Jun 03, 2021 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2021-06-03 8:30 AM (Downtown Economic Development Committee)

good morning everyone I'm Jesse Davis chair of the downtown economic development committee a subcommittee of the economic development partnership board of Denton Texas it is 832 on June the third 2021 and we're going to get started seeing that we have a forum with our first item for consideration that is EDP 21-025 consideration of the minutes of our last meeting March the fourth of this year. Those have been posted publicly on the internet and been available to the committee members. Do we have any changes or deletions to the minutes? Seeing none do we have a motion for approval? I'll make that motion Bob Moses. I'll second Hank. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All right then we'll vote start with Bob how do you say aye? Hank aye. Nick aye. Brock? Brock do I hear you? Aye. John? Aye. And Beth? Aye. Very good. Got me. Did I miss anybody in the vote? Yourself? Aye. All myself. The chair is an aye as well. Okay. Okay that moves us to our next item 1B EDP 21-027 receive a report hold discussion to make a recommendation to the downtown turds number one board regarding a downtown reinvestment grant application for 225 West Oak Suite A the salvage secondhand shop. So I'm going to share my screen with you give me just a moment to get started. Okay my name is Christina Davis and I'm going to present to you today a reinvestment grant for 225 West Oak Street. Let me move this out of my way just a little bit. This is for a new business downtown that's looking for a sign grant application for salvage secondhand shop. We're asking you today to review and recommend approval to the downtown turds number one board. Just to review since it's been a while where we met the following items are what we consider when reviewing an application. So we want something that's going to increase the property valuation or increase sales tax. It's historically accurate or design quality improves capacity of water wastewater electric services and improves the health and safety results in significant increase in downtown population either day or night has other impacts that are included but not limited to they partner with other businesses it's a target business or promotes development of arts and entertainment in downtown. Excuse me one second here. In the facade rehabilitation they're going to be are that could allow for removal slip covers, non historical or added facades repointing brick replacing mortar joints, replacing or restoring cornices removing paint from brick replacing windows, restoring transoms and roof and foundation work. And in the focus of this application new onions and signings replacing adding or repairing onions and signs signs can include boards projected signs pedestrian signage which includes windows signings hanging signs and onions or canopy signs. We also have the outlines for impact reimbursement utility upgrades and interior code improvement. This is a street location of where the business is now located. It is the previous circus 77 vintage, you can see they do have a flat sign on the front and an aging on in there. This is what the proposed sign will look like. It'll be green. Julianna DeGiorno is our applicant and she has indicated that the letters as a L A V G E could possibly be filled in in black as well. And so that's all we have for that application is the sign grant with the cost of $604 and four cents, and the request is for 50% of that which is $302 and two cents. So open it up for you to discuss. And the applicant is here. You can see Julianna on your screen if you have any questions for her about her project. I have a question. Julianna is the sign that you're proposing the same size as the one that's currently there, or are you thinking about a different dimension. Julianna. You're muted. Yes. Okay. Um, it is the same size as the sign that was there. I wanted something bigger, but it was more cost effective to do something that was the same size as the one that's there. Thank you. Other questions for the applicant or for staff. Okay, if we don't have any further questions, do we have a motion. Before we can go forward, we need to go through the scoring project after the scoring of the project. I'm going to put on the screen. I'll share the score. And if you could please write down your total your scores and then I'll also put up a phone number where you can text the score to so we can calculate those. Okay, I find it I find it difficult trying to on an iPhone, put in something like that. So I will, when it's time to make a score, I will go ahead and score that verbally. If there is opportunity for discussion, I would say that I think that's an excellent thing to do. It's a type of business that we haven't had downtown before. And I'd like to do everything we can to encourage the success of the business. Thank you. Christina, just to recap, you're showing us the score sheet that we were in person. We have these passed out or handed out. You're asking us to tabulate our own scores. And then when we're all ready, you're going to give us a phone number to text our scores to. Yes. Christina, can you hear me? Yes. So I remember this being more score sheet or not the signed grant. Is that a different type or? Yeah. We used to have 500 dollars signed for grants. We don't, we don't have that. So everything goes through the investment grants. Is the last box considered optional or do we need to try to find a way to score other? I forget. It is an opportunity for you to to score other options, maybe things that aren't already outlined. Okay, not it's not mandated, but it's there in case. Yes. And since the grant application is for less than. Well, the lowest amount is 5,000 dollars. So any score above 15. Average for the, for the, for the members. We're voting for the entire 300 dollars to correct. Hey, everyone. Sorry, this is just good. So the amount that you see the up to 5,000 dollars in that 15 to 19 scoring range, you could approve a grant for anything up to 50%. Of the total amount of the project. So, in this case, the max a grant that could be awarded is that 300 dollars the board has discretion to make a recommendation for less than 50%. But that's the maximum word that can be requested up to 5,000 dollars. If that makes sense. