Hey, this is Mike Wagner with Green Oak Lending Group coming to you guys again with our second podcast in our Rooted in the Community series. Together we thrive. And today my guest, I’m extremely excited to introduce Roger Kurland.

He is the director of the Edge District. Amongst heading the Pridetopia board and Edge Insights. And soon to come, the morning edition of Edge Insights, an amazing B2B growth group that he’s put together that I’ve been a part of for about a year now.

Roger, how are you? I’m doing great today. I’m in just. The weather’s stormy outside, but it’s nice and nice and crisp in here and just can’t wait to talk about the Edge district and the St. Pete community.

Awesome. Awesome. I’d love to hear that.

I so appreciate you being on here. I know a lot of big things are happening in our community and it seems like since, since I’ve been involved for about a year now, we’ve had small businesses really start to pick up and blossom. A lot of people and a lot of growth right in our downtown area.

So to kind of start off, you’re the director of the Edge District. How long have you been doing that for? And kind of what does that entail? So the Edge Business District association, the Edge District is a small local district in St. Petersburg. It goes from 16th street to 9th street, also known as MLK, down the spine of Central Avenue, and it extends out to both First Avenues, First Avenue South, First Avenue north, and includes businesses on both sides.

So about 125 businesses in that rectangular district. And we have about 115 businesses in the Edge Business District Association. So I’ve been the executive director of that association for around a year and a half now, but have been familiar with the district for almost 11 years because I invested and helped a business start about a decade ago, Enigma Bar and Lounge, right in the heart of the Edge District.

So that’s really where I became familiar with the district. That’s awesome. And we love Enigma.

We seem to do a lot of parties and a lot of networking gatherings there. So always an awesome place. Definitely check that place out if you’re on Central in the Edge District.

Can’t say enough about it. So that’s amazing. So you’ve been doing this now for about a year in this new position in that too.

So you’ve done a few other things. So I met you actually through a group that you started, Edge Insights, which meets on Fridays over at Green Bench. And I mean, absolutely phenomenal group of people.

I wanted to join us soon as I was there, the first one, I mean, it was incredible. Met about 20 plus new people that really were small business owners in the community, entrepreneurs with what seemed to be very similar goals and strategies to myself and the business that I’m trying to create and grow down here as well. And the big thing that I did notice too was how much you are willing to invest your time and your knowledge into really helping anybody in that group, a completely free group, grow,
which is amazing.

So kind of as far as the Edge Insights, you know, how did you start that? You know, what was kind of the creation of that or the idea behind that, what has that grown into? And then I know it’s growing into a little more that we want to talk about, but where do you see the future going with that as well? Yeah, great question. So when I became the executive director of the Edge, I wanted to look at what are the, what are, what are the principal goals of the association? And therefore what are my
principal goals as the executive director. And so I came up with three headlines or umbrellas or pillars, whatever you want to call them.

The first is advocacy. So I advocate on behalf of all of our small businesses, whether that’s sanitation, parking, traffic, development, whatever that is. If we need one voice to talk to the city or other groups, we do that.

And that’s very powerful because the voice of one, it doesn’t always get things done, but a hundred will. The second pillar is promotions. Because if our businesses are not busy, if our district isn’t busy, there starts to be an atrophication, we start to shrink, and then that collaborative effort collapses.

And so promotion is another big arm of what we do in the edge Business District Association. And then the third, and I think the most vital pillar is education. Most small business owners have a great skill set, passion for the core thing that they do.

Making drinks, making food, having a great selection of clothes. But the other skills on the side of it, that meaning staffing, culture, building, marketing, operations, finance, they tend not to have those skills at the height of their core skill. So my position is, is that we can increase all of our small businesses, their knowledge base on all those other skills which actually define survive versus thrive and do that through education.

And so the Insights Club is the birth of that concept of education first. Our first one was on June 30, 2023. So we’re a little bit over a year old with that.

And it’s the business builder that all the members of the association can access every week. And it’s 75 minutes of just power thinking, sharing, networking, referraling. So just super proud of it.

And as you said, we’ve gone from an afternoon edition every Friday to launching the morning edition this week, which will be from 8:30 to 9:45 just to give folks another option that couldn’t make the afternoon one, which is amazing. And I mean that also is a testament to how just in a short year’s time how much that group has grown where now we need to open a second group to accommodate maybe some of the folks that are in the current one. I think some Pepsi in there.

