EP 46: Doggonomics
How do dogs figure into economic development? It's no joke. Ask the analysts who take economic vitals from man's best friend. Ask the industries that profit majorly from pet ownership. Or ask the Town of Benson, which em-barked on a dog-focused project to fetch economic bone-efits. Quartz piece connecting dogs and economic development - https://qz.com/26579/the-dog-index-what-mans-best-friend-tells-us-about-global-economic-development/ Dog elected mayor - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dog-mayor-minnesota-cormorant-duke-lassie-a7205801.html Another dog elected mayor - https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/26/dog-elected-mayor-of-kentucky-town-for-a-fourth-term/23002533/ Benson profile, Southern City magazine - https://www.nclm.org/resourcelibrary/Shared%20Documents/Southern%20City/JanFeb2017.pdf
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. The disposable income from a traveler with a pet is second, I believe, statistically only to those with a horse. Talking about economic development
with dogs. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation, a podcast about cities and towns in the face of change from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Episode 46. So it seems like every other year, we see a news story like this one.
And finally, how about this for an election year story? This dog you see here is actually the new mayor of the small village of Comerant, Minnesota.
Yes. The great Pyrenees named Duke was the overwhelming choice of the people getting a dozen more. You may have seen today. It claims a dog was just elected mayor of a Kentucky town, and it's not the first time it's happened. Guess what? It's true. Yeah. It's funny. It's great for those weird news columns.
But, you know, it's not that surprising that it happens from time to time. You know, dogs are centerpieces. They've been there for us.
The dog has served man for centuries. His progress and use have changed with the times, but always he has shown adaptability
to specific tasks. In the military field, his tactical That's from a World War II era film reel about dogs being used in the military, you know, for their reliability and the fact that they didn't ask for any pay. Good for budget. The film strip actually points that out. Loyalty and devotion to his job are commonplace with it. He asks for no reward.
A pat on the back, any little acknowledgement by his master are sufficient.
Procedures for the using branches to support Okay. But there really is a tie between dogs and the economy. Not just talking about the pet industry, which is obviously enormous. Now, a few years ago, for instance, the online publication Quartz ran a piece titled The Dog Index, What Man's Best Friend Tells Us About Global Economic Development. Basically, dog ownership can be used as an economic measure. When dog ownership rises, some analysts highlight it as a sign of economic confidence and comfort, especially when it's first time dog ownership. I mean, think about it. People figure their pets into their planning. When it comes to budgets and vacationing and and, you know, with it being such an undeniable market and people choosing to travel with their pets, it can play into the growth of things like pet friendly hotels.
Yeah. I'm excited
too. Ladies and gentlemen, start your shovels. 54321. Great ground.
Well, I think everybody knows that this is a great day for Vincent. It's okay. And we I certainly thank Joe and Adam for being willing to invest in our town. Our economic development team that has worked on this for a long time and has been faithful.
So this is tape I recorded in January 2017 in a town called Benson, North Carolina. It's about a half hour from Raleigh. I know to make sure that this has happened today It was a groundbreaking where, you know, all the people involved with a forthcoming development put on hard hats and pick up golden shovels and ceremoniously turn the first layer of dirt. People clap and shake hands and then the actual paid labor construction begins with the bulldozers and so on. In this case, in Benson, it was a hotel. And if you're thinking, so what? Well, Benson has less than 4,000 residents. It's a small town, so as far as tax base goes, a national brand hotel is a pretty big deal. A hotel positioned off the interstate as Benson is. Actually, it's off two interstates, which is a plus. But considering that, a hotel can be a pretty good anchor for additional business growth. And you know a goal is to get that flywheel effect. Just growth beginning growth. And I can make this episode one about teamwork among the public and private sectors to make a big money project a reality for a small town. Because that is what happened here in Benson. A lot of hard and creative work on part of local government with the private folks to make the project attractive and streamlined and so on. But, yeah, there's a dog angle to this. It's a little bit windy, but I'm walking over to a dog park for a ribbon cutting. So fast forward exactly one year after that hotel groundbreaking. On a freezing windy day, I'm walking to, yeah, a ribbon cutting for a dog park. It makes it a little bit different. And this dog park ends up being a pretty standout feature of this economic development effort in Benson. Surface is yet to come. What's important for Benson is the brand new hotel that's in the shadow of this park. That hotel has the potential to generate approximately $35,000
a year in bed tax. And that bed tax is really what the visitors bureau helps to promote our entire county in the Benson region. So this dog park in in tandem with the hotel is really gonna drive a lot of visitors and travelers here today. So anybody that would like to, we have State your name and, your title. Matt Zapp. I'm the town manager for the town of Benson. And how long have you been in that position? Seven and a half years.
