1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Todd Ogden with Downtown Lincoln Association Cont.: December 4, 11:25am

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Ogden talks about how they continue to add to the downtown area.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On the break, we're talking two-fits, talking soup. Best soup in downtown. Vak, you're a soup guy? Occasionally, I wouldn't say enough to participate too much in this discussion. Downtown soup. If somebody says, I'm a soup guy. Where do I go-go-to soup is clam chowder or corn chowder at Laslos. To find a good corn chowder is that's a big one.

Yeah. That's a big win. If you need really good, yesterday I had, I had the chicken and dumplings from sweet, sweet things by Marcy, right over here. And Marcy, I believe she's a wizard. Like, she puts, I want to say that these are old spells, herbs and spices that she puts together and makes the soup. And that and she made, she left some cupcakes, which is also the big win. We had a phone. call, Jason called in and had a question for us. Convention, convention center and projects around. What can we talk about? What can we say? What do we know about downtown convention center projects? Yeah. We are currently underway with trying to achieve our goal and need of getting a downtown

convention center. I'll fast forward as quickly today. today is possible, but it really starts with around 2019 and then just after COVID, we did a couple studies to show, okay, first of all, what is the need for a convention center? Can downtown support one? Do we, how much space do we have? And I love that study because said, you have an amazing downtown, but you also of the downtowns like yours, have the least amount of convention space and don't have that center. So it said, okay, there is a need. The second one was more of a market analysis. This is what it would potentially cost to build one.

This is how big it potentially would be. And this is how much of the market you're missing. We're missing 70% of the market, regional market that could come here, but they can't because they don't have the space. And this is the capital city. So having that, moving forward, there was a group of called Assembly Lincoln that is led by Senator Bostar. He's the chair of that group and put some legislation together and then put a committee

together that is now under the Lancaster County and Sean Flourde is the county rep on there and they've both been great leaders to figure out okay where to the next step so we worked with a consultant legends and populace and helped us whittled down locations and location was decided uh about six months ago to be a location that's just east of the Cornhusker hotel actually there's a full block there So location has been set. And now it's about figuring out how to get that capital stack put together, how to get the funding mechanism. And once that is achieved, then you start designing what it's going to look like at that space and building it. So we're excited.

We just got to keep that ball moving, keep really positive about the need. And the community has been really receptive of the need for that. And we're excited to get this convention center going. And we need it. especially for the core of downtown too here. I mean, the amount of, it will be a huge catalyst. You're going to see so many more businesses or buildings pop up around this area because you're going to have visitors on weekdays and during the day.

And that's something you miss sometimes. When you have, I'm going back to if you have a 24-7 downtown, when you were at 8 to 5 downtown, people here at 8, 12, and 5. They were big clumps. It was great then. But then after that, before that, no, not as much. Now we have that consistent flow, but I want those big bumps. And that convention center allows that for people when they're coming here,

they're going to walk out of that convention center, and they're going to have an awesome experience in downtown. And they're going to support these local businesses and make them that much easier for them to thrive. And that's what I want more than anything. What professionals need to be assembled? What superheroes need to be assembled to make this happen? So for this, it's, it has county, it has senator reps. It has a governor rep. It has a

Congressman Flood rep on there. So it's really getting all parties together to figure out how to get it done. And right now, it's about what financing mechanism you use. So trying to figure out how to do that and how to get the funds to get us started. And that's where we're at right now is figuring out, can we get across that finish line and get that financing. mechanism going um going back before we go for we'll go back uh cigar guy says my daughter is in the lincoln southeast band so she did veterans day parade we realized it was the first time our 15 year old son had ever been to a parade um he goes that's wild i get the businesses need business but parade is a community proud event more so than anything your thoughts yeah i i agree like the community pride needs to be there and i guess my point is for us to produce something would be at a downtown scale. I think it's going to be a full Lincoln community-wide deal if you're doing a

parade because it's about all of Lincoln. So we'd be a piece of that. So it would really take a lot of groups to put that together. And for that pride, too, so for example, what I would love, and we've done this before. So let's, hey, let's get that Southeast band at the North Pole here. We're turning Tower Square over at 13th and P. If you go by there, you got that big spire in the middle. That's our North Pole.

So we've gotten an event that is our holiday event. They're called Santa's Landing, which is going to be on December 14th from five to seven. And we'll have Santa there. The Grinch will be there. There's going to be coffee there. There's going to be hot chocolate there. There's all these lights. And we've had carolers there before.

But that's another opportunity. So what other opportunities can we see? Can we continue to grow that where maybe you do close the street down and you have bands line up and then you finish at Tower Square? That kind of thing is wanting to look. Let's start right here in the core and build off and grow from there. I would love to see it. And again, a parade like that deserves kind of citywide focus from all sorts of groups,

and we'd be on board to join them. I just think it's interesting, right? Because part of why it's important for us to have these regular conversations because we get these ideas and we get people who get inspired. And then, of course, you never know who's listening. And then they take it and run with the next thing you know, you've got this thing that you actually needed that was good for everybody. And it becomes a part of it.

