HOUGHTON - Dave Olsson and Karyn Hanks of private marketing firm The Marketing Department are surveying downtown business owners, residents, shoppers and tourists to help write a new marketing plan for Houghton's central business district.
City officials posted the survey's questions on the city's Web site, cityofhoughton.com, on Monday.
"The community has the opportunity to go to the city of Houghton Web site and take a survey and give us feedback on what they would like to see downtown and what their perceptions of downtown are now," Hanks said. "There are a lot of measured questions and there is some open-ended questions as well."
The survey takes 10 to 15 minutes to fill out, Hanks said. It is designed to be taken by anyone in the Copper Country especially "people that live, shop and eat in the Copper Country," Hanks said.
"The first 400 people to do the survey online will receive, in the mail, a $5 gift certificate to be spent at participating stores in downtown Houghton," he continued. "We wanted to make sure we reimbursed people for their time."
The money is a portion of the $10,000 grant the city received to create the plan. Other surveys will also be conducted.
"We're also going to be conducting some street surveys," Hanks said. "I'm going to be going down and talking to some downtown businesses and the downtown business owners will have their own survey as well."
The Marketing Department worked with a new downtown core marketing group - made up of mostly of downtown business people - to develop the survey.
"We worked with (this team) to help develop the questions," Hanks said. "It was definitely a team effort."
Michigan Technological University is also joining in the effort, sending survey information to their student body.
"Michigan Tech recognizes how important connectivity between the cities and Michigan Tech is," Hanks said. "We now have access to a large population of the students to get their feedback of downtown Houghton."
Within 24 hours of the poll opening, there were 60 responses. Hanks expects to have 400 done within a week and a half, but the survey will remain open after that time.
"We'd like to close the survey by Aug. 23," said Hanks. "The results will be published online, they will be open to the public.
"The marketing plan will also be online, but isn't slated to be done until fall."
Third block open
The good weather has kept construction moving along at a good pace in downtown Houghton, according to Mike Momont, project superintendent with Bacco Construction, Inc. of Iron Mountain.
On Tuesday, crews cleared the way for traffic on the third block, but Momont said motorists will drive over a small amount of gravel at the beginning of the block.
On the fourth block, they completed the curbs Monday, and will be working on the sidewalks for the rest of the week. Momont plans to have brick pavers in and the road open by July 31, a week ahead of the projected date.
"We didn't run into a whole lot of rock (on the fourth block), that's what slows us down, plus we got into (the block) early," said Momont.
The fifth block hasn't been as easy, Momont said.
"We did run into some rock and we've had trouble getting into the water main," he said. "There's also a lot more coal bins. It's just been a pain."
Momont expects to have the sewer work done today, and water testing throughout the rest of the week.
The Mirror Barber Shop presents Cheap Therapy
Cheap Therapy will be performing on the 200 block of Shelden Avenue this week for the sixth edition of the Downtown Shelden Avenue Weekly Concert Series. The performance is free and goes from 6 until 9 p.m. Thursday night.
Michael H. Babcock can be reached at mbabcock@mininggazette.com.
