Old Buildings, New Attitudes

Get rewarded for shopping in Downtown Lees Summit this holiday season! Make sure to hold on to your receipts while you shop for SPARKLING gifts for everyone on your list between November 14th and December 24th. For every $50 you spend in Downtown retail stores, you can enter to win one of five $100 shopping sprees to be given away. The $50 can come from one store, or a combination of several stores.

Once your shopping is complete, take your Downtown receipts to A Thyme for Everything (231 SE Main Street). Your receipts will then be marked and you will receive an entry form to fill out. It is just as simple as that! Winners will be drawn on December 26th. Downtown Lees Summit Main Street Gift Checks can be used at any DLSMS business.

The Traditional Holiday Open House will be Friday, November 7th through Sunday, November 9th.  Downtown stores will be decked out for the holidays.  Need some new decorating ideas?  Stop by a home decor store to see what’s new for Holiday 2008.  Need the perfect outfit for all those holiday parties?  You’re sure to find something unique at our specialty clothing stores and boutiques.  Need a great gift?  You’ll find gifts that SPARKLE at over 40 retail stores.  And participating stores will be holding drawings for SPARKLING items on Saturday, November 8th. 

Don’t forget about Downtown Lee’s Summit Gift Certificates.  These are perfect for those hard to shop for friends and family members.  Downtown Lee’s Summit Gift Certificates can be purchased at the Bank of Lee’s Summit, 210 SW Main Street.

Thanks to the 500 kids and their parents who came Downtown for the 2008 Halloween Parade!  Also a BIG thank you to our volunteer judges: JR Buckner with First Community Bank, David Rawitch of Teeth Whitening Studio, and Amy Robertson with Cameron’s Home Furnishings.  Nancy Bruns of the Chamber of Commerce also made a guest appearance as The Witch - she looked amazing and did such a great job!  Thank you to Mary Pechar with Green Beauty for finding all of our great volunteers!

There were so many great costumes it was hard for our judges to choose!  But this little Lion cutie won Best Boy Costume…

If you couldn’t make it this year, save the date for next year!  Saturday, October 31st!

Kids put on your favorite costume and head downtown this weekend for the Downtown Lee’s Summit Halloween Parade!  This Saturday, October 25th is THE favorite Fall event.  Almost 40 stores will be handing out candy this year, and we even have a DJ playing kid-friendly Halloween music in Howard Station Park.

Line-up starts at 9:30 am at City Hall, 220 SE Green Street.  At 10:00 am kids will parade up Third Street lead by a guest Witch!  The costume parade ends at Howard Station Park on SE Main Street.  Awards will be handed out for best boy, best girl, and best group costumes.  Then everyone will be handed a map of the 40 stores participating in the trick-or-treating.  What a fun, safe way to celebrate Halloween!

For more information about Downtown Lee’s Summit events, be sure to check our website: www.downtownls.org.

Save the Date!!!  Our annual Piccadilly Gala is scheduled for Thursday, September 18th, 6-10 pm at the Pavilion at John Knox Village.  The theme for this year’s ladies night out and auction is “Fire and Ice.”

Our ticket sales kick-off is this Thursday, August 14th from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm on the back patio at Beauchamp’s on the Rail (corner of 3rd & Douglas).  Tickets are $50 each, or $400 for a round table of 8.  Not only will you be able to buy your tickets, but we’ll have appetizers and signature “Fire and Ice” martini samples.  Want a ticket but can’t make it out Thursday evening?  Just call the DLSMS office.

Well I’m a little late with the follow-up on this post so I apologize.  Let’s take another look at the old Baker’s Department Store on Third Street.

We only had one guess - and that person was right!  After taking off the aluminum siding and totally redoing the inside of the building, Cameron’s was born.

It’s a pretty amazing transformation, isn’t it!?!  In an article we have from the Lee’s Summit Journal dated August 6, 1997, Doreen Rhodus (the previous owner) described all the work that went into rehabbing this building.  She talked about stripping the floors and taking down plaster to uncover the brick walls.  Asked why she wanted to buy a building that required all this work she said “I wanted character and downtown is the only place you can find it.”

Did you make it downtown on Saturday (July 26th) for the Sidewalk Sale?  It was packed pretty early and there seemed to be quite a few people downtown all day.  And people seemed to be buying a lot and getting great deals - I know I did!

Thanks to all of the businesses that participated.  I also want to give a BIG thank you to our intern Stacy.  This is her last week with us and we are so sad to see her go.  She is graduating from the University of Central Missouri with a double major in tourism and Spanish.  She has been so fun to work with and is an incredibly hard worker!  The Sidewalk Sale was her event to plan and she did an amazing job!

I stopped by City Hall this morning to check out the Chapungu sculptures now featured outside in the gardens.  According to this article, Tom Lovell of the LS Parks & Recreation Department contacted Powell Gardens about featuring a few of the sculptures at City Hall.

We are so privileged to have this amazing art displayed right here in Downtown Lee’s Summit!  Powell Gardens is featuring over 50 of these world-reknowned sculptures right now - I went a couple of weeks ago and they were truly amazing.  Make sure to visit www.powellgardens.org to learn more about these sculptures.

Sarah

We had a few old photos sitting around of this building on Third Street.  This time, though, I’m only going to show you a few ‘before’ shots.  The photos were scanned and aren’t the best quality, but see if you can guess the building/business by posting in the comments section.  Both photographs were taken around 1994.  Later this week, I’ll show the ‘after’ pictures and you can see if you were right! 

Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street has moved its office!  We’ve spent the past couple of weeks gradually packing, and now we are officially moved!  While we still have boxes to unpack and our old office to clean up a bit, for the most part we are up and running again in our new space.

Here are a few pictures of our old office as we started our move last Friday (July 25th).  The movers had to go all the way down that long staircase…not an easy task!

We are so happy for Alona & Ralph Johnson that they have sold their building and are starting their retirement, but we will definitely miss them.  The new owner is planning on renovating the upstairs into his office, and will most likely rent the first floor.

Although sad to leave our old office behind, we are excited about our new space.  We are now located above Bike America in the Douglas Street Business Center.  Our new landlords, the Alberts, have been great to us and painted all the walls for us before we moved in.  The movers finished yesterday (Sunday) so we’ve spent most of today trying to get settled.  I have a feeling it will take us awhile!  Here are some ‘work-in-progress’ shots of our new space - the first one is of our conference room and the second one is Jeanine’s office.

It’s really nice that we each have our own office space.  Plus we all have windows and beautiful brick walls!  We love that once again we can showcase how the second floor of an historic building can be used as a beautiful office space!  Once we have everything in place, I’ll post more pictures. 

Sarah