Olivia Clemente – An Xperience Interview

Olivia Clemente – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

RRX: I’ve got Olivia Clemente of the Troy BID (Business Improvement District) on the line. Olivia, what’s your actual title there?

OC: Executive Director.

RRX: Oh, that’s got a ring to it, doesn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever had “executive” in any of my titles before. If I did, it was nonsense.

(Both Laugh)

OC: Yeah, right. But sometimes I feel that way, it’s fine.

RRX: I know that most people (including myself), when we look at what the BID does, we’re always just wondering what events are happening in Troy. Is there more to it than just events? What does the BID do on a daily basis?

OC: There are way more than just events. We handle the beautification needs of the city, and when I say beautification, it ranges. The BID is in charge of the hanging flower baskets throughout the entire district. We hang 150 of those every year. We pay for that, and then we also are in charge of cleaning the streets. We have two beautification staff members who are out from 8 a.m. until about 6 p.m. They pick the garbage up, and they also water all of the plants in downtown. We also are in charge of the holiday decor. So, all the holiday decor you see in downtown right now. We worked with the city of Troy since our budget just wasn’t able to reach it. So, working with them, they helped bring the decor back and do way more. We put a proposal together, picked what we were gonna do, picked the areas, and the city helped us fund that. So those are things that the BID does aside from events. We also plant trees in downtown. We have a raised plant grow program, and people sponsor that, where we have either individuals who live downtown or some businesses or corporations donate money to plant a tree. We planted 12 this year, and we’re planting 12 next year.

RRX: That’s awesome. See, inquiring minds wanna know. I didn’t know everything that you did. So there’s a lot to it, and right now, I think Troy is doing really well when it comes to what’s going on downtown and with people coming out.

OC: Yeah, I think our tourism has increased a ton in terms of like … the Troy Glow Festival that just happened at the Art Center. We teamed up with them for Troy Glow, where we put all of the artists and musicians inside retail shops to be able to make everyone go into the stores and realize these retail shops are here. We had over – oh my God – I think over 2000 people that night that came out just for that event alone.

RRX: That’s a clever event, you know? People gotta start getting clever with things and thinking outside of the box, and I think that event definitely was one of them. We’re looking forward to the New Year 2025 … looking ahead to the future. What do you think is gonna be different in 2025 for Troy?

OC: I think that in terms of it being different is just that people are actually coming back out. We’ve had slow years since COVID, and this past year proved to us that people are going out again. We saw increases at every event. Even in terms of our vendors, we saw an increase. I started in 2022 and I only had maybe 60 vendors at that River Fest. And this is, again, coming right out of COVID. This past year in 2024, we had 85 vendors. So the numbers are going back up. So that’s a big tell of what the nexus of 2025 is gonna look like. I think we’re gonna see an increase of people coming out and an increase in vendors that wanna get back into being in Troy and participating. We’re doing all of our classic events, from our Troy River Fest, our Rocking on the River, Pig Out, Chowderfest, our Taste of Downtown, which is a restaurant week, and then we end the year with Shop Small, Shop Troy. We also start the year with the Hot Chocolate Stroll, which is something new that we added in 2022. We are increasing again because last year we did 350 mugs, and we sold out. When we first originally started Hot Chocolate Stroll, we were at 200 mugs flat, and we sold out as people kept coming in. They’re like, “We want mugs,” and I’m like, holy crap. I didn’t know how many people would come out for this. So this year we’re gonna go to 500 mugs and see what happens.

RRX: Yeah, I think you’d have to. When does that take place?

OC: The last Friday in February.

RRX: Okay, I’ll have to mark it on my calendar and make sure I get a mug.

OC: Upstate of Mind makes the mugs for us, and they’re like collectible items.

RRX: These mugs could be the next Hess truck. I think back to Albany when they had First Night. In my opinion, I think First Night Albany was amazing for a very long time until it wasn’t. But those buttons they had are collector items. We gotta steal First Night back and bring it to Troy.

OC: Yeah, I mean, we do the Troy Night Out which I mean … we have to find a formula for it. We haven’t been able to crack the code completely on Troy Night Out. A lot of people come out, I will say, in the summer months. You’ll see the streets are packed, everyone’s out and about, and the stores are full. But we haven’t been able to figure out how to get them here from January to April. That’s the tough part. Those winter months are when we see that decline of people coming in and out because it’s so cold, rainy, snow, et cetera. So that’s kind of the thought process when we do the Hot Chocolate Stroll in February when no one’s doing anything. March has Saint Patrick’s Day. So we see the influx of Saint Patrick’s Day – Ryan’s Wake, Bootleggers, and the Ruck. They all do a bar crawl for Saint Patrick’s Day –  and McAddy’s – they all do that.

RRX: Man, Troy is hopping right now, and I’m very happy about that. Actually, my heart breaks for Albany. That’s where I grew up, and just to see so many things gone and for the reasons that they’re gone. We gotta put a bubble around Troy, so none of that happens here. I’m actually praying for Lark Street right now with a passion. The whole terrain has changed, and I think Troy is winning.

OC: Yeah, I mean … it used to be that you would go to Albany to see awesome bands, et cetera. And now you can go to Troy for all of that, which when I was growing up, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like … “Oh I’m gonna go to Troy,” it was … “I’m gonna go to Albany.”

RRX: I’m gonna get me an Enjoy Troy T-shirt.

OC: I say Troy is looking positive. I think a big thing is an understanding of supporting the Business Improvement District.

We do all of this. It’s not the city that’s doing these events; it’s the BID that does all of this for downtown. In order to get this done, the BID needs to have good funding, and we need to have good people supporting us. If we can’t get that community support, if we can’t get that funding, we’re gonna lose these events.

RRX: And that would make me sad, so yeah, let’s keep that funding going. Olivia, I appreciate your time and look forward to working with you more next year.

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