Below are the verbatim comments submitted by downtown Traverse City business owners via The Ticker's 2016 survey. All comments were made anonymously.
 

Move Blue Angels away from downtown.

Meters need to be 4 hours. People can’t get back to cars in time.

These are all problems other downtowns would love to have. Downtown TC is healthy. Market forces will dictate profitability for most entities – as it always does.

Traverse City thrives when locals and visitors are treated well. Rethink the parking difficulties and improve the way being in TC is accommodated by easier, less stringent parking rules and charges.

Great for restaurants, hotels and bars. Bad for brick and mortar.

Downtown Traverse City is focused on the organization rather than the merchants most of the time. They could provide more value to the downtown merchants.

Events have little effect on us, but do usually scare the “locals” away.

Need longer store hours and better snow removal. Merchants need to be encouraged – pushed to change.

City needs to change building codes to not issue permits for anything that is net loss for available parking. Downtown. Period.

Use State Street for “closed street events” other than street sale. Do NOT overlap street sale and Film Festival. Do NOT mix Cherry Festival and 4th of July.
How do we put up tents for street sale with all those flower boxes?

The parking is the issue.

Great downtown

Nothing. For the most part happy. Things downtown have increased business every year. Maybe less meters would increase it more and bring locals down more.

A Film Festival in May or October would be much better. For all businesses.

Need to maintain upscale events and more culture.

I think they should have lights on trees all year round – like several other cute Michigan towns!

Great business location, great stores.

Fewer Friday Night Lives, or have one in Spring and one in Fall.

I love it, and have for 52 years.

More music, more “free” availability for setting up event tables, signs. Too many ordinances.

I do like having the lights on trees all year round.

Overall, downtown TC is working in the right direction.

Downtown Traverse City attracts people from all over, but is not enjoyable to the locals for a good chunk of the year. Especially summer.

Paid parking and ticketing is chasing business out of downtown.

City needs to allow more time for event set up and teardown. Issue friendly warning for minimal parking violations. i.e. a ½ hour haircut might go 35 minutes and shouldn’t cost a shopper ten dollars more to come downtown.

DTCA can do event work; City, do City work. DDA is ineffective and does not truly represent downtown business owners or the City. “Overlaps” City role. It was originally meant to be a temporary entity and should be dissolved. They take credit for everyone else: business owners, City and TC Tourism office.
Often the best revenue/shopping days in July and August are when there are no events – just shopping! E.g. our revenue during Cherry Festival week is lower than the rest of July, every year.

Halloween walk is dangerous and Cherry Festival brings crime.

We have a fantastic downtown. Great balance in retail, restaurants and entertainment. Need to figure out effective ways to reduce parking stress with our visitors. Nothing short of tsunami could screw this up!

With the shortage of parking, why consider a pop up park even temporarily and use up parking spaces. Downtown and TC in general has become an extremely vibrant area, never lacking for something to do.

Let’s consider what benefits all of us, or at least the majority of us, most of the time. For that we need to be aware of where we are going, what downtown is becoming, and who we are trying to attract. Just because something has happened for x years is not, of itself, a valid reason for it happening again.

There needs to be more signage and patrolling for bicycles on the sidewalks.

We love TC, that’s why we live here. People need to stop complaining so much and spending money fighting pointless battles about parking and building size and stop to smell the roses (or cherry blossoms) so to speak. We are blessed to call this community home, embrace it for its quirks!

We have a lot of problems that most of the world would kill for. Restaurants, breweries, festivals and wineries are getting to or have passed optimum density. Not enough employees for the existing businesses and lots new on the way! Number of folks eating from the economic pie are growing faster than the pie. Also starting to see things like staff poaching (new restaurants) that have never been part of life in TC’s restaurant community in the past.

The new outdoor seating restrictions went out of control last year. 4ft (not 5) should be allowed for pedestrians. The issues arose when the borders (cafes serving alcohol or not) encroached on the 4ft pathways. Make it 4ft again, with the bordered area permanently affixed in the sidewalk or on building.

Downtown is amazing, and it will continue to be amazing with more density. We shouldn’t be afraid of change, and we really need to find a way to attract and keep highly-skilled talent in our area.

What about State, Union, Cass? Need more exposure. Need same rules, regulations for all stores! Need to allow parklets. Need to allow more patio options! Help downtown thrive!

It’s time to rethink the Cherry Festival (converting the open space and surrounding areas to carnival food, rides, etc doesn’t reflect what this area is about (natural resources, wineries, restaurants, craft beer, etc…..

We are very lucky to have great support and vision for downtown. There is collaboration and leadership.
I think the parking attendants could use customer service training. Couldn’t they smile and say hello? Why are they unfriendly?

I am very pleased to conduct business in such a progressive downtown. However, I would love to find a balance in tourism and our local consumer being able to enjoy their downtown in the summer.

Events for sure bring in more business.

For the most part, well done.

It would be nice to have a gap of a week or so to not diminish 4th of July week.

Since I am not only a business owner, but a parent of two kids and a member of the community, I have two different opinions on just about every event and topic relating to downtown. In general, I am not against any of the major events that take place in town. I do think we need to be careful about overdoing it with events though, it can be bad for locals and businesses. I think a lot of people have a bit of a misguided idea that more events = more business.

Traverse City needs:
a. More parking structures to house the increasing amount of cars visiting us
b. Affordable work place housing to aid downtown business in attracting workers for their businesses. This really applies in the food and beverage area, but affects all businesses.
c. More city workers to keep sidewalks clean and rubbish emptied. You go to major cities that receive much more traffic than we do and the sidewalks are pristine. Taxes are certainly high enough to take care of this. Everyone probably has their own opinion, but these are my top three.
d. Cherry Festival, our sacred cow. It is a nice event, but does it really need to be as long as it is? My dream is that the Farmers Market area is improved to the point so that the Midway needs to be relocated. Need more police presence to keep the savory crowd that gathers above and below the Union Street bridge.
e. TCFF, a beautifully done event, yes it brings a ton of people to town and makes parking even worse, but they all seem to open their wallets in our restaurants and stores. If this event is doing anything wrong, I don’t see it.
f. National Writers Series, neither I nor my business have had any contact with the participants of this event, but the title of it certainly adds a panache to our events line up. 

To read about survey respondents' answers to specific questions, click here.