The Jamestown Local Development Corporation approved funding for two events that will take place in the city. One event will be a concert by the 10,000 Maniacs to celebrate their 40th anniversary and the other event will bring Andy Warhol collaborator Gerard Malanga for a three-day art celebration along the Greater Jamestown Riverwalk.

Funding has been approved to bring two events to downtown Jamestown.

On Wednesday, the Jamestown Local Development Corp. approved two applications for funding from the Fund for Downtown Programming. The one event will be a concert by the 10,000 Maniacs to celebrate their 40th anniversary and the other event will bring Andy Warhol collaborator Gerard Malanga for a three-day art celebration along the Greater Jamestown Riverwalk.

Doug Sitler of Sitler HQ will be coordinating both events. He said they wanted to have the 10,000 Maniacs concert take place in November, but due to the increase in the number of people being diagnosed with COVID-19, they have decided to hold the concert in March or April 2022.

Crystal Surdyk, city development director, said Sitler applied for a $10,000 loan and $20,000 grant to pay for the cost of the band and Sitler’s fee for coordinating the event. Sitler said tickets for the event would cost between $20 to $40.

For the Gerard Malanga event, Sitler said it would be a three-day event of video projections of Malanga’s work and other local artists that will be on display along the Riverwalk.

“It will create a reason for people to come downtown,” Sitler said. “It will be a reason for people to walk the Riverwalk.”

Sitler said it will be a free event, with Malanga speaking at least one night during the event.

Surdyk said Sitler applied for a $5,000 loan and a $16,500 grant for the event.

In other business:

¯ The board discussed the grant the National Comedy Center applied for to be funded $136,000 from the Fund for Downtown Programming for the Riverside Saturdays events held during the summer at Comedy Center Park along the Chadakoin River and the Riverwalk. The events featured entertainment before a comedy movie was shown on outdoor movie screens in the park.

Journey Gunderson, National Comedy Center executive director, told the board that the intention of the events was to draw both local residents and tourists to downtown Jamestown. She said during one of the seven Riverside Saturdays events they surveyed people who attended. She added that 50% of the people who attended were local residents and the other half were tourists who didn’t live in Jamestown.

Gunderson said 52% of the people surveyed said they ate at a downtown restaurant while in the city and 45% were staying at a local hotel. She said the first few events held had an average of 500 people attending. She added that the fifth Riverside Saturdays event had more than 1,000 people in attendance.

“We were thrilled with the results,” she said. “This did what we hoped it would.”

After Gunderson spoke about the events, Kimberly Ecklund, board member and At-Large councilwoman, said she had some legal concerns she would like to speak about in executive session. The board then tabled the resolution and didn’t bring the proposal off the table after coming out of executive session.

The board also approved to Allow Nate Enterprises to make interest-only payments on a JLDC loan for the rest of the year. Surdyk said Nate Enterprises officials cited the reason for only interest payments on the loan is because of non-payments from their tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

John Sellstrom, city financial coordinator, said Nate Enterprises’ full payment is $319, which would be only $93 if they only made interest-only payments. He said Nate Enterprises officials have never missed a loan payment.