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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
speaker-0 (00:01.292)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast.
speaker-1 (00:10.39)
Most of the authors of the human story are unnamed. Invisible contributors to the greatest story ever written. So who are the invisible people writing our chapter today? Because behind every great city, industry, movement, and way of thinking are people who dedicate their entire lives to work that'll go virtually unnoticed. Work that builds on where we've been, shapes where we are, and points us towards where we're going.
There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
speaker-0 (00:56.554)
consistent theme throughout my whole career has really been people and relationship building. so when I was at USI, what really made the experience for me was being involved in student organizations. And so I was president of the programming board, involved in student government, gave tours through the admission office to perspective and students and their families. so from that experience, I gained confidence.
in myself, but also just took a lot of life lessons away from that too that I carry forward with me still to this day. Had a lot of lifelong friendships that developed from that too. So, USI for me was a great fit. Again, I just really kind of immersed myself because there's that transition from high school to college, But once I kind of found an opportunity to get involved, even was involved in Greek life and other things throughout my time there,
made those lifelong friendships and kind of went down the route. Liberal arts degree, ended up majoring in political science and public relations with a minor in management. So I'll be transparent though, up until even graduation I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life and in some days I still don't know, Even at almost 40 years old. So I graduated in 2009. It was really at that time the height of the economic recession and
really was kind of unsure of what path I could go down, but I was confident in the foundation that I had gotten from USI, my educational background, like I said, developing strong bonds and connections with classmates and even mentors that worked there or worked there that I still move in touch with to this day. So I loved my experience there. And then when I graduated in 2009, almost what, like 17 years ago now, wasn't
100 % sure what I was going to do. So I just started putting some resumes out there. It was a time when job listings were still printed in the physical papers that you would get at home, the Korean press. So a lot has changed over that period of time. But I remember as I kind of looked through the job opportunities at that time, a consistent theme for me was interest, curiosity, and just natural interest in the nonprofit sector. so...
speaker-0 (03:21.198)
put some feelers out there and. You know, I.
speaker-1 (03:22.914)
do think that is?
Did you grow up like a mercenette at all or what was the?
speaker-0 (03:28.622)
I was in 4-H as a kid, so there was always that element of service, of, you know, almost like service beyond self and the 4-H's hand heart health and, oh gosh, I don't know the fourth one, I don't either. But anyway, 4-H was very much about service, right? And especially as you, I was a 10-year 4-H member, and as you go through 4-H, you even have the opportunity to be in something called Junior Leaders, where it's really kind of that community service, give back to your community. So that was instilled in me.
And so I would see these opportunities and one I came across was at the Arc of Evansville and it was actually for a grant writer and to work in their development department. I had never written a grant and I was fresh out of college so I'd never worked in a development department. But I remember I physically took my resume there because I thought, know, nothing like that in-person experience, right? And just so happened to pass it off that day to someone who took it to the recruiter.
And Lane did my first job and just a great overall experience, a lot of just on-site learning from a lot of great people. And they took a chance on me because like I said, I'd never written a grant, but I had a strong writing background and I enjoyed being around people. Public speaking was always something that, you know, we, I think we say we're our harshest critic, right? So I always feel like I can improve on that.
I enjoyed that element of really just interacting with people, especially one-on-one. So had a great experience there.
speaker-1 (04:59.128)
teach you how to write grants? did you, were you like off on your own? Was very hard? I've never written a grant.
speaker-0 (05:02.85)
A lot of it was... It's not, it's, I mean, it is challenging and there's a lot of nonprofits out there seeking funding sources and it continues to evolve and change. So it was challenging. I was really fortunate at the time. My predecessor, she was still working at the organization. She was my boss. So it was very much, it was really the perfect fit for a first job out of college, right? Because not hand holding per se, but there was just a lot of good guidance there.
But then they allowed me to kind of formulate and do things on my own too. the nice thing about grant writing at that organization, there were some routine grants that were submitted every year that were maybe a little more of a shoe-in per se. And then we also got to work on new opportunities. Like we worked on a large grant, the national level that we secured and another energy conservation grant that we secured. So there was a nice mix of like kind of your study but also new opportunities.
speaker-1 (05:59.118)
Okay, so how do you go from there to St. Vincent?
speaker-0 (06:02.67)
I actually went back to USI for a little bit. I worked in their foundation for about three and a half years and again met so many great people. USI is a wonderful place. I think in retrospect I went there thinking that I was going to probably like work there for 40 years and retire, which is a great thing to do if it works out. But for me, I just had other opportunities that were calling. And so again, worked there for about three and a half years and it was really interesting to see.
