FLOWERY BRANCH – Before Flowery Branch government moved into their new 18,000-square feet city hall complex in February they envisioned renting out the largest room in the $5.3-million facility – the Community Room where the city council holds its meetings – because a site able to accommodate as many as 200 people did not exist in the downtown area, and city leaders saw rental fees as a great source of revenue when the building was not in use.
For years the city has offered the Historic Train Depot for rental purposes, and from that experience learned firsthand the public’s need for more and larger venues, so designing the new Community Room as an event site was a natural option.
But now the city is ready to step back from handling the myriad of responsibilities and requests that go with renting out their twin properties. At Thursday night’s city council meeting a unanimous vote of approval accepted a contract negotiated between the city and Oakwood Occasions, a Gainesville-based event planning specialist, to outsource the entire process.
City Manager Bill Andrew said after Thursday’s meeting that in the months since moving into the new city hall complex the Community Room had not been rented, but he quickly added that his staff had fielded inquiries regarding its availability.
Those dealings pulled staff away from other duties according to Andrew, but he said the decision to outsource was much more than just the time-lost factor. “It’s not just the inquiries of booking the room, it’s the software to book it correctly and keep track of everything.”
Andrew added, “It’s also the coordination of tablecloths, chairs, candles, food, ice sculptures…whatever people wanted. We just don’t know how to handle that.”
Dannella Burnett, CEO and founder of Oakwood Occasions, was at Thursday’s meeting and said after the meeting adjourned, “Flowery Branch really thought ahead as far as making this a space that could be used.”
Burnett said her company’s takeover of rental operations for the Community Room and for the Train Depot will take about six weeks. She said, “Now that this was approved tonight it gives us the go-ahead to do the first phase: coming up with guidelines and pricing.”
“We’ve been working behind the scenes waiting for this approval tonight so we will have that quickly,” Burnett explained. “Our goal is to make it available to rent on or about September 1st.”
“Basically this was an effort to have both this room and the Depot under a management contract that would allow for an event planner and someone to work with individuals or organizations that wanted to rent the facility and kind of keep that away from the staff having to deal with that effort,” Andrew added.
“It does seem that there is a demand for both this room and the Depot to be used,” Andrew said.
Several details of the contract with Oakwood Occasions were revealed by City Attorney Ron Bennett during the city council meeting. “It would be profit sharing where we would subtract out expenses from the rental revenue and then the city and Ms. Burnett would share the profit 50-50.”
Bennett explained that Oakwood Occasions would not be allowed to schedule events that conflicted with events scheduled by the city.
