How to save Coconut Grove?
1) Food trucks in the center of town, they bring thousands on a weekend night
2) Free parking on nights and weekends. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
3) Encourage pop-up stores that are useful, popular, social media worthy and not just there so the owner can get a green card.
4) Fire everyone connected to the establishment now and bring in new blood. The old blood is rancid.
2) Free parking on nights and weekends. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
3) Encourage pop-up stores that are useful, popular, social media worthy and not just there so the owner can get a green card.
4) Fire everyone connected to the establishment now and bring in new blood. The old blood is rancid.
posted by Tom Falco at 11:11 AM
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6 Comments:
Interesting ideas. Few thoughts Grape which I'll keep to two paragraphs. Foodtrucks are great, love em, but by inviting in outside caterers on a regular basis are you not going to infuriate the established bricks and mortar restaurants and risk their business? eg, if a gourmet burger van appears every Friday/Saturday evening would that not threaten LoKal? Free Parking, excellent idea, couldn't agree more. Pop up stores, again great idea but if they are seasonal, they get people in and when they leave we're back to square one eg the Halloween store. But a great measure in the interim before established stores take root. As for new blood, I haven't been here long enough to call for that but I have seen the effects of inactivity. Maybe new blood would be hindered by red tape bureaucracy I don't know.
Just a few cents worth of opinion but I've said since I got here, something has to be done before it is too late. I just hope that someone in authority is reading these blogs on a regular basis and are taking note of the concern and disappointment that many residents, visitors and blow ins like me are feeling.
One suggestion is to never ever give a parking ticket to any tourist's car with an out-of-town tag on the first offense. Just leave a polite warning the first time around and try to guide them about the hours, costs and how to pay. I have seen too many infuriated tourists complaining about the restrictive parking hours compared to where they are from, and a ticket on top of that leaves a very bad impression. Doing a few seemingly small things consistently should gradually make a big difference.
Purge the Grove of all the faux hippies and the awful "art galleries." Vote to legalize marijuana. Take back the Coconut Grove Art Show and make it a "local thing." Open a skate park; wait we already did that. Allow all the restaurants and bar to stay open until 5 am. Fix the Playhouse. This would be a good start. I remember when the arts festival was in Peacock park and featured local artists. Those were the days of the "real Grove." I grew up on Ye Little Wood.
How about we organize a "town hall" meeting. Demand that the people with actual power go and address the crowd. Have moderators to make sure it stays civil and not a heckling thing.
Food trucks are interesting, but not a solution. The foodtruck craze is getting diluted. There also isn't anywhere in center grove to park all these trucks, unless you use coconut grove elementary's field. Or peacock park. And we know how much the BID likes to let people use peacock park.
Grape, you're the most visible blog, you almost have no choice to not sit on the sidelines anymore.
Don't know if this is feasble, but what about some 'free' concerts in the park???
Excellent, Lowell. Especially the part about the Playhouse.
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