Northam eighty-sixes restaurants’ hope for Memorial Day reopening; city looks ahead

On Monday night’s Manassas City Council meeting, Assistant Development Director Nicole Smith addressed elected leaders with an update on what the Economic Development Department is doing to help city businesses.

On May 29, Northern Virignia, to include Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, are poised to enter the first phase of a reopening plan laid out by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam that would allow restaurants to begin offering outside dining, operating at 50% capacity.

Ultimately, the decision to allow the city to reopen will be made by the governor who, on Friday, hinted at issuing a mandatory policy that would require all Virginians to wear facemasks. An announcement on his plan is expected on Tuesday, May 26.

Today, the governor declined requests from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and the Manassas City Council, which asked to allow restaurants with outside dining to reopen at 50% capacity for the Memorial Day Weekend.

“We are in frequent communication with leaders in those localities, and will have more information next week,” said Northam.

In the meantime, restaurants may still continue to fill take-out orders while their dining areas remain shuttered. Stafford County and points south (with the exception of Richmond City and Accomack County on the Eastern Shore) entered the first phase of reopening a week ago.

As the city readies to welcome back shoppers and diners to its downtown shops later this month, Smith explained that the Department has been targeting likes on Facebook to make sure their message is getting out in a timely manner. They have placed ads on Facebook so people know that there are opportunities for them.

Smith said that their enhanced marketing efforts came to about $30,000 in their existing resources. According to their marketing firm, they saw a doubling of their followers and likes.

None of the city’s advertising budget has been spent on local media or marketing firms. Since the start of the pandemic, as businesses were forced to close and the advertising that supports publications dries up, local news outlets like Insidenova and Prince William Times have resorted to posting messages on their websites, asking readers to voluntarily chip-in to keep local news coming.

According to an email from Patrick Small, Manassas’s Economic Development Director, “All of our Department advertising funds are expended using primarily [Facebook] and Google.”

Manassas ended an advertising agreement with Potomac Local News in July 2019. Potomac Local News launched a paid reader subscription program in 2018 to help offset the effects of declining advertising revenues.

Smith also noted that they did a business survey with over a hundred responses from businesses across the city.

According to the city website:

On March 26, in the early days of the pandemic, the City put out a survey to gauge the impacts of COVID-19 so we could develop a strategic approach to dealing with the crisis. Here are a few of the findings from that survey (126 respondents) most of which were small businesses in the retail, food service, and health and medical service industries:

Over 80% reported that COVID-19 social distancing measures have been “very to extremely disruptive” to their business.

Nearly three quarters have experienced a loss in revenue of 50% or more.

Half of respondents said they have laid off employees or are considering doing so in the near future.

Smith added that the Department worked with the Prince William Chamber of Commerce to lobby state and federal officials to help a small business that was having a hard time qualifying for a program.

Smith said one of the silver linings from the crisis is that they have seen so much good in Manassas, and they want to focus on hope.

The Department is rolling out a hashtag they are hoping to use that focuses on hope, #ManassasStrong. The Department will also be making window clings that say “Stronger Together! We’re Glad You’re Back!” for offices, stores, and the fire department and put them up on windows across the city.

Vice Mayor Pamela Sebesky asked how much effort there had been done to businesses outside of Downtown Manassas. Economic Development Director Patrick Small said he had heard from people that it looked like their marketing emphasized Historic Downtown.

Patrick Small explained that very little of their marketing was downtown specific with the exception of the rent relief program that HMI was able to taken advantage because they were a Main Street community, and the 15-minute parking – none of it was downtown specific.

“We have not told people to come to downtown,” Small said, “Now I think downtown has built up in this community a tremendous amount of goodwill – over the past number of years, and I think they’re reaping the rewards of that goodwill. People are spending money in downtown, perhaps more than they are around the rest of the city, but I think that’s that sense of community that Nicole spoke about. But our residents are reaching out, they are supporting businesses city-wide.”

“I think that’s going to blunt some of the damage that is still going to be done, but may not hit this community as hard as it hits others,” Small said.

Sebesky also asked about mask usage and efforts for safety being put in place by businesses. Small said that as they start to reopen they will be publishing resources on their website.

“The information that we’re given that is relevant to these businesses, we are going to push out.” Small said that whereas before they were posting information about where to get help, now they will be sharing information on how to re-open safely and how consumers can interact with businesses safely. Sebesky said she mentioned this because of talking to other elected officials who want to emphasize mask-wearing and there is a conversation in Northern Virginia about wanting to see large scale efforts as part of the re-opening in Northern Virginia. “Our business owners have that concern as well,” Small said. “The businesses are very cognizant that they may lose people who come in if their servers aren’t wearing masks in restaurants.”

Small added, “I think we should give them a lot of credit, they’re thinking about these things.