Apr 11, 2018 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2018-04-11 11:00 AM

. >> Good morning, everyone. I am John Baines. I'm the vice chairman of the economic development partnership board. And I'm glad to announce that we do have a quorum. And we will call the work session to order at 1103. And our first order of business is EDP session 18-026. We will receive a report and hold discussion regarding revisions to the city 's public improvement district guidelines, better known as PITs. >> Good morning, Mr. Vice Chairman and members of the board. I'm John Baines. >> Good morning, Mr. Vice Chairman and members of the EDP board. It's good to see you all this morning. Everyone seems like they're in such a good mood. Beautiful day. Everyone's happy to be together. Talking about PITs again. Yay! Guess what? This will not be the last time we will talk about PITs. What I am going to do today is give you all an update based on the feedback that we got from the work session on PITs that we did with city council last night. And we will just run through that. And I am going to go quickly through these first slides because this is going to be a review of stuff that we've covered before for the most part. But if anybody has any questions, feel free to stop me, slow me down, and we'll get those taken care of. So what we're going to go through quickly is an overview of PITs as an economic development tool and their use and done to date. We're going to talk about how we've been before you with this before. We've been before the council with this before. I'm going to present some more specific options to mitigate the possible risk associated with PITs and also to maximize the benefits to the city when considering PIT projects. And we're going to revisit some things that we want to include in the draft PIT guidelines. So as you are all aware, PITs are an ED tool that are used to fund public improvements that benefit a specifically defined area. And the way that PITs are either funded on a pay as you go basis or the debt is backed up with assessed fees for the property owners within that defined area. They can be used for commercial or residential development. And there are some benefits of PITs to cities and developers. On the city side, they can increase the quality of development through better amenities. On the developer side , tax exempt debt helps provide funding for their public infrastructure and can reduce capital requirements and increase the developer's rate of return. You just heard me mention the two different types of PITs. They can be done on a pay as you go basis or a debt basis. And there are a couple different options underneath those two categories. Does anybody have any questions about this slide? As you're aware, cities around the state do use PITs to encourage development. And there's a short list of some of our neighboring communities that have them in place or have used them in the past. The specifics that surround PIT usage in different communities do vary according to what the city's policy goals are. So our goals are not going to be the same as Argyle's or Arlington's. And we will be using them for different reasons. This is just a quick chart that we put together about PITs that have issued or had bond sales either last year or this year so far. The list of the communities is over here on this side. The cost of authorized improvements is included. The value to lien ratio is included there. And we've had some discussion about, you know, what would be an ideal value to lien ratio from, you know, a policy standpoint. And most of the folks who analyze and think about PITs a lot fix that at a 3 to 1 value to lien ratio. But you can see here that some communities do choose to move forward with PITs either with no appraised value, so without finding out what that number is, or with a number that's below 3. And that, again, is dependent on what the community feels comfortable doing. We first approved PIT guidelines in 2007, and then we amended them in 2014. We do have one established PITs, Razor Ranch PIT number one. Reimbursement agreement for phase one infrastructure of that PIT was approved by the council in March of 2016. But since the service and assessment plan and finance plan have not yet been submitted, the PIT is not initiated. So no assessments have been levied and no bonds have been issued. Caroline, we have a question from the floor, please. On that, do those expire? I mean, they do expire. If full initiation isn't done within five years of the establishment of the PIT, it does expire. So within five years of 2016, that's when it was established? No, it's within five years of 2014. Okay. Yes. So coming up soon, relatively soon. And I'm sorry, May I? Go ahead, please. And will that come back through, or does it just automatically fall off? I mean, is there some sort of formal action that has to be taken or? I think it automatically falls off, but I'm going to ask Brian for his opinion on that, too. It's always tied up here at the podium. So the way this one was done is the PIT was created by council action. To create the PIT, the property owner would have to petition us to dissolve the PIT. There was a memorandum of understanding that the council also approved with the developer where the council and the developer agreed that if there was no action, they would seek to dissolve the PIT, but it doesn't happen automatically. They would have to petition us to do that. Then the council would have to approve that. If they were not to do that, they would be really in default of the MOU, and then the city would probably not have any obligation to proceed with the assessments or any kind of debt sale or anything like that. But it's not an automatic. It's really not related to the P IT law. It was really more related to the MOU that we had on that particular development. So hopefully that