Saturday night block party to return in fall
There was a meeting yesterday afternoon at Cita's on Commodore Plaza, to discuss the continuation of the Saturday block parties. All restaurant owners on the block met with David Collins and Richard Issa from the BID.
Some officials from the post office attented the meeting too, including Postmaster David Boardman. The post office is working on having the MPA run the post office parking lot at night, to allow paid parking, like in the past.
Plans for the block party are to bring it back Saturday, September 12 and have it run each Saturday for 25 weeks. It may even happen a week earlier, if the Bed Race Committee gets their way. This way it could all be one large Labor Day weekend which would include the Bed Race and the Block Party the night before, along with the Pajama Pub Crawl. Bed Race Committee members have been lobbying the BID to change the date to a week earlier, I know this because I was one of the people lobbying them.
The restaurant owners agreed to chip in $350.00 each per week to help with the costs. It gets pretty pricey to close the streets, get licenses, pay bands, etc.
Expenses will be kept lower by doing away with a few things like extra off duty police officers. The crowds have been great and our local beat cops should be able to handle anything that comes up, along with the Kent Security guards from the black booths on either end.
Also, large bands will fluctuate with smaller acts from week to week, which will save money.
One major cost which also is very time consuming is the process of getting the extended liquor licenses, which allow the restaurants to sell liquor on the street ($100 a week per restaurant). Each week, someone would have to fill out forms and take them in person to the office in Doral, which processes them. It is a State of Florida law and the city has no say around this currently, but hopefully, this can be rectified and not have to be a weekly chore and expense.
Logistics are being worked out, but the fact is that the Commodore Plaza Block Party will return in the fall. It was a great success the past five weeks and everyone is looking forward to its return.
posted by Tom Falco at 12:01 PM
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13 Comments:
Great News! Thanks to everyone who worked to get the Block Parties continued.
Yay! This is great news.
Great News Tom,
Thank you for the report. Your blog helps spread the word
PS. Is there a website for the block party?
That's Great! I wish they'd close down Commodore Full Time and make it a pedestrian street like Espanola and Lincoln Road. And then the MPA wouldn't park on the sidewalk!
Coupla factoids to keep in mind about the Commodore closings...
First, this was Sarnoff's project and he pushed through a lot of resistance getting it to happen.
Second, the restaurants were in almost total opposition to this effort up until about half way through the first one.
Probably helpful to keep these in mind the next time someone goes off half-cocked on the Commissioner. (I'm thinking you, CI.)
This is actually something Monty Trainer wanted for a very long time and since his bud is in office he can get his way
I second the idea of a pedestrian only Commodore Plaza.
Actually, if any street in the grove should be closed and made a pedestrian walk-way, it should be Fuller Street. It's perfect for such a purpose, and doesn't serve much of one as far as traffic patterns are concerned.
Why should only Commodore businesses get this boost? Just asking the obvious questions I haven't heard asked.
The Harrison family went through all the trouble of taking a little closed off alley (with a fountain right in the center), widened it for car traffic and made Fuller Street happen in the late 1960s. Now you want to close it off again?
ps. I also want that fountain back! That would be sweet.
Yep, sorry grape, I wasn't around then, but I honestly appreciate the history.
Ya know what else wasn't around then - 90% of the structures and commerce of CG, just for the record.
There were a lot of great ideas in the 60s, but also some bad ones, like tie die, and bell bottoms. The Middle school I went to up north was built in the 60s, and the builders and district thought - "wouldn't it be great to have a school with no [interior] walls, man" - so that's what they did. A school for 10-13 year old had little seperation if any ( a 6 ft. blackboard and some cabinets, behind each teachers desk). I didn't pay attention to anything a teacher said for 3 years. In 1994, the board decided to call that experiment failed, and put real walls in.
Just food for thought.
The Fall is the right time, the party will be bumping.
Thats wonderful news. Our business was so slow tonight and during the block party we were so busy. We totally felt the difference. The block party wioll be great for so long. Too bad it cant start next Sat. first sat tonight without it and commodore was dead. We closed 2 hrs earlier then when block party happened. too bad but great news its coming back. My kids loved it and we loved it for business!!!!!!
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