USI from an employee standpoint, which is different than the student experience, right? So I was working in the foundation there and had the opportunity to help tell my story and tell the impact of what the university made on me as a student. And it was very rewarding. So I really enjoyed that.
speaker-1 (06:49.166)
What's the point of the foundation? What is the foundation?
speaker-0 (06:51.31)
Well, the foundation is the charitable arm of the university, institution. if you think, you know, when you look at the makeup of funding of public institutions, and it's changed a lot because I haven't worked there in 10 plus years, so I can't speak as an official representative. But at the end of the day, the foundation is tasked with really raising philanthropic private dollars to help move the university forward. So that can look like funding for scholarships for students.
speaker-1 (07:04.439)
there.
speaker-0 (07:18.894)
Maybe who would need financial aid or merit-based scholarships. Maybe it's capital projects like a building, know, per se. athletics. And then when I worked there, I worked closely with some of the College of Liberal Arts funding programs like the Society for Arts and Humanities, and then there was Historic New Harmony. All these programs still exist. they utilize...
speaker-1 (07:41.518)
They're in like half a new harmony now. feel like there's always like, I was just after this morning, there's USI trucks working on old historic, like, you know, they look like old buildings. What do you call it? Like reenactment type things. it's the USI people in trucks.
speaker-0 (07:56.768)
USI's had a longstanding partnership in New Harmony. So I don't think people always know that, but they've been very present there. So really the foundation is, you know, helping to drive that and just generate more support. know, universities like USI get a lot of, you know, financial support from the state through state appropriations, but they rely on foundation dollars too. So really that was our work to tell the story and how you can change a student's life through your donation and give back and say thank you.
That was a rewarding experience. And then from there, I moved on to St. Mary's Health Foundation, which transitioned to St. Vincent, now Ascension St. Vincent. that was a... Was there from the St. Mary's to St. Vincent, and then I left just before the Ascension name changed. But yeah, about four and a half years and the name changed between there. But phenomenal people, phenomenal mission. And I hadn't really had a lot of experience in the healthcare philanthropy side.
speaker-1 (08:35.106)
You were there during the transition?
speaker-0 (08:54.36)
But I wrote grants there, worked on some annual giving stuff, communications, anything working, donors one-on-one. One project that was really rewarding was to be a part of writing grants when they got their new mobile dental clinic. So even when I still see that out in the community now, it's so rewarding to see that because I was, you know, blessed. have wonderful family and, you know, I needed braces growing up, for example, as a kid. And my parents, you know,
They made sure that I got braces and I had my teeth taken care of and got the, you know, twice a year cleanings. But a lot of people take that for granted that a lot of kids in our community don't have that access. And so services like the mobile dental clinic that go out to the schools and they really reach so many children to provide just that basic oral health education. It's so important and I learned all about that. So that's really the rewarding part of the
you know, the philanthropy foundation work, you learn a lot about what the needs are in the community. then you work to try to address them.
speaker-1 (09:56.142)
Do you find the, I was reading, somebody sent me an article yesterday, actually it was a study from IU, I think, IU, that it looked at the growing trends of young people's giving habits, specifically like donations towards churches, nonprofits, and what it was saying is that young people, and I mean like Gen Z,
They they need to know or they seek out mission they seek out they want to know the mission they want to know the transparency the impact of the dollars that they're giving for a mission that they support and they're not just they don't just sort of maybe this is sort of generational as it is but they don't just do things out of duty because that's what their parents did or that's what they're told to do and so the what's interesting is I think that Like how do you see the
the telling the story of the mission, it's such a foundational part to bringing people in to support the mission. When you go into, you've been in multiple organizations, we haven't even got to the one that you're with now, but how important is the clear sharing of the mission, both internally for keeping people oriented towards the same goals, and then externally for bringing people in to support this?
Because I feel like the nonprofit world, it's it's the name of the game. And there's probably a lot in the secular world that could, or not secular, but the for-profit world that could learn from those habits and those things.
speaker-0 (11:35.246)
absolutely. Mission clarity is so important. And then as you try to outreach to different generations, right, different generations to your point respond to things differently or you have to tailor your messaging almost. And I'm in the millennial group, you could say, just maybe the message to millennials is different than your boomers or your Gen X or even your Gen Z. So really being deliberate about it, you know, and again, and kind of
deploying different strategies as you can at the resources that you have. I some donors obviously are partners or stakeholders. It's that one-on-one communication. Others, maybe it's through social media or through email, but it is, I feel like if I reflect on everything that I've done professionally, it's like being an effective storyteller and telling that story. Not that I'm always...
getting that right, but like that's at the heart of it, really telling the story and communicating the message succinctly too, because I feel like, you know, there's a lot of great things about social media, but it also has almost inundated us. People are always on their phones and there's just so much information. And it's like, how are you grabbing the attention of somebody? And nine times out of 10, it's just being very deliberate, very clear with your storytelling.
