Columbia's Downtown Community Improvement District just announced Katie Essing will be its new executive director starting next month. The CID board works on a wide variety of projects like maintenance, economic development programs, grant-writing, advocacy and event planning for the 50 block area between MU, Columbia College and Stephens College.
Christina Kelley, Chair of the CID board said Essing was chosen because she has the specialized and varied skills to match CID's eclectic work. This experience includes teaching retail marketing at MU, managing shopping malls and volunteering with the Chamber of Commerce.
"Well I've got a background in retail and shopping center management so you know when this opportunity came open, it just really matched my background experience and love of retail," Essing said. "And also … downtown's such an important part of our community so it's such a great opportunity to get to be a part of that."
Kelley said the board hopes Essing's marketing background will help her work with the many diverse, sometimes conflicting, interests concerning downtown.
"Downtown is made up of business owners," Kelley said. "That can be retail and/or restaurant and/or service industries. We have property owners. We have residents. We are bordered by three colleges. So there's a variety of people that have interest in what our downtown is and what we do."
Some of Essing's duties as director will include setting design guidelines for developers looking to build downtown and helping coordinate a holiday shop hop. She starts the position November 3rd.
