Downtown Business Alliance thrives in first year

A little over a year ago, Lodi’s Downtown Business Alliance was formed by business owners to promote and represent their businesses.

The formation of the alliance came a few years after the Downtown Lodi Business Partnership was disbanded, once again giving merchants the opportunity to highlight and address the issues they confront on a daily basis.

Since its inception, the alliance has expanded from just nine members to 45 and continues to grow, according to DBA President John Della Monica, owner of Della Monica Snyder Architects. General membership meetings for the group are held on a quarterly basis and a website and Facebook page have been created for the group.

The alliance has already worked with the city on a number of issues, Della Monica said. In the past year, the DBA partnered with the city to tackle the homeless issue in the Downtown district and also partnered with the city to address parking concerns by conducting parking surveys and exploring the possibility of parking meters.

The alliance has been an active participant in the debate about the availability of public restrooms in Downtown and has produced signs to direct visitors to public restrooms. The DBA has also participated in discussions regarding the expansion of the WOW Science Museum.

“Solving little urban problems in a smaller urban context is what we’re all about,” Della Monica said.

The alliance has also worked with several community organizations as well as the Lodi Chamber of Commerce and Visit Lodi.

The alliance has taken charge of holiday celebrations in terms of decorations and activities, Della Monica said, and has also been working to garner maintenance services along with several other amenities. They also met with business owners from Manteca and Modesto to share with them the steps they took to develop their alliance.

“DBA is already getting a pretty good reputation of being proactive and other cities are recognizing that, so we were very flattered at their request for assistance and we were happy to provide it,” Della Monica said.

Moving forward, the alliance is looking to expand its ability to handle increased tourism by working cooperatively and pooling their resources, Della Monica said.

The alliance has achieved quite a bit in the past year but there is still more they would like to do, Della Monica said

“There are lots of small steps to take and at each level we hope to increase our visibility as Downtown businesses and we hope to install new activities in Downtown,” he said.

The alliance hopes to eventually expand its membership to the point where a majority of the 150 downtown businesses are represented. Membership dues are $100 annually, which will support the group’s social networks and website development along with various improvement projects the alliance wants to be involved in.

For membership inquiries, email Barbara Ross at rossbarbara285@yahoo.com and Gary Wiman at stogies@stogieslounge.com. For more information on the alliance email

Info@dbalodi.org.