and succinct and short too, because people's attention span, I know my attention span, it seems like it's gotten worse over time.
speaker-1 (13:07.918)
Especially on social media. I feel like there's there's like a Well, I don't know for everybody this seems like there's some sort of movement back to like we want longer We want longer things again and we want to like, you know, but that's a it's a different conversation But so I'm curious now tell me about today. We're now you're now with you're now you've moved into executive director at
speaker-0 (13:34.094)
Yeah, the Downtown Evansville Improvement District. And I've been with this organization, it'll be eight years in April. And so it's an honor to lead the organization. It's been an honor to kind of evolve with the organization because I came on board back in 2018 as the second employee. Oh, wow. And really got to be a part of so many cool things. The organization was just getting up and running per se. Now there have been
organizations in the past that have been downtown focused, but this was a new model, a new tool, and a new organization to really help continue to not only tell the story of the growth and the momentum and the evolution of downtown, but to really enact some key areas of focus to help move that movement forward. I was, when I saw the opening, I can still remember, I just got excited about it because as someone who was living in Evansville at the time,
I was watching kind of from the sidelines of all the momentum and the progress happening downtown and would find myself there on the weekends just wanting to be there in the physical space itself, right? Because we associate downtown with the buildings and the skyscrapers and the riverfront and all these like the old courthouse and these physical structures, but there's also that element of the people that are in that space every day too. And so that's really...
was a great honor for me to be a part of developing. I didn't do it, but we had great partners. Grey Loon Marketing Group did a phenomenal job designing our logo back in 2018. even the logo, if you look at our logo, there's a lot of intentionality behind it. The downtown font is very representative or reflective of forward thinking, future growth, progress. And then the Evansville font is reflective of the past and really honoring that.
they took that font, some inspiration from some font that they found on buildings downtown. And then if you look at the S of our logo, it's reflective of our riverfront and our relationship to the river. There's a couple lines between the two words, downtown and Evansville. If you, of course, look at downtown from maybe a Google Earth perspective, you'll see that our streets are all angled at 45 degrees. That's what those lines represent. So I love the intentionality of
speaker-0 (15:57.356)
not just that logo, but everything that we do as an organization. you know, we do a lot around clean, safe beautification, right? And why is that important? Well, it's important because it really is at the core and the foundation and the bedrock of economic development is those three things. You have to have a clean, safe, beautiful, vibrant downtown in order to have success and growth. And so, as an organization that's funded
really primarily by the property owners who pay an assessment on their property that funds our work, that's about almost 80 % of our budget every And so we have to provide services and benefits to those property owners. And clean, safe, and beautification has the most demonstrated impact in terms of providing the best overall value and benefit to those property owners. Now, of course, we do some other things as well. We really try to advocate for and engage with property owners.
Maybe there's a question they have or an issue or an opportunity comes up and we try to connect them with the right resources. So maybe it's a permitting issue or a street maintenance issue or something. So we connect them with the right resources in the city and really try to advocate on their behalf. And then we also do some things that we term events and experiences. on the outset, yes, our events look like fun and they are.
But for us, they're very intentional. How are we driving foot traffic into our downtown? not only foot traffic, but how are we, through these experiences and events, creating opportunities for people to engage in downtown in ways that they may have not before? We hear so many times we'll host an event and somebody will come up to us and say, well, gosh, I have lived in Evansville my whole life and I didn't know that there was this many, there's many things to do downtown or I've lived here a long time and not.
not come down here. And so we're trying to change those perceptions that may exist over time that there's nothing to do or there's no parking and all these things, which what there are, it's just kind of that a mind shift that maybe you can't park right in front of the building that you're trying to go to. So events are again very deliberate for us though. So we do live in that space too and try to tell the story of why events are important to bring people downtown. But again, clean, safe, beautification.
speaker-0 (18:20.29)
We really have three areas of focus, clean, safe, beautiful spaces, vibrant downtown destination, and then advocacy and engagement. So all year long too, we work to just tell the story of what's happening downtown. So any given week, there's multiple events happening in our downtown neighborhoods. So we try to help promote that and market that too in different ways. We have a website, of course, social media, send out e-newsletter, e-blast, all these things.
really just trying to spread the awareness that, there's a lot of stuff going on downtown. You should come check it out.
speaker-1 (18:56.046)
How do you think about first downtown and then we'll think broader, but downtown, how do you think about the identity of downtown? Or if you were telling somebody who doesn't live here the story of downtown or the vision of downtown, how would you articulate that from your point of view?
