Your Ideas: Boosting Business During the Summer Lull
With university students mostly gone, some College Park business owners adjust operations, bracing for a summer dip.
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As the weather warms and students leave for home, some businesses in College Park are adjusting operations to mitigate a dip in business during the summer months.
“It slows way down,” Bagel Place owner Bobby Karanovich told The Gazette. He, and other business owners use various approaches to lessen the impact of a semi-depleted campus.
The city is also using new tactics, like free Saturday parking at the Yale Avenue garage and a downtown farmers' market, The Gazette reported.
Read the full Gazette story here.
Economic Development Coordinator Michael Stiefvater told Patch last month that the city would like to try other strategies, like temporary art projects in some of the vacant storefronts, and monthly downtown events during the summer. And the city recently unveiled a giant chess set that can be borrowed for free from City Hall and used with the sidewalk grid at Knox Road and U.S. Route 1, to attract more activity to that area.
What sort of tactics do you think local businesses and the city can use to combat the summer lull and absence of students? Tell us your ideas in the comments.
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Bagel Place of College Park
7423 Baltimore Ave, College Park, MD -
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College Park City Hall
4500 Knox Rd, College Park, MD
Danny
7:05 am on Thursday, June 7, 2012
what about the obvious solution of not enforcing the meters after 5pm and on saturdays during the summer? who in his or her right mind would pay to park to patronize the likes of subway, chipotle, potbelly, or starbucks when each has plenty of other local outlets with free parking? (and let's not pretend that the downtown business owners want the meters enforced during the summer. they don't. and if they do, they're poor businesspeople and should find another occupation.)