Post Falls, vendors claim victory

Last weekend’s Downtown For A Day was a big success for Post Falls and a bigger success for local businesses, city leaders and store owners said.

The May 18 event — which featured artificial storefronts, entertainment and a beer garden off Third Street to glimpse a future downtown district — brought in between 4,000 and 5,000 people, according to Post Falls Parks and Recreation Director Dave Fair. He said the foot traffic remained consistently strong for many of the vendors, estimating that the average attendee stayed between 45 minutes to an hour for the city celebration.

“The event was a success,” Fair said. “The public enjoyed it, and the vendors enjoyed it. I think it will become an annual event for the city.”

Malvagio’s, a wood-fired pizzeria owned by Matthew and Svitlana Petersen, reported strong numbers for the day, selling 160 pizzas and bringing in roughly $2,000 in revenue.

“We were going through pizzas like crazy,” Matthew Petersen said. “We had consistent lines all day, and people were piling in when they started thinking about lunch … We’d absolutely do it again.”

Jeff Harris, founder and owner of the gourmet cotton candy manufacturer Bombshell Sweets, gave a hearty endorsement for future Downtown For A Day events.

“It went very, very well for us,” Harris said. “It was a unique event, and our business usually does very well when the communities come out for unique events. This event was special for us.”

Harris added that his company’s busy schedule demonstrates the weight he gives to the quality of the Post Falls celebration.

“We do 20 to 30 events a month, and they’re often larger venues,” he said. “For us to do an event, it needs to be sound, and it needs to be solid, and Downtown For A Day certainly qualifies as both.”

While Fair said he intends to introduce Downtown For A Day to the City Council’s go-ahead to be included in the budget, he added the process requires additional considerations. Occasional parking situations for the event arose during the day, prompting city staff to make adjustments on the fly. Inclimate weather spurned the idea of impromptu burn barrels to keep visitors warm. And organizers might change the date closer to autumn if the celebration becomes an annual event. Either way, Fair said the city has the right personnel to stamp Downtown For A Day into a yearly routine.

“Our staff did a fabulous job,” he said. “I can’t say enough about them. They have the experience for this. They’ve done plenty of special events like this. They worked very hard to make the day a real pleasure for everybody. They were tremendous.”

Malvagio’s Petersen said the community was equally responsible for Downtown For A Day’s inaugural success.

“Post Falls seems to be a great community for these events,” Petersen said. “It says something when the town wants to come out and support these kinds of events, and I think that’s a big part why they succeed. Post Falls is a great community full of great people.”