Company: Emerald Outdoor
Market: Washington, Idaho.
Headquarters: 9212 E Montgomery Ave, Suite 604, Spokane Valley, WA 99206
Phone: 509-327-0103
Email: tommyt@emeraldoutdoor.com
Emerald Outdoor was formed in 2004 with the acquisition of Sunset Outdoor Advertising of Spokane. Their General Manager is Tom Townsend and Insider got the chance for an interview.
How would you describe 2019 for Emerald Outdoor?
2019 was solid, about even with 2018 which was a really good year for us. We were able to secure a permit and build a 14 x 48 structure in the Spokane area. This may not seem a big thing to many outdoor companies, but our zoning restrictions makes it difficult to build anything. The County and Spokane City have no build ordinances. The Spokane Valley has a cap & rebuild with pretty tough limitations. We got one in and that was a success.
How does the Eastern Washington market compare to Western Washington?
We have little inventory in the West so I can only gauge from afar. The business climate throughout the state was robust overall (pre-virus) and Spokane was considered a “hot” market for companies looking to move here and especially for real estate. I believe we were in a position, that comparatively we were performing at a rate equal to the big market of Seattle. We have some inventory in the center of the state and we have solid long term contracts on most of the inventory. We were pretty optimistic about the future.
Being a Washington State company where the Coronavirus hit early, have you seen any impact yet to your business?
Yes…people are really getting into the “wait & see” mindset….we’ve already had a couple clients who traditionally buy for special events hold off because they don’t know if those events will even happen. I understand that everyone is now going to be cautious…including us. We need to be smart with expense control. We’re a small company so we can monitor expenses pretty easily. We run pretty lean anyway, so the people we have here are essential and will remain here. We will weather the storm. It’s going to be interesting over the next 6 months.
So you have to tell us the back story behind the picture below?
A total fluke…unfortunately. Craig Swapp has been a long term client and shipped us new copy to install. They had 6 different designs. We put them up randomly. The Church who sponsors the Easter Drama is also a long term client. We installed them a couple days later and within the 24 hrs we got a call from Craig Swapp. We moved the Drama board immediately and Swapp was pleased we responded so quickly. It was completely random and they understood that. The positive was that it got back to them quickly and it proved people were seeing their ads.
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