do anything from today moving forward. Correct. This year, right. But we know that's not the case. Well, and as we were super selective about with the companies that we engage with so that the wages are above competitive wages. So we want all our new employees and new jobs to be above $55,000 annual income. I mean, that's what we're starting and what we're experiencing is a lot of these jobs are either engineer tech or maintenance tech type jobs, especially Hankuk, LG, Kim, Donggua. It's highly automated. They're processes. And so you've got to have and they're the training is with the company. So and there's other and Chris self can talk in more detail about how to get that training and get signed up for those. But with overtime, these jobs are almost six figure jobs when you get a mature, fully trained, fully through the probationary period type employee, they're going to be very well paying jobs. And so that's a overall goal has been again and again is to add more wages for our citizens of Clark's Montgomery County and growing that wage level and and given opportunities for soldiers, the transition from the military into a competitive wage job and to stay in the community. So it's great for everybody. And, you know, I've heard you say this before, I think it's right. But as you talk about transition and soldiers and spouses, which, you know, are very, very, very important, we're at 35 36% range. That's exciting news. I mean, I just was meeting with four camel leadership less than a month ago. And we've with a number has been 34% which is a great number of that. The number of soldiers that stay in the community and now they correct me and say, now it's up to 36%. Yeah. As they stay in the Clarksville Christian County area, we know that most of those folks, the majority of those stay in Clarksville. I remember in the, I think I remember in like 2013, 2014 range, that number was somewhere closer to 18 and 19% in the 20s. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so what does that mean in terms of in terms of real population growth? So about 4400 soldiers plus or minus a hundred, get out of the Lee Fort Campbell, leave the army from Fort Campbell every year. So think about 36% of 4400 and divide by 12, how many soldiers a month and families end up staying in Clarksville. And it's a little bit over a hundred every month that are staying here. And so that's, that's great for our workforce. That's great for our home builders or realtors, our restaurants, the whole economy. Because it's another big deal that. And that's an amazing talent pool. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, we talk about that all the time. We've got, we've got our high school folks coming out and getting jobs. We've got our college folks and we've got our military. So we've got them coming from many different sources to help us be successful and help you guys as you're out recruiting and doing your development. Right. Well, I thank you for that update. I know we've got some other things to talk about. And that's where Janet, the downtown expert comes in. So Janet, kind of give us an idea of what's happening downtown and what we can look forward to over the next six to 12 months. Sure. Well, we, you know, with the F&M Bank Arena opening, that really was the catalyst for a lot of different things. We've got our garage, which is going to be owned by the IDB County garage that will break ground here soon in the spring. We've got a distillery that's going to be owned by Joe Maynard right in the same vicinity. We've got the hotel that's under construction right now, which is the double tree. It'll be a full service hotel, the first of its kind in our community, which we're really excited about. And downtown, we really need that. You'll have the 55,000 square foot of retail, which will be where the parking lot is right now. And so just, that's in a, you know, a one to two block radius, all of those projects. Not to mention, there'll be another hotel, a boutique hotel, about 85 keys right at the corner of second across from the Shelby Streo restaurant. And there are some other, you've got Leo Milan's project. That's the 10 story building happening right at the 25 Jefferson Street to include other town homes and other commercial and retail establishments. So that's a lot going on. And just to think where we were just even a year ago is transformative. Oh, there's no doubt about and, you know, you've named multiple things. How do you, how do you guys and your partners manage this growth downtown? I mean, you can't just say, okay, go build it and everything's going to be fine. There's roads, there's parking, there's a lot of different things. How do you guys work with folks to make it easy? Sure. One of the mechanisms we created when we created the redevelopment districts is when we look at developing, we're trying to develop the area as a whole versus parcel by parcel so that we can mitigate traffic and traffic patterns and, you know, excessive curb cuts and things of that nature. You know, we have to drive there too, so we want to be mindful of us and then the community. So I think that's a more of a proactive approach versus a reactive. We want to do it on the front side versus the back side and then just working with our partners to make sure that we plan accordingly and that we're talking to each other so that, you know, for instance, first street when the development starts on the construction of the retail that, you know, we don't repave so that we have to then break through it again and repave later. So just making sure we all communicate with each other. Yeah, it's kind of interesting just to see all the puzzle pieces coming together and for example, the question I have is that you have the double tree and then you're going to have a parking garage and then you're going to have that development all right there. Yes. And you have to do one piece at a time, right? Correct. So how does that work? Well, the sequence of that, the hotel will be complete in August, excuse me, our garage will begin. The county garage IDB will begin this spring. It'll be under construction for a year and then it's going to be due to be open in April of 25 and then as soon as that's complete, the retail, the 55,000 square foot retail, which is just to the south between City Hall and the parking garage that we're building on College Street and for college and first, then that retail will begin and it'll be under construction for about a year. So we're sequencing that with the project managers and with the architects. And so that we're working through all that at the same time. And you know, you got also mentioned that the city garage is a big deal, it's going to be a fleet this summer. So it's going to add overall to more parking options for the