Okay. So what's ahead is Matt Zapp giving us the quick story on how dogs are actually economic drivers and how the town of Benson put that information to good use.
Well, one day we were sitting at Char Grill and it was the purveyors of the hotel. This was probably two and a half years ago now. And it was Adam Leath and Joe Cowling who are the developers of this project. And once they secured their land, which is a 4.6 acre site, we were sitting there, looking out the window and and admiring all the cars going up and down. And we talked about what's gonna make Benson different and, having a high caliber, what they consider a top tier hotel was gonna be extremely powerful.
At the same time, a multimillion dollar racing facility was also under construction there too, and that was definitely set to bring in people from the outside. We're seeing all these cars travel down South Walton Avenue.
And Joe made a statement. Well, by the way, our hotel's gonna be pet friendly. And I said, oh, pet friendly. Tell me more about that. And he said, well, you know, I've operated hotels for forty years, and, you know, people tend to treat their their pets, equal to or better than family. And so we've always found that if we're open to folks that are traveling with pets, we just have a really strong clientele. And then I was sitting there. We looked across the way, and I said, well, Joe, where are they gonna walk their dogs? He's like, oh, man. Wouldn't it be beautiful if we had somewhere for Mhmm. For folks to walk their dogs? And they started thinking, you know, this pet friendly hotel is just off the interstate. So right near is right of way in state owned land controlled by the Department of Transportation. So I wonder if we put a quick call in the DOT if they'd be interested in letting us use that space or lease the space. And man, oh, man, that is where the conversation opened up. And they said, well, no one's ever requested this before, so let us do some research. They came back. We had a a dollar per year lease contract. The the the city itself, we've agreed to take over 100%
maintenance of all four corners of the interchange. Meanwhile, the town starts looking at other towns that developed dog parks and learned that they draw hundreds of people a day,
meaning also that their locations influence hundreds of drivers a day. They track their numbers. Their park's only an an acre large. Ours is three and a half acres. Ours is visible to the interstate, and we just today signed our billboard campaign for the next twelve months. So you're gonna have five definitive billboards driving that traffic off of Exit 79, pushing you right into that dog park. So we're excited, and and we think that two to 400 is a low estimate. We'd rather underestimate and overachieve. So we think that two to 400 cars a day in that economic conversation is is accurate or spot on.
And what impression did that put on, say, the hotel developers in terms of you, you know, being a a a good public partner to this private project?
If you ask that question, I think of Joe Collin, who has forty years in the industry, he has never once before seen the synergy between local, county, and state government as he has in Eastern North Carolina, and we are so thankful for that. We're not proud of it. We're just thankful because in our minds, that's how government should work. And there are people constant from sun up to sun down at the park. Statistically, 58,000 plus cars a day are on I 95, 43,000 cars a day are on Interstate 40, and 16,000 cars a day are getting off at our interchange, and that to us is extremely strong. That dog park fits the gap into every single component of that economic driver.
So to recap here, the personal value on pets influences things like pet friendly hotels. A small town off the interstate works to recruit a pet friendly hotel. People all day and all night are driving that interstate, many of them traveling with their pets. The town sees the opportunity to work with the state to get access to acreage adjacent to the hotel to develop into a dog park. The town taps outside contributions and tourism funding resources to pay for the park, including a grant from the county visitors bureau. Interstate travelers will ideally pick this Hampton Inn and Benson as a stopping point anyway, but bonus if they have their dog with them. The dog park seals the deal. They stay overnight. They generate occupancy tax revenue for the town. The hotel does good business. It anchors new business. Things grow. Oh, and the amount of property tax money that went into this park's development? Zero. Ready?
Alright. Here we go. Three, two, one.
Thanks for listening. This was a quicker episode than usual. That's because I'm in the workshop putting together a lot of future episodes. Some really good ones ahead, but also to experiment with some new stuff. I put out a solicitation for feedback recently. One person said do longer episodes, which I don't think is likely. Another person said do shorter episodes. So here you go. Another person requested more episodes with women in leadership and innovation. That's definitely on the agenda. But if any of you have any other recommendations as well, please send my way. For that and any other feedback, email me at bbrownnclm dot org or find the podcast on Twitter at muni equation. That's at m u n I equation. If you'd like your voice added to the podcast, record a voice memo on your smartphone and email it to me, bbrown@nclm.org. NCLM, by the way, stands for North Carolina League of Municipalities, which makes this podcast possible online at nclm.org. We'll see you again soon, but keep in touch in the meantime. Thanks again for listening. This
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