It will really feel like summer this week, with four of the Five Colleges out, 80 degree temperatures, and thunderstorms rolling through periodically. Here’s what the BID’s up to:

• The trolleys will be out again this week! Wednesday we’ll be making one trip down to Atkins for the Chamber of Commerce After 5, leaving from in front of Amherst Coffee at 4:45 and coming back to there at 6:30. Then this coming weekend is Amherst College graduation and the Town Fair, so you might also see the trolleys out around town for those.
• We continue to be thrilled with the performances happening downtown as part of Play Out Amherst. If you or a friend wants to join in the fun, here’s info on how. Thanks to Light Reaction, Nikia Camp, Charlie Shew & Pat Jones, and the Ephemeral Stringband for gracing our streets with her music this weekend!
• We had some conversations this week with members of Town staff about getting more public trash receptacles downtown. The BID has a prioritized list of spots where new bins would fill in important gaps downtown. Some of these may be easy, some may take longer. We’ll keep you posted as we continue this conversation.
• On Tuesday, we facilitated a conversation of people with passion for getting more performances happening downtown on a regular basis. A few potential locations were identified, and we’re moving forward on getting a number of concerts happening downtown in the fall! Again, more details will be here as they become available.
• This Wednesday, we will be bringing Town staff and BID transportation committee members together to talk with downtown parking expert Jason Schrieber of transportation planning firm Nelson\Nygaard. We saw Jason present at a recent Walkable Town Centers talk in Northampton, and he offered to come chat with us and give some ideas on parking best practices from other towns similar to Amherst. We’ll absolutely keep you posted on these issues as our ideas develop!
• We are happy to be helping out with an Outdoor Zumba Class happening this Saturday at 10am in the plaza of the Boltwood Garage. We had floated the idea a few months ago, and instructor Zulma Rivera showed a passion for making it happen, so we decided to go for it! It will be free and open to the public, with encouraged donation.
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, planning for the Block Party this fall (September 12) and the new Amherst Poetry Festival (September 20-28), encouraging members of the community to organize new events downtown, and improving publicity for events downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

UMass is out for the summer, and the other Five Colleges are almost done too. Here’s what the BID’s doing during this seasonal transition in Amherst:

• The trolleys ran service for Commencement this past weekend, and will run for other special events throughout the summer. In the fall, they will begin running a fixed route four days a week between the UMass campus and downtown.
• We continue to be thrilled with the performances happening downtown as part of Play Out Amherst. If you or a friend wants to join in the fun, here’s info on how. Thanks to Karen Axelrod for gracing our streets with her music this weekend!
• Keep an eye out in the Amherst Bulletin this week for a column about downtown Amherst by BID executive director, Alex Krogh-Grabbe.
• Last week six public parking spaces near the Unitarian Church were kept open to the public during construction because of the BID, and we continue to pursue improvements to the downtown parking situation.
• On Tuesday, we are facilitating a meeting of people with passion for getting more performances happening downtown on a regular basis. Keep an eye out here for information on what comes out of that effort!
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, planning for the Block Party this fall (September 12) and the new Amherst Poetry Festival (September 20-28), encouraging members of the community to organize new events downtown, and improving publicity for events downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

The leaves have popped and spring is here! Here are some of the things the BID is working on.