It seems like there’s 50 people in there, to be honest with you. It’s, it’s incredible, right? And then still be able to offer that to people coming on, which is cool because I think one of the, one of my favorite things you do every week during Edge Insights is take someone or go around the room and do a roundtable. And what, what’s the one issue you’re facing with your business this week? Right.

What’s the one thing that’s keeping you up at night? What’s, what’s the one thing that, hey, if we could fix this for you, everything else could run a little smoother. And then you allow everyone to share ideas, but then you also impart your knowledge and what’s worked for you in the past. And it’s kind of the nice thing about having somebody that’s willing to mentor a whole group that’s been through so much.

I mean, our experiences define us and they also tell us what to do and what not to do in the future. Right. And to share that information and help someone like you said, who maybe their thing is, you know, videography or guitar lessons.

They’re probably not a business owner, they’re probably not a C suite kind of person. Yet here’s the ways that we can become that. And absolutely incredible what you do.

So, and I’m still looking forward to the morning edition too. Kicking it off tomorrow at 8:30am I’m going to try to bring some people there. So that’s awesome.

The other thing that I got to be involved with you this year, which I was super excited about and can’t wait to continue, is the pridetopia board in the Edge district, which you had. Seems like we had a great team this year. We had a lot of fun out there.

You know, how did that idea come up? You know, where do you see that going in the future as well? Because I feel like that’s something that’s just Going to keep getting bigger and bigger every year. Yeah, great question. So in assuming the role of executive Director for the Edge District, one of the things that I found was such an opportunity that was sitting out there was Pride Month and specifically Pride Weekend.

And that started back in 2003 in the Grand Central District. And it was just. And I was actually part of that little one back then where it was a walking parade from Georgie’s Alibi into Grand Central.

And then we had some booths there and just had a very nice afternoon of a Pride celebration. Well, it’s grown year in and year out. And now the parade for Pride weekend is downtown.

And the Grand Central District hosts the festival, which is on Sunday. And I’m like, the Edge is a amazing district that is LGBTQ friendly, allied and has many LGBTQ owned businesses. So I’m like, I want to have a piece of that for our fabulous district.

So the concept is not to compete with St. Pete Pride, but to offer extra value outside of what they’re doing. And that was the concept of Pride Topia, an official after parade party in the Edge District. So after the parade finishes downtown on that Saturday, we, our restaurants, our bars are open, they’re festive, they have shows, music, activities, and we just invite everyone to come down after the parade and have fun.

Super simple. Yeah. And it was an amazing time.

And I mean, the fact that you’re able to convince all of the boutiques and the restaurants and all of the great things the Edge District has to offer to stay open. It was very cool seeing everything open till 9, 10 o’ clock at night and being able to walk into sourdoughs and, you know, order some food or walk into a boutique or an art gallery and check something out. A lot of fun.

And I felt like it was a very safe, not really rowdy time. It seems like everybody was just amazing and having a fun time going from place to place. So super amazing that you’re involved in that.

And I feel like you’ve got a lot of great, influential skills, you know, in the edge district in St. Pete to, you know, see those changes and really push through, which is awesome, you know, with that too. So I know that we’ve got several districts in St. Pete and one of the big ones getting a lot of press right now. And something coming up is the gas plant districts and the stadium coming into play.

And I know some folks are going to be for this and some folks are very against it. And this is what happens in a community. It’s always split and people have Opinions and all this great stuff.

But I mean, you’ve even brought folks in to talk during Edge Insight and really shed information and shed light onto what this could possibly be for our community and how big and cool a thing this could be. So, I mean, really, what do you think when this happens or if this happens, what do you think the impact on the community is going to be? What are the pros and cons that you’re seeing? Yeah, so obviously the historic gas plant district is a massive topic. You, you and I could probably do an
entire series about that particular development and what it means to the community.

So maybe just boiling it down to a few, a few keys. It’s a $6.5 billion development project.

$6.5 billion right now. It is a parking lot in a highly underutilized old building.

So think about the economic impact of a giant parking lot in a highly underused old building. And now flash flashing forward to when you’ve got a mixed use entirely dense development where you stack all that parking together, you’ve got a state of the art conference facility that doubles as the stadium where 30,000 people can come every weekend even when there’s not baseball, to come to concerts and to have conventions there and to have speakers and performances and you name it, that’s going to be
a very active center. There’s going to be living there and it’s not going to be just high rise luxury.

There’s going to be entire levels of affordability for all different areas of St. Pete to be in that area. There’s the African American Museum. The Woodson is slated to be there.

They’re going to revitalize the creek that goes through there. There’s going to be green space, park space, etc. I want to give one story.