makes sense. But it is 2019. It is rapidly approaching. We've had some contact with the developer for Razor Ranch about potentially wanting us to do another reimbursement agreement for another set of improvements that have been done and looking at having that discussion perhaps later this year about their status of when they want to start the assessment. But it would fall under this same MOU? Right. That's right. And there were, this was really, you know, from our perspective, we would prefer to have the service and assessment plan, the financing plan, all those details on the front end in the future, so that you have all that laid out very clearly of what you 're going to do. The MOU was an attempt to have a basic framework around what the deal points would be. But all that has not really been detailed with any specific ity about what the assessment would be. How much is it? What improvements is it going to pay for? It was really kind of an attempt to help the development get started and move forward with some of that infrastructure. That's a long-winded answer, but it's not automatic by any stretch of the imagination. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So I always learn something from Brian when he comes up to the microphone. Some of the things that Brian mentioned with the service and assessment plan, the finance plan not being submitted on that PID, as well as the concept of an MOU, we are addressing those by changes to the PID policy by requiring those things up front and by requiring what's called a development agreement, which is, you know, it's a little bit more serious of a form of an MOU. So we've learned some lessons in our proposing changes going forward. So we have done several work sessions on the topic with the EDP board, with council, and we have made revisions to the guidelines based on feedback from the different bodies. The last time that we were here before this group, the council had directed us to exclude residential PIDs from the guidelines. And some in this group had some concerns about a blanket exclusion of that and the fact that that might cause us to miss out on opportunities for projects that we would like to consider. So last night I passed along that concern to council members and some of them did share that concern. And so one of the significant changes that came out of the work session last night is that we will be adding back in residential PIDs to the guidelines. Along with these best practices that we are including in the guidelines, which include requirement of an independent assessment of a PID projects service and assessment plan and finance plan prior, as I just mentioned, and requiring that development agreement that has a scope that covers land development, infrastructure, vertical improvements. And there was a request from council to make sure that the development requirements for vertical improvements or the buildings, whether they're home or commercial buildings, but primarily on the residential side that they exceed the standards in the development code. And so we're going to be including language to that effect in the revisions of the guidelines. And then as you've heard me say before, we're going to be requiring developer reimbursement for the city's costs to establish and administer the PID. And that's very common with other communities to require that. So here's a slide with a lot of words on it. I skipped ahead a little bit, but residential PIDs back in the guidelines. So we're going to be expanding on the concept of demonstra ble public benefit and how it can be determined. Please note that you do not have a handout to that effect. So ignore that that's up there. This is what happens when we try to like make a presentation 12 hours after the last thing happened, miss a few of the edits. So rest assured that we are working on the demonstrable public benefit definition and ways to determine whether it 's happening or not. There was also some concern about notice to residential purchasers of the fact that there would be a PID assessment on the property. And that did also come up last time we were talking in this group about that. So there are some steps that can be taken. Those are just a couple of things we can do there under the bullet. There are other things that can be done as well, and we will make sure to address the fact that extra steps beyond what's required under the Texas property code will be necessary for notification in any PID. And that will be again this development agreement is the vehicle that we use to outline all of those very specific to the project things that have to happen. This checklist of development standards for residential development again touched on that a little bit, but we're going to we're going to ensure that the developer knows that they will be required to exceed what's in the code. But we're working with outside council to determine when when and where is the appropriate place to put that initial thoughts that it would go in the development agreement versus in the policy. So they'll be told it will be included in the development agreement, but we won't have to have a policy that tries to detail each and every aspect of what we would want the development to look like so more on that later but we're working on options. Then the issue of an assessment cap was raised, and there was some interesting discussion around, if you say this is the assessment cap which currently it's at 40 cents per $ 100 worth evaluation if you say that's what it is, isn't everyone going to try to get their project up to that cap amount, and it's always going to be 40 cents it's not going to be lower than that. So one thing that we were looking at is maybe phrasing it as there is an assessment of whether it's 40 cents or 30 cents per $100 valuation, putting that in there as kind of a benchmark but then saying preference will be