ASU students may be gone until school starts again, and the intense heat may keep people from exploring the area, but businesses downtown are preparing to survive through the summer months.
For the past two years, sales tax revenue for the entire City of Phoenix has not dipped that much during the summer months, according to a city report.
“Just because it’s summer doesn’t necessarily mean that people still don’t want to shop,” Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation Director of Operations Nicole Underwood said.
Last year the Roosevelt Row CDC started an initiative called “Vampire Hours” to encourage businesses to stay open later so people can enjoy a positive shopping experience once the sun goes down, Underwood said. Underwood said getting people used to experiencing the city at different hours of the evening is a cultural shift and important in helping to create a community that is vibrant year-round.
“People still live, eat, work and play in downtown Phoenix, so the whole city doesn’t empty,” Underwood said. “It just goes through a transition.”
However, some businesses still do feel the negative impact of summer. John Sagasta, the owner of Melt and Jobot Coffee and Dining, said students probably make about 20 percent of his business.
“All the students leave (for summer),” Sagasta said. “It’s a pretty big difference.”
Still, Sagasta said he is able to manage this kind of an off season by knowing less people will be coming to his businesses and preparing for that when the weather is good.
“You just make sure you don’t go out and buy a Hummer or anything like that,” Sagasta said.
Short Leash Hot Dogs will be experiencing its second summer on Roosevelt Row this year. Co-Owner Kat Moore said Short Leash had a really nice summer last year, and are hoping for the same this year.
“We actually do really well because we have a large group of children that like to eat hot dogs that go to The Children’s Museum (of Phoenix) and they come visit us,” Moore said.
The new group of businesses in DeSoto Central Market on Roosevelt Row will experience their first summer in the area this year. DeSoto, which opened about a month ago, offers a variety of restaurant concepts and has a market for groceries, Celine Rille, the creative director for DeSoto, said. Business so far has been off the charts, and businesses had lines around the block during opening weekend, she said.
“We have a bar, we have a coffee shop, we have all these different restaurants,” Rille said. “We’re expecting a lot of people to be just hanging out there (during the summer).”
DeSoto will have a lot of fun programming and activities, Rille said. Corn hole, ping pong and tether ball are on the patio, and there will potentially be live music, she said.
The Roosevelt Row CDC announced last week that new solar powered shade “trees” will be put up near Carly’s Bistro and The Nash and in a pocket park on Third and Roosevelt streets just in time for summer.
At the Arizona Science Center, business during the summer is great, said Michele Meyer, the center’s public relations and promotions manager. The Arizona Science Center sees high attendance from February to August due in part to field trips and “snow birds,” she said.
Meyer said many people do “staycations” because they can’t afford to go on expensive trips, instead staying at home or at a resort and coming to the science center for a unique experience.
“We do have a huge amount of people that come through the summer who stay all day from 10:00 to 5:00,” Meyer said.
Each year, the science center has three to four traveling exhibitions, she said. “Grossology”, a family-friendly exhibition that pertains to the body will be featured from May 23 to Sept. 7.
At the Phoenix Art Museum, attendance doesn’t necessarily decrease, but rather the demographic of the attendees shifts, said Kali Caldwell, the museum’s assistant visitor services supervisor.
“In the summer we have a lot more tourists coming, especially from foreign countries,” Caldwell said. “We also have a lot of families come to the museum with kids on summer vacation.”
All year, the art museum has scavenger hunts and brochures for families to map their way around, Caldwell said.
Downtown hotels, like the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel and the Hotel Palomar, offer packages to help promote business in the summer.
At the downtown Sheraton, packages can revolve around baseball, theater or concerts, said Dan Boyer, the Sheraton’s director of sales and marketing. The Sheraton’s biggest disadvantage is that they don’t have resort amenities, Boyer said, so they have to get creative with their packaging.
At the Hotel Palomar this summer, people can choose between two different packages, Niels Vuijsters, the hotel’s general manager, said.
“As time goes, we (are) making these packages more approachable for ‘staycationers,’ ” Vuijsters said.
July is one of the busiest months for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, said airport spokeswoman Heather Lissner.
“We have a lot of people that travel for July 4,” Lissner said. “It’s summer travel. Kids aren’t in school, (people) like to take summer vacation outside of Phoenix.”
People come to Phoenix as well, Lissner said. The resorts have specials, people come in for conferences, and there are Phoenix travel deals.
At the Phoenix Convention Center, summer is normally a slow period, said John Chan, the convention center’s executive director. It’s harder for the convention center to book business in the summer because of the climate, Chan said.
“However, there are some groups that are more price sensitive, and so by being more competitive on pricing … the climate is not as much of an issue to them,” Chan said.
Chan was also a director for two and a half years at the Phoenix Community and Economic Development Department. He said the expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center, completed in 2008, and other investments made downtown during the mid-2000s, such as the ASU downtown campus and the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, prevented a drastic drop off during the summer.
“If you go back several decades, downtown Phoenix after 5:00 or in the summer time was very quiet and not a whole lot of activity,” Chan said.
Chan said people come to downtown Phoenix as a result of seeing the exposure from big events like the Super Bowl.
Downtown Phoenix Inc. is a community development group that promotes the continued revival of downtown. The group is active all summer promoting downtown restaurants and First Friday events, David Krietor, the president and CEO of the group, said.
“(Fewer people in the area during the summer) historically has been a problem in downtown, but it’s gotten appreciably better in recent years,” Krietor said.
Krietor said Downtown Phoenix Inc. has been aggressive about promoting downtown for a long time.
“I see (the summer) as an opportunity to grow and an opportunity to support our community when you see shifts it the weather,” Underwood said. “It’s no different than another major city that has tornadoes or has more rain or more snow.”
Contact the reporter at haley.bosselman@asu.edu
