Committees

Ashland’s Downtown: Where Community and Commerce Meet

Downtown Ashland is more than a commercial core—it’s the city’s economic heart and cultural living room. With performing arts, boutique shopping, dining, and Lithia Park all within a walkable radius, it draws locals and visitors year-round.

In 2023, the Rediscover Downtown Committee—a collaboration of business owners, arts organizations, city staff, the Chamber, and Travel Ashland—launched new initiatives to reinvigorate downtown.

Strategic Priorities:

• Public Space Investment: City of Ashland Beautification grants, improved crosswalks, lighting, wayfinding, seating, and bike infrastructure.
• Visitor Diversification: Events like the Downtown Sidewalk Celebrations are attracting families, younger audiences, and new markets with live music, art, shopping, dining and family activities.
• Flexible Commercial Spaces: Supporting creative business models—from hybrid retail/workshop spaces to outdoor dining and co-working.
• Toward a Solar Downtown: Encouraging rooftop solar as part of Ashland’s climate goals and long-term economic sustainability.

 

Foster Business Growth

Creating a Supportive Environment for Expansion & Innovation
Building on 15+ years of success with Business Retention & Expansion (BRE), the Chamber formed the Foster Business Growth Committee—connecting business leaders, city officials, and regional partners to support local expansion.

Focus Areas:

• Public-Private Collaboration: Helping businesses navigate city processes and reduce barriers to growth.
• Specialty Districts Development:
  • University District: Leveraging SOU for mixed-use, student-focused growth.
  • Railroad District: Boosting walkability and retail/nightlife potential.
  • Croman Mill: A key site for scalable residential and commercial development.
• Small Batch Ashland: Supporting artisan producers in food, beverage, and visual arts to scale up and reach wider markets. Key ingredients to a thriving micro-batch community are: (1) a strong customer base that has disposable incomes and values authentic goods; (2) a city brand that signifies quality and craft; and (3) a culinary community that supports restaurateurs and food entrepreneurs. These are all elements that few cities outside of Ashland have in high concentration. This committee is working to establish new opportunities for entrepreneurs to expand.
• Business Education: The Language of Business video series teaches financial fundamentals, with five videos for Season One including access to resources and how to protect your assets. Season Two will also include videos on how to establish product costs including materials, labor and overhead, pricing and distribution. 

Utilizing real business owners and financial experts, the videos motivate, inspire and instill action to educate businesses on the importance of understanding the basic fundamentals of accounting with a pathway towards financial resiliency as you gain knowledge to create more resiliency and profitability.

 

 

Expand the Talent Pool

Without qualified workers, Ashland employers will be unable to expand and develop the next generation of local leadership in the private sector. Labor attraction, availability, and skills sets are already hindering growth.

Therefore, based on the analysis, the Chamber formed the Expand the Talent Pool Working Committee whose mission is to grow the workforce by identifying the barriers to growth. The first area of focus is on identifying the barriers to training world-class healthcare professionals, determining the root causes or drivers for these barriers and to identify ideas to resolve them.

The Expand the Talent Pool Committee in 2023-2024 convened regional leaders to gather information on what businesses need and identify barriers to filling those jobs. As the committee delved deeper into this information, they realized a critical and unmet need was the establishment of internships and apprenticeship programs. A thorough study is being conducted to determine how to develop these opportunities for potential workers. Oregon lags behind the nation and our region is no different, but has huge potential in job growth.

 

Attract Remote Workers

For an increasing number of workers, the workplace is wherever they can open a laptop and connect to the internet. Ashland is the type of place that can benefit from these changes, with the features that attract many remote workers: strong quality of life amenities and a fast internet connection. The benefit to Ashland is more talented young workers that support other local businesses and may settle down and start families. 

Home-based Business 

A significant amount of economic activity occurs in the form of home-based businesses throughout the city. Many of Ashland’s most successful firms began as home-based businesses, and when they outgrew their homes, moved to larger facilities.