Good morning and welcome, everyone.
Today we're having the April 14th, 2021 economic development partnership board meeting.
And we'd like to welcome everyone in the listening audience and like to welcome all of the board
and committee members today.
I believe our first item on the agenda is ADP 21-008.
Hopefully everyone's had a chance to look at the agenda.
And I believe the first item on the agenda is the draft of the minutes.
We can take a moment to give everyone a chance just to make sure that they are aware of what's
there.
And once you finish, please wave your hand in the air like this and then that way I'll
know we're ready to move on.
Okay.
All right.
Good.
All right.
We'll take a motion from the floor, please.
Okay.
Councilman Davis.
I move approval of the minutes.
We have a motion on the floor.
Do we have a second?
Second.
Okay.
Jill Jester with a second.
I believe we're going to do the verbal approval.
So any items for discussion?
Hearing none, all in favor, we're going to go around the board here.
Let's see.
Tina.
Aye.
Let's see.
Steve Edgar.
Aye.
Jesse Davis.
Aye.
We made the motion.
Jason Tomlinson.
Aye.
Jill Jester did the second.
So hopefully you're not going to change your mind.
Aye.
Just kidding.
And let me ask you, Jessica, so we have three others, Heather, Kay, and Jamie.
Do we receive any vote from either of those?
No, sir.
Mr. Wilson is an ex officio member, and Pam is serving as the interim chamber president
right now.
And so they're non-voting members.
Okay.
And Heather's here as our wonderful guest for one of our items.
Okay.
Wonderful.
And then John Baines is also approving the minutes as presented.
So we're going to move on to the next agenda item.
Let's see, ADP 21-009.
Let's consider approval of the Economic Development Partnership Board annual meeting schedule.
I guess someone needs to at least show the schedule so we can make sure we're aware what
we're approving.
Sure.
Give me one second.
I can pull it up.
But just to let the board know, our meetings are scheduled for the second Wednesday of
every month at 11 a.m.
I send you calendar invites regularly.
So those are the dates.
I can read them to you probably faster than I can get it open.
We're just required to have an adopted annual meeting schedule per the city's Board and
Commission handbook.
So those dates are January 13th, February 10th, March 10th, and April 14th.
So those meetings have already been held.
And then moving forward through the rest of the year, it's May 12th, June 9th, July 14th,
August 11th, September 8th, October 13th, November 10th, and December 8th.
And I will send you all calendar invites.
I try not to schedule them too many months in advance so that you don't get updates every
time something changes or moves.
So I usually try and work about one or two months in advance on those.
So we have -- I believe we need to approve this.
Is that not correct?
Yes.
Okay.
So we'll entertain a motion to approve the scheduled meetings.
Mr. Chair, we approve the scheduled meetings as presented.
I second that.
Okay.
Whoever's recording, somebody has to decipher that.
So somebody approved and somebody seconded.
I have that Jesse moved approval and Steve seconded.
Okay.
Wonderful.
Great discussion.
Hearing none, we'll go around the room once again with a -- with the verbal acknowledgement.
Let's see.
We go to Tina.
Yes.
I approve.
Steve?
Aye.
Jesse?
Aye.
Jason?
Aye.
Jill?
Aye.
And John Baines also approved.
So did I miss anyone?
I believe Bob has joined us, but it's not showing up on our --
Oh, I do see Bob Baines.
I do see it.
Hello, Bob Baines?
I don't see a microphone.
So he's probably not audio yet.
So we'll catch you on the next one, Bob, while you get acclimated.
So moving on to the next agenda item, EDP 21-13, it's receiving a report, hold a discussion
regarding an update from the Downtown Economic Development Committee.
And I take it that you're going to do that presentation, Jessica?
Yes.
So we don't have a formal presentation.
We just wanted to update the board.
The Downtown Economic Development Committee has only met once this past quarter.
They met on March 4th.
At that meeting, they affirmed Jesse Davis as the board chair of that meeting.
And so he got to chair his first meeting on March 4th.
And at that meeting, they received an update regarding sort of a comprehensive look of
all the capital projects that are going on in downtown.
If you're wondering what made your packet so thick today, we put that update for you.
We know a lot of you get questions about downtown projects, what's going on, kind of the timing
of those.
So we wanted to make sure that this board had those, but no intention to duplicate that
effort, but it's there in case you wanted it as reference.
Let's see, all right, thank you.
Let's see, okay, forgive me, I got disturbed by someone trying to reach me on my phone.
Let's see here.
So we need to make an approval?
No, sir.
