A leading Capital Region developer is announcing a plan to renew interest in upstate New York cities, beginning with Albany.
Jeff Buell is creating a firm to figure out how to market people who don't have marketing budgets. His new venture, "Knowhere Collaborative," that’s “k-n-o-w,” will roll out a series of initiatives throughout the Capital Region with one goal: making people fall back in love with the place they call home.
“I am a pretty good traveler," said Buell. "I like to go see what other people are doing. And most of the things that I bring back here and say, ‘let's do this,’ I've simply stolen from somewhere else. It's okay to be a thief. I took six weeks off last year, and I drove around the country. And I was looking for things that we could bring back here, that would help revitalize some struggling spaces.
Hoping to stimulate business development, Buell says Knowhere's mission includes taking drastic, creative and unusual steps.
“And this is predominantly an Albany story. I think Schenectady rebounded from COVID pretty well, the downtown is doing good. We like what we see there. Troy is such a wildly interesting small market city where it's hard to tell how things are going because it's a rollercoaster all the time, not on, not on the politics, not on whether things are going up and down. But like, what is the crowd? And what is it doing? It's an interesting place, but they're doing OK, Albany, Albany needs a boost,” said Buell.
Buell says his collaborative can revive the Capital City's bustle. Step one, he says, involves creating a network of scavenger hunts to attract people to Albany starting Saturday. "I will list the first clue of a scavenger hunt. And the first scavenger hunt I'm going to do, we're going to give away $1,500 to whoever figures it out. And it's a five stop scavenger hunt, and so figure it out. It's all QR codes, they're placed around the region, I already put them up. And if you find them, you win. Simple enough," Buell said.
Buell says the QR codes will serve as clues that tell stories, so if you start seeing random QR codes here and there, you should scan them.
"The first story that I'm doing on Saturday is a story about Joe Masher, who recently opened the Spectrum Theatre again, and who is having his grand opening at Huck Finn's Playland on Saturday," said Buell. "So Saturday morning on our on our vast network of social media, we will we will put up a story about Joe Masher and why he bought Huck Finn and getting encouraging people to go down. They're giving away free tickets for the rides. And somewhere in the park will be a QR code. And if you scan it, you'll get the clue to the next one."
Buell acknowledges non-residents don’t always think highly of Albany. “It's hard to see the light when it's so dark," Buell said. "And I feel like it's been it's been too long since Albany had like, not a win, we've had good wins, we have good things happening here. The problem is our wins are being separated by some tough stories, this story about the dirt bike, and the SUNY student getting hit, horrible, horrible story. Your heart hurts, right? And, and so when your heart hurts, that takes over, and then all of a sudden, that's the story. The crime in Albany, this is such a hard topic to navigate. Because, you know, the mayor can be right that the numbers are down, and that the perception is the issue. If you look at it, that's a fact. But crime is such a personal topic to people that they have a hard time listening to that narrative.”
For now, Buell is focusing on lifting up Albany's image. Buell is employing the internet to reach people to let them know there are things to do downtown and that Albany is a unique place with many things to offer. He says Knowhere will work to use ubiquitous social media to reconnect locals with real life.
"This is almost like a Hail Mary, this Knowhere Collaborative of 'I need a group of like-minded people who are willing to get behind good things, and push, push the good to the forefront again.' Social media can be the best thing that's ever happened to us. And because we're humans, we've ruined it. But it doesn't mean you should stop trying," said Buell.