speaker-0 (19:16.268)
Yeah, a word that comes to mind is opportunity, because I think there's... What I love about downtown is like this, it's this cross sector of so many people, organizations, entities that are working together to make things happen. So I think an example of that is like a big opportunity that we know for downtown is how do we get more residents to live downtown? So it's not work that we do alone, it's other great partners. They have an original economic partnership.
the city of Evansville, all these different organizations really working in tandem to how to incentivize or recruit development downtown. So we've had some really transformational projects. There was some state funding that got like the post-house apartments downtown up and running. We're really excited about the vault on Main. 160 apartments that will open later this year in 2026.
speaker-1 (20:08.942)
Is it the new?
speaker-0 (20:14.924)
And then a new city park at 4th and Main. Downtown really lacks green space. So we're really excited about that. So at our core, we're a neighborhood and we know that more residents leads to further growth in business and so on and so forth. And just having more people out on the streets and more activity, which is more vibrancy, more eyes and ears on the street as well also just makes people feel safer too. Downtown is very safe, but we do a lot.
in coordination around safety downtown. have off-duty law enforcement patrols that we fund. We really try to live in that space and work in that space because that's important to our property owners.
speaker-1 (20:54.924)
Yeah. Do you, how do you tell, how would or how do you guys tell the story? Like, let's say we're building the new vault. How do you tell the story of come live here or come check it out? If we think about people who don't live even in the state maybe, but are looking for like, how do we get the word out to people about come down to Evansville? Like, how do we get people to move here?
speaker-0 (21:24.626)
Yeah, well, there's a lot of great programs that we're not, maybe we don't oversee technically, we know about or help promote through EAS for Everyone and Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, they have a Make My Move program and that's some money to incentivize people to live here. But I think just as a whole, we try to play into the appeal of living downtown, right? So there's that walkability aspect too that you could literally live.
in a lot of cases, less than a block from 40 plus restaurants, 30 plus shops, and just that accessibility that you exist. And so when we have even people moving from other neighboring states or cities, they really seek it out more so even wanting to live downtown, just knowing that there's so many intrinsic benefits to living downtown. mean, you can...
Just the walkability alone, we've really tried to.
speaker-1 (22:23.562)
You're in like, it's not so damn busy compared to like Nashville or, you know what I mean? Like, it's a big city but small community still, or not so crowded. Yeah, which is, think, attractive to, if somebody has lived in a big city, you come here, you can get like a similar style house or like a historic house or a nice apartment and not have to compete just in general for
speaker-0 (22:28.933)
absolutely.
speaker-0 (22:34.861)
Yes, absolutely.
speaker-1 (22:53.006)
parking and chaos that a city brings, you know? We still have chaos, obviously, but it's different.
speaker-0 (22:59.522)
Yeah, and the temporary street closures, which is everywhere. But I think downtown also appeals to it. I want to make sure I mention that downtown appeals to a lot of different generations. I mean, I know people that are in college now that want to live downtown, but I also know people that are kind of at opposite end of the spectrum. Maybe they are empty nesters. Their kids have gone off to college or they have their own homes, but they want to downsize, but they want to live downtown in an apartment because they
They really value the walkability, the access to different services. mean, you could walk down the street and go to the eye care place, other directions, the dentist, and go run over to the bank, the ATM. And just that, you you interact with your fellow humans in a much different way than you do out in the suburbs, you know. It's that almost, my predecessor, Josh Armstrong, always would say, it like resonated with me, like there was that excitement about when you go outside on the sidewalk,
at any given day like that unexpected, who am I going to get a run into today and have a really, you know, maybe a special moment with or a conversation that, you know, you leave with and like just makes you feel feel good inside. So.
speaker-1 (24:11.724)
What is your role today within the organization?
speaker-0 (24:16.888)
So my role as the executive director is to really provide oversight for our staff. We have a small but mighty team. There's four of us total and then we have several contractors. So we have a relationship with an organization called Keep Evansville Beautiful. And we hire them to help us with litter abatement, like planting flowers, just general.
upkeep of the sidewalks and making sure downtown looks good. So we have three part-time contractors through an agreement with KEB where we fund them every month. And then we also have the off-duty law enforcement patrols. We have a great couple of contractors who we work with who have day jobs, one's an Evansville Police Department officer and one works with the Vanderbilt County Sheriff's Office. But they do patrols by foot and patrols by car just to, again, to enhance that.
perception of safety and make people feel more comfortable downtown. So really providing oversight for those, because each of our staff members own one of our areas of focus. have an advocacy and engagement coordinator, an events and experiences coordinator, and then a clean and safe operations manager. So at any given day, I kind of live in all those three areas of focus. And then we are governed by our board of directors, so 16 member board of directors. So really my role too is to
to be out there connecting not only with our ward but our property owners and also having relationships with our city contacts. Everything we do is in great collaboration with the city of Evansville, the mayor's office. We work with a lot of the department's heads. For example, if a street's being closed, we try to communicate that to the property owners but also the appropriate city entity. So maybe it's the city engineer's office or we're working with the street maintenance department or the parks department on the new...