So the Royal Rumble came to Tropicana Field a few months ago and about 50,000 people came to that event because they can seat that many if you use the field for seating as well. Multiple businesses in the Edge district said it was their best night ever of being in business. Just from this one evening of people coming to that area and then coming out into the Edge district to spend money before and after that event.

So I’m telling you, we’ve got to get this done. We’ve got to get that space activated. It’s going to feed into every neighborhood and area around and give thousands of new jobs and increase the inventory of both housing and business spaces, which is the only way that we are going to level the acceleration of the cost of living and the cost of doing business in the St. Pete area.

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That’s 727-390-4414 or email me at enutting the growthcoach.com the Growth Coach of St. Petersburg. Better business, better results, better life. That’s a lot to take in and that’s.

But it’s, it’s excellent. A lot of points made there too. And I mean, I would feel like I would be inclined to agree, obviously, being a small business owner in St. Pete, knowing so many of our small businesses now.

And I mean, it’s just amazing. Like you said, I mean, Royal Rumble came in a few months ago. I remember you again, letting everybody know insights about this, saying, hey, you know, keep your shops open, keep things open.

This is going to be a big night. Almost as a test run for this. And now it’s people’s largest night for the, for the year.

Could you imagine? Now you have monthly concerts coming in. I mean, concerts alone. Now we actually have large names, Taylor Swift coming here instead of Miami.

Right. Things of that nature. And the amount that that’ll bring in is, is going to be pretty amazing.

Pretty amazing. So we won’t, we won’t linger on that too much. Like you said, we could do a lot of talking on that.

But good to know. And then so Roger, you are obviously director of the edge district. There are several other districts in St. Petersburg and I’m familiar with maybe a few, but not all, you know, I mean, how do the rest of these districts break down and how are they connected into the edge district? Yeah, so that’s a great question.

So we’ve described where the edge district is at. The City of St. Pete supports four what are called main street districts. So a main street district follows a very regimented protocol of how it’s organized from board, committee, executive director, the things that they need to accomplish.

And so those four districts are the edge district, our sister district aligned right next to us, the Grand Central district. So that goes from 16th street down Central Avenue to 31st Street, 1st Avenue to 1st Avenue. And then we have a sister district to the south, that’s the Deuces District and that district is called the Deuces because it’s kind of cord in the area of 22nd street and 22nd Avenue South.

So that’s a bunch of twos, right? So that’s the Deuces business district. And then last but not least, there’s the Skyway Marina district. So that’s South 34th Street.

It’s quite expansive as far as the size of it. But because there’s a lot of land that is between those businesses, it probably has the same number of businesses as the other districts, just much greater geography. Kind of like how Jacksonville is this giant spread out city.

But you know, population wise it’s quite quite aligned with some other cities. So those are the four main streets. In addition to those four main streets, there’s also the Warehouse Arts Districts association which has an executive director.

The Innovation District, which is down downtown on the waterfront. We also have the Downtown Business association and they’ve been around over 50 years downtown. Now they do not have an executive director but they do have a board and they do have great work.

And then last but not least, it’s not so much a district, but they do see a lot of work downtown, which is the downtown business. I’m sorry, the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, which has put a lot of businesses together and looks on a lot of fronts like advocacy, etc. So there’s other business districts that are growing that are coming up.

The MLK district, the 49th street district. But that just gives you a sampling of those and they’re all different shapes and sizes and they all run a little bit differently, each one of them. But we all work together collaboratively with our mission to make St. Pete amazing.

That’s what I was going to ask as well. Is it a collaborative effort? I assumed it was. So that’s absolutely amazing.

So when you guys. So incredible that we have that amount of districts in St. Pete alone, with that amount of people that are really working on a, a positive change for the city at all times. When you guys collaborate, I mean, as far as districts getting together, what are the big picture things you’re working on? Sure.

So great question. Halloween on Central is an event that goes from 9th street all the way to 31st Street. So it’s 22 blocks.

We shut down Central Avenue every Sunday before Halloween and throw a big community party from noon to 5pm and so that is a partnership with, with the Grand Central district and the Edge district where we get together. All four of the main streets get together every quarter to share ideas, to share best Practices and we all have each other on speed dial, all of the executive directors. So we all like to help each other and we show up to each other’s events.

So it really is a community and that’s how we view it, which is absolutely huge. And I mean that, that since I’ve known you, that’s exactly what you’ve done with the Edge district. Give that sense of community to all of us, no matter where we’re from.