given to lower assessments in the evaluation project. So it's a way to to tag it to a number so that we 're not just saying preferences given to lower assessments but what is lower mean lower than what. So there's a, there 's a number to tie it to. We are looking at limit limiting the percentage of the cost of eligible projects that can be reimbursed by a PID. So, if theoretically you could reimburse 100% of the public infrastructure costs via a PID, looking at limiting that to 50% just as an example of costs, which would be a way to potentially take the assessment lower, which is one of the goals there so options are on the table we're thinking about this. But for the reason of all of this came up last night, we now know the direction that the council wants to take but we still need a little bit more time to prepare the actual edits to the guidelines. Your agenda shows a request for a recommendation today. And the question is, and, and the opinion of folks in the city management office is that we're not ready to ask you to do that today because we want to make sure that we actually get the draft in front of you before we ask you to recommend it. So that will be your decision. When that time comes around on the agenda and during the regular meeting. So if you're comfortable you don't feel ready doing that today, don't feel obligated to, but that does mean we have to talk about it one more time. At least one more time. So moving on some other things that we are going to include in the revisions to the policy are some specific ways to do that risk mitigation. So we're going to be doing an application and application fee of X amount we're starting with $25 but we're going to be doing some benchmarking against what other communities ask for. And then that could be put an escrow and drawn down to apply to the cost of the review and vetting of the project. Caroline, did you say 25 or 25,000. I'm sorry 25,000. All right, thank you. $25 would get you not much. Caroline. How did that number come about? Is that kind of the minimum of any costs that have been associated with? In the world of PID policies that we have reviewed in the course of all of this, we've seen application fees ranging from $2,000 to $50 or $60,000. I've spoken to our representatives at Hilltop Securities that do some of these analysis projects and they say that $ 25,000 is a reasonable amount to get started on an analysis and to make sure that the person that you're talking to is serious. By putting up, I mean that's a significant amount of money. They did say that it probably wouldn't cover the entire cost of a review because you're going to want to have financial folks, your legal outside counsel, bond counsel review it. But it's a number that is a differentiator between people who have the resources and are serious enough to put up an amount of money that's significant versus those who are kind of fishing around, don't really have the financial status to be able to do this or maybe just kind of seeing what they can get the city to do. So it's not science, but it's kind of taking a look at what other communities are doing. It sounds like it is below the minimum of what would be eventually required for anyone to process it here in the city. I think that's a fair assessment of it. It's not intended to be a catch-all, cover all of the cost amount, but it's a place to start and kind of separate serious projects from less than serious ones. Good question. We want to put a term limit on PIDs of any type, whether it 's debt or pay as you go, not to exceed 30 years. That's in line with what's currently in our policy and that's in line with other policies that we've seen from other communities. Back to that value to lien ratio of three to one being preferable. So it's not a requirement. It's just preferable because that was a concern I had after looking at some of the other cities and where they are. We do want to have some flexibility built in just like we have with our incentive policy. So this is why we have to come back with it because we don 't want to back ourselves into a corner by trying to do something too fast. One option is to consider only reimbursement bonds instead of bonds that are issued before a project is started. So that way you can say once the city officially accepts your public infrastructure or once you've completed 75% of the public infrastructure and it's 75% has been accepted, the bonds will be sold. So that's some way to tie it to completion of work and actual benchmark in the process of the project. Then we are looking at ways to express that there's a preference for certain sizes of projects. Again, you want it to be significant and so a benchmark place to start, other communities have used it as commercial projects that are above 100 acres will be given preference. Residential projects that are above 300 acres will be given projects. Another way to approach it from the residential side would be minimum number of lots of a minimum size would be given preference. So we'll work on the specific language about that. Yes. What about for for minimum lots concerns me because if people wanted to invent to develop live or work play locations smaller lots, but they may be higher value. And then also how to live workspace in it. Obviously give you a smaller law. Right. And that's, that's a good point and that goes back to building in the flexibility, like, some of these things I think will be presented more like these are these are things we will use to analyze your project. So we're going to use kind of a cafeteria option of choices , so that if a unique project comes up that has an aspect that makes it might not fit but it makes sense from a different perspective of what's trying to help us achieve a goal of density or higher quality development that you know comes closer to covering its cost of service or something like that. We