Downtown yuma Merchants association revives with goal of promoting area
An organization that lay dormant for many years has resurfaced and is renewing the spotlight on downtown Yuma. The Downtown Yuma Merchants Association, a nonprofit organization with a pending application, is bringing area merchants together to raise money for improvements and to help promote downtown events.
Ultimately, the goal is to help downtown businesses and encourage continued development of the area.
“There’s still a lot of empty spaces, but being able to bring additional businesses down here will drive revenue into the businesses that are already here,” said Chris Wheeler, owner of Prison Hills Brewery Company, a restaurant located on Main Street, and chair of the Downtown Yuma Merchants Association.
The organization encourages downtown merchants to act as “one voice … having all of the merchants on the same page or as close to being on the same page as we can,” Wheeler said.
“With all the merchants acting in concert, you have a singular voice … so you can talk to the city. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re having concerns over parking lots.’ We, and by we, I mean 12 businesses, not just Prison Hill, not just the Pint House, not just Lutes, not just Da Boyz.”
Wheeler has been one of the driving forces behind the push to bring back the association, which has its roots in the 1980s. After the 2000s, the organization faded away with the passing of Dorothy Young, who served as event coordinator of the Yuma Heritage Festivals for eight years.
“It kind of went away when Dorothy Young passed away, and the merchants disbanded. Businesses started leaving the downtown area,” Wheeler said.
The push to revive the association started under former city administrator Greg Wilkinson. “Now that downtown has sort of renewed life, it hit Greg’s radar,” Wheeler recalled.
The administrator that followed also had interest in renewing the organization, at which time the merchants resubmitted the application for nonprofit status.
Then, COVID-19 hit a month later, and downtown virtually shut down. The nonprofit organization is still pending, but the association restarted its activities about a year ago.
“The good news is that if you act as a nonprofit, and you conduct business as a nonprofit, and you don’t do anything that violates the terms of being a nonprofit, you have a certain period of time to act as a nonprofit, and you’re basically a nonprofit until they tell you otherwise. So that’s where we’re at. We’ve been performing as a nonprofit,” Wheeler explained.
The organization is now working with Acting Administrator Jay Simonton and
Joanne Fiser, current festivals coordinator.
“She’s been amazing, like absolutely amazing, to work with. The way she’s brought life back to downtown and those festivals, it really made a difference,” Wheeler said.
Since its revival, the association has participated in city events, including the BBQ & Brew and Tacos and Tunes festivals, and raised money through alcohol sales.
Promoting and improving downtown takes money, Wheeler noted.
He explained that the city decided to get out of the business of selling alcohol and farmed it out to the Downtown Merchants. “It makes more sense. In doing that, they give the Downtown Merchants a way to build the war chest. As we’re doing these events for the next year or so, we’re putting money in the bank.”
When the association has raised enough money, the board of directors will decide how to spend it.
“We’ve talked about everything from adding security guards downtown to helping with the homeless population. We talked about doing some downtown mapping. We talked about doing some billboards or some advertising to draw attention to the downtown merchants,” Wheeler noted.
The boundaries for the organization coincidentally follow the overlay of the city’s Entertainment District. About a dozen downtown businesses have joined the organization. Aside from Prison Hill and Pint House, members include Brocket Farms, The Kress Ultra Lounge, Lutes Casino, Bare Naked Soap, Rebel and Rove, Jimmy Dee’s, Garden Cafe, Dream Gift Shop, MGM Design, with more interested in joining.
“Our standard meetings run at about 20 to 25 people, and there’s a representative from almost every one of the businesses at least on Main. So it’s been getting traction,” Wheeler said.
Meetings are held quarterly.
The first year the association operated without dues. This year, it will charge dues to subsidize the bankroll.
“It’s modest. I think we agreed on $300 for the year, which, if you’re in business down here, and you’re actually serious about doing business, it’s a small investment,” he noted.
The Yuma merchants have modeled its organization after the Chandler Gilbert Merchants Association, which graciously let Wheeler take a look at its bylaws. That association did “amazing things” over the course of the last 20 years for downtown Chandler and Gilbert, Wheeler noted.
It offered interest-free loans to owners of vacant buildings to, for example, remodel facades to help make them more visually appealing to tenants.
The businesses would then only pay back a portion of what was lent out. “It was a way to bring business down (to the area) because the understanding was, the rising tide raises all ships,” Wheeler said.
The association also offered grants and scholarships.
Wheeler believes the Yuma Downtown Merchants Association has the same potential. “I’m excited about it,” he said. “Downtown holds a lot of Yuma’s character. It’s one of the areas that sort of define us as a city. When you think of Yuma, you think of the (historic territorial) prison, you think of the dunes, you think of some of the rivers, but if you’re thinking about areas to be in, like cool places that look to capture the local flavor, you don’t have a choice but to think about downtown.”
Wheeler believes the area will really come alive in the next five to 10 years. “It’s going to reestablish itself as the place to have a business, where it needs to be, if I have anything to do with it anyway. We’re getting there.”
He points to cities with famous areas, such as Whiskey Row in Prescott, Mill Avenue in Tempe and Fourth Avenue in Tucson. “They have those cool strips of local craft stores, restaurants, bars, local retailers. It’s a local flavor. It’s the area where you go that you can’t get anywhere else,” he said.
Downtown Yuma is already on its way, according to Wheeler. “We’ve now got retail, we’ve got Rebel and Rove, we’ve got Dream Gift Shop, and we’re starting to see clothing stores come down here. And that’s really sort of the evolutionary way these things work,” he said.
Wheeler is “legitimately excited” to see where the association goes. “It’s been a really tough year for a lot of businesses getting back POST-COVID. And now that we’ve kind of come through one full year of being completely back out, and we’re starting to see the volumes that we did PRE-COVID, I think something like the downtown merchants association is going to be nothing but helpful,” he said.
“Moving forward, if something else happens again, it gives us the opportunity to lean on each other for help, and I think that’s not something that we should take for granted,” he added.
To join or for more information on the Downtown Yuma Merchants Association, reach out to Wheeler at Prison Hill Brewing Company: 928-276-4001.