Just an update.
Just an acknowledgement.
Okay.
All right.
Let's go to the next item on the agenda.
I think you mentioned that we were under a little bit of a time crunch, so I'm trying
to make sure I don't dilly-dally too much.
For those of you who are not old enough to know that word dilly-dally, that's an old school
word.
EDP 21-12, receive a report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding an economic
development program agreement with Hickory & Real Ventures LLC for Stoke-Denton.
And it looks like we're going to have a presentation.
Is that you?
It's me and Heather Gregory is with us to answer any questions.
I actually will go through this quickly, because if the board will recall, you've already seen
this once, and you did make a recommendation, and we'll kind of point out why we're coming
back to the board with this information.
But the first sort of 10 slides or so are things that you've seen before.
But if you'll remember, I believe it was back in October or November, we provided an update
regarding ongoing kind of discussions that we were having with Hickory & Real Ventures
about transitioning the management, ownership, and operation of Stoke-Denton.
Just to give you a reminder of everything that Stoke does, they are the hub for our
startups, our entrepreneurship, support, remote worker connectivity, and small business development.
Beyond just the co-working space itself, they have a lot of programming.
Things like the Flint Conference, Heather can give you the plug, buy your tickets.
We're doing it virtually again this year, but it's going to be great.
Big ideas mixers, startup crawls, they lead the Denton Innovation Group, the Denton Angels,
the Investment Group, and they also host Making Denton podcasts and are hosting regular kind
of mentorship sessions through the coffee and convos.
And then the Accelerate Her Startup Business Incubator program, which the first year just
came to a really fantastic conclusion and lots of great participants and outcomes from
that as well.
And so just a few great kind of key stats of the efforts that Stoke has done, some photos.
And then again, really just knowing that they're reaching a lot of people, 200 events with
2,100 attendees, really having a big impact in our entrepreneurship and startup space.
We've got a good number of members.
Over 167 different member companies have operated at Stoke.
That's 126 people with tech or tech-enabled jobs that have held memberships there.
And then on average, 58% of members in the co-working space are tech or tech-enabled.
I'm kind of jumping ahead, I'm sorry, my computer is freezing.
Remember that some other key stats is that remote workers and freelancers represent about
38% of the member population.
That's important because those people can work anywhere and they choose to work here
in Denton.
So that's something that's really important to us.
And then of course, the high satisfaction rate of members operating out of Stoke is
worth noting as well.
Through June of this year, we have a management and operation agreement with Hickory and Rail
Ventures.
The city still holds the lease and kind of owns Stoke until that point.
This is just information related to what's in the contract today related to HRV's performance.
So things like they have to operate the co-working space, that they have to create and implement
a funding of investor network.
And I'm not going to go through all of these because there's two slides of them and there's
a lot and you've seen it before.
But just to say, overwhelmingly, HRV has complied with kind of all of the terms of their contracts
and have had a lot of success in managing the Stoke operation.
So the previous council direction that staff received was that they wanted to transition
Stoke to Hickory and Rail Ventures to operate Stoke independently at the conclusion of the
city lease, which is June of 2021.
And so we've kind of begun those conversations.
We came to you last fall and said, hey, we've kind of got a plan of how we're going to make
that transition happen.
And all of that, of course, was influenced by COVID.
As we moved forward through that process, we negotiated a program agreement.
And so we came together and set sort of a funding figure and what outlines and what
terms programs would be supported and continue to be supported by HRV and Stoke going forward.
So because HRV increased their programming above the contracted requirements and they
desire to continue to assist us in supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem, we wanted to
transition them to a new program agreement.
So what's noted in red are the things that have changed from the last time the board
made a recommendation on this.
And so the terms, the backbone terms of the agreement are staying the same, but there's
going to be a couple different changes in the agreement that we thought warranted coming
back to the board.
One primarily because it had a financial change.
So the city, because we lease the space today, has a security deposit on the space.
In an effort to sort of ease the transition over to HRV, the city is proposing to just
transfer that security deposit deposit over to HRV and allow them to not have to put down
an additional deposit and then also we clarified language and really outlined specifically
how the transition would occur for the furniture and equipment and the logo and Stoke brand
and get those ownership items transferred over to HRV directly as part of the program
agreement in this first year.
So other than that, the terms remain the same and it'll be a partnership agreement that's
focused on meeting our strategic efforts in the areas of entrepreneurship, tech, and business
support.
It aligns with our strategic plan.
If you look at their program proposal, they outline specifically what actions they're
taking to meet our strategic efforts.