want the council to have the flexibility to be able to do that and not just exclude things. So, good point. I had a question alone that same line, Caroline. Going from my memory I remember us having a conversation about that, in general, we didn't want housing, unless it brought something very unique to the table. Is that still the, the nexus of the conversation, it is, and that's, that 's absolutely going to be addressed in the revisions in terms of this is what demonstrable public benefit is, and here's how we judge it. We're housing to adhere to standards that are higher than the minimum in the development code and that will be cod ified in in a developer agreement which will be part of the formation documents of the pit. So I think that's still what everybody's opinion is, is that it's intended to support higher quality development, brings better amenities that has home prices that cover its cost of service, those things that would differentiate it from current projects current development of residential. Thank you. You're welcome. I think this is the end of my presentation. So, does anyone have any other questions. Okay. Thank you, Caroline. You're welcome. Let's see. The next order of business is EDP 18 025. We'll have a discussion and give staff direction regarding the second annual taking care of business and little D workshop. Let's see. Please. Christina Davis right. How are you all doing today. Great. I did not prepare a PowerPoint presentation just to save some time because I just want to give you a brief update on the workshop that we'll be having so this is our second year to participate in the national small business week. The small business week started approximately in 1963 with the president issuing a proclamation announcing that it was small business week. These small business administration each year participates by providing support and training for small businesses outside of what they normally would do and so as part of the shop here on purpose program. We were looking at ways to support small businesses and we thought this would be a great opportunity. So reaching out to some of our small businesses we asked them what kind of things would you like to know more about. We got back lots of information and we kind of narrowed that down into four categories which are marketing how they can protect their business ways they can strengthen their business and to grow it and I know some of those kind of sound the same but they are just a little bit different. This year we have a great workshop. We have people from the community and we also use staff so that we can provide this workshop for free our small businesses so all small businesses in Denton are encouraged to intend we work with the chamber and by chamber members to attend as well. And this year we have some great speakers we're going to be working on social media and the forge maker space which is a small business support center that's located at one of our libraries of the North French Library. We're talking about when distress when disaster strikes and in light of some of the recent things that have happened on the square with the fire and we found out a lot of our businesses are not prepared in case of emergency. We have we have Michael Petaluma who is our emergency management coordinator who's going to speak and we have someone from an insurance company who will be here to speak and to help give our small businesses some direction and some assistance and how to prepare in case the you know something like a fire were to happen or even in the camp in the chance of a natural disaster. We're also going to talk about how they can strengthen their business by leveraging the workforce training that's available through the state also from SBA for developing and and getting leverage funding and also how to use local opportunities through stoke. We've also talked to trainings lunch and learns and workshops and so we want to help and help our small businesses to leverage those activities to maximize their strength in their business. Then we also have a couple special things happening as far as growing their business by creating a memorable customer experience. So, Shannon, and I'll hope I get her last name. Manage. Man. How do you say it. She'll be with us to speak and then also will be doing some frontline training for staff. So if you have a retail business and you want to help your staff create a memorable customer experience, we have some training for that as well. So we've structured the workshop with the most popular items in the morning to allow for businesses that open a little bit later and we just encourage them to attend either one seminar or the whole day seminar. So we're really excited to be able to offer this to our community. Questions, please. Sure. Hi, I learned recently that I think it's the North Branch Library has a small business support group. They do have you all reached out to them. Are they aware? I mean, is there communication between? Yes, we definitely work with them and we've also been promoting. They have a workshop coming up on the twenty first of this month. It's for with it's a women's business outreach. And so they'll be opening up their forage workmaker space for this event to do that. So we do coordinate with them and actually Randy. I'm sorry. Yes, it's Randy Simmons will be here to talk about the for age and just explain what they do, what they offer there, the types of support groups that they have in those types of things. Forage. The forage. And that's the name of the support group. That's the make that's the space, the makerspace. So they call it the forage of RG makerspace. And they did lots of other things besides small business, but the small business workshop and what they do there is part of it. So good part of it. So I wanted to add something to Councilmember Briggs comment. When my staff