downtown, especially as we get deep into construction. And that was one of my questions to everybody's first question is, or comment, there's no parking. Where do I park? Where can I find parking? But in reality, with the city parking garage, your parking garage and then all the surface lots that are out there in street parking, there's a lot more parking than people just can really grasp, right? Sure. So after our parking garage is built, after Leo's building with a public parking garage and then the city and all the public spots, we estimate that to be at 3,650 available spots. So even if there are multiple events going on at different places, which we hope and envision, there really should not be a challenge parking. And that's all within just a two or three block radius, correct, right? So I can imagine, you know, let me rephrase that. I think about downtown growth and then industrial development growth, which, you know, we'll call that out in the county. But why is it important to have a vibrant downtown? Well, you know, we travel around the southeast and, you know, we visit places and we look at that places that have, that are thriving. And when you interview and talk to those mayors and their leaders in that community and they said, it all begins with your downtown. I mean, that becomes the place where people congregate and, you know, where people seek a downtown, they seek to seek that social interaction. And it's great for visitors. It's great for the people that live here. It's great for our businesses and it's great for investment. And so, you know, we talk about this all the time in our, with that is it's visit, live, work, invest, visit, live, work, invest. And when you've got a vibrant, a vibrant downtown that you can showcase, that visit, live, work, invest is cycle just helps to propagate itself. You know, and there are a lot of partners that are catalysts for downtown. Of course, we can't go without mentioning Austin P. Correct. And then the county building, the F&M bank arena, those two partnerships with the predators and separatists, sports and entertainment. How has that helped you when you're recruiting or talking about these developments? I mean, it's great for anybody, you know, we bring people from around the country and showcase and we push our marketing and we show people what have Clarksville has to offer. And when you even know, many folks are saying, if I come here, what am I going to do? Yeah. And you take them downtown and you take them to great restaurants and you take them to great venues and you see potentially a performing arts center, you know, this is where it would go and how that would, and so that you've got options for everybody and possibly baseball. So all of that stuff, you know, really puts us on a competitive level with cities that, by the way, we are becoming a larger city, a larger city in the state and that you expect these kind of amenities to be. And that's what's important for our talent attraction, talent retention of the folks that we want to get to come here, stay here and make Clarksville, Montgomery County their home. Yeah. And you know, I'm downtown a lot and I have seen the expanded foot traffic. Absolutely. Where does it, you know, when you were recruiting retail and people want people walking by their shop. So can you talk about the visitors downtown and the foot traffic? Do you have any? Sure. I mean, I'll give you one example. So the Fort Ice Center, when it opened in March as of this February, they had seen 200,000, 220,000 visitors just to the Fort Ice Center alone. Wow. So we got that capacity and then those folks, they're all coming from outside of Clarksville, Montgomery County. They're walking around, they're going to restaurants and one of the things that we know in retail is rooftops, retail follows rooftops. So it's up to us to create, we've made a goal of creating, facilitating 1,000 new downtown units over the next five years. So we're, we're almost halfway there in the first year with Leo Milan's project and then the Vulcan project at the, at the, the Vulcan site. So again, retail follows rooftops and with all of the things that we're creating, the arena, all of that is just kind of organic traffic that's happening. And we're seeing that, you know, evident on the streets right now. I think one thing that, you know, we, we talk about some name brand stores, you know, we joke about it and, you know, there are many requests out there which, which you all know, but that density of rooftops is what the attraction is, right? Correct. So I'll throw out like a whole foods or a Trader Joe's, they're going to go to a very dense population, right? Right. Right. They, well, well, they want to see the density. They also want to see the, the annual household income. Yeah. And so it's up to us to present our story. And so we've got the, we've got Fort Campbell army base that gives us a better story on paper that really doesn't show up if you just look at us, just, you know, initially look at our demographics. Yeah. So we've got 750,750 million dollars that don't really show up statistically anywhere. So we've got, it's up to us to be able to tell that story, to be able to make our picture. What Jen is saying is when, when folks look at your community, they're looking at what was filed on your tax form. Yeah. Well, the data, it sort of sets up on what the median household income is. Yeah. What you miss in that data is basic allowance for housing, BAH that the soldiers get, and any disability that we get. We know that we got 33,000 veterans in our community and that's over 550 million dollars of disability dollars that are provided to them a year. No one sees that because that's not recorded on anybody's form. There you go. Same thing for the BAH. We've got to remind our retailers that they're missing about $880 million worth of federal income that's coming into our households that's not reported on tax forms. And that's, you know, there's not military installations in everywhere across America. So, you know, that's just something that we're missing that we miss in the data a little bit. And in your organization, you know, we talk about data and getting the word out, you know, just however you get the word out. You've got the Industrial Development Board, the Convention Visitor's Bureau, which is Visit Clarksville, the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Council. So you, Buck, are the leader of that organization. So you've got to get, even though they all do something different, you've got to kind of get them all working in unison to get their job done too. Right. And so I'll go back to when we think about those organizations and driving the economy of the community, go back to what I was saying a minute, live, visit, live, work, invest. Yeah. And