A lot of us are transplants coming to St. Pete for the first time and haven’t grown up here. And that sense of community and that sense of family is definitely felt. So that’s amazing that you are all in together really to just keep building this and you know, again meeting you, I mean it was at a networking event that you created to help and I mean there are a ton of folks down here that we know that do a absolute ton of networking, me being one of them.

We have to, to survive. Right. Which is insane.

And I’m sure that this is something that you’ve done to build yourself up over the years and you’ve obviously done it quite well with the contacts that you’ve made and what you’ve done over the years. Can you talk to a little bit about how you started that and how that affected not just, you know, your profession and what that led to and how that led you into the journey you’re on now? Yeah, great question. So I, I like to talk about the Insights Club as kind of like a Frankenstein where I’ve
taken all the best parts of all of the networking and all of the groups I’ve been associated with for decades and put it together using the best of the best and creating that perfect formula or that, you know, you can kind of see the, the bubbles coming out of the scientific experiment on a Frankenstein movie when.

But it’s so powerful when you put like minded people together in a caring, collaborative community environment. And that’s what that is. So some of the other networking opportunities, I always advise folks to pick a chamber that they can resonate with where their avatar is at and where they want to do business.

It’s very difficult to be a member of all of them because we’re running businesses in addition to getting that networking. But I have nothing but gigantic respect for the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. You also have the Amplify, which is Clearwater, the Tampa Bay beaches.

We’ve got smaller, more intimate ones that are the Treasure Island, Madeira beach, the Pinellas Park. We also have fantastic, what I call kind of niche or focused chambers. So the LGBTQ Chamber, we’ve got one for the Hispanic, both in Hillsborough and over in Pinellas County.

So really, there’s a chamber for everybody. Pick one and dive deep. Don’t just become a member of all of them and you check, mark a box.

Become a leader in those groups. So chambering is an amazing thing to do. We also have something called One Million Cups.

One Million Cups is a national format where local entrepreneurs can present their ideas to the community and get feedback. So we have 1 million cups in St. Pete. There’s 1 million cups in Tampa.

Every Wednesday morning at the greenhouse in downtown St. Pete goes from nine to 10. You’re going to hear two amazing entrepreneurs up there. And I tell people, go there, wear three hats.

The first hat, that person on stage may be somebody that you can do business with. The second hat is in the audience. You’re going to hear questions where you’re like, oh, my gosh, I need to talk to that person.

That’s somebody I can help or do business with. And then the third thing is listen to every question and answer. Those are questions and answers you should be having for your own business.

So if you go into that with those three hats every Wednesday, you’re just going to. You’re going to come out a better business owner. Another great group is the Entrepreneur Social Club.

So the Entrepreneur Social Club has been meeting for about a decade. It was started by Michael Novella, who owns Nova535. And it’s at Nova535 every Thursday evening starts at 6:15.

That is about 30 to 50 business owners and managers and leaders every single week. I do tell folks check online, check on their Facebooks first to see if it’s happening, because if there’s another event going on, like a wedding or a corporate event, that it will not be held at Nova. But that’s just a couple of examples of great networking opportunities here in St. Pete.

Yeah, no, amazing. And I’m involved in a few of them. And I couldn’t agree with you more.

I mean, I absolutely love the St. Pete Chamber. I’ve been involved in that just as long as I’ve been involved with Edge Insights at this point. And it’s been nothing but great Million cups.

Greg Potter is a good friend and does an amazing job over there with the Greenhouse and the rest of that staff. Absolutely unbelievable and a lot. I like how you said you do have to wear those three hats, though, because that’s literally what it is at the Greenhouse.

Like, it’s amazing that you have Three opportunities like that every time you go in there with new folks that you’re going to see every time. So definitely great stuff. I do like how you said do not, not, not as surface.

Right. Pick a few things and really do a deep dive. So that’s what I noticed, too.

Originally I took out a lot because. Because why not? Right. Loans weren’t as plentiful as maybe they are this week and last week, which is nice.

So we had some time to really start building that up and I’ve had to really funnel that down. But the ones that I am really staying with, Edge Insights, the Chamber Park Disability Center. Right.

I’m having a huge impact. I’m feeling a huge impact from the people that I’m dealing with. It’s almost like another level has been unlocked.

And it all just goes into giving back to the community and building at the end of the day. And it’s a very cool thing, the amount of doors that open. People are not going to work with you unless they, like, know and trust you.