Park at Fourth and Main. just a lot of that stakeholder relations piece to community engagement. And then as I mentioned earlier, a significant portion of our budget comes directly from an assessment that property owners pay. But then we also go out into the community and get some sponsors to help fund our work. So maybe a sponsor wants an opportunity to get some brand recognition for their company, or maybe they want to
speaker-0 (26:33.57)
You know, they find value in engaging with thousands of attendees at one of our events so they can be a sponsor and that, so working with sponsors as well. any given day, it's a little different, which is rewarding. It keeps things exciting and me on my toes.
speaker-1 (26:49.89)
What is, can you articulate or tell me about the history of downtown Evansville to the best of your knowledge? Because what I know, but I don't know a lot, is that at one time, downtown, Street specifically, had businesses and was a place that people would go shop. And then when the mall was built, and maybe, I don't know if this narrative's true, when the mall was built, everybody would go start shopping at the East Side.
And now there's like a revitalization of Downtown, probably in no small part to your organization and others. But can you share any about the history of Downtown Evansville?
speaker-0 (27:32.078)
Yeah, mean, so downtown has been around for 200 plus years. And you're right, downtown at one point was the, you and we would argue again today, but it was really the center of commerce and we hear stories, people reminisce about driving downtown and going to the Sears and Roebuck or all these really marquee locations, the Deong's was downtown. And so yeah, you're right, there was that shift over time.
And it wasn't just here in Evansville, it was across the country where people really kind of abandoned downtown. left and they went out, in this case, to the Washington Square Malls on the East Side and that was kind of the transition. there were different things that were done, like even at one point Main Street was closed off to vehicular traffic and it was a walkway. still to this day, people refer to it as a walkway sometime. So I can't really...
I think back as a kid and I really, you know, I again grew up in the early 90s, didn't come downtown a lot. And that was just kind of, I feel a reflection of society as a whole at that time. then fortunately we've kind of seen a change in that and the people have been drawn back to downtowns. Now there was some change that we saw here and cities are still grappling with in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic too, you know, shifts in
the workforce population, lot of larger cities especially, have still never rebounded in terms of getting their workforce population back into the office. Now a lot of Evansville has returned or there's a hybrid mixture. we've definitely seen a resurgence and interest back into downtown and I attribute it to, you know, it is, it's like that human desire to be connected.
speaker-1 (29:27.894)
And around stuff that's happening. Like you have the Ford Center, have like bars, have your guys' events, you have the wine walk, like you have all these different things happening. You have parlor down there now, the big parlor and stuff. And I think that it's funny, I just as a case study, which for whatever it is, I go down there to work a parlor two or three times a week probably, most weeks. And I go there because it feels, I feel like a professional when I'm downtown.
I feel like there's other people down here working. There's suits on. There's people who mean business down here. And it's a condensed area of that in the city that I know to be true versus if I'm at home working, you my neighbor's retired, she's mowing. And it's not the most like get your shit done today, like energy when you're just chilling at other places that aren't so maybe work focused.
And I think that it's nice. It's like a good vibe to get down there and it feels like there's like a hour level of hustle and bustle that kind of ignites a person to like get with it. Get with the, or you know what I mean? Like get with the day, get with the energy.
speaker-0 (30:42.69)
Yeah. And when you're down there, hopefully you observe or at least don't see litter. You see that it's a clean, well-kept space in the spring, especially in summer. see that, you know, we've got beautiful planters and plantings. We even do things like snow removal and key pedestrian corridors because to your point, downtown is really the economic hub. have hundreds of people who work downtown daily from all facets, the financial sector, headquarters of
you know, very large institutions like Old National Bank, know, Bally Center Point, these hotels, we have visitors coming in. we know that the medical school, the students there, so we know that downtown needs to be accessible and that really plays into safety too. we do snow removal in key pedestrian corridors. So we invest heavily in that too because we know that no matter what time of year it is, people need to get around and they're downtown and they're...
they're working and they're conducting business and they live downtown. Downtown is home to hundreds of residents. again, at our core, we're a neighborhood and now we're, you know, it's all kind of this puzzle that we continue to kind of piece together.
speaker-1 (31:53.912)
Do you guys use AI in your work?
speaker-0 (31:56.248)
We do a little bit, yeah, and that's definitely, I feel like, especially in the past year, it's almost impossible not to utilize it for certain things. think it, you know, it's never gonna replace that human connection nor should it, but yeah, if it can kind of simplify a process or maybe help outline something that you're working on and give you kind of a better starting point versus maybe starting from scratch. Yeah.
