File/Brenda Dowd of Makt Arts is holding an exploratory meeting to determine if Ventnor should have a business association.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
VENTNOR – A local businesswoman has planned an exploratory breakfast meeting for area business owners 8:15 a.m. Monday, Nov. 8 to determine if they should form a business association. The meeting will be held at North Beach Café & Creamery, 5216 Atlantic Ave. at the corner of Atlantic and Little Rock avenues.
Brenda Dowd, owner of Makt Arts on Ventnor Avenue in the North Beach Business District, said she is interested in finding out if there is enough interest in forming an association. Past efforts to form a business association were tried, lasted a few months or years, but eventually failed.
“We need to know if there is enough interest with all the new businesses in town to form a business association,” she said. “We will have this exploratory meeting to determine what their issues are and if an association can help. If we don’t have the support of the merchants, there’s no sense forming an association.”
Dowd said there was a Ventnor Business Association when she opened her art studio and gallery in 2018. Although a few breakfast meetings and some events held, interest dwindled.
“It was coming into the summer when all the merchants are very busy, which is understandable,” she said.
The city had also set aside some funds for the association to conduct beach concerts. When the association fell by the wayside, the city took over the concerts through its Special Events division, currently headed by Emergency Management Coordinator Donna Peterson.
Dowd said neighboring Margate has a successful business association with a large board of directors and paid administrator. In addition to conducting its own fund raisers in support of the association and the community, the Margate Business Association receives financial support from the City of Margate to fund some of its well-attended special events, including Beachstock and the Fall Funfest by the Bay.
“That city sees the value in it,” Dowd said. “We need to show Ventnor it is a worthy effort.”
Dowd said groups of Ventnor businesses are isolated in four separate business districts and that the needs of each area differ.
“North Beach Ventnor is not the same as the Dorset Avenue Business District in the Heights or the Central Business District. At this point it is incohesive and we have no central (information) distribution center,” she said. “We need to know if its even possible to bring everyone together to make things better.”
Dowd said she would like to see streetscapes enhanced like the city did on Atlantic Avenue in the North Beach Business District.
“It’s not pretty like that in other business districts,” she said.
Dowd said she has been a member of Chambers of Commerce in other locales, and “they are very beneficial.”
If the business owners agree to form a new business association, it should be set up for success, she said.
“I just want a strong Ventnor with the ability to have residents and businesses succeed. Unless we support one another, that won’t happen.”
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