And if you’re just touching the surface of 100 different things and meeting 100 different people, they’re not going to have time to, like, know and trust you. So picking a smaller group and getting really deep in developing those relationships that are rooted in the community. I love the name of the podcast that is how you do it.

Because then they’re going to, like, know and trust you and then they’re going to share you with their network at a very, very deep, instrumental level. But they’re only going to do it if they, like, know and trust you. And they’re not going to get to know that if they just see you, you know, every few weeks and it’s a high hello because you’re off to the next thing.

So that’s why I’m saying go deep, go strong, become a leader. Once you’re a thought leader, other people are going to do the work for you and share you out there. Absolutely.

I couldn’t agree more. And I’ve actually firsthand now seen that over the past 13, 14 months really take off going from majority of our business originally coming from referrals from friends, family and everyone else out there. When rates were low to now, this needed to be organically created into matter.

The. These referrals need to come from somewhere. And that’s how it happened.

Right. The developing relationships that I have with all these great people, yourself highly included in there. And it’s just an amazing thing.

It’s a special thing in this area. You know, being from Michigan and having my other seven los up there, my business partner up there, the chambers, and the way that networking works here does not work. It’s not the same model at all.

It’s very surface. You don’t have the intimate relationships, the friendships even that we’re forming through these are insane. It’s, it’s very cool to have all of a sudden, you know, 10 people over at your house for a barbecue that last year you didn’t even know, but now you spend so much time with them, it’s, it’s amazing.

And how top of mind you are and how much people want to help. So you, I mean you’re doing something amazing and you’re definitely a huge part and you’re really helping with that, which is awesome. I mean, any other, any other last minute advice that you would have for, you know, that, that, that entrepreneur, that business owner that’s just starting off, that’s trying to make it, especially in this economy, you know, what should they be looking, what are, what are the first three things they
really need to do to get engaged and really grow their business? Right.

So I think we talked about the networking, but relationship building, networking, absolutely critical. The second piece is you must write down your strategies. I say that people are kind of getting, I might end up getting that like engraved on my gravestone at some point.

Because what I talk about is we need to be strategic about our businesses. And if we’re not writing those strategies down, there is almost zero chance of success with those because there’s no way to evolve, there’s no way to track, there’s no way to measure. So please, please, please, as a business owner, write down the strategies.

Even if it’s a one pager, it’s going to be critical to you having success. And then the third thing is take time to break away from the business, to pull yourself out of the business, to have quiet time, to have family time, to have reflective time. We only get one trip around this planet where.

And I have found that that unplugged time is the most critical to having success of a business. And, and that’s spoken from someone that didn’t always do that, but now gets it and does it. No, that’s, that’s incredible advice.

And that last one really resonates with me as well, because I don’t shut off. Right. We’re always doing something and there’s always so much to do.

And what I’ve now realized is exactly what you’re saying. And I need to keep practicing having that time to put aside to recharge our battery because fortunately, the older we get, that battery kind of drains a little quicker during the day. So that is so huge, you know, and then kind of to wrap it up.

So the other large thing that I’m working on, a large panel that I’m working on with Eric Nutting, the growth coach who’s also heavily involved in Edge Insight, sun leaders and a few of the other great things that I’m involved in here in St. Pete, are putting on a panel in September with the heads of each district to really go over how we can maintain and thrive essentially as we grow in this community. So with everything going on, you know, what’s that impact going to look like? And this is kind
of a almost a taste of it with a little bit about the gas plant district coming in. But that’s going to be a huge focal point for us in September.

And this is something that you are really being instrumental in helping us put together with the relationships that you have. I do feel like this is going to be a huge thing. We do want to get like way more information out to people as soon as it’s available and I would imagine we’ll be able to do this through social media and everything within the next two to three weeks.

But again, that’s going to be a Together We Thrive panel with the district heads, which again, I can’t thank you enough for helping us with so. And Roger, I mean, I overall appreciate everything you’ve done today. I mean, I think we’ve covered a lot of great stuff.

I want to let everyone listening know that if you have not been to Edge Insights, Edge Insights does go from 3pm to 4:15 at Green Bench each Friday. Again, you can come to the new morning edition, which will be from 8:30am to 9:45am at Sourdough in the Edge district. A lot of great information.

Come meet Roger. Thank you so much for being on this. Absolutely.

100%. I just want folks to make sure if you do want to come, it’s a guest invite only because we have limited seating. So definitely reach out to me, it’s director and I’d be happy to find a date when we’ve got an opening and you can come and visit and see what we’re all about.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Roger. Take care.

Sa.