ST. CLOUD -- A new concert series is coming to downtown St. Cloud. "Fifth Ave. Live" will be held once a month starting in July. An organizing committee of downtown businesses, property owners, and city staff have been working on the series for over six months.

7 West Taphouse owner Ray Harrington says they wanted an event that could draw a wide range of people.

Well hopefully we're going to attract a lot of people who don't normally come downtown, get to see the beautiful job the city has done with the landscaping and the redoing of the streets and sidewalks.  And, we'll get a lot more foot traffic of the people who work downtown who don't normally stick around after work.

You will have to pay to get into the event, a $5 cover charge.

Organizers say the events will be fundraisers to help raise money to make improvements to the downtown.

One of the goals with this is to create some dollars that we can try and put some civic projects together.  One of our first projects would be to actually fly some festoon lights (strings of lights draped across the street) along 5th Avenue between St. Germain Street and 1st Street South, so really create that vibrant entertainment district to downtown St. Cloud.

Inventure Properties President and CEO Doug Boser says the strings of lights will be up year round, and they could be installed as soon as this fall.

The first "Fifth Ave. Live" concert is Thursday, July 19th from 5:00 until 8:30 p.m. with the bands the Honey Badgers and the Gregory James Band playing.

Shannon Wiger with the Moss and Barnett Law Firm and Spring Hill Capital says they wanted to be strategic about the dates they chose.

We picked two Thursday nights because we really wanted to connect with the groups that are already working downtown and give them a reason to stay down here, something to do after work.  And then the other two dates we picked based on other great events that are already happening.

The dates are Thursday, July 19th and Thursday, August 16th, also during the Granite Games on Saturday, September 8th and during the St. Cloud State University Homecoming on Saturday, October 20th. More dates could potentially be added in the future.

St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis says the goal is to create the feel and excitement of a city festival because 'nothing brings people more together than music."  He says a lot of the same folks who organized Hockey Day Minnesota are also involved in this new event.

During Monday night's St. Cloud City Council meeting the council approved declaring it a city festival.

The event organizers will pay for public safety and all the other costs to run the events.

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