And it's this first agreement, we move forward with a one-year agreement, obviously to make
sure that we catch everything and then can come back and reevaluate after a year.
And so just a reminder, you did look at this on November 11th, 2020, and then we just wanted
to bring this back to make sure that those additional changes in terms kind of made sense
to the partnership board.
So we're seeking your recommendation to city council to adopt an ordinance to approve the
agreements with those changes.
And that is all I have on this one.
Again, Heather is here if there are any questions for Stoke directly.
Okay.
So in order to have a conversation, I believe the protocol is to make the motion, approve
it, and then have discussion.
Is that correct?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
So we'll entertain a motion to accept the recommendation as presented as going to council.
Still moved.
Jill Jester.
We have a motion on the floor.
We need a second, please.
This is Jason.
Second.
Jason Thomason seconds.
Okay.
Thank you.
I do have about three questions, and so I'll wait and ask mine after someone else.
Okay.
Hearing none.
Heather, Jessica, this is not a criticism.
This is just an inquiry.
So how are we doing on our diversity with Stoke?
Thank you for asking.
It's definitely something that's at the forefront of our minds and our efforts.
We continue to make sure that not only our members, but the mentors and workshop leaders
and speakers at our conferences and our events are diverse from diverse backgrounds, race,
gender.
And yeah, so it's at the forefront of our mind, and speaking specifically about gender,
through the partnership with Texas Women's University Center for Women Entrepreneurs,
the Accelerate Her Program is only for women entrepreneurs, and of the six women that were
in that cohort, half of them were minority.
And so again, it's just something that's at the forefront of our mind.
And so we really try to move through our programming, making sure that we're doing the outreach
that we can and providing the education and resources that we can for diverse population.
Thank you, Heather.
Question number two, we had a few months ago, Jessica, a company that was doing, I'm trying
to remember, I won't say it was like computer games, but they were simulations.
And I'd asked the gentleman how they were doing with their diversity because the Silicon
Valley, even though I believe they're making an effort, they're behind on their women and
minorities and participation in the Silicon Valley.
So I just simply wanted to kind of have that discussion again to make sure that there's
an effort there, not only for the various colors, but also the genders, that there seems
to be a shortage of both minorities and females in the tech industry.
And so everything we can do to help that is really great.
And that was more of a comment than a question.
My last question is this.
So in your marketing and outreach, do we rely on simple advertisements or are we being aggressive?
Are we going to, like, for example, different parts of the community and saying, hey, this
is what we're doing, we'd like for you to participate?
So rather than just wave a flag, are we actually going to these different groups and saying
we'd like to have your participation?
We do both.
I would say obviously in the last year, it's been difficult to do outreach in the way that
I would really like to.
But we do.
I am in conversations with individuals and also organizations to ensure that we are doing
everything we can to support entrepreneurs of all stripes.
Yeah, so we do both kind of digital marketing and also pursuing relationships with partners
that we want to be helping and working with.
This is, I don't know if this is relevant or not, but I've been really concerned about
some things going on in the community.
So I said, okay, if you're concerned, John, how about you set some coffee dates with people?
So I'm setting coffee dates with people that I want to talk to.
So we'll go to Starbucks, we'll go downtown, and we'll have those conversations to make
sure that I'm aware of what's going on with people who maybe don't think like me or people
who don't look like me or people from whatever my orientation is.
So I'm being the aggressor to make sure that I go out and get that information.
So all that being said, Heather, congratulations on what's being done, and I just look forward
to more positive responses and results.
Anyone else have participation or would like to have a conversation with Heather before
we move on?
Okay, we have a motion on the floor second, we've had discussion all in favor of the recommendation
going to city council, we'll signify by aye as we go around.
Tina?
Aye.
Okay.
Steve?
Aye.
Jason?
Aye.
Jill?
Aye.
Jessie?
Aye.
And Bob Eames?
Okay.
You're on mute, but I think I saw your mouth move.
So okay, and John Baines has an aye, so I think we're unanimous on the recommendation
going forward.
And thank you for receiving my comments, Heather.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to the next agenda item, let's see, we have, are we at ADP 21-015, Jessica, is
that where we are?
16.
The numbers are out of order, but it's E21-016.
Oh, 16, okay, 16, all right.
Receiver report, hold the discussion and give staff direction regarding implementation of
the economic development strategic plan.
So will that be you again, Jessica?
It is the Jessica show today, I do apologize for that.
Well, this is going to be in the effort to kind of conserve everyone's time, I'll go
through this really quickly, but I want to kind of make the board aware of, you know,
we went through a very long process of developing the strategic plan.
