2021-2022 Annual Report

Data & Information – Collect it, manage it, analyze it, be a strong resource for it.

Community Organizing – Facilitate meetings, make connections, collaborate, be available.

Main Street – Be involved, support entrepreneurship, small business, beautification, placemaking.

In our fourth year of Economic Development, we continued successful strategies to establish a consistent rhythm focused on our three established goals and six strategic initiatives.

Our proficiency using data has expanded to include visitor foot traffic data through Placer.ai. This information represents anonymized mobile-device tracking data from a panel of apps, which users have opted into location tracking. We are using this visitor data to measure economic recovery from the pandemic, discover patterns and trends for how people visit and move around downtown, measure event attendance, and predict demand for ambassadors and other services.

Moving forward, we will work to further integrate data sources from our regional partners including the City of Reno, Washoe County, and the State of Nevada.

Through fall and winter, we completed a series of focus groups dedicated to discussions about different areas of the BID to identify various Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This SWOT Analysis exercise included more than sixty stakeholder participates in two-hour conversations to gauge the most important issues in their respective areas. The information gathered in this process will be compiled with other studies and survey results to create the baseline of a unified vision for the future of downtown.

The preliminary results from our focus groups reinforced a lot of what we already knew and provided some additional context to new concerns. Some of the main takeaways include a desire for additional focus on the Truckee River and pathway as our greatest strenght; a consensus that downtown is lacking amenities and activities for various groups; a need for better connectivity between different districts and neighborhoods; and uncertainties about individuals and groups having too much influence, overtaking public spaces, draining resources, utilizing without contributing, or neglecting to be proper stewards of their properties.

Our collaborations with statewide economic development interests expanded last year through conversations with the State Treasurer, the Nevada Division of Outdoor Recreation, and the Western Nevada Development District. With the Truckee River and adjacent pathway being identified as one of the most valuable assets in downtown, we also recognize it as an important feature for our metropolitan region and Northern Nevada as a whole. In order to make improvements to the river corridor that improve usability and expand equitable access with a focus on sustainability, we must include a broad representation of regional leadership.

The addition of Bird Scooters to downtown helps to alleviate connectivity problems with the last half-mile of transportation. Our downtown is centrally located with easy access and parking options. Getting to downtown is not the problem—the problem lies in getting around downtown because parking is not always available at the final destination. Electric scooters are one piece of a multi-modal solution.

Our Urban Main Street Program continues to be an active affiliate of the Nevada Main Street Program through the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Last year, we finished the second phase of our ReTRAC Beautification project with overhead and landscape lighting to brighten up the plants and mural at night. We’ve also identified new grant funding opportunities like the Washoe County Community Reinvestment Grant, the Nevada State Parks Recreational Trails Program, and the AARP Community Challenge Grant.

In October 2021, we attended the International Downtown Association (IDA) conference in Tampa, FL. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet colleagues and counterparts to collaborate with across the country. Takeaways from the conference included a lot of validation for what we have already been doing since the inception of the BID along with good ideas and direction for the future.

Through our involvement with IDA, we were selected to host their West Coast Urban District Forum in June 2022. We helped with the planning, scheduling, and facilitation of venues for all the guest speakers, breakout sessions, receptions, and tours. It was an honor and privilege to welcome nearly 200 leaders and professionals from over 20 downtown communities.

The economic development efforts of the Downtown Reno Partnership continue to be a catalyst for transformation by striving to create vibrancy, working with property owners and businesses, acting as the authority on downtown data, and keeping the conversation going with stakeholders and regional partners to work towards an urban environment where people love to live, work and play.