All right good morning my name is Marty Rivers I'm the chair of the Economic
Development Partnership Board and we're going to call our meeting to order at
1104 a.m. and our first item up for consideration is EDP 18-051 which
is to elect our chairperson and vice-chairperson for the fiscal year
2018-2019 there's an information sheet and our ordinance that are attached to
your package. If anybody would like to make a motion I move Marty Rivers
continue as our chair. I'll second that. We can do a joint motion if somebody
wants to do that. Yes I will motion that John Baines stay our vice-chair. Second.
We have a motion and a second to nominate Marty and John as chair and
vice-chair respectively any further discussion? Nobody wants to jump out
there. All right all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries thank
you and the big item today is EDP 18-042 which is to receive a report hold
discussion and make a recommendation to the City Council regarding an incentive
application from Tyson sales and distribution and Caroline will give us
the report.
Good morning Mr. chairperson and members of the board Caroline Booth director of
economic development and I am going to be presenting a request to you today from
Tyson sales and distribution for a project in Denton. Tyson foods is a very
well-known company they have had 38 billion dollars in sales in fiscal year
2017 and company-wide they do employ a hundred and twenty two thousand people.
Tyson sales and distribution in particular as a division of Tyson foods
provides refrigerated warehousing and distribution services for the company's
brands which do include Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farms, Ball Park, State Fair and
a number of other well-known brands. The company is based in Springdale, Arkansas
and one thing that I have learned about Tyson in the course of working with them
is that they are definitely as a company tuned in to sustainability and they
identify five different areas of sustainability that they believe are
interconnected but they do have some corporate sustainability initiatives
that they felt was they wanted me to know about and to share with you all for
example they do have a goal between 2015 and 2020 to reduce their overall water
consumption by 12 percent as an effort to support their environmental
sustainability pillar and a big thing that they do to to support their
communities is providing hunger relief in the form of donating either cash gifts
or in-kind gifts of product and they're hoping to achieve a goal of fifty
million dollars worth of cash or in-kind donations to reduce hunger by 2020 they've
already spent 45 million dollars on that effort so I've been impressed to learn
about a little bit about their corporate culture and some of the things that they
value as a business to talk specifically about the project that they're
considering in Denton this at full build out would be a 350,000 square foot very
highly automated refrigerated distribution center as you all are
familiar we do have a number of refrigerated distribution facilities in
Denton Target US cold storage and so on this particular facility would ship
about 700 million pounds of product annually they're anticipating having a
hundred full-time benefits eligible employees their average wage is
anticipated to be just under $25 an hour which is about 12 percent higher than
Denton County's average wage which is something that we reference specifically
in the council adopted economic development incentive policy that we
want to target employers who are providing average wages higher than the
county's average the project in particular is gonna expand Tyson's
service capacity to help enable company growth anticipate and serve the needs of
their customers and improve reaction time to customer needs the facility as I
said is going to be highly automated it's gonna contain automated storage and
retrieval systems including stacker stacker cranes gantry robots they're
gonna have a monorail system it sounds like it's gonna be very complex and I'll
tell you a little bit more about the investment in the automated portion of
the facility in a little bit as far as what their location considerations are
for the project they're looking at workforce availability return on
investment utilities infrastructure proximity to customers and ease of
implementation of the project and if anybody's got questions as I'm going
through this please ask me as I go along I did have a question yes sir John
Baines a question was you referenced a item that was very interesting the hunger
reduction going from 45 million to 50 mm-hmm are you able to elaborate on
what they're doing to kind of address the so is it is it in our area or is it
nationwide it's nice it's a nationwide corporate effort yes and if I wasn't
clear they they have between this was a goal they established in 2015 to span
the time period of 2015 to 2020 for that 50 million dollar total giving either
cash or in kind and they've achieved 45 million dollars of that and it is
nationally sure on the average hourly rate that takes in management everyone
right yes do we know what the median hourly rate is then we can get that for
you it was probably a part of the application but I don't have the number
in front of me right now so we can find that out there's a breakdown on page
17 of management maintenance and so it is in the packet thank you thanks Marty
and one other question on the project sites is Denton a viable selection are
they looking at Indiana Arkansas Utah and Denton right I mean I will get to
that right now the short answer is yes the company has been considering sites
in three other states as you can see up there the Denton site is absolutely
viable very competitive it's important to note that the land sale for the
Denton site has not closed yet that's that's always something that we want to
make sure that everyone's aware of is the stage and of the land acquisition
process so they are not closed they're in in contract negotiations Denton is
the sole Texas site and as you can see from the map the proposed site is
outlined in red they have the option of taking that entire site or they may just