And so we sort of considered October 1 as sort of our final push to adoption and implementation.
And so while we were working through those last weeks with city council to get it adopted,
our team on the back end was working on developing kind of those implementation plans and how
do we move forward?
And so that's what we wanted to show to talk with the board today is just to kind of quantify
what we've done, how we've done it, and how we'll kind of come back with information to
you.
So I would say that I'm going to put up a presentation that has a bunch of numbers,
and they don't really mean anything unless you have the I think 30 page document behind
it that breaks down what each individual task is in the action, because we didn't do a first
quarter update in this I've included both quarter one and quarter two of this fiscal
year in in that document.
So you can actually see the tap the team member, that's the project manager, you can also see
the status of those tasks.
And then you can also see the quarter one update.
So what actions were done between October and December.
And then you can also see the quarter to update, which is what actions have been taken from
January to the end of March.
And so I'm going to put up the presentation real quick.
But it kind of provides good context for the report that is behind it in your packet.
So this is our sort of dashboard of our strategic plan.
So we had over about 122 individual tasks or actions that were identified in the strategic
plan, they were broken down in these areas.
There were in goal one, there were 27 and goal two, there were quite a bit, but we broke
them down by those strategic growth areas in the plan.
And then goal three, and then there were about 16 related to capacity and resources.
So where we are kind of to date, and we really completed about 16, you'll see the majority
of those completions are occurring in that goal one, because that's specific to accelerating
recovery from the COVID pandemic.
And some of our capacity and resource building, which was really kind of our internal operations
that we needed to work on.
We've initiated or started progress on about 62.
So we're about half of the actions identified have had some movement or some progress forward.
We have 14 that are considered not initiated.
So those are items that are either kind of in the timeline right now that we'll need
to pick up over the next year, and we just haven't initiated work on them yet.
It could be that we're just planning and getting kind of staffed up in certain areas.
And then lastly, there are 30 that are considered future items.
So those are items that occur out in a two to five year time horizon.
So staff hasn't initiated work on those yet.
But that's because we might be doing some groundwork on some other actions that are
required to get to those future items first.
And so we're working on kind of updating and building out this dashboard as we go.
So we welcome your feedback, again, as we kind of go through this process.
But over the next slides, it just kind of breaks down where we are.
So each of these items were the actions identified in the strategic plan.
For the sake of the presentation, I did abbreviate them as sort of by their title as opposed
to writing it out.
But in your report, you have the full detail of what those are.
I'll turn to the corresponding page in the report just to give you an example.
So 1.1, which is an action that within it, it required, sorry, I have my screen up.
So it within itself had six actions or three actions.
We have one that is in progress and two that are complete.
So the actions like for 1.1 included pulling together the small group of leaders from the
chamber in the city to, you know, to develop a plan to respond to the pandemic, shifting
the focus of our economic development programs to not just focus on relief, but also to work
on business retention, workforce development, community services, sort of those wraparound
services that businesses need in the pandemic.
And then the third one was developing an internal dashboard.
So I didn't list all of them here for you.
But that's sort of an example, again, this kind of only makes sense with that long report
that's attached to it.
In terms of connected didn't, so these are our efforts focused in sort of our traditional
business retention and expansion, attraction and marketing and our industrial development.
We had 16 total actions and there you'll see most of our actions are in progress with one
complete action in that area and creative didn't.
So a lot of these are ones that we're actually working with, with Heather on, because this
is our entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity focus section.
So a lot of actions here are related to working with Stoke, working with the universities
and the school districts to kind of build up our capacity in these areas.
So we're going to see these items in action and in progress for some time, but we're hoping
to kind of move all of these forward and hopefully get some wins in this area over the next year.
The sustainable didn't programs, this is an area that we haven't had a lot of focus in
right now, but it's certainly one of those areas for improvement for our team where we've
got to do a little bit more research and capacity building on working with our sustainability
team on how we can support this effort moving forward.
Competitive didn't know a lot of these are forward looking areas.
So things like the coal hunter ranch development, professional office space and infrastructure
development.
Those are things that we might start having those conversations this year, but they're
really forward and in future items as well.
And then our last goal was strengthening community inclusion and we've made a lot of strides
in that.
And I'd encourage you to read that section because we are taking a lot of steps in this
area really early on to get some things in place that were really needed across the city
both internally and externally.
So just to summarize some key updates, again, we've made a lot of progress in our COVID
recovery efforts and we've had a lot of movement in our connected debt and strategic growth
area where we're kind of ramping up our existing efforts.
