There are multiple business associations across Long Beach–and for many, they are key in keeping their neighborhoods alive.
The Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association (BKBIA), headed by Executive Director Blair Cohn, is one of our city’s most innovative in attempting to materialize its goal of reconnecting residents to business corridors and reactivated spaces (and vice versa).
And in just five years of his tenure, Cohn has the numbers to prove it.
2011 to 2012 brought in a $400,000 budget for the BKBIA: an annual $200,000 fund from the City over a ten-year contract; $132,000 in assessment funds; and $68,000 in sponsorship and event funds. Compared to the DLBA’s $3.7 annual million budget and the Convention & Visitors Bureau’s $3+ million annual budget
The ten Kidical Mass rides are not only one-of-a-kind in Southern California, it’s most respected amongst alternative transportation groups as a non-rogue imitation of Critical Mass that encourages bikes over cars–and in turn, shows kids and their parents their neighborhood in a slower light that makes them pause to smell the Knolls.
BKBIA’s brilliant reimagining of concerts in the park created five Concerts in the Park(ing Lot), where the association specifically finds parking lots near food joints and busy streets–Dave’s Burgers on Atlantic, for example–to have residents and BYOB.
Their Strollers club has strolled some 1,000 miles. They’ve had 73 First Fridays Art Walks. 60 community happy hours. 48 Supper Club dinners. 5 Dragster and Car Shows.
On top of events, they have numbers that have actually improved accessibility and streetscapes that include 9 signs added to the 405 freeway, 85 branding sidewalk decals, and 8 landscape projects on top of 40 property paintings, 3.5 miles of repaved streets, 300 graffiti tags removed, 60 bike racks installed….
You get the point.
As the Cohn’s tenure turns the big ol’ 5 (if only we were able to achieve this much when we were 5), one can’t help but have a bit of pride that people, working in tangent, care for their hoods.
The entire annual report is below.
BKBIA by the Numbers: 5 Year Review