Interview with Chris Miller with the Downtown Delta Partnership

https://youtu.be/q9hfr8ZqCII?si=IiE7hp3Uu8W7Uis4

Follow the above link to watch the interview. 

Jennifer:

 I'm Jennifer Thomas with United Country, Real Colorado Properties, and today we are coming to you from the workspace at the Delta County Library with Chris Miller, who's going to talk today a little bit about the Downtown Delta Partnership. That's a new organization that's  trying to bring some life back to our downtown Main Street.

So, Chris, do you want to give us a little bit of background about you first, and then we'll go into that? Well What made you start this?  

Chris: History.  I had a long history with Downtown Delta. I go back to  1989, working for the City of Delta. I was their last retail development coordinator under a Dura contract, and I worked for them for nine years.

So, when I left  and came back and started doing some other things, I saw a need for the same thing to happen again, and we're 35 years later  doing it.  We brought back, in fact, some of my board members are, were some of my board members then. Heartland Club, Brad Davis so it was kind of an easy fit. 

The premise of it all was to, Like you said, we wanted to make our Main Street vibrant again, we wanted to make it a gathering place, we wanted to make it hip and 21st century  and so that took a coordinator group to do that. 

Jennifer: Okay, so, you're the one that started the Downtown Delta Partnership, right?

And so, what What, what does it entail? I mean, when you guys meet and you created this board, what are you guys working on? Can you explain to the public a little bit?  

Chris: You know, back, back when I was working for the city back in the 90s, I was the staff person for the city of Delta of the All America City.

So, I was involved in the city getting designated an All America City.  I remember then that, you know, It was a catalyst. We had to find that catalyst that brought everybody together. And I said, Oh my gosh, this Main Street project and some of the things that are we doing, it just, it's deja vu. So I started talking to Heartland Club, Brad Davis, Laura Tarr, they're all long time business owners, Orville Proctor.

Orville Proctor and I were Part of a youth program back in the 90s and it was celebrating kids  and  We were instrumental in creating the first all night grad party. I was the chairman of the first all night grad party for Delta High School, yeah. So, fast forward today, you know, I kept talking to the business owners thinking, You know, we're, we just don't have any energy downtown. 

We've been abandoned. You know, everybody is doing their shopping somewhere else. But I said, do you realize that we have a theater, a historic theater on Main Street? We have almost all the restaurants in the city of Delta are located on Main Street. And I said, we need to do something to bring them downtown and add some value to that.

We know they're coming to dinner. We know they're going to the show, so let's infill. And so that's some of the terminology we started paying attention to, was infill. Don't, don't create brand new. Let's look at what we got and add value to it. And we started looking at the second story buildings of our historic. 

Jennifer: Yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit. You just mentioned, before we started recording, that Heartland has a really cool space up top. Can you explain that to us? 

Chris: We've got 45, 000 square feet of second story historic buildings that have been vacant for 40 years or longer.  And right now, the carrot that's been dangling from the state is that there is money.

To help those owners revamp those properties into living spaces. So we started looking into that and we thought, oh my gosh, yes we can. And so Heartland said, you know, Heartland's got the two buildings, and of course he just shut down the 14, 000 square foot building, but he's got two upstairs and one of them, 417 Main, actually was the first rec center for the city of Delta.

Jennifer: that's amazing.

Chris: Yeah, that's cool. And then,  I was working with the city of Delta then, so the city, city council said, we need to find a buyer. And I said, well, you need to find a buyer that could generate sales tax.  And we went to Clubbs and he purchased that building and And he's been generating sales tax ever since at that location.

Jennifer: That's awesome.

Chris: Yeah. And so the second building he purchased, and everybody knows that he did a furniture store and things like that. But it was originally the home of the business owner that lived in that building before Harlan purchased it. And you go upstairs and there are two, a 900 square foot apartment and a 700 square foot apartment.  Untouched. The original. 

Jennifer: See, and I don't think most of us know that. That we've never seen it, so that would be awesome. Are you guys going to take some pictures? Yes, 

Chris: Yes. We already did a walkthrough with the public  radio station. And they took some pictures, but I think the public needs to see all the, you know, and then we're working with  Charlie Mason  Columbine Mall.

He's got a big parcel up. I think he's got a 5, 000 square foot parcel. We're going to be working with 4th and Main.  We don't know yet what that building is going to be, but it's worthy of a You know, a boutique hotel or something. So that's what started this. We thought, well, we'll form the group so that we can energize it, start finding the funding, and then I registered for 501c3.

I did the application work and filed for a non profit, 501c3.  And then Everything just started evolving. I mean, in the last  two weeks, just stuff has just started coming at us and our board  elected to be the 501 C3 for the creative district, Colorado creative district in Delta.  The board.

Jennifer: And what does that entail when you do that?

Chris: That, that is encompassing all of the resources that we already have and adding value to them. Okay. You know, we're an artsy community. We've got a historic theater. We've got, you know, it's just maybe a half a dozen things that we are already doing. Yeah. So we want to add value by being designated and, and the, what comes with it is the marketing at the state level. 