You have a core group of businesses that are doing exciting things, and it's hard to isolate and pick particular businesses, but there may be events that would allow you to highlight and showcase some downtown businesses. Who comes to mine? Oh, right now, if I wanted to take a couple to highlight, it would really be, especially our retailers right now. It's shopping season, so we have so many good,

unique retailers and the hay market and in the core of downtown as well. Like I said, we just had shop the blocks and we've had a lot of mainstays be downtown for a long, long time. And they're downtown like threads and a novel idea bookstore, Sue Roo and Lincoln running company. And they know what they're doing. And they have really active, unique offerings and a unique atmosphere. And so those are definitely the types of businesses that we want to highlight right now,

especially shopping local during this holiday season is so, so important. And we have so many cool local gems there. So those retailers, to me at this season, that's the most important part. And, you know, you have, then the Haymarket has different kind of offerings as well, where you have like a three-daughters boutique, Burlington Antiques, and Big Red Shop, and you have all sorts of fun stuff that gives you kind of those gifty ideas as well. So each atmosphere downtown has different offerings. And if you just go to our website on downtown lincoln.org and go to shopping, you can see all of the unique local business.

You'll be like, oh, wow, I didn't realize there were this many shops. And that's a lot of places I can find really cool discounts for. I can find really cool gift ideas for. And it's a surprisingly amount of offerings for people that don't know because you're not seeing all of these ads everywhere on the TV because you're getting those from the chains. The local businesses don't have as big a marketing budget. So we've got to help promote them and support them as much as possible. Like this is a big part of sustaining businesses in downtown, holiday season, holiday shopping, getting friends and family into these small shops.

Don't just, if you're going to buy Husker stuff, come to downtown. There are places to get those where it means so much more to the community and for downtown to have you shop at those stores instead, right? It's a big deal. Are there any numbers that you could give to say? what Christmas shopping does for downtown Lincoln? It helps sustain those unique local businesses. If those businesses don't have healthy holiday seasons,

and they all vary on what percentage of sales they rely on in holiday seasons, some are up to 80% of their annual sales are during the holiday season. Right. It's so vital and so important. Radio, we're kind of seasonal, but we do a pretty good job of, leveling out. But I want to use this as an amplifier. I want to, let's get the word out that. There are some exceptional shops, locally owned, locally managed, where the money stays in Lincoln. The people are, you're not buying it and the money goes to Chicago. You're not buying it. Money goes to New York. These are your friends. These are family members. And I think we can help

do a better job of getting those stories out there. Let's name the shops. Let's name the families that are involved by local is not just a marketing phrase it is literally how downtown lincoln survives yeah like i i i just i i find it interesting that um walking through downtown and you see it's easy to go to the big shop but the mom and pop shops yeah it's it's important in every category too so and that's you say you get a lot of people telling us what they want and sometimes they say what they want. Then if you don't support it, you don't get it. Uh, our big white whale for a long, long time, especially as we were getting more and more residence was a grocery store. Yeah. And that's an example of where, you know, we need to support places like canopy street market. Uh, so if they're

successful, they can stay and be strong. And they have really, really, I think people are surprised, if you go to any downtown grocery store, you feel like you're going to have a marked up item where you're paying a premium. These are the exact same prices here, which is, which is amazing. And, again, we have our co-op out in Telegraph District as well. So we have bookend brochures at each side of downtown. And we need to support them so they can stay. And that's the type of things we want to do to make sure that we can prove if you build it or if you start a business here, you will succeed. So we can get more of that in different areas.

And all of this concept is about support. Like it really is, connection and support that we will help each other all. all do do better by simply highlighting one other one final text before we go to this break uh texer says i was a drummer in a small how small town high school band in the late 90s and we used to march in the city the star city parade when did that go away um wasn't it televised on on any two it was i believe it was televised on 10 11 uh and the last year of the parade i believe was 2010 and And that went away after because it was just losing a lot of money. And the funding wasn't there.

The sponsorship kind of dried up. So again, that's really where it shows a community response. The first thing is it takes a lot of money to kind of achieve that. So if you have kind of community people say, hey, we have these sponsors that want to bring this back. That's one piece of the pie. And then a lot of is logistics on what streets do you close down? How much do you close down?

When is it? How many bands can we get involved in here and have that opportunity? And it's really hard, too, because if you rely just on one event, so that you, the group up downtowners that put it together at the time, that's a lot of eggs in one basket for a weather event. So they had a canceled parade one year. They lost hundreds of thousands of dollars that even with weather insurance. It's tough. So it's, there's a lot of logistics that go into it, but doesn't mean you shouldn't do things that have those logistics. So again, it really comes from the amount of community input to want to put something together like that to

have it be achieved. But it was I have a feeling your email is going to blow up. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I don't think we go a month without people saying something about a parade, bringing that back. We love a parade. That's why there's a song. Todd Ogden, Downtown Lincoln Association will take a break and come back to final segment. I want to ask more about some of the seasonal holiday events that are going on in downtown because this is, I mean, it's starting to look at it. I love when the lights go up.

It's kind of the signal to the holiday season. We want to ride the holiday season hard. We want to be inclusive and allowing folks to come in. and share what what means the most to them and what's happening in downtown lincoln we'll be right back