It’s been a year since Casey Hallmark took over as the director of Downtown Odessa and between her and a few new staff members, it made a profit last year.
Over the last five years, the nonprofit organization, which is partially funded by city hotel-motel taxes, has lost an average of $5,000 annually.
This past fiscal year, it made $55,000, Hallmark told her board Tuesday.
Downtown Odessa is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that is dedicated to preserving and promoting the downtown area.
Hallmark is responsible for recruiting new businesses to the area, in part by using Odessa Development Corporation facade and infrastructure grants.
She, along with her two staff members, Savannah Woodward and Martina Marquez, are also behind such events as the Tacos and Tequila, Hot Summer Nights, Firecracker Fandango and the Parade of Lights.
Hallmark shared some of the team’s successes Tuesday with the Downtown Odessa board, which is comprised of city council appointees. The meeting was the first time it had met since October due to a lack of a quorum. In fact, it’s only met 11 out of the last 16 months.
Board president John Herriage had a message for both the newly appointed members of the board and incumbents.
“I just want to say that if you don’t want to participate and invest your time, resign from the board. Let’s get someone else on here that cares, that can participate,” Herriage said. “We need our members to participate, not just show up at the meeting, but help, volunteer.”
Herriage said he’s even been talking to council members to see if they’ll change their appointments.
Newly appointed board member and District 4 council member Greg Connell asked Hallmark why she thinks Downtown Odessa is doing so well.
At the meeting and in an interview afterward, Hallmark credited her staff, meticulous event planning and better marketing.
They begin planning early and they put “110% effort into social media,” Hallmark said following the meeting. They also take pains to advertise all over Odessa, not just certain areas.
“I think we have really focused on being community engaged and community focused and making sure that downtown is a space that everybody feels comfortable,” Hallmark said. “I think with board support and the staff support, we’ve just really kind of turned downtown around and now we’re constantly in the news. We’re constantly making sure that we’re asking the news to cover what we’re doing and show downtown in a positive light and so I feel like that’s been really wildly successful for us.”
They’ve also been quite successful in convincing downtown businesses to sponsor events and added markets to various events, thus raising additional revenues through vendor fees, she said.
“Our events have seen exponential growth. This was the largest Fandango that we’ve ever had. This is the largest Parade of Lights we’ve ever had. We had 10,000 people trick or treating,” Hallmark said.
Herriage, who has been involved in one way or another in downtown Odessa for more than 20 years, said they’ve had several great directors over the years and others that haven’t been as great. It was “refreshing” when Hallmark came on board last year, he said.
She’s a great leader, he said.
“Our attendance is higher than ever before. We have more people than ever before. Fandango, we blew it out of the park. I mean, blew it out of the park. It was the largest footprint we’ve ever had, but again, it still wasn’t big enough. We need to expand this year,” Herriage said. “Casey is super organized. I’ve never met someone so organized. I mean, she has got like a color coordinated index for everything so everybody knows their job. They know what to do. She’s busted her ass. She’s done a good job.”
Changing things up
Hallmark is proud of what they’ve accomplished, she said.
“I think in one year, what me and my staff have been able to do is incredible. We’ve taken events that were on the verge of dying and rehabilitated them so much they’re expanding,” Hallmark said after the meeting.
When she began planning her first Firecracker Fandango it was just her and an administrative assistant who had only been with Downtown Odessa seven months.
“We had no idea what we were doing and we pulled off the biggest event that Odessa has ever seen in downtown. Fandango has been happening for 25 years and for two people who had no idea what they were doing to have 25,000 people come and celebrate with us…that’s my greatest accomplishment and I’m so proud of it,” Hallmark said.
Even though Downtown Odessa dropped the $20 admittance fee, Fandango made money for the first time ever, she said.
Instead of charging people, Hallmark decided to double the number of food trucks from 10 to 20 and she charged them more to participate.
She also added a market and charged the 50 vendors who wanted to participate $100 each and asked businesses for sponsorships.