And then we are working towards our program agreement for stoked it.
And as I mentioned, that'll help us in that creative debt and strategic growth area.
And then looking ahead, really, we're wanting to build on our early successes in our capacity
building.
So that's building out the tools and the things that we need to implement a lot of our tasks.
So those were things like getting our CRM system set up and built out that gives us
a lot more kind of firepower in terms of what we can do in analytics and data support and
really making smart decisions with our programs.
We're continuing to work on our catalyst fund and those new policies and programs.
The last, you know, we talked about that being incorporated as part of the city's overall
budgeting process.
And so as we're getting that ramped up over the next month, we'll probably come back to
this board with updates.
And then as I mentioned, capacity and resources are those internal things.
And so making sure that we're in progress on a lot of those items, because those are
our internal things.
Those are things that we need to do from a capacity standpoint to make sure that we can
execute on those strategies.
And then we're continuing to just formalize work plans.
There's a lot more text that goes behind all of these things and discussions, but just
making sure that we're keeping track of where we are and that we're providing the board
updates on these regularly.
And so that's really our summary report on this.
Again, I didn't want to go into the long detailed 30 page report unless there were specific
questions.
But I know that this board worked so hard on making sure that we had strategies and
tactics that really would help us achieve the vision.
And so I want to keep you updated on where we are and what we're doing as best I can.
So I also welcome your feedback.
If this isn't the way this information makes sense to the board, please, please give me
any guidance that that would be a big help.
We have a question from Tina Albert, please.
Yes.
Jessica, thank you for the information.
I think a status update on this is good.
Do you plan on reporting this quarterly or giving updates quarterly or what's the cadence?
We do report on this quarterly.
And so our hope is that we will incorporate this into our regular quarterly reporting.
I'm fingers crossed that hopefully we'll have almost a public dashboard at some point in
the future that we'll be able to kind of put it out and you guys will get to go point to
things going forward.
We just don't have all of that built out just yet.
Yeah, I think I thought it was really good.
I think maybe for me just going for the future, your actions in progress, even like a indicator
saying, hey, it's on pace, right?
And what risks do you have in here?
That's kind of my question.
What's the risk?
Is it on pace?
Or maybe even, it's just an idea, a little green dot or yellow dot or red dot.
And we highlight the risk if there's any each of the quarterly updates.
Sure.
I like that.
I was going to have little icons.
Yeah.
Didn't get them in.
Perfect.
Any other questions?
Feedback is good.
Yes.
I'll jump out and I'll stir the pot a little bit, and then hopefully the rest of you will
continue to stir it.
So Jessica, we had those folks out of Austin that did this study for us, and in preparing
for this meeting, I did read through all the points, and it was really good to get refreshed
on the intention of this effort.
And my question is this, with such a large effort, and we've got a lot to get our arms
around, I mean, we have 30 pages, ladies and gentlemen, of things, and I believe that,
I think you did a good job, Jessica, of kind of grouping them, and then also kind of giving
us the status, started, not started, in progress, those kind of things, and I think all that's
good.
But my next question is, when do we think we're going to have all these things done?
Maybe that's a great question.
I don't have an answer.
Some of them have hard completion dates, right?
They're kind of singular actions, and so we can kind of point to a date and say, our goal
is to have this in place by a certain day on a calendar.
Let's do this, let's do this, let's say we're going to do it in two years, three years.
Yeah, so each item next to it has a timeline, so they identified the timeline that this
action would either initiate or come to some sort of sustainable function, and so our goal
is to try and align our efforts into that timeline.
So if it said ongoing, those are things that are happening now.
We're continuing to work and have those conversations.
You'll see that there are things that say ongoing and complete, and so that's why it
seems misleading.
Things that are complete may be, we're going to have to continue to find updates in that,
but the primary work is done.
So the thing that was needed to be in place, things like updating our CRM system, we've
got it in place.
We have to continue to update it over time, but we consider that item complete.
I'm going to come back to you again.
Okay.
Let's say, for example, a lot of us that are sitting here today will not be here in two
years or in three years, so out of sight, out of mind, out of sight.
Basically, I'm engaged, but once I'm off the board, my engagement kind of leaves because
I'm not around it as much, but somehow there has to be a way also to kind of keep everyone
abreast of what's going on.
But in my mind, I'm thinking that to have everything done, are we basically looking
at three years, five years?
That's kind of what I'm looking for.
The plan was adopted as a five-year plan, so it's intention to capture all of our efforts
over the next five years.