take the northern portion of the site that has not been settled on yet any more
questions about site or yes ma'am
natural are those natural ponds in this type flood area over here are there any
ESA's on the property no there are no ESA's on that property and this is this is a little
bit of an older aerial because US cold storage is now right in this area so
that was a man-made stockpond I'll go over the fiscal information with you the
current conditions are that the land has an AG exemption so you can see that
because of that land certified valuation is low and the estimated total tax
revenue that it's generating is a big whopping $23.08 a year what we have done
to estimate the ad valorem valuation annual revenue is there in the chart
below that we're estimating with their capital investments a total valuation of
a little over fifty one million dollars when the project is complete and then
you can also see moving down the columns that the estimated tax increment
reinvestment zone the West Park hers revenue is 40% that's estimated a little
over $52,000 a year the city's portion the other 60% is $268,000 for a total
gross revenue of $320,000 a year it's critically important to point out at
this point that the business personal property investment and all that
automation inside the facility is going to equate to about 30 million dollars
that is a hugely significant amount of investment in business personal
property and that revenue created by that particular category of property is
not captured by the TERS so all of that revenue hundred eighty nine thousand
seven hundred dollars in annual revenue will go straight into the city's general
fund and 40% of that is not diverted into the TERS does anybody have any
questions about that okay that makes this a unique project as far as the
incentive request Tyson is asking for a tax abatement specifically an abatement
to offset development costs and to enable their application for Denton
County tax abatement and the Texas enterprise zone program grant from the
state as far as the priority considerations under the city's economic
development incentive policy the project meets these following four things
investment in business in the community expanding the tax base increasing jobs
with wages above Denton County's average and generating significant new customer
's for municipal utilities this is a little bit hard to see but it is in your
backup this is our full analysis of the particular projects and what staffs
recommendation is as far as an incentive we start with the assumptions up there on
the top that include the revenue generated by the different categories of
the project and then what the annual Denton municipal electric economic
growth rider demand charge would be and we have talked about the DME economic
growth rider before and I will touch more specifically on it in a couple of
different and a couple of slides ahead the first line here depicts the TERS
revenue from the land and improvements only not from the business personal
property that's the top line there and we are looking at this on a 10-year time
horizon because that allows us to compare apples to apples for different
projects when we're looking at what the return on investment is even though
we're recommending a six-year tax abatement we have information here that
goes beyond that to a 10-year total and some of y'all will be familiar with
having seen this type of analysis in the past again it's it's for uniform
comparison of projects over that uniform horizon of 10 years does anyone have any
questions about any of this I'm gonna highlight some of these numbers on the
next slide but I just wanted to put this up there for y'all to see I'm the slow
one in the bunch I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions here on that first
line it says TERS fund 40% at 52,000 is the estimated revenue estimated revenue
and then the 47 represents what down below on the next one okay the 47 is the
25% tax abatement on the business personal property only that we're
proposing for the incentive so that's that's 47 is 25% of the business
personal property revenue only up above the is that the 189 yes 189-700 okay I
was just trying to get my numbers together there thank you okay anybody
else before we go on to next slide that has bigger numbers more specific yes
did the other places that were in competition with have the electrical
incentives that we have as far as I know no I've seen the list of incentive
programs that they have and they're more traditional either tax-based or based on
a cash grant upfront from either state level or city level economic development
corporations so those are pretty unique to our city I don't this case the other
locations don't have municipal electric companies okay so cities that have
municipal electric companies often have programs like economic growth rider but
the competitor cities and the other places don't have municipal electric okay
so just to reiterate staff's analysis and our recommendation is for a 25% tax
abatement on the revenue from business personal property only for a term of six
years that is a total abatement to Tyson of 284 thousand five hundred and fifty
dollars the city stands to gain eight hundred and fifty three thousand dollars
of revenue on the remaining 75% of the business personal property only and so
the total revenue to the city again on business personal property only over
that ten-year horizon so this one sorry I'm not talking into the microphone is
one point six million dollars total over ten years on BPP only any questions
about that has this been discussed with them at all with Tyson yes yes we told
them what we were proposing as a staff recommendation so was this was the did
it pique their interest yes okay thank you okay here's a little bit more
information about the economic growth rider as I mentioned before significant
consumers of municipal utilities are a recruitment target under the city's
policy and the reason for that is because large customers in sectors like
manufacturing or refrigerated storage and distribution they use energy
consistently around the clock and the benefit of that is that this type of
steady industrial users allows DME to purchase power at a lower price and