“This is a community organization and this is a great way for companies and big businesses to show their support for the community. It’s a huge city wide event and so I encourage folks to support that,” Hallmark said. “Being able to put your your logo on a city wide event as big as Fandango, I think pays back in dividends. You know people know that they’re getting to come for free because your company is supporting that. I think that’s the best marketing and advertising money that you could ever spend.”
When they began planning the Parade of Lights, she was told to expect 10,000 people, but 40,000 people showed up, Hallmark said. They also had a record number of floats, more than 300.
During the Downtown Easter Egg Hunt, 21 business sponsors paid $100 to get on an egg hunting map and Downtown Odessa purchased $100 in gift cards from each business to give away as prizes, Hallmark said.
While the event didn’t make any money, it helped support those downtown businesses, she said. They ran out of 20,000 eggs and this year they’ll be setting out 40,000 eggs and hoping to get even more businesses to participate.
The year before the event was held in a parking lot, which didn’t benefit downtown businesses much, she said.
Hallmark said she’s also made it a point to ditch events that weren’t doing well or didn’t meet Downtown Odessa’s mission.
Instead of charging $60 for people to attend Teddy Bears and Tea with Santa, Downtown Odessa gave families the opportunity to write Santa to get complimentary photos with the jolly old elf and were able to do that because businesses agreed to sponsor the event, she said. Instead of competing with other New Year’s Eve events and holding a $100 a ticket event, Downtown Odessa helped market those other events, she said.
City staff
Without the support of downtown businesses and city staff Downtown Odessa would not be enjoying the success it has achieved, Hallmark said.
Hallmark noted the City of Odessa provided Downtown Odessa $450,000 last year, with most of it going toward salaries, benefits, security at events and electric boxes.
“We have some of the best business owners in downtown and and just a really important small staff that’s supported by the entire city. I’ve heard our mayor and I’ve heard our new city manager say that our city departments have to work harder to work together and that’s offensive to me because I see the exact opposite,” Hallmark said. “What we do all works together and every single person that I’ve met in this city has the common goal of making Odessa better and working together is what we do. That’s our bread and butter. One can’t function without the other and I don’t know what the leadership sees, but I can say from an employee’s point of view, we work together, so cohesively and so effortlessly. Nobody says no, everybody’s willing to step out of their department and help and I just really want the public to know that.”
Future plans
As for the future, Hallmark is excited about the opportunities that will come from having a “festival street” downtown.
The city council issued $7 million in certificates of obligation for a downtown improvements and in November they voted 4-3 to design and oversee a downtown entertainment district.
It’s not yet known whether the festival street will be on Jackson or Texas avenues.
Hallmark said consultants are pushing for it to be on Jackson Street and she agrees. Fewer businesses will be impacted by road closures, it’s a dead-end and it’s closer to the new Odessa College campus and the Marriott.
With Jackson being a smaller street, Hallmark said the city will get more bang for its bucks.
Regardless of where it goes, it will be a boon for the city, though, Hallmark said.
“A festival Street is going to be phenomenally helpful because I spent for instance, for the Fandango, I spent $10,000 to $15,000 in barricades. I spent $8,000 on generators and light towers. There’s all of these infrastructure costs that have to be there for us to have events,” Hallmark said.
“If we have a festival street, those things are built in. I have built-in sound. I have built-in extra lighting. I have removable bolsters that can act as barricades. I have all of these things built in. So it’s in essence, a plug-in, play space,” Hallmark said. “I also want downtown to be a venue…I want more events to come downtown because that’s beneficial to everybody. You can’t outgrow downtown. Again downtown is comfortable for everybody. Everybody feels welcome. So bringing your event downtown should be super beneficial on both ends.”
Hallmark said there are also plans underway to create a Downtown Business Association in the coming months. It will allow business owners to communicate more effectively so everyone is on the same page and it’s something Herriage has been wanting for five years.
“When I’m out scouting new businesses or looking for economic development opportunities, this would be a huge selling point. We have this thriving downtown business association where we have legacy business owners and brand new business owners and they’re all listening to each other and working as a cohesive group. I think that’s a huge selling point, not just for the city, but for business developers that have land down here and all those things,” Hallmark said.