developed this TCB and the program for the first time last year, that's when we really started intentionally and actively collaborating with the folks at the North Branch Library, because that is where the forages housed. The business library and the person who specializes in business is housed there as well. And so we have worked really hard on cross promoting. They came in and were on the key support team when we did the Stoke transition, their business librarian was. And so we've really grown that partnership and made a concerted effort to share information, cross promote resources and make sure that we're doing good referrals back and forth between what programs they offer and what resources they can help people learn about and what we can do for businesses in the economic development office. So it's been great. Yeah, awesome. Thanks. Nice. We refer a lot of people there . Yeah. So Christina on on May the third. Yes, sir. And the location again is it's here at City Hall here at City Hall will be. We'll have the workshop upstairs in the council chambers. At what time it starts at 830 am registration starts today. And on it goes until it goes until 430. Okay, thank you. Yeah. We do have a link for people to register and it's through our Facebook page shop in Texas. One more comment, please. I know that we actually on this particular board have a number of people who are small business owners in our community. So I would like to ask those people to raise their hands so that we can all recognize them small businesses, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah. So that's pretty impressive. We know that it is a big time commitment for y'all to take time out of running those businesses to be here. So thank you for what you do in our community from a business standpoint and also from a volunteer standpoint on this board and others. So thank you very much. Thank you for those kind words. Any more questions of Christina before she concludes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. There being no other items for the work session. We will adjourn the work session at 1133 and a half about that. Now that we've completed that portion of the agenda. Since this is my first time I'm reading my script so please bear with me. I'll call the regular meeting to order at 1134. And the first order of business is to consider the minutes of the March 23rd 2018 meeting, and I'll give everyone a chance to review them briefly before we vote on them. Thank you. And once you're ready just say I'm ready. Call the question. We're ready. Okay, we're ready. Good deal. I make a motion for approval. We have a motion on the floor to approve the minutes as presented. Second, Bob aims and any further discussion of the minutes. There being none. All in favor of approving minutes as presented signify by saying aye. All against same sign. Any abstentions. Okay, the minutes are approved as presented. Let's see. Okay, thank you. The next item on the agenda is EDP 18 027, which is to consider a recommendation to the city council regarding approval of the revised public improvement district guidelines. But because that report is not fully completed, I would entertain a recommendation to table this motion until another meeting. I move we table this agenda item to a later meeting to allow for completed presentation to review. We have a motion on the floor we have a second. Second. We have a second. Any discussion. Okay. Okay, all in favor of the motion on the floor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any abstentions. Excuse me. Any. Any nays, any nays. No, there being no nays no abstentions the, the motion to table this particular topic until another meeting date is approved. Staff reports. 18 024. I don't think so. I have, I have a, I have to leave it one but other than that I think we should be done before then. What do you think is that a huh. Okay, let's have our staff. We love our staff so let's let 's hear from them. Let's see. City RFI summary. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you can hear me. Okay, sorry everybody in TV land who couldn't hear me, which includes precisely two people, one of whom I know. And the other person is Mike's friend. So just to recap, we received four inquiries, we responded to two, two we did not respond to. Then we have a status update from a project 2020, which our original response to that project was submitted in October. I believe that should say October 2017 to the Dallas Regional Chamber, or maybe it's 2016. But they, we were previously submitted on it. They've come back again after a hiatus to begin looking again, it's a beverage production and distribution facility that's seeking around 15 acres for the project. Their expected capital investment is $48 million with 100 employees and an average wage of $41,000. We did provide the additional information that they were looking for about the site. And there was a site visit on March 26, and then the prospect requested and staff provided sale information on the West Park site. So at this point, the land seller and the potential buyer have been connected. So we'll provide more updates on that as they become available. And then the, I'm sorry, did someone have a question? So the two that we weren't able to meet the criteria, my question, what type of buildings? So obviously they're a little larger, but is it the kind of the shell building that they can build out? Is that what they were seeking or? It's actually existing buildings that we typically can't respond to when they seek existing buildings because we don't have them of the size that they need. And then, you know, there are many different ways that buildings can be finished out. And those are real specific to the project. But the basic issue with these is that we did not have a 250,000 square foot existing building, nor did we have an 800,000 square