Excellent, thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
Any other questions from anyone?
And Jessica, there was, I was in the reading.
Can I just say something?
I'm sorry.
I don't have a question, but I have a comment.
Go ahead, Jill.
Thank you.
I just want to say kudos to the incredible work that has gone in here.
I mean, this was created not that long ago, and to have all of the different components
so well-defined, who is responsible for each of those, which of those are shared, and then
to get this kind of update and scene with the staff that you have and in partnership
with the Chamber, what all has been accomplished is so impressive, and I'm just so very proud
of all the people who have contributed, but I'm super, super proud of Denton for the accomplishments
that have been made in the amount of time since maybe not even a year ago we started
this really kind of putting pen to paper on this, so well done from taking what the consultants
advised, the input from council, the input from everyone else, and creating this document
now we're seeing in action, and it makes it so easy for us that are not there day-to-day
to see what's happening and where progress is being made and what our goals are.
So anyways, I just want to say it's a huge relief to see all that work pay off.
Thank you.
And all of that is really owed to the people you see on the screen, because they just get
me bugging them every day, Kay, and Corey, and Dan, and Erica going, "Where are we on
this?
Where are we on this?"
So big, you know, that's shared.
Yeah.
John, this is Steve.
I would echo Jill's, this is an exhaustive list and tremendous work.
I do think the area, the goal three on strengthening community inclusion from my perspective takes
on a unique necessity to circle back with some of those, whenever we identify work and
meet regularly with key employers, simply because the pandemic has shifted some of the
things that we probably identified as necessities or must-dos, some of those have moved to different
environments to get the work done and to see what part of that gets reset as we ease out
of the pandemic, that would be wonderful, I think, for us all to see on how that's going
to be provided.
And certainly from a healthcare standpoint, we've experienced that as well.
But I echo Jill's comment that very well done and I look forward to pacing the updates throughout
our meetings as well.
Thank you, Jill.
Thank you, Steve.
Any other comments or accolades?
Okay, do we need to have a recommendation on this one, Jessica, or just informational
only?
Just informational only.
We just wanted to make sure the board, you know, as we continue to work through this
first year, we want to keep bringing it back as a discussion item and not just a report
so that you have an opportunity to give us feedback and direction on these items and
we can have those conversations, you know, our doors are open any time.
If there's something on here that you have information or knowledge or experience or
expertise on, you know, we welcome it.
We need, as you can tell with 122 items to go, we need all the help we can get.
So please don't hesitate to reach out because we want to make sure that we're staying on
track with this board.
Thank you, Jessica.
And before we go to this last item, I did have a question.
As I was reading the packet, it seemed like there was a lot of discussion about roads
and improvements and those types of things.
Are we going to touch any of that here, the downtown area?
No.
So that presentation that's on all the downtown capital projects was what we include, that
was what was the presentation that was given to the downtown economic development committee.
So I wanted this board to just have that as reference.
We get asked those questions a lot.
I'm sure you get asked those questions a lot.
I'm sure Councilmember Davis and Mayor Hudspeth are on the line, get asked those questions
a lot.
So it's nice to have that information when your friends and neighbors say, what are they
doing over there?
Tina, were you going to make a comment?
Okay.
All right.
Good deal.
The last item agenda item is EDP 21-015.
Receive a report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the economic development
partnership fiscal year 2021 second quarter activity report.
I like the report, Jessica, you want to take it from here?
Absolutely.
And I'll let everyone kind of talk about their areas if they want, but what we really wanted
to do and what we're very proud of is this is the second version of our new comprehensive
quarterly report.
I'm sure many of you turned tuned into the city council meeting yesterday, seeing head
not no head yet, to see us, we did our mid year economic development report yesterday.
And we got to share a lot of our successes and wins with the city council.
And so we're not going to do the full presentation, we just have the report for you.
But I wanted to give the opportunity for Corey or Kay, you know, and Dan and Erica as well,
they've been they've been really doing a lot, you know, to increase our efforts and introduce
new programs.
And so I'll pull up the presentation and then just we'll walk you through it.
Jessica, I think if you just kind of scroll us through it, and that way everybody at least
kind of gets a visual and they may get inspired to go back and look at it more in detail later.
Yes.
Well, we will do that.
All right.
So this is our new our second version.
We took feedback from our first version, particularly in terms of the stats we were collected.
So these are kind of our four key stats that we have, tracking our sales tax collections,
tracking our unemployment rate, and then our new residential permit values and our commercial
permit values.