So it's, you know, we're part of the big marketing program. So that kind of adds value.  Delta County.  And I go way back when I was working for the City of Delta, I was really involved in marketing and tourism.  I was the first Delta County Tourism Coordinator for, for Delta County. And I did that job for seven years, so I saw all the value in Delta County that we weren't telling the story.

Right. And I remember the orchard people, I'd go on trips around, around the country and around the state, and I'd tell people, well, Delta County's the number one apple producer in the state of Colorado. So,  Well, with the demise of apples, we had farmers that were pretty innovative, or ranchers that were pretty innovative, orchard people, and they tore out those orchards and put in vineyards.

And now we are producing award winning wines. Yes. And we have an award winning winemaker in Delta County. Yep. You know, so all, we have all of those things happening, but, Nobody knows it. Right. And so, we need to talk about it. So, 

Jennifer: I noticed, I recently became a member. You're offering memberships for this.

What does the membership entail? What will it help us do? 

Is it just to help form a community?

Chris: No,  It's, it's a communication link. It's, we're, we're really focusing on connectivity and communication, and we're going to be producing a newsletter.  Five weeks ago, we created our first Facebook,  account, A Facebook site and we have 200 folks, 200 likes on it already.

I mean, it's been really active.  So we're trying to build an audience. Okay. And through social medias, it seems to be the way to do that. The other thing that we realized that there was money available from the state of Colorado. Well, you have several levels. You have the local level of a historic designation that you can get designated through the county. Or you have the state historic designation. Or you have the national federal historic designation. The state designation comes with state money. The federal designation comes with federal money. So when we started looking at this legacy project  we thought, We started googling, trying to find out where there were funds and things available, and I mean, we just ran into a gold mine.

Jennifer: Wow. So, is the city helping with any of this, or is it just your own entity doing it?

Chris: Right now, it's our own entity, but we're going to start working with the City of Delta. We've been communicating with them  to let them know that we would like to help communicate the projects on Main Street. As I said before, this We started filming. 

The mantra going down going, going forward is this is the largest Main Street revitalization program in our lifetime. Yeah, that's always cool. Yeah, I was here 35 years ago when Dura received a million dollar grant to do streetscaping. And we've done nothing since. So we all need to have an engaged community, an engaged audience, and people informed.

And I think that's what DD, Downtown Delta Partnership, wants to do. We want to be that voice for Main Street, a collective voice. 

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely.  My next question would be like, are you guys going to pick which project you're going to do? Or are you going to do multiples at the same time?

Chris: Here's, here's what we found in some of our research.

We wanted to have some kind of an incentive to participate.  And one of the incentives was we work with EPA Region 8, and they have said that they will come in and do free inspections, and give a cost analysis. Oh. Yeah, and then, and then we're going to do historic preservation. The historic buildings that we're working with, we're going to get them designated. On the historic register. And then funding comes with that. So, and then we're going to be providing a newsletter in our social media.  And I think it's, we're in an evolution stage. We're evolving. You know, we're trying to meet the needs of this new society in the 21st century.  With social media and the way we communicate and the way,  Programs are we're notified of programs.

We want to be right in the middle of that. 

Jennifer: That's awesome. So what would be the best way for somebody to get a hold of you if they wanted to do a membership or even talk to you more about what the plan is for Downtown Delta?

Chris: we have an active website. DowntownDeltaPartnership. org  social media, if you just Google downtown Delta partnership, we're going to come up.

Jennifer: Okay. And then can you just tell us who the board members are? You mentioned a couple of them. So somebody wanted to contact one of them? 

Chris: Our board members and our board represent generational businesses on Main Street. Yeah. So our,  chairman is Renna.  Howard. She is with Davis Clothing. Her father owns Davis Clothing.  Our secretary is Brad Davis. Our treasurer is Portia V. Hill.  Let's see what else. And my board members are Heartland Club with clubs  club stores. Orville Proctor, Taco Time, over 45 years on Main Street.  Laura Tarr, Tara, same thing, over 40 years on Main Street. 

Let me go around the table here. Ron Hayes, Delta Elks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everybody's been here for a long time. Yeah. Bruce with Sis and Feed, and Haley Jackson with the Egyptian Theater. So we think we kind of got a well balanced board. 

Jennifer:  And so when is the next meeting where somebody could come?

Chris: We haven't, we just finished, we just had a public meeting,  a couple of weeks ago we will be having an annual board meeting every October or an annual membership meeting every October.  But we have been doing board meetings every Tuesday morning. Is that open to the public or just board?  It hasn't been, but we certainly wouldn't turn you away.

Okay. We're, like I said, we're just trying to figure out  how we operate. 

Yeah, just in case there's another business, somebody that thought, you know, maybe I want to join too or something and find out about it. Okay. Okay. Well, this is awesome. So if you guys want to know more information about the new downtown Delta project going on or even about this workspace here at Delta County Library  you can give Chris a call or find her on Facebook and it's called Downtown Delta Partnership on Facebook. 

So, and Google us. Yeah. Google. So thank you guys for joining us today and explore 

downtown Delta. We look forward to seeing you guys soon.