receive excuse me a better rate of return overall because of that
consistent use and that helps keeps rate helps keep rates steady for all rate
payers across the city in all different kinds of user categories so DME's
economic growth rider is a recruitment tool to secure that particular type of
desirable customer so what that is again there's a little bit of a review the DME
EGR is a five-year sliding scale reduction in the demand charge available
to qualifying commercial and industrial customers only so you have to you have
to have a certain level of demand to be qualified for that Tyson's demand is
anticipated to be two megawatts per year which would solidly qualify them and
we estimate the total reduction in their demand charges to be slightly under
$500,000 over that five-year time frame you also heard me mention that Tyson is
planning to apply for an incentive from the county and for the state as well
it's critical to remember that a city incentive is necessary for Tyson to move
forward with applications to both of those bodies in particular Denton County
will only consider granting a tax abatement to an applicant that has
received a tax abatement from a city first and then the Texas Enterprise Zone
program is a state refund based on capital investment and job creation in
economically distressed areas which this area they're considering does count as
economically distressed and local incentives are required for that
program as well is Denton considered economically distressed that particular
part of Denton is thank you sure so to wrap up with options and staff
recommendation we have three options a 25% tax abatement on business personal
property only for a term of six years plus the DME economic growth rider if
the company qualifies you also have the option to consider a different percentage
or term of tax abatement the EGR again if they qualify and then the third
option would be to not offer them a tax abatement they could still receive the
EGR if they're qualified but that would preclude them from applying for a tax
abatement from Denton County the staff recommendation is option one for a total
incentive of seven hundred and thirty four thousand four hundred and thirty six dollars over
six years for the abatement portion of that over five years for the economic
growth rider and I am happy to take any more questions to help you with your
discussion question yes sorry you had a question so on the on the chart the
majority of the people working they're going to make $20 an hour and the one
listed is a little bit higher than that that said it was about the average wage
so what is the average wage it is 22 let's see
$22 and seven cents so the majority of the people that are going to hire the
higher number is going to make less than that so is that your your estimations
then on it having a higher than average is just the average of what they're
proposing all the employees I just got a comment so 700 million pounds of frozen
food that's a lot of weight and so I think about that's about 14,000
trailers over the course of a year are gonna be on that road and that's only if
they use the rail spurs if they don't then that would be double that amount so
I just something to consider for like when the council considers it it's not
nice to see several million pounds that's that's a big number but the real
impact is 14,000 trucks and trailers on that road over that same 10-year period
I would imagine that there would be some maintenance that would have to be at
least considered as an offset to that amount of traffic so we are excuse me
working closely with our various departments engineering development
services to ensure that the proper traffic studies are done that we're
anticipating appropriately for the increased truck traffic that this
project and a number of other coming projects are going to bring so
absolutely a good thing to bring up and consider just to make sure that
everybody knows that we work together to anticipate those needs in this
particular area and infrastructure is being upgraded to account for that
yeah and on that note I actually made a comment on my notes here for that we're
talking about ways to reduce transit from companies because of the air
quality and so this is going to be adding several more but my question was
more about the transit was it going to be by train trucks you know their
primary method of transport is going to be trucks but they do have rail spur
access and of course that makes it an option for them to move goods that way
as well but their primary method is going to be trucks so do they plan on
using the rail spur I guess that's they're not going deep into that yet
again they're they're considering it as an option but it's not it wasn't a
primary driver for their location decision to have rail access which gets
to my question if they don't plan on using that today extensively and there
I mean I guess it's up to the land seller but if you're selling land that's
on the rail that's a long section of the rail spur then they're taking that up
not using it that somebody that needs it and it is up to the seller who also owns
the rails for one more question so when we offer this incentive to this wide
receiver do you think we'll be able to sign them I certainly hope so I feel
positive about it okay thank you so how did we arrive at 25% over six years
that's consistent with what we have been offering to the last couple of folks
who have come and applied for incentives
they deal with animals and there's some not so pleasant incidents that have
happened in their facilities for animal cruelty have they made a statement or
talk to you about about any of that no because this facility is is only going
to be storage and transportation of already processed food so it's not going
to involve any kind of live animals in this facility so we haven't discussed
that on the state incentive somebody slept since we've talked about this but
at one time the state if we were competing with other states the state
would kick in money to help attract those is that still available and an
option it is available but this project isn't going to qualify for that
particular program hot-tacker