foot existing building of any kind to be able to provide to them. And help me orient me. How big is that? So Wynco distribution center on Western Boulevard is, it is slightly under a million square feet under roof. So that would be humongous. And one of them was wanting just about that much. I don't know if 250,000 square feet, does anyone have a, is Christina still in here? Do you have an example of a 250,000 square foot existing building here in town that you could holler at me and I can repeat? Okay. So if you've seen Westgate also on Western Boulevard, their building one is 170,000. So it's still smaller than this. But that's a, you know, it's an idea of the size. Thank you. You're welcome. We have another question on the other side. Why are we limiting this report to responses to just these two sources versus all the sources? We can expand the report because we do have quite a number of leads that come directly to us from other sources. And we would be glad to add that in there. When the report was originally requested, the request was specifically for these. So we track those in an in-house developed system. So it's easy to generate the information. And if you'd like to see it expanded, we'd be glad to do that. Well, I don't know if I speak for everyone on the board, but I just if it's just as easy, I don't mean to create new work, but it seems that it would be interesting to know. Christina would love to modify this report to include that information. I'd also like to, can I have the right month on the report to do that for you next month? Yes, she's going to step up her game next time. I forgive you. Any other questions on this first staff report? And the next staff report that we have is the stand, the monthly stand report. And that, you know, the categories of content in that don't change from month to month, but the specific numbers do. It's got a lot of great stuff in there. I'm not going to talk through it because that would take a long time. But if anybody has any specific questions, please feel free to ask. Are there any things that we should really be aware of? So you know, something that stands out? Because we had the census information come out. So Christina pointed out that the demographics have been updated, which some of those are only updated on an annual basis when the community survey information comes out from the U.S. Census Bureau. So those will be updated this time. I think Councilman Briggs has a question. Yeah, just the -- Councilwoman Briggs, excuse me. Poverty rate change due to off-campus population. Can you describe that a little bit and the percentage is -- and is that percentage from last year or from last month or the change or is that just percentage change from the -- it's under demographics. Yeah, I guess 20.6% poverty rate seems high. So -- Christina, can you speak to that because I'm frankly not super familiar with it. So maybe we can ask Christina to come up to the podium and she can elaborate on it if she's got more information. And if we don't get that for you, we will email everybody the answer when we can get with Erica, who is our analyst. So we'll see what Christina might know. As she said, our analyst Erica Sullivan provides these numbers. The poverty rate change, it's supposed to calculate in the percentage that the students impact because there is such a lower rate and so that's why it has the rate change. This will be updated. Those updates come out in May and we'll have a new update then and maybe at that time we can have her give a better definition or description as why the information is provided in that format. So this changes dramatically semester by semester? Yeah, due to the student population. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Does that cover it or would you like more? Yeah, it's just interesting. I'm just kind of wondering how we apply that data and what we use that for. I believe her response was because the student population, there's 50,000 of them average per semester and because they have such a low income, it brings the poverty rate. It makes the poverty rate higher because there's so many of them bringing it down. So I think part of the reason that the information is gathered and is relevant is because when we are looking at or when especially retailers are considering location decisions, they look at things like the poverty rate and we feel like because of our student population being high, that's a different perspective on the number that you see on paper. And so we want to make sure that we have that information and can convey it to them that this is a subset of the population that affects that rate. So in this case here, if you were to take out the student population, our poverty rate would be 13.9 instead of the 20.6. That's just interesting because usually we use that student population as a positive impact on our community. And so I mean especially when you're talking about shopping and retail, because they do spend money. So it's just interesting to see it this way. Yeah. And so the percent change there is, I mean that's obviously just the difference between the poverty rate for all people and then the ones for students. And statistics are so fascinating in the way that they can be used to support and enhance different sides of an issue. Because I think we definitely, I mean our students are positive for our community. Of course they are. But if you just look at a straight number like overall poverty rate based on how that's calculated by the census, that could look like our community is more impoverished than it really is. Right. Yeah. Okay. So they come from their parents, right? Yeah. I have a question about that. Because of that rate and even looking at the overall poverty rate, that puts us at a pretty large number, over 20%. Are there other, does that open us up to different financial capabilities