PREVIOUSLY

• Arcata May Be Getting a Friday Night Market of Its Own for Three Days in September

• Humboldt Made Dishes on the New Arcata-Based Friday Night Market, Which in All Likelihood is Coming This September

Humboldt Made’s Friday Night Market is officially coming to Arcata after a unanimous vote during the city council meeting last night.

Rosa Dixon, the director of Humboldt Made, made her case to an enthusiastic city council, who highlighted the fun and the money the Friday Night Markets will bring to Arcata. It’ll be very similar to the Eureka Friday Night Market, complete with a beer garden, live music and dozens of vendors (though not quite as many as in Eureka). Businesses on the Plaza would also have the option to open a booth for the market. 

Humboldt Made predicted over 5,000 attendees for the markets, which will run every Friday night in September from 5-8 p.m., except on Sep. 19, when the North Country Fair is running. 

“The ‘why’ is really to celebrate Arcata,” said Assistant City Manager Tabatha Miller, “Our culture and our local offerings, and to give the opportunity to support our local economy and local businesses, feature Humboldt products, welcome Cal Poly students back…It’s really just to highlight everything wonderful about Arcata.”

The city council agreed to pay Humboldt Made three stipends of $2,500 each to help pay for the infrastructure costs, like toilets, security, stage, and sound. The City will be responsible for closing the streets around the Plaza, cleaning up beforehand, and coordinating public safety. Miller estimated those expenses will cost around $2,000 per market, for a total cost of $13,500, paid for by funds set aside for economic development. Humboldt Made covers whatever’s left over.

There will be some methods used to throttle the amount of waste. Dixon said a hired team will sort garbage and recycling. Although the Eureka Friday Night Market uses single-use plastic cups (Dixon said the Eureka Police Department needs to be able to see what’s inside), the Arcata Friday Night Market will use the same re-usable metal beverage cups from OysterFest.

There will be a strong focus on attracting Cal Poly Humboldt students, who will have their own “welcome area,” and Dixon said she will attempt to convince CPH officials to run a shuttle back-and-forth from campus to the Plaza during the events. 

“The energy and community that comes together for this event — I’ve never seen anything like it in Humboldt County,” Dixon said. “The idea is to spread that incredible passion that the artists have, the artisans have, the food vendors have, the local businesses and the community into Arcata is so exciting to me.”

Nicer Hotels?

Assistant City Manager Tabatha Miller presented a staff report to the council about the potentially invigorating effects a Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenue sharing program could have on the city’s hotel stock. 

Arcata makes a fair bit of money from its TOT, the 10% tax travelers pay when they stay in a hotel or an Airbnb; Miller estimated that Arcata earned about $1.6 million from the TOT during the last fiscal year.

Arcata only has one hotel outside the Valley West area, the Hotel Arcata on the Plaza, and many travelers choose to stay outside the city; Miller even noted that even city consultants often choose to stay in Eureka. Though expenses to open more hotels or revamp others that could use a facelift would be huge, a revenue-sharing program could make it a little more attractive to build some more.

Miller shared some examples of how a few other California cities like Temecula and Dublin do it: a hotelier applies to the program, and the government calculates the average TOT they generated over a period of a few years. The owners dump money into making their hotel nicer, and if they end up generating more tax money than before, the city pays a percentage of that extra money back to them to help defray the expenses. There are also plenty of deadlines developers have to meet to keep things moving quickly.

Incentives to build new hotels work slightly differently because they don’t have a base TOT, so Miller said the council would likely have to prioritize one or the other. 

There’s already at least one interested party; Miller said the owners of the old Fairwinds Motel on G Street have approached Arcata about partnering to help redevelop the old property (“It is, quite frankly, an eyesore,” Miller said) into a sleek, 27-room hotel called “The ‘Jack.”

All of the council members said they were excited about the idea of getting some more hotels outside Valley West.

“I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with folks since I’ve been serving the last four and a half years wanting more hotels in the downtown area,” councilmember Stacy Atkins-Salazar said. “I’m very much in favor of exploring this.”