“Party on Park” back on for Saturday of Memorial Day weekend

by Dan McClelland

Plans are moving ahead for the merchants in the uptown business district to be able to celebrate the arrival of the summer tourist season with their “Party on Park” on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Last week’s village board meeting saw the arrival of a path forward for the retail event.

At the March village board meeting Mayor Paul Maroun invited representatives of the chamber of commerce and the uptown retail community to explain the importance of closing two blocks of Park Street and two blocks of Cliff Ave. for the mall-like event first celebrated here in 2019.

Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland, who is currently interim chamber of commerce president, opened the discussion Wednesday.

He said for years from his perch on the second floor of the Free Press he has watched the Memorial Day traffic pour through the uptown business district on its way to destinations around the North Country, but seldom stopping here.

Mr. McClelland said Tupper Lake’s summer tourist season doesn’t really kick into high gear until mid- to late-June, once school gets out.

“So I’ve been talking in recent weeks with some of our new Park Street retailers- Garrett Kopp, Josh Mclean and my daughter-in-law Faith McClelland” about reviving their Memorial Day Saturday ‘Party on Park’ to stop some of those tourists flowing through here in town for a time.

“They would like to re-enact what in 2019 was a very successful event where the two blocks of the uptown business district on Park Street was closed to vehicular traffic. They were able to draw a number of exhibitors and vendors to join them on the street from around the area and they were able to make some money that Saturday, after a very long winter.

“That year, for the first time perhaps ever, Tupper Lake really benefitted from the Memorial Day traffic!”

He told the village leaders “that it is high time our community begins to think out of the box a bit to garner more tourist trade- and do things we haven’t done before to boost our local economy!”

Mr. McClelland said they were also fortunate that evening to have Joe Sciortino in attendance that evening to explain what can and cannot be done with a section of state highway- as the two block section of the business district is. Mr. Sciortino is a new Tupper Lake resident. He is the state Department of Transportation’s new Franklin County resident engineer, who succeed Rob Haynes last year.

Garrett Kopp, the founder of Birch Boys, was the first local retailer to speak Wednesday.

“Obviously my business has changed over the years. The relevance of this to me is not quite as strong for me now, as it was the year (2019) when I helped get this event started,” he began.

Mr. Kopp’s Birch Boys online retail and wholesale company and its many chaga and other products is now headquartered in the former Tupper Brewery building on Cliff Ave.

He said Josh Mclean, who manages the Adirondack Store in the former Ginsberg building “has really taken over the reins of its planning and pushing it forward!”

“My point in being here is to explain to you guys what the event means to us financially to do this event,” he told the village board members.

“If you were to take your average day of retail sales in the month of May, compared with what we did in 2019 during ‘Party on Park,’ the retail sales in the Adirondack Store was six times higher.”

He said his Birch Boys company, when it was located in the Adirondack Store, saw its sales jump by 300% over a normal day.

Mr. Kopp said he spoke with Russ Cronin, who was in 2019 the co-owner with David Tomberlin of Well Dressed Food when the two blocks were closed. They saw three times their average daily sales during “Party on Park.”

“It was a really, really awesome event for all of us!”

Josh Mclean said going forward they would like to see that happen again every Memorial Day weekend “and want to know tonight how to best work with the village to make that happen.”

“We’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it easy for the village to let us do this every year- and to see that it is always done the right way!”

“Having the street closed that day draws many to that area to check out our event!”

Mr. Mclean said when the state highway is open to vehicular traffic that Saturday- as it is every other day of the year- “people just drive right through out town.”

He said the pedestrian mall-style setting of their event catches the eyes of families passing through the uptown business district that day, and coaxes them to stop and shop.

The young businessman said the first year they staged the event it was an unbridled success. In 2022 when they weren’t permitted to have the two blocks of Park Street closed, it was celebrated instead on the two blocks of the village-owned Cliff Ave., “but it wasn’t as successful.”

Cliff Ave. likely won’t be closed for the event this year, if the retailers can win permission from the village board and the state DOT to close the two blocks of Park Street.

He said the Cliff Ave. site didn’t produce the impact that the event saw when Park Street was closed in 2019.

“The whole point of the event” is showcasing the owners of the various renovated businesses on the Park Street business strip and their investments and upgrades there.

“We want to showcase those businesses and not hinder them in any way,” Josh said of the event’s primary mission.

The two men brought with them a list of about 15 business owners or operators in favor of returning the event to a closed two-block stretch of Park Street.

Mr. Mclean said he was aware of only one business owner against it and that business wasn’t even located on Park Street. The objection involved using Cliff Ave. for the event- as the retailers did last year.

He said that in 2019 even some of the non-retail businesses in the two blocks put out tables that Saturday with brochures or other products to promote their businesses.

Rachel King, owner of Earth Girl Designs, said last year’s event generated three and one half times the sales of a normal Saturday. “It certainly helped us kick off our summer with money for inventory and materials. It generated a significant amount of money for us. It was a great event for us!”

Her partner, Artisan Brandon Cooke of The Crystal Forest Gems remembered he received a number of custom orders that day from visitors passing though the area. “It got people in our shop where they learned there was a silversmith there to help them.”

He said that relative rush of customers that day, seeking his specially crafted items, was both surprising and welcome.

“I typically don’t see more than one person a day come in and ask me to make them something. I saw several new people that day...it was a very good day for me!”

Garrett Kopp said there are a number of people in Tupper Lake who have craft-type businesses and who aren’t situated on Park Street that joined them those two events. “-And they did very well.”

“I can tell you I started my business going to any pop-up sales event around the region which would have me- whether it was a festival at Gore Mt. or a farmers’ market in Potsdam. Some were great while some were a waste of my time, but I needed to try them all out.”

He said the itinerant vendors who attend both “Parties on Park” all did well in sales.

Mr. Kopp said it helps generate money for them that they can re-invest in their small businesses.

Some of those people, Mr. Mclean noted, hope some day to have their own “brick and mortar” stores.

Mr. Kopp said a number of businesses in other parts of the town like Raquette River Brewing take advantage of the Park Street event to sell and promote their wares.

“We want the event to be inclusive of all our local businesses,” Mr. Mclean said was their hope.

Tupper Arts President Susan Delehanty said she remembered working at their site during the event in 2019. “We were slammed with a lot of visitors.” She said many were visitors “and they were incredulous with what they saw on Park Street that day.”

“Many told me they’d always driven by” on the Memorial Day weekends over the years, “but were never encouraged to stop- until that year! They wanted to know where they could eat, where there were other gift shops and stores.”

Mrs. Delehanty said her group was a little concerned that closing Park Street might hurt some of the businesses there who benefit by people pulling up at the curb to pick up take-out orders.

“So I asked Gary Kucipak next door, who owns Guido’s Pizzeria, if it impacted his business and he told me it ‘didn’t impact him either way, because most of my business is done with deliveries’.”

“That made me feel better that closing the two blocks didn’t negatively impact his business,” she told the village board members.

She said some of those first customers in 2019 have returned in subsequent summers after being introduced to their shop that first year.

Andrew Russell, who is one of the new owners of the Top Notch Motel on Upper Park Street and who was at the meeting on another matter, said when he and his wife Ilona are driving through a community any time with their two small children they often use events like “Party on Park” as a chance to stop, get out and let their kids stretch their legs. -And often times, he noted, he and his wife will shop a bit.

At that point the mayor took the floor for a moment and said people often ask him why Tupper Lake does not paint our main thoroughfare green like their do in Saranac Lake on St. Patrick’s Day each year.

“The main road in Saranac Lake is not a state highway, so it does not have to follow state guidelines in its main business district.”