Chehalis Community Renaissance Team Executive Director Annalee Tobey stands in front of the team’s office at 60 NW Boistfort St. in Chehalis.
The Chehalis Community Renaissance Team is closing 2017 with several community improvements projects complete and will start 2018 with a list of new ones.
Among this year’s accomplishments are the renovation of the downtown restrooms, several new bike racks throughout town and a successful ChehalisFest, Executive Director Annalee Tobey said on Friday.
Traditionally, the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce would organize ChehalisFest, but this year the Renaissance team took it over. Next year, she said some new ideas will be added and they plan on improving on it each year.
A larger project that has yet to come to fruition is the creation of a coworking office space in downtown Chehalis. It will be an office space where people can rent a desk by the hour, Tobey said. This joint effort with the Port of Chehalis would serve professionals who are in the area for short term projects, such as architects who are called for a consultation or executives needing a printer or a place to complete a report.
“It is another way to get people downtown,” Tobey said.
Tobey expects it to be up and running next year. Tobey added that Rainier Connect is going to install fiber internet lines in downtown, noting the coworking space will be more efficient because the internet capacity will be higher to allow people to complete all aspects of their work.
As a whole, the purpose of the Renaissance team is to improve the community of Chehalis and to make it a more attractive place for business to operate and for people to shop. Formed by the city as an action plan in 2009, the team has completed smaller projects and worked with partners on larger ones. Although its origin is the city, it is an independent non-profit organization, Tobey said.
“We work very closely with the city, but we are not the city,” she said.
Next year’s projects and goals will be finalized by the board of directors in November, Tobey said.
The team functions like a Main Street organization focusing on the downtown corridor, Tobey said. However, it serves the entire community as well.
Because it functions as a Main Street organization, it must follow the rules laid out by the state. Last year, the state required all organizations to have an executive director, which is why Tobey came into the job in January. Prior to that, she was on the board and had been involved in the community.
Coming from a long line of people who were active in the community, the job was a perfect fit, she said.
“This has been a dream job for me,” she said. “Growing up I knew somehow I wanted to make a difference in the community.”
Another thing the team does is list all the downtown storefronts that are up for rent. This helps people looking to start a business find a place to do so. The team also organizes tours of properties for rent so interested parties can walk through and talk with the owners about what their visions for the building are.
Another change at the state level is how organizations like the team can receive business and operating tax donations, she said. Businesses would pledge to donate an amount of money to their local organization if they could receive a tax credit from the pool of $1.5 million. Each one of the 34 organizations could receive up to $133,000.
Before that can happen, each one of the 34 organizations had to rush to get their bids in when the pool opened at midnight of Jan. 1. Last year, the entire pool was gone by 6 a.m., Tobey said. The team received $73,000.
Now, organizations have until the end of the first quarter to gather donations and for those businesses to receive a tax credit worth 75 percent of their donation, Tobey said. The Legislature also increased the size of the pool to $2.5 million.
Tobey added this is not the only source of funding for the team.