for them, either federal or state level to be able to? It can. And there's been some recent designation of opportunity zones under the new tax act that was enacted and we did have one of those designated which opens up some opportunities for different development programs. So again, you weigh the balance of what you get with our demographics. So good question. Any other questions on this particular report? There being none, we'll go to the third report please. There being none, right? Any more questions on that particular? No. Okay. All right. Thank you. Sorry. The third report is the Chamber ED offices report. I don't know if someone from the Chamber would like to speak to that because there's a lot of stuff on there. Looks like good stuff, but I am not intimately acquainted with it. So let's just fly by dancing, right? Do you have a copy of it? No I don't. Do you want a copy? Meh. I can fly pretty well. Adam is actually at the MRO, America's Conference today, this week actually. So he's trying to sell it to a few thousand people in Florida. Team Texas, which is what we co-op with them to kind of support their booth just to sell it. I will answer any questions that you have or I will take them back and ask Adam about them. So if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I was just going to add a couple of things to this. Thank you for filling in. A couple of key points on this to kind of differentiate how we go about our targeting prospect. Out of six offsite activities, four were specifically and directly with professional consultants, which allows us to actually go one on one and make a bit. There tends to be a lot of emphasis on the trade show and the expos and this kind of thing. But what you'll see the focus is predominantly over the past few months has been going directly to the folks who will bring the prospect. And this is one of the key points that Karen and Adam do a very good job with. Could we also clarify on May 1st, is that a work session, the City Council meeting you asked us to move to? Oh, yes. So Chuck's asking about a work session that was requested by council members to do a midyear update on the economic development partnership. So my office and the Chamber ED office will be doing an update on where we are in our program year and our work plan and yes, work session. So one of the things, the last thing I was going to point out is a new website in collaboration with the city. I don't know if you want to make an official launch on that May 1 or if you need us to do something with the partnership board separate or before that. But those are some, or Karen could you show your end now? We spent the last four or five months reworking our website , trying to make it a little bit more user friendly. I ask all of you to go on the website, take a look, tell us what you think, what you don't like, what you do like. We're getting a lot of information or comments back about this particular section or this particular news article stating that Denton County is one of the fastest growing or strongest economic growth for the next five years. So this is, I mean, just go through it, peruse it. If you have any comments, don't hesitate to email Adam or I or just hit the contact us button and put it. It's very easy to read. I did have a look around and the information is kind of spaced out nicely to where I found it was easy to find and I felt very pertinent. So I think it was a job very well done. So it's really for Caroline as well. And you are the, I just saw a tab for targeted industries or do they match what we have on council? Absolutely. Yes. And we make sure that everything is congruent based on the direction that we're receiving and the information that we're distributing via the website . That looks good. Have we heard any word from the big company that's reloc ating to DFW potentially? DFW is still in the running for that particular project, which I'm going to guess that you're talking about Amazon HQ2. Yes. So yeah, the region is still in the running. So from, and this may be archaic, but last I heard that they felt that the DFW area was the better area for relocation. I don't know if that information came from the company themselves. They've been pretty closed mouth, but there are a lot of armchair quarterbacking on what's the best region and which one isn't, but they've cut it down to 20 at this point. And I believe they've actually cut a few more out. I had an article I read just about a week ago. They cut two or three more out. So 17 instead of 20. So is that fake news or is it real news? I read the actual article, so I don't know. All right. Thank you. Question, want to comment? Yes. Just for my own personal, someone can email it to me or something. I would like to know kind of, if you can give me a scenario if you've brought, when you bring someone in town, Adam, or someone in town, kind of what their kind of pathing is. Hey, what's your kind of introduction to Denton, kind of your staples? Hey, we're going to stop here, here, here. I understand it has specific requests, but if there's kind of a, here's our normal haunts that we take people to or a normal pathing, I'd love to know what that is. Just to be curious. It varies greatly depending upon who it is. If it's brokers, Adam has a set industrial tour that he takes them to, which goes out airport drive, up Western Boulevard, kind of circles back through 380. Just show them where West Park is, where things are moving and grooving over on that side. And sometimes they'll take them, if they're looking for something different, they'll take them to the east side over by Southwire in that area where there's more industrial development going on. So it just greatly depends on what the particular broker, consultant is looking for or the company is looking for. Okay. And just FYI, I know Chuck didn't mention this, but we did have a