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you, Jessica. I do apologize. I was looking in the background. So I assume you're always lurking. There's a little more time to score. Are we ready for the phone number? I'm ready. Can everyone see that on the screen? No, not yet. There we go. I know that Bob is going to tell us to score verbally. So he doesn't have to. Do weird stuff at this time. Is there anybody else who needs to do that? I'm going to wait until everyone has had a chance to place their votes before I. Yes, sir. Thank you, Christina. We'll count on you to. Let us know when everybody's texted or if you're waiting on anybody in particular. I'm going to send it in each category or just the total, just the total, please. I think that's everybody. Bob, we're ready for your score. Thank you all very much. OK, I'll go back to. My other sheet. Excuse me. I have completely lost everybody. John, we can see, I guess, a black square where you used to be. So we can still hear you and you're still you're still participating in the meeting just as a blank square. OK, I'm going to pull up the score sheet once more so you can see it. The total score is 18, which puts the score within 15 to 19. And that makes the applicant eligible up to 50 percent of their project at this time is three hundred and two dollars. So, Christina, now that we have their average score is above the necessary threshold. We're now we're free to make a recommendation to downtown. Yes, that's correct. Is there a motion to that effect? I make that a motion and I make the motion that we order the maximum that we can, which is three hundred and two dollars and whatever the cents were. Very good. Is there a second? I'll second this brought second from Brock. Any discussion? OK, then we'll vote Bob. I'll say you. Hi, Brock. Hi, Nick. Hi, Beth. Hi, Hank. Hank is a thumbs up and let me check my participants board here. Do we still have John? I don't know why I don't know where I went, but I'm back. All right. Are you are you an eye as well? Well, first of all, I need to find out what we're voting on, because I for some reason I got dropped. We're going to try to expand. We want to expand cart rides to upstairs and a basement. I don't know if I'm going to vote for that. That might be burdensome for Mr. Cartwright. We're voting on awarding the maximum eligible amount, the three hundred and change to to the applicant for their sign. Hi, two thumbs up and the chairs and I so we will recommend that award of that grant to the downtown tourist board. And they'll they'll take it from there. Thank you. And Giuliana, thank you so much for your application. Tell your friends and neighbors downtown that this money's out there and we love awarding these grants. Yes, I am. I actually learned it from my neighbor at the creative art studio. She was the one that told me. So I am very thankful. Very good. Very good. Well, it's else tax dollars and ours all mixed up together, helping people out. So keep the word going very much. I appreciate it. Have a good day. Thank you. You're welcome to stay and watch the rest of the meeting or you're welcome to go and get your day started. Okay, thank you very much. I'll have a good day. Bye. Thank you. That'll take us to item one C. E. D. P. twenty one dash zero two four receive a report, hold a discussion, give staff direction regarding nominations for the annual business awards. I don't just I don't think we have a presentation, but you. You sent the E. D. P. board some information on this is it is it basically the same. Somewhat somewhat similar. So, um. Because the partnership board isn't meeting next week, they're doing their first round of nominations virtually. Um, but this downtown committee, you, you conveniently had a meeting and we needed you to score that grant application. So we thought we would do it in person. But if you'll remember, we do the down business awards every year. Last year, we did them as distanced as we could do them. But this year we plan to go back in person. I believe September 10th looking for a head nod from Christina because I'm terrible with dates. For what day we're actually going to have the mayor council breakfast again in person. And so this committee awards a grant to a downtown business. Of course, they're all exceptional, but which one you feel might be most deserving for your annual downtown business award. And so we're just seeking nominations this meeting in the July meeting and then at your August meeting, you will vote on who you would like to give that award for. So today we're not no pressure. If today's just to get it, get it at the front of your mind type of discussion. That that's our goal. Yep. And can we so we'll have another opportunity another meeting and that'll be an in person meeting our next one. Correct. Yes. Yes, it will. So we'll have another opportunity in July to nominate. If you want to go to lunch a few days next week and drive around downtown and figure out how your experience goes and make nominations based on that. Or if you want to take some time and Jessica can nominations be emailed to you as well as long as we announce them to the to the whole board of the whole committee next meeting. Yes, we'll