So getting an idea of what's happening in terms of investment in our community.
And the feedback we got was tracking kind of year over year.
And so we made a few changes to this to show kind of both 2020 year to date and 2021.
And so that's the main change that you'll see here.
Same data that you saw in the first in the first version, just updated to capture that
second quarter.
And then I'll let Corey talk about business attraction.
Good morning, everyone.
Just to kind of give you some brief update regarding business attraction, we we currently
have 44 active projects, we got requests for 41 new RFIs between the first and second quarter.
We've been a finalist for three projects through the second quarter.
And we actually were notified last week that we're finalists for another project as well.
So we've got all those that we're working on.
And most importantly, we've been able to close as one, two projects, of course, everyone's
aware of the lows that project that closed at the end of last year, that was a quarter
one project.
It's about 110 new jobs and about 40 to 60 million in capital investment between the
cost of the building and the equipment.
So it's a great project.
We also closed in the second quarter, MLS, which is a local supplier to Peterbilt has
consolidated their seven separate operations as well as expanded into a 400,000 square
foot building in Denton crossing at I-35 on Western Boulevard.
So that's a huge win, I think, you know, in economic development.
Everybody loves to hear the new companies coming to town and how important that is.
And it's great.
But fostering and growing our existing businesses is just as important.
And so we'd love to see our local businesses invest further in the community.
And this kind of just gives you a little bit of an update on some of the projects we're
working on, what type of industry they are, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
I'll pull it down just for a second so I can see everyone.
Is there any questions about attraction?
We like to keep Corey busy if you can't tell.
It's amazing the way that it is really picked up.
I mean, in the past quarter or so since, of course, the downturn during COVID, but wow,
it's really blowing and going.
But that's great, the interest that people have in coming here and well done, everyone.
All right.
I think the next one is Kay, and Kay has been really doing a lot.
She's really ramped up the business retention and expansion.
So Kay, I don't know if you have just maybe a quick couple minute update on that.
Yeah, sure.
So we have extended the list.
We originally started the list at about 45 or 50, but we weren't getting as many responses.
So I've extended the list and put together a historically underutilized business and minority
owned business list and so I've added those businesses to our retention efforts and made
contact with those businesses and our scheduling meetings with them.
Interestingly enough, you can see here in the key takeaways, a lot of our businesses
that we've met with actually did not, were not hit hard by the COVID.
Some of them actually saw increases in some of their sales and revenues.
I think Bunch of Bikes is the poster child for that because their business expanded so
much where they're looking for additional space in the city, they're looking to expand
and relocate within the city because of the additional units that they started selling.
And by the way, they're going to be featured on Shark Tank and I think that's in the report
as well.
But the primary concern that a lot of businesses had was in regards to just marketing and business
leads were the primary challenges and people knowing that they're still existing, that
they're there and just trying to find some assistance there.
The strategic plan speaks specifically about including the efforts on the city side to
address that.
So we'll be adding that to the list of things that we'll be working on in the future to
address that for the business concerns.
But that's the high level in regards to business retention and expansion.
I don't know if anybody had any questions about that?
Take it out just in case.
Good job, Kay.
Thank you, Mr. Baines.
And then Kay, the next slide is actually our workforce education and training.
And this past quarter, Kay worked with a number of our partners, particularly with the Denton
Black Chamber of Commerce to host a doing business with local government and state agencies
for minority-owned businesses.
And so I'll pull that up and then let her kind of tell you about that.
But what a great success that was.
It really was.
And we were so excited.
The participants, both universities, NCTC, Denton ISD, the city of Denton and North Texas
Tollway Authority all participated in providing information on how to do business with them.
We also had the North Central Texas Regional Certification Agency, it's a mouthful, there
to present on how the businesses can become certified, small business enterprises, minority
business enterprise, and what those certifications mean for them in regards to procurement and
contracting.
We had about 48 attendees and received several emails after the event thanking us for the
information and how helpful it was.
So super excited about that.
The partnerships and the willingness and openness for the partners that we've partnered with
in the city of Denton has been unmatched.
I've worked in several cities and I really enjoy the enthusiasm and the intentional,
just being intentional from the partners in regards to them being open to anything the
city says that will allow us to support our businesses.
That was a great event and we look forward to partnering with our chamber and the Denton
Black Chamber of Commerce on several more events to support that business subset.
And also, Jessica, I don't know, it's not in the presentation, but I also wanted to
mention to the group that I'm preparing a minority business roundtable to address the
strategic plans, efforts on how we can support minority women-owned businesses in the community.
