Present: Bill Lipchitz, Larry Field, Marshall Field, Janet Leggat, Theresa Park, and Terry Williams.
The meeting opened at 8:35 AM.
There was some discussion about downtown buildings. Marshall Field said that Moody’s Buried Treasures has closed his Merrimack Street shop in Marshall’s building and has moved to the Rockingham Mall. Marshall still has space on the upper floors as well. However, his building is planned to be used in the movie “This Side of the Truth” that is filming in Lowell this month. The film company has booked 30 rooms at the Doubletree Hotel, is renting some space in 9 Central Street for storage, and will shoot a scene with the building as a backdrop on April 22nd.
Speaking of movies, Theresa Park reported the audiences for this past weekend’s Lowell Film Festival were good.
Janet Leggat reported that there is a new Marketing Director for the Lowell Festival Foundation, Sue Ann Pearson from Newburyport. Janet will invite her to the next CCC meeting.
A discussion about blog’s ensued. Bill asked if there would be enough participants for to sustain a blog on the CCC website. He stressed that the blog would need to be added to at least once or twice a week and would need to be edited and supervised. Larry mentioned that some blogs have “threads” that carry on comments from the original posting and maintain an ongoing discussion of a particular topic. Bill said other blogs seem to be more of an editorial page where the authors state their opinions or talk about current issues. These blogs do have comment sections for use by the general readership, but usually, there is a new topic every few days. Bill suggested that CCC member organizations such as the Downtown Neighborhood Association could post on the blogsite if they don’t have their own site. Ongoing projects such as the Downtown Summit and its follow-up could be covered in the blog as well. Given the time commitment and the need for new postings on a regular basis, it was the feeling that several posters would need to commit to writing something 2-3 times a month. It was decided to bring the idea to the stakeholders to see if there is enough interest.
Theresa Park announced that a small business fair would be taking place on Tuesday, April 29th at the Edward Early (Middlesex Street) Garage from 11am to 3pm. Theresa stated that close to 30 vendors would be participating in the event and that the event is meant to be a one-stop resource for existing and new businesses. She also updated the committee on the postcard marketing initiative the City had conducted last fall, stating that two businesses in particular, Finagle a Bagel and Ten Thousand Villages, showed an interest in coming to Lowell and had been discussing locations.
Bill reminded the committee that it would not be meeting on the 22nd due to the Monday holiday, but that the next meeting of the stakeholder representatives will be Tuesday, April 29th.
The meeting adjourned at 9: 35 AM.
The Next Informal Meeting of the Center City Committee
Will be
Tuesday April 15, 2008
8:30 AM
Olive That & More
167 MarketStreet
The Next Meeting of the Stakeholder Representatives
Will be
Tuesday April 29, 2008
8:00 AM
The MCC Morse Federal Building
East Merrimack Street