I think it's well worth it. We've kind of experimented just in different ways, maybe through a news release on something or perhaps outlining a plan of action for something like help us identify these three primary things and then kind of build it out from there. So we do, yeah.
speaker-1 (32:42.51)
Do you know do other organizations? Where are you guys located? you in the-
speaker-0 (32:47.342)
So we're on Main Street in the Innovation Point building.
speaker-1 (32:51.118)
Okay. So there's a lot of city activity in that building and around that building. Do you know if there is like a general adoption of AI in processes amongst organizations in our city, particularly like the municipal departments?
speaker-0 (33:07.64)
Yeah, I can't speak to the, you know, the city side, but I know that there's other similar organizations to ours. I mentioned the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership. There's the Small Business Development Center that works with entrepreneurs and maybe people want to start their business or want to scale up and take it to the next level. So I know in just a lot of informal conversations with peers at those organizations that they're utilizing AI in different ways. I can't really speak to exactly why, but I think
it would be pretty consistent across the board. think at the core is like, how does AI help us in maybe do some everyday tasks or maybe simplifies or streamline workflow? Yeah.
speaker-1 (33:47.182)
Remove boring work so we can focus on the mission. Focus on the people.
speaker-0 (33:50.805)
Yeah, and I think that's why we have to like focus on the positive of it and embrace it, right, because it's not going away. remember hearing about AI a while back and, you know, for a while it was really that's all it was is you heard about AI and then it was like and then all of a sudden, definitely within the last year, I could probably even argue almost the last two years, it's really been more at the forefront.
speaker-1 (34:15.352)
Yeah, absolutely. What do you think the biggest challenge facing downtown Evansville, particularly the growth of downtown Evansville, what do you think the biggest challenge is from your point of view?
speaker-0 (34:32.204)
think you're always going to have growing pains per se, right? know, so, you know, just challenges that come with the progress and moving forward, you know, always trying to, how do we get more investment in downtown? And that's an important piece for us. We know, though, that getting more residents to live downtown is so crucial to that.
We're really excited. There's, you know, some very ambitious planning and movement on our riverfront too and how that can really help our work and just downtown as a whole. So EREP's really leading that through the river vision process. Ashley Diekmann and others and it's just very exciting, but it takes time, right? And it takes money. And so they're being very deliberate and, you know, and coordinating all that, but it doesn't happen overnight.
And so that can, I think, things like that and just development and progress as a whole, it takes time. And so that can sometimes maybe, I don't know how to articulate it great, but it can create a challenge, And you like, you know, we wish we could accelerate, but at the same time, you can't like just jump ahead, you know, 10 years, right? So, but it's important to reflect.
on the progress that has been made. Like last year, our organization went through a deliberate strategic planning process and we worked with Tad Dickel.
speaker-1 (36:07.148)
I just joined his team Saturday. Awesome. I swear I'm going to go meet with him after this.
speaker-0 (36:09.182)
really? very cool. Well, great guy. We worked with him in Deal Consulting Group and we, you know, I feel like strategic claim is kind of a buzzword sometimes, but for us, it was just to really be reflective of what is our mission? How are we best serving the property owners? How are we providing benefits and services? How do we work to communicate that out? And how do we just be really intentional about what we're doing? that was a great process. I don't remember why I brought that up in the first place, though.
speaker-1 (36:39.054)
Just talking about the challenges facing the city, you guys went through a strategic planning. Did that help?
speaker-0 (36:47.968)
There was some other point I was going to make and it just escaped me. No, I think you talked about challenges and I think it's good to kind of go through processes like that to recognize that maybe we can't fix or correct every perceived challenge, but what role do we play? And maybe it's, a lot of cases, it's the role of the convener getting the right people around the table, right? getting the right...
speaker-1 (36:51.606)
It's cause I jumped in and started talking.
speaker-0 (37:17.528)
conversations to happen and then it leads to, yeah, there's something else I was going to say, but I don't
speaker-1 (37:23.55)
Do you, did you leave that strategic, the strategic advisory period with a vision of like a renewed vision of the future?
speaker-0 (37:35.214)
Yeah, we left with a lot of clarity too. And I think when, you know, in our case, we have 350 property owners that all pay assessment. It's at different levels because it's based on, you know, it's a commercial property or residential property and then what is the properties assessed valuation. So that could be a whole other podcast episode in a day. But essentially what I mean by, you know, what I'm, I articulated is 350 property owners who all kind of have different interests and lots of investments. So how do you kind of...