So we'll be putting together a roundtable so that we can, from our end as professionals,
can put all the words on the paper that we want to, but until we actually hear from those
actual businesses what support looks like, we'll help us guide that and ensure that it
looks like exactly what it needs to look like.
So we're working on that as well.
And then I'll go through the last little bit of the report pretty quickly and just wrap
it up for everyone.
So the last section is the key activities.
So this is just where we kind of keep track.
Things that are in progress, stats that we're wanting to keep track of, just things like
our business assistance requests.
So these are our sort of cold calls, a business needs help with any number of things.
And so we had 51 requests that could range from anything from I need help finding a site,
I want to open a new business, how do I get started, how do I figure out what my zoning
is, to how do I set up utilities, to anything kind of in between.
That's our team working on behalf of businesses or planned businesses in our community to
get them information that they may need.
And then what we've highlighted there in the boxes is one, and big things that we want
to keep in mind and we want the board to be aware of.
So the Denton Plan 2040, which is an update of our comprehensive plan, which will guide
the next 15 to 20 years of development.
So we've got the website listed there, please take a look at that and stay engaged and involved.
That's a huge community effort and economic development plays a tremendous role in that
plan.
And so we want to make sure everyone has that information and can weigh in and give your
opinion on kind of guiding future development in Denton.
Our strategic plan was formally adopted on February 9th, so we are celebrating.
Some other things to kind of be proud of is that the Economic Development Partnership
received the Texas Economic Development Council's Economic Excellence Recognition Award.
This speaks to the level of professionalism that our office has, so this includes training
and certifications and our formalized plans and policies that really kind of says we've
met significant standards in terms of just the professionalism and operation of our office.
And then we were also named the Economic Development Partner of the Year by Workforce Solutions
of North Central Texas.
And that's, you know, as Kay spoke to our partnerships, we don't do this alone.
We do this through a large part through the work of our key partners and Workforce Solutions
is one of those.
So we're certainly very humbled and thankful that they recognized our efforts to work collaboratively
with our partners in the community.
And then the next slides were just some, we thought it'd be fun to include some updates
from all of the organizations that we work with on a regular basis.
So Heather and Tracy with the Center for Women Entrepreneurs gave us an update on the conclusion
of the inaugural Accelerate Her program.
So a great, great photo there.
You might see some faces that you recognize, Mr. Baines, former Chairman Marty Rivers there
in the meeting, Denton Main Street has a number of things going on and this past weekend was
their spring open house and such a great event to get people continuing to support businesses
in our community.
And then the chamber, I know Corey will, I'd be remiss if I didn't say we have our next
investors reception on May 12th.
And so look forward to that as well.
And that's all we sort of have for our key updates on our strategic plan.
We already went through our strategic plan updates, so I didn't want to duplicate that
slide again for the board, but so that's Jessica, if I can just do a little bit further plug
our next investor reception is May 12th, which is a Wednesday evening.
We're going to do it in person.
We're trying to find an indoor outdoor venue to kind of make sure base spread out as possible.
Mr. Edgar with medical city as well as Jeff Rieser will kind of talk about the business
side of healthcare and their impact economically on the community.
And then we also have Matt Richardson with Denton County, the Denton County Health Administrator
to kind of address the health side of healthcare, specifically related to COVID and everybody's
questions there.
So I think it's going to be a really, really good event.
You can go to our website and register for that.
We'd love to see everyone there.
Once again, what date is that, Corey?
It is Wednesday, May 12th, and it's going to be from five to seven ish in the evening.
Place to be determined.
Yes, sir.
We should have that venue worked out here just in the next few days.
Awesome.
Well, I believe we're at the concluding items.
And typically we would like to ask anyone if there are any things that they would like
to have on future agendas, please let us know.
Should they reach out with an email to you, Jessica, or to Erica?
How should we do that?
Yes, unfortunately, not to Erica, to Pam.
The smiling face of Erica Pangburn is enjoying life in Abilene with her husband now, so we
certainly miss her.
But yes, reach out to me or Corey or any member of the team, and we will get things added
if something comes up.
Please don't hesitate to use us as a resource or let us know if there's a discussion that
we need to get scheduled.
Excellent.
So we'd like to thank everyone for your participation today, your positivity, and your intense interest
in the city of Denton and its progress.
And we look forward to seeing everyone at our next meeting, and I hope you have a great
day.
Do we have to move a motion to close the meeting?
You do not.
You can adjourn it.
Okay.
Thank you, everyone.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks.
- Okay.