site visit on the 29th, I believe it was, with Project Exit, which is one of the projects right over here. I believe that came and met with the city. Can I add something real quick about the site tours? Karen's absolutely correct in that we allow the person who 's visiting to drive the way we construct the tour based on how much time they have and what their primary interests are. But of course, if we have the latitude to do so, we do take them downtown because that is one of the most unique parts of the community. And something that we've also been doing is taking them over around the transit oriented development that's around the downtown transit center and Stoke and the development that's moving that way too, if we have the opportunity to do that, if their time schedule permits and they're interested. And then if I may, so what is the, but what's the, are we in a city of Denton Van? I just don't know what the day in the life looks like. You know what I'm saying? So maybe in what, and also I add to that, UNT is selling their nice little bus, that giant bus they had. So what is work? So I have a suburban, so I usually take people in my suburban because there's plenty of room and it's comfortable. And Adam has his truck that he takes him on in and an expedition also. We have used, we have used City of Denton buses. The solid waste has that people mover van thing that I think gets frequently used for job interviews. When we've done tours that are larger, more people than can fit in a suburban or a truck, we've used that in the past. Just depends on what group it is and what we need. Okay. Thanks. If you have any questions about the website, social media, all those analytics are also in there and then our financials on the back page for last month. Do remember that this is an unaudited, unreconciled financial. So it does change. Thank you very much. I feel enriched by the staff reports and I don't say that facetiously. I'm glad that we did take the time to go through them. Let's see. Do we have any concluding items that we need to address before entertaining a motion? Yes ma'am. I have a couple of requests. So I would like to see if we could, if this committee could get an update on the TW Women and Business grants. I think they've had an application that went out for entrepreneurs or small business. Small business is owned by women and there were several 5, 000 grants and I know that I shared it and sent it to several people and I haven't heard an update on that and I didn't know if they were going to do some sort of presentation in the community on that since it does directly affect our community. Also if we could get a staff report or a presentation on an amphitheater and how and where to best locate that if we wanted one in Denton to best reflect positive for the economic development for our city. Could you amplify on that request please? Well I have had people ask me or say that they would like to have some sort of outdoor space for playing music or outdoor theater or something and so I'm just curious if there was a location in our city that if say council or if somebody wanted to request one if there was a specific area that the economic development or chamber or anyone would recommend that it go for the city. I think my first step on that would be to check in with other departments to see if anybody's got anything like that any master plan documents that are going on see what information we might have already pulled together about that just to run that first and then we can come up with some suggestions. And I'm not talking about the like the stage that's back here. Right yeah. Okay just for clarification. Something a little more avant-garde. Yeah. Just to clarify a little bit more do you mean some place like where we would have food trucks be able to circle around and then the economic development impact would be you know having mobile food or beverages being able to be sold in that location. Well if it was an amphitheater it would be it would stay in one area so it would but the food trucks well then also the businesses around would be would build and benefit from people coming into those shows or or what have you so that 's what I mean. I do think that in the initial plans for razor ranch there was an amphitheater included in the town center section and so I will just quadruple verify with the developer that that's still part of the plans. The most recent version that I've seen you know that's that 's for the third phase of the development that that close-in town center section that has green space in the middle that was the original intention was to have an amphitheater there so I can verify that that's still the plan I think it is. But that might be at least one pretty straightforward answer to that question is that that would be a great spot for one. Yeah just arts and entertainment has been proven to be an economic driver and that is just another area that we don't have here that would be great thank you. Growing up in Houston we had a center called the Miller Out door Theater that had drama music and they built a hill right behind it so people could actually sit on the hill if they didn't sit in the seating they had seating and it was covered but it was open you had you know the amphitheater so it wasn't completely closed. So and I think the seating on that was probably about a thousand or two thousand so it was large but of course the city of Houston and it was in the arch district and so did you have a seating in mind or sure sure you had something in mind more than ten right. Thank you any more items before we conclude today. There being none I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved. Motion and second. Any discussion. All in favor signify by saying aye. Any abstentions or nays. Meeting is adjourned at twelve oh four. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you.