send a reminder follow up email to the whole board. I think in your backup you have the list of the groups that have been awarded in the past but it's always helpful to see that, because I believe this committee has picked kind of themes on different years. Two years ago I believe it was the businesses that had been impacted by the fire. Last year it was businesses that had helped downtown businesses get online during the pandemic so last year was swash labs and just Saudi. So, you've kind of had the flexibility as a group to decide you know what's what's important, or who's done something exceptional this past year to really promote downtown. And even if we don't have nominations this morning, or any nominations to mine. Any thoughts on on a theme like that any thoughts on kind of what we might want to be looking for and nominees. It's okay if we don't we've got some time, we can be thinking about it now that now that we know we need to be thinking about it. We can, we can talk about it in July. I think there were some businesses that made some considerable contributions if you will, to other business, leading our way leading the way through this coven thing, and how to work you know how to approach business downtown during that time. So, who were they give some examples Bob because I rely on people like you and john people downtown to tell us what was going on. In 2008 comes to my mind they were influential to us as to a setting up, you know curbside pickup and just various ways to try and continue to have some revenue coming in when, when there was very little revenue walking around. Thank you Bob any other thoughts this morning. Well then if we'll just keep it in mind, and we'll come back to it in July, and if you have any thoughts between now and then you want to email this to Jessica I'm sure she'll share them with the whole committee. And then that'll take us to our final item one D, comings and goings and other staff reports. Activity reports and open businesses is Brownlow house it's a, they've were planning to do more of a just lost my words, had a couple different plans but what they've been doing is weddings and photos and things like that so if you haven't had a chance to take a look and stop by and see their updated space it's it's really great the upgrades that they've made to the house. Let's move vintage has finished their move into their new location at 121 North Elm. Of course we just met with salvage secondhand shop this morning, and then someone massage is also also moved into their new location at five one, five three one North Elm, and the mug that is also a coffee truck has expanded and is now has a kiosk at chestnut tree. So we're really excited to see everyone expanding and moving and growing. We do also have actually they did their soft opening is but truly Joe's books and indulgence at 221 West Oak. They had planned to be open later this month but they were ahead of schedule and so they opened last week. And also to gentlemen of Rona which will be your, your fresh paste French pastries town pastries and gelato. They are still trying to open by the end of June so we're going to wish them lots of luck and hope that we see them soon as well. The status of our downtown ground which is 104 West McKinney is Mr Chido. We've reached out to him several times I can't seem to get ahold of him but I do know that he has another inspection later this month it's scheduled for the 25th. We hope that he's made it through and is ready to open up his concept we're still looking at a hamburger, a hamburger restaurant. And then our next meeting is set for July 1. I know it's right around the holiday but if there's any questions or concerns about that, we can look at other dates if people have plans to be out of town. I want to say I would like to back back up and for. I might have assumed that people might have understood what I was referring to about what Garden Gate did but she actually opened up almost a little grocery store mean something almost completely outside for normal businesses that attracted a lot of people coming in and picking different types of groceries and things like that. So that's what I was referring to and we saw her doing that and that influenced us quite good. Are you talking about Suzanne over a chestnut tree. Yes. Uh huh. Yeah, I said Garden Gate. I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that one up because my wife came in over hearing me. She was correcting me as you were correcting me, John. Thank you. I'm glad you brought that one up because of course we just heard about the mug moving and over there as well. So I'm giving another another local entrepreneur an opportunity at bricks and mortar. So that's a good that's a good one to keep in mind. Absolutely. Any questions for staff on that last item meeting date or staff reports. Any concluding items. It's our last agenda item. We will be in person. We'll be back at back at City Hall. Correct. Jessica for our next meeting. We may not be at City Hall. So this meeting, this board doesn't have a televised meeting. So we do have the ability to meet at other locations. And so we are possibly if we have a parking lot, considering holding the meeting at our new development services center where Hank Christina and I. And I all have offices. So I see a bias there. But also to show our wonderful new building off. We have some great meeting spaces in there and we can continue our kind of safe socially distance distance meetings. So excellent. Excellent. Well, I'm excited to see that building a lot of work going on over there. Any other concluding items from the committee. Seeing none and that will exhaust our agenda. Thanks y'all for taking your time this morning and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Have a good week.