• We are happy to announce that the trolleys have launched! You may have seen them this weekend running shuttle service between the Amherst Invitational Ultimate Tournament and downtown. We are beyond thrilled that this substantial addition to the atmosphere of downtown is finally here. As we continue to fine-tune our systems, please give the trolleys a whirl next time you see them! We’d love to hear your impressions.
• Did you see the street performers this weekend participating in Play Out Amherst? If you or a friend wants to join in the fun, here’s info on how. Thanks to Josh Pearson, Danny Breton, Rambling Kind, and Tori Ames for performing this weekend!
• On Friday following the board of directors meeting, there was a brief meeting of the BID’s transportation committee, during which we talked about the impacts on downtown parking of the Unitarian Society’s upcoming construction project. Instead of restricting public parking even further than necessary, this meeting facilitated an alternative, whereby construction workers may be able to use some nearby private parking.
• Nineteen of our downtown flower baskets will be going up in a few weeks, and we have selected Hall & Sons to do the watering for us! The remaining sixty-eight baskets will go up later in the summer. Thanks as always to Andrew’s Greenhouse in south Amherst for doing the plantings for us!
• After reviewing proposals and conducting many interviews, we have also selected a designer to work with us on articulating better a cohesive brand for downtown and the BID! We are thrilled to be working with Susan Lapointe of Turning Leaf Design. Susan has been very involved with the artistic renaissance burgeoning in her native Easthampton, and we look forward to that creative energy applying in Amherst as well!
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, planning for the Block Party this fall (September 12), encouraging members of the community to organize new events downtown, and improving publicity for events downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

Here are some of the things the BID is working on as we hurdle willy-nilly toward the end of the academic year.

• Did you just hear a bell ringing? You will soon, at least! The BID trolleys are on the cusp of hitting the road. You may see them as early as this weekend, shuttling spectators between the Ultimate tournament and downtown. They will run for special events this summer, and begin their fixed route loop to UMass this fall.
• We continue to be thrilled with the performances happening downtown as part of Play Out Amherst. If you or a friend wants to join in the fun, here’s info on how. Thanks to the Tea & Niamh, Adrian & Ronald Meck, The Mondays, Julie Lee, Josh Pearson, and Danny Breton for gracing our streets with their music this weekend!
• We’re holding interviews this week with designers to decide who will work with us to redesign the brand for downtown and the BID! This is an exciting development, which will help us market downtown better with a unified image across different media.
• We’re close to selecting someone to water the flower baskets we’re putting up in a month on all the lamp posts. The flowers are coming from Andrew’s Greenhouse of south Amherst, and will be colorful and gorgeous! We can’t wait for this vibrant addition to downtown.
• Planning for Hot Summer Nights (movies on the Town Common) is forging ahead! Watch our Facebook page this week for an announcement about the films we’ll be showing! July 24, July 31, and August 7. Music starting at 6, movies starting at dark. Get those dates on your calendar.
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, planning for the Block Party this fall (September 12) and the new Amherst Poetry Festival (September 20-28), encouraging members of the community to organize new events downtown, improving parking practices, and improving publicity for events downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

Happy Earth Day! Here are some of the things the BID is working on.

• Did we mention that the trolleys are here? We are working on the logistics of their operation now, and you’ll start seeing them sometime in the next month or two.
• Did you see the street performers this weekend participating in Play Out Amherst? If you or a friend wants to join in the fun, here’s info on how. Thanks to the Ephemeral Stringband, Karen Axelrod, Nikia Camp, and Ian Stahl & friends for performing this weekend!
• On Friday we had a preliminary meeting about the poetry festival we’re planning for the end of September! This will be a week-long, multi-venue event celebrating Amherst’s poetic legacy and making poetry fun for everyone! If you want to get involved by organizing an event, let us know!
• We’re close to selecting someone to water the flower baskets we’re putting up in a month on all the lamp posts. The flowers are coming from Andrew’s Greenhouse of south Amherst, and will be colorful and gorgeous! We can’t wait for this vibrant addition to downtown.
• Through Amherst College’s summer internship program, Pioneer Valley Civic Summer, we’ve hired someone who will be with us working on marketing & events for the summer! Welcome Sairam Nagulapalli, newest member of the BID team.
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, planning for the Block Party this fall (September 12), encouraging members of the community to organize new events downtown, and improving parking practices, and improving publicity for events downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

The latter half of April is a busy time of year for a college town. Here are some of the things the BID is working on.

• If you own a business downtown, we encourage you to consider participating in the UMass Amherst Parent Association membership card program. This is a fantastic opportunity to attract more university visitors to come downtown to your business. The deadline is today, though, so we hope you’re able to get something in! Contact umassparents@acad.umass.edu or 413-577-4444 for more information.