when we think about our different organizations, each one of them is doing one of those things. Yeah. Visit Clarksville's doing visit, live is our place, place-making that Janet's taken care of. Yeah. Work is our business development with what Josh Ward takes care of. Yeah. And then you think about a chamber and an Aspire Foundation, those are investment groups. Yeah. They're taking and we're investing in the community. So, visit, live, work, invest is the way we organize ourselves and it's the way we interact with each other, that everybody's got to work together in a system to continue to grow our economy. You know, when you guys are out traveling and you're visiting with people, if I was one of those people, I would say, "Why Clarksville? Why Clarksville Montgomery County?" And you've got a minute to tell me. What would you say, Janet? Why Clarksville? Clarksville, and I'd be a great person to ask, if I am a transplant from New York, I've seen Clarksville transform in the 15 years I've been here, the arena, the things to do, the quality of life, the people, unlike any other place I've ever been. Yeah. You know, I've moved my parents down here, I've moved my sister and my niece. So again, New York to Clarksville, people think that's a big jump, but again, for the things that I mentioned, affordability and the community that is sort of set from the people that you interact with, it's just a great environment. And the school districts, while I don't have children, the school districts are, CMCSS is a great place to enroll your children. We've got all these, you know, measurables, you know, and once again, we were, by an open door, we were a number of top five hottest zip code in the United States, again, for the third year in a row. And we're number four for Millennials and Gen Z, and you know, attraction, we're a young community, you know, our average age is 31, which is, you know, six, seven years younger than most counties and eight years younger than the state average. So our population is young, we're optimistic. Yeah. And as General Luck used to say, when he would come back, you know, General Luck, he might know him in a real legend in the military. He's one of my favorites. Uh, with General Luck, let's say it's so good to be back in Clarksville, it just feels good. Yeah, it feels good. And, you know, emphasis on feels. Yeah, that's right. Uh, it's, that's, it feels good in Clarksville, it's one of these intangibles, you know, we've got a lot of, we can measure a lot of things, but there's something about optimism and culture and the tornado was witness to how much everybody works with each other when we have challenges. And so it's just a good place to live. Yeah. And if you're here, uh, you, you know it, you can feel it. Yeah. And so that's, that's, it's one of those hard to explain, but when you're here, you, you, you get it. It just feels good. It feels good. I'm going to tell him you said that. I love that guy. Yeah. Well, what, what, what do I forget? What have we left out about downtown or, um, things you're working on, Jenny? Anything? Well, we talked about the creation of the TIFF districts. We really think that helped to push forward development downtown, but the arena has been again transformative in the sense along with the downtown commons. We can't forget that those two things have really helped to move us forward in the, in the area. Um, I'll give you an example, the term bridge river district was a redevelopment district. We had a capacity of 25 million. We exhausted that in less than a year. Yeah. So that just tells you the willingness or the, the, the want and desire to develop once you make those, uh, those, um, incentives available to people. It really helped to get the project over the last hurdle. So, um, we, our garage is due to start work here in April and we'll be finished. And next year of 25 is looking to be about 540 spots down from seven, seven, it's 720 It's precast. So once it gets on site, you kind of put it together like Lego blocks. It's easy. And so, um, we're, we're really looking forward to all the activity that's going on. We talked about the Milan project. We talked about most things going on downtown and she, she covered it. I mean, it's what's exciting is, um, you know, it's happening. Yeah. And we've been talking about that. And, and we expect the minimal impact on, on traffic while there's going to be a lot of construction between Jefferson street and college street and main street between spring street and first street. Yeah. It shouldn't impact, uh, any traffic except when we're bringing some big pieces of, of concrete, you know, to drop them off, build the garage, but, uh, and, and, and, and part of this is, this is all first movers. Okay. What I mean by that is the, you know, first movers for apartments downtown, uh, in a little inch way. Yeah. First mover for another big influx of retail, first mover on an updated and upgraded full service hotel. Yeah. So these first movers are really set in the price point and setting the quality on a lot of these projects. And so, uh, the incentives helped these first movers come in and do the project. Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting to see what's going on and, and I've got one last question for you and it's almost off the record. What, uh, give us off almost, I won't tell anybody tell anybody, but what's the secret project you got working or give me a code name or something. Give me something that we can store the pot with, but come on. Don't break confidence. But just come. I'm going to defer to him on that. I know. I lived too out of it. We're, we're, we're, we're just talking to everybody, you know, we're talking everybody, we're, we're, you know, Josh Ward's going to go out to the ICSC conference, you know, and, and, and so what's exciting, and there's a lot of excitement is our, our, our education level, our median household income, our population, our moving us into a category where our, there are some, some retail, yeah, big names that we're, are starting to look very seriously at us now that they didn't look at us before when we didn't meet some of these thresholds. So now that we're meeting some of these thresholds with population, meeting household income, uh, education level, uh, all those things that are important, uh, for retailers when they say where do I want to go make a large investment? Yeah. Uh, we've, we've seen that very successful in all of our industrial park recruitment. And I think we're going to, you know, see a lot more success with retail recruitment for folks. Well, I sure appreciate you guys coming and telling us all your secrets and stuff. Next time you want to give us all an update, you just let me know we'll get, we'll get you going. We appreciate it, Charlie. Thank you.