harness that collective focus and that's what we really got clarity from is really focusing on the clean, safe beautification of downtown and then supplementing it with these other things. And so it was a great time to reflect, yeah, I think strategic plan sometimes, my internal perception of it, it's kind of just like this fluffy buzzword, but it is, it's like how do you, especially, you know, going forward, be really deliberate about your actions?
as an organization, knowing that there's so many organizations out there, there's so many competing sources of time and energy and investment, but also demonstrating impact too.
speaker-1 (38:47.662)
How do those 350 people, you said, how do those people communicate with you guys? Do they call you, text you, or is there like some sort of, because I'm assuming there's probably a bunch, like you said, a lot of different requests coming in.
speaker-0 (39:03.722)
Yeah, and so we did a survey last year and I think this is where I was going with the strategic plan. did a survey. got 266 respondents and so that was some great feedback. these were... pretty good. These were property owners but they were also stakeholders that we work with maybe in the public realm that have a lot of influence and investment in downtown. And so I think it's important to be reflective and listen to your community needs. And so that...
that survey was really helpful in understanding what is an organization we need to prioritize and focus on that provides the greatest overall benefit. So that's where I was going with the strategic plan. But to your point, it's kind of across the board. We've tried some things over the past year, like knowing that generally speaking, it's the most effective and cost effective, I should say, to communicate.
at least general updates with people via email. So we have like a service request form so that if you see something, basically say something, right? Maybe it's an issue that we can address or maybe it's an issue that we try to help find the appropriate or correct response or department for at the city level is another example. Or maybe it's just connecting property owners to each other. try to really, you know, that role as a connector in our downtown neighborhood and how to, you know,
How can we help elevate downtown by connecting our peers together?
speaker-1 (40:32.61)
What a great idea too for just like creating a mastermind of people who can share ideas about what's working and what's not or how they're using AI or how they're not and how just the supportiveness of one another being in the downtown. I feel like that's a great, that's a cool, connecting them is a great idea.
speaker-0 (40:52.812)
And then one-on-one meetings with properties. We have some business meetings. We have our board meetings. So social media is another way to effectively reach the mass audiences. But you really have to, again, kind of going back to what we talked about earlier is like tailoring your message to we have a monthly newsletter, but then we also have a stakeholder newsletter. So really just trying to meet people at where they want to receive information. If somebody tells me, I like to meet one-on-one, we're going to...
We're going to figure that out. But if they say, I don't need to meet in person, I just want some updates periodically from your organization, well, we're going to try to do that too.
speaker-1 (41:34.134)
What do you see the, if you zoom out three to five years, what do you see happening downtown? What are we looking at? What's your role evolved into at that point? Paint me a picture of the future or where you would at least like to see things.
speaker-0 (41:49.974)
Yeah, I think it's a future of optimism. It's a future of continued growth. think continuing to do some of the core functions that we're doing now, but just elevating them to the next level. Our organization is a member of the International Downtown Association, which of course I had never heard of until... But it's out there and it's a resource of I think 3,500 place making agencies throughout the country.
speaker-1 (42:10.35)
That did not exist.
speaker-0 (42:19.948)
We talk a lot about in our work, like we talked about the things that we do, but it really is place making. It's like people in spaces and how are they comfortable and what opportunities are there.
speaker-1 (42:34.562)
Do you ever have a discussion specifically on that with the community? Like in terms of what I mean by that. I actually don't even know what I mean by that. Exactly. But I would think like there's probably some people in the community who have backgrounds in this maybe or like they're like really maybe are cued in on like what flows well or what makes sense. Does that conversation ever happen?
speaker-0 (42:58.572)
Yeah, so I mean, we work with, so we don't own physical property ourselves, but like if there's a property owner per se that wants to do something, we certainly try to be involved in that or voice suggestions or ideas or again, connect them to somebody who may have that background or experience. We've done some very, I would say small scale initiatives again, because...
You know, we're not in the realm of like owning property and that, but we have a great collaboration example is we fundraised for and we maintain a downtown dog park. It's the Earth Pornalistic Dog Park. It's down at Inkel and Third Street in downtown Evansville. it's on land owned by the Water and Sewer Utility. We have a long-term lease. We fundraised. got community partners to help fundraise for the park, you know, because there are
expenses that people maybe don't think about like you need fencing, agility, course items, some signage, some different things, and then we maintain that park space. So it's a free park space open to the whole community. You don't have to live downtown or even work downtown to enjoy it. People that maybe are staying at Bally's Casino that have their pets with them bring their dogs over or just community members. Somebody living on the north side or the east side or the west side brings their dog.
But that was an example of an intentional thing that took a lot of collaboration because again, we don't own the land, but we had the lease and then we had, I think, at least seven or eight community partners and then we worked with the city to get permitting for the signs and all these different things that have to happen that, you know, they just don't magically happen. We're really excited, you know, I have to mention it again, the park space at Fourth and Main just because there's not a lot of current green space downtown.