Trolleys arrive in Amherst!

• The trolleys have arrived in Amherst! We are working on the logistics of their operation now, and you’ll start seeing them sometime in the next month or two. In the meantime, here’s one of the newly arrived trolleys.
• Did you see the street performers this weekend participating in Play Out Amherst? If you or a friend wants to join in the fun, here’s info on how. Thanks to Nikia Camp, June & the Bee, Nathan Watson, and Ian Stahl for performing on our inaugural weekend!
• We continued to work with town staff on the “Welcome to downtown Amherst” signs. The good news is that we’re in agreement about specific locations, so we can now get the necessary approvals and get them in the ground! They’ll be at the Route 9/116 intersection by Amherst College, the Amity/North Prospect intersection near the Jones Library, Kendrick Park near the Triangle Street light, and the Triangle/Main intersection by the Emily Dickinson Museum.
• Last Tuesday saw the successful networking event at High Horse, Plug into the Creative Valley. Nearly 100 creative economy professionals from all over the Valley and the state descended on downtown to schmooze and hear about the great things going on here. The featured business for the evening was Levellers Press, the small run publication company run out of Collective Copies.
• We’ve gotten a lot of bids to water the flowers we’re putting up on all the lamp posts at the end of May. Andrew’s Greenhouse has done a great job choosing and growing the flowers for us, and soon we will have a maintenance contract set up and it’ll be all systems go!
• On Monday evening, BID executive director Alex Krogh-Grabbe moderated a roundtable discussion at the Isenberg School at UMass on the current status of state transportation funding. Amherst Town Manager John Musante was on the panel as well as the PVTA administrator and several other transportation experts.
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, planning for the Block Party this fall (September 12), encouraging members of the community to organize new events downtown, and improving parking practices, and improving publicity for events downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

With forecasts in the 70s this week, it may finally be spring! Here’s a taste of what the BID is doing to celebrate!

• First, the big news: this week, the BID purchased the two trolleys we’ll be running. Now as soon as we figure out the logistics, we can implement this core component of the BID plan! They will provide an easy, fun, and visible connection between downtown and the UMass campus, to supplement existing PVTA service. You will also see them at special events. At the PDA meeting on Thursday we had a good talk with a UMass representative about ways to integrate the trolleys into campus happenings. We’re pretty excited! More details to follow.
• This Friday, you will start seeing the street performers brought in by the BID through Play Out Amherst. They’ll be at various locations around downtown, bringing an unexpected energy and vibrancy to the streets! Keep a lookout, and let us know which ones we should have back!
• After finalizing our partnership with Leisure Services this past Friday, we’re putting the pedal to the metal to organize the return of Hot Summer Nights, the outdoor film series on the Common. Running until 2005, this series was much-beloved, and we’re excited to be bringing it back! Films will be announced as soon as we have them finalized, but trust us, they’re going to be great.
• Last Monday we walked around looking at the locations for the “Welcome to downtown Amherst” signs that we’re working with the Town to get up. They’ll be at the Route 9/116 intersection by Amherst College, the Amity/North Prospect intersection near the Jones Library, Kendrick Park near the Triangle Street light, and the Triangle/Main intersection by the Emily Dickinson Museum.
• Speaking of the Emily Dickinson Museum, we’ll be working with them over the summer to organize a week-long, multi-venue poetry event for the end of September! Poetry is a big part of Amherst’s cultural heritage, and it’s high time we celebrated that. If you’d like to be involved in some way, let us know!
• Friday at the monthly board meeting, our revised business plan was adopted by the BID’s board of directors. It’s a focusing of our initial improvement plan, with more detail about our goals & objectives as well as when we aim to get things done. You can take a look at it here.
• Finally, we continue to work hard on ongoing projects, such as downtown clean-up, getting flower baskets on all the lamp posts downtown, working with the university to improve town-gown relations, improving parking practices, and getting more public art downtown. There’s so much going on! Glad you’re along for the ride.

