Offices But No Visitor Center: Chamber Continues To Search For Permanent Quarters

BREWSTER – After three decades working in a spacious office in Brewster Town Hall, the Brewster Chamber of Commerce has, as of June 1, set up shop in two small but well-appointed rooms in the basement of 125 Underpass Rd. in a building mostly occupied by Lotus Primary Care.

At least for now that’s where the chamber will call home, according to Executive Director S. Kyle Hinkle, thanks to a sublease the organization signed with Dr. Kelly Kirkbride.

Kirkbride offered the rooms free of charge. “He was very generous,” Hinkle said. 

But the rooms lack access to the public, she said, most importantly visitors to Brewster. There are no direct doors to the parking lot, and the stairs down to the rooms are embedded in the medical offices. 

Thus Hinkle, who has led the chamber for 17 years, and Chamber Administrative and Events Assistant Jessica Georges, said the Underpass Road office isn’t a long-term home.

 “Obviously this space is not public-facing. It’s not a space where visitors can come and interact with us,” Hinkle said.

Georges said the best — and one of the most important — elements of the chamber’s mission is interacting with and helping visitors. 

 “One of my favorite parts of the job that I’m going to miss is greeting the visitors, the visitors that just come in to chat and learn about new things that happen in town,” Georges said. “For us, that’s one of the things we look forward to every year, to brag about our town and [see] if they like to bike, like to hike, if they want to eat this kind of food.”

That means Hinkle and the chamber board are taking steps to find the chamber a more suitable home.

 “Our immediate goal is to find a permanent office space, and to find a place where we can establish a visitor center, a welcome center, for the town of Brewster,” Hinkle said. “One that would be manned, that people can come into and get their questions answered.”

Ideally, she added, those two uses could be in one location, with the welcome center only open in the busiest months. But the chamber would consider splitting the sites if necessary. 

 “There are a lot of chambers around the Cape that have that kind of setup,” she said, adding she would be happy to get suggestions for a new spot at kyle@brewster-capecod.com.

The chamber’s move out of Brewster Town Hall came at the request of Town Manager Peter Lombardi. According to Hinkle, Lombardi told her in October that the town needed the roughly 12-foot-by-30-foot space that the chamber had occupied rent-free for almost three decades. She said Lombardi gave the chamber a springtime deadline.

In an email to the Chronicle, Lombardi explained the rationale. 

 “Our communications and IT staff are currently working in less-than-ideal conditions — in hallways, shared meeting rooms, and closets,” Lombardi wrote. “These three full-time employees will move into the shared space previously occupied by the Brewster Chamber in the coming months.”

Hinkle called the timing difficult for the chamber.

 “We were in the process of ramping up for Brewster for the Holidays, along with getting ready for Brewster in Bloom, which was our 40th anniversary this year.” she said. Both are signature annual undertakings for the chamber. 

Packing for the move began in earnest in April and was completed in time for the chamber to do business out of its new basement offices after a push in the final week of May. 

In the meantime, at Brewster’s town meeting this spring residents approved the town’s annual $35,000 of support for the chamber, but voted against $15,000 more to help pay rent for new office space. 

While searching for that space, the chamber will do what it can on Underpass Road without its town hall visitor center, including posting information at an unstaffed kiosk in the Lemon Tree Village area.

Hinkle and Georges are also planning a series of staffed pop-up events, with several in the negotiation stage and one confirmed, at an annual craft fair at Drummer Boy Park.

 “We’ve got a couple of locations we’re talking with people now about. And a few days a week there would be someone there promoting the town, being able to answer questions [in] public locations that are well attended.” Hinkle said.

The chamber’s membership roll includes about 180 members representing what Hinkle called a “broad scope” of professions and trades. And she said the board of directors supports the chamber’s goals.

 “Our mission is literally to strengthen, support and promote economic feasibility, environmental sensitivity, cultural richness, and the social needs of the community,” she said. “Those are the four pillars that we base our program of work on and that we do everything for. But the big part is promoting.”