I don't, you know, we're not the Parks Department, so I can't speak to exactly what's going on there, but I have seen some initial renderings and it's very exciting and I know that they utilize community feedback and we do as well in different initiatives that we put forward. Gamer Malley is a good example. That was one of the placemaking projects we did a while back where we...
speaker-0 (45:15.438)
painted some mosaic tile rugs on the alley and then we put furniture out there and there's been games out there. But it's amazing still to this day, it's hard to almost go with that at least one week without seeing some organization or maybe a professional headshot or just somebody that's had a photo captured in one of the alleys downtown.
speaker-1 (45:43.98)
some content down there two years ago with a country artist. yeah, there you go.
speaker-0 (45:49.1)
You put some intentionality behind things like that. People seek it out and they want to be in spaces like that. yeah, there's more opportunities like that for sure.
speaker-1 (46:02.158)
What's the general, you have an optimistic view, what's the general consensus do you think? Are most people optimistic?
speaker-0 (46:09.794)
I think so. I I know so. Yeah, I shouldn't say I think so. know so. I say I think so because, know, there's, especially when you're working with so many different constituents, there's always different opinions, But we have a really strong workforce downtown. We're very appreciative of our large employers that really help drive a lot of the activity that goes downtown. You mentioned the Ford Center early. That was a transformational project for downtown.
speaker-1 (46:11.222)
I'm optimistic.
speaker-0 (46:39.83)
Yeah. of people every year. know, marquee institutions like the Victory Theater, know, Man's Cremence Plaza, all the hotels and the industry that takes place downtown. So I think sometimes we kind of focus on a certain sector, but we really kind of need to take a, and I say we, like the community may focus on like a certain one thing that's happening downtown, but we really need to take like almost that bird's eye.
180-degree view of everything that's going on and how far downtown has come in these last 10 years. I wish I had cited and brought it with me, but we were doing a total of all the number of housing units and it was in the hundreds that have opened within the last 10 years downtown, really transformational projects. And it's kind of hard because you start to name one and then inevitably you leave one off, but that has really helped transform the landscape downtown.
speaker-1 (47:38.24)
It's great, man. It's great. It's a fun walk to go from Haney's Corner down to the river, around the valleys, around the courthouse area, down through Main Street. It's become a nice place that I enjoy spending time. It's good spot to just meet people for walks or go hang out and take the family down to the park. Hell, feel like I'm selling downtown now, but...
speaker-0 (48:04.447)
I know we got to get you on the payroll here.
speaker-1 (48:07.35)
But I think I appreciate you coming. I appreciate you doing this. Take your time. Drive it over to my house. It's great. I appreciate it.
speaker-0 (48:13.71)
Thanks for what you do for the community. This is really cool what you're building here and appreciate the opportunity.
speaker-1 (48:20.654)
Yeah, good. Yeah, I appreciate that. hope that somebody told me the other day, podcasts like this, they're almost like a form of journalism, which I always saw podcasts as entertainment. And I think, a lot of the podcasts I listen to would technically kind of lean towards journalism, just with the way that they're interview conversations that are long form. But I think that the more that surfaces, the more I see like,
I had Austin Maxheimer on recently and he was, you know, his episode came out and he works for Community One and like learning what they do, learning what other businesses do, you just realize like, damn, everybody really is, everybody is doing their best working towards their version of a good offering for the city or for the community or for their people or for their customers. And I think that that through line, kind of surfacing that through line that everybody's doing their best.
I hope that it starts more more conversations just between people about we really want what's best. Like we want what's best. You know, I think that people can come siloed in their own little areas and think nothing's happening or what's going on. You think like, no, like it's a pretty good spot to live. I like it here. It's a nice.
speaker-0 (49:39.074)
Yeah. No, and the way I view it... If there's a few things at the end of the day that we can, you know, tip our hat to and say, we accomplished this and made it better for that next generation. I always love, like I love to reference an event that we do every year called the Downtown Christmas. we host this really special event the first Saturday in December. just families from all backgrounds, all ethnicities, all generations come to this event.
speaker-1 (49:41.09)
Raise a family and do your thing.
speaker-0 (50:08.63)
It's completely free. It fills up multiple blocks of Main Street. And the reason why I love it though is we talk a lot about our role in the memory making process downtown. So these kids are here and they're maybe with a family member, a grandparent or a mom or a dad or a guardian. And they're gonna hopefully have some really core memories that they're gonna take away and they're gonna reflect fondly on. And those happened downtown and like we were a part of that.
At the end of the day, that's what keeps us going, keeps me going in this role.