Look out! It’s April Fool’s Day. But it’s no prank that things are happening downtown. Here are a few things we’ve been up to in the past week.

• We are getting a lot closer to getting our trolley up and running. This is really exciting; something that will make it easy, visible, and fun for UMass students & visitors to get downtown. We’re looking at a few trolleys this week, and we plan to get it up and running this summer.
• Our first round of event cosponsorship grants is a big success! We’re going to help add new components to existing events like the Daffodil Fun Run, the LSSE Halloween celebration, and the Kendrick Park Market, and help new events get off the ground, like TEDxUMassAmherst and the creative economy networking event “Plug into Amherst“. We look forward to helping get other new events off the ground in the future, so keep an ear out for another grant application deadline in late May!
• Speaking of TEDxUMassAmherst, we have two opportunities for downtown businesses! One is from that event, where organizers are raffling off a number of event tickets to students who pick up free raffle tickets downtown. Tickets will be available at participating downtown businesses when students make a purchase there. If you want to be a pick-up location, email info@amherstdowntown.com.
• The second opportunity is to be involved with the Amherst Invitational Ultimate tournament, promoted this year as The Ultimate Weekend in Amherst. With 2000 people coming into town, we want to bring them downtown as much as possible! If you own a downtown business and would like to participate in offering a 10% discount to presents a disc on the day of the tournament, shoot us an email. We’ll be asking folks in person during this week!
• Y’know what we could use downtown? More live performances! Concerts, dance shows, theater…so we’ve decided to help make it happen. In addition to putting together a listing of events that already happen regularly, we’re working with whoever wants to help to put on more shows in all sorts of existing locations, and beginning a conversation about how we might get established a venue downtown specifically for performing arts. If you want to help with any of these things, we’d love to hear from you!
• We also have two RFPs out right now: one for maintenance of the flower baskets we will install in May, and one for the BID’s branding. We look forward to sharing with you the results of each!
• So many things this week! Inspired by O, Miami down in Florida, we want to get a poetry-themed event happening in downtown Amherst! Seeing as we’re the home of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, and we have such a literary presence from the five colleges, we think it’s very appropriate! Again, if you want to be involved, let us know.

Welcome back from spring break! Here are a few highlights of what’s been going on downtown recently.

• We started scheduling performers from the first wave of applicants to our “Play Out Amherst” street performer program. You start seeing them in mid-April. To read more about how your favorite musicians can apply, check out our website.
• After hearing a number of comments on the substance used on downtown sidewalks before a snowstorm, we worked with DPW to reduce the stickiness of it. This substance is an important part of snow removal operations, as it keeps the snow from sticking to the sidewalk, but the intent is for it to be less noticeable for future storms.
• Other ongoing projects involve figuring out the details for the trolley we will be introducing between downtown & UMass, establishing more things for people to do downtown, and reviewing applications for our event cosponsorship grants. The first round of grant recipients will be announced soon, so stay tuned!

This week, sunset hits 7pm and spring technically begins! Here are a few highlights of what’s going on downtown on the cusp of spring.

• We continued to debrief with Town officials, university representatives, and downtown businesspeople about the Blarney Blowout event. While there were difficult crowds elsewhere in town, downtown was much improved over previous years. If you have any feedback that we haven’t heard yet, let us know, because we continue to work on how to continue that positive trend next year.
• Our “Welcome to downtown” signs are making progress. We met with Town officials last week to talk about specifics of placement and design. The Town is in support of this boost to downtown’s identity, and we aim to have the signs installed in time for the students’ return in August.
• On Thursday, we were excited to hear about the Hampshire County Regional Tourism Council‘s branding plan. Focused on the tagline “The Other Side of Massachusetts,” the plan is grounded in fascinating data about who visits our region and why. We look forward to working with the RTC to bring more out-of-region visitors to downtown Amherst.
• The Boston Globe is working with UMass to put out a special supplement for the university’s 150th anniversary this year. The BID will be purchasing an ad in the publication to remind the institution’s alumni of the close relationship between UMass and downtown Amherst over all those years.