other questions or comments I'm not necessarily in favor of option one I'd
like to see a little bit of different term and I think that the EGR is is
really great for us to have and I'm pretty sure they would qualify for that
with the amount of energy that they're gonna use less tax incentive and more
regional no no not that's that's already said I just with it with the amount of the higher the
higher wages only going to a few a few of the workers and 60 of them they're
making less than average I just kind of have a you know and then the company's
reputation and I really appreciate that they do plant that they have higher
goals of helping those that are food insecure and sustainability and that's
why I'm willing to work on the terms a little bit but only on the calculation
of average wages because Steve meant medium wage which is a little bit
different but we're using average for all of our incentive requests so I mean
whether see everybody's point there's 60 people to make $20 an hour out of 60
percent of the employees make less than then the Denton County average but the
fact is the average is still 20 almost $25 an hour and that's how we calculate
that for everybody that comes through there so looking at that differently
would not necessarily be fair not that everything's fair but that's how we
calculate it if we need to look at it differently than I would like the city
needs to or we would need to make a request to use median or something
different if you have three high paying people and the thousand low paying
people and you know that average might be different so I'm just saying it's
we're doing it the same way consistently with it and it does state in the policy
that we're looking at average wages for the county so it would make sense that
when we request that information and calculate it we're using the average
instead of the median so that I guess my point is like based on how we have it
written they qualify for that higher higher wage has so on the EGR does the
public utility board have to approve that and make the recommendation of
council or how's that work no sir they don't that is the EGR is adopted each
year when the rate schedules are adopted so it's in the rate book and if the
company qualifies under the terms that are set forth in the rate book they
qualify for it and there's no further approval so there so that we're not
really making a recommendation on that part of it that's just that's correct I
feel like it's important to present a full picture of the incentives that a
company could stand to receive from the city and that is an incentive even though
it's not a tax-based incentive and they do automatically qualify for it but it
is still expenditure of city funds to incentivize a company mr. Evers please
I've got just a little off of the line of questioning but can you tell me how
they came to us was it something that one of the departments did how did they
find it Tyson reached out to my department directly thank you mm-hmm
is that the one through the state or anybody they just called that's correct
this is a bothersome question or a comment in negotiation sometimes you can
just kind of go with the first blush or we can kind of do a little back and
forth so with all the discussion on the wages it does seem a little low and the
question then is are we in a position to ask them to bump it a little bit you
know to make it a little more attractive for our community so I can definitely
give them that feedback anybody else feel anything on that I guess I would
hate to turn them away no this is consistent with I'd like to compare what
incentives we give to other people what those numbers were I don't have that in
front of me so I don't know well US cold storage we gave them a similar package
and I don't have on I can't remember exactly what their wages were so it may
be the same and my impression would be that that rate is going to be they're
going to be competing with a lot of people for those same employees at that
wage that would be my impression I brought up the median simply because I
do think that it was a better impression of just what the workforce work base is
really looking at I wasn't aware that we had traditionally I should have the
tradition looked at an average but I do think there's a difference in just in
the perspective of that the optics
that was just a comment rather than a suggestion
only we're comparing to Denton County average that's average didn't county no
matter how many people are CEOs or factory workers or whatever so it's
really is apples and apples anybody like to make a motion I make
the motion that we accept the recommendation of the staff with this
particular economic incentive got a motion and a second any further
discussion I guess I'll admit to say if you look at the team your average what
we're expecting on five million dollars revenue to the city and just the 25
percent abatement on business personal property it's really a pretty small
incentive package for such a large company coming to town so all those in
favor say aye motion carries all right good discussion that still has to go to
City Council that's correct we are slated to do a work session with City
Council on the 27th of November for this item good job on that thank you all
right the next item is it EDP 18-054 we're going to get an update on our
annual marketing plan from the Chamber of Commerce Office of Economic
Development Adam Gavresky will give the report today
hi everyone I'm here to give the chambers economic development annual
marketing plan overview and review of what we're what our plans are for the
18-19 19 year things we're going to be going over is the number one the
timeline for print and digital ad buys we don't do a whole lot of advertising
there are 10 to 15 different economic development things that we can
advertise and we choose our our top two that are more targeted towards the
state advertisement and towards the DFW regional advertisement so that all the
brokers and real estate people in the area have our contact information and
and our ad and keep them up to date on things that we're doing through that
through that visual ad maintenance and updates to didn't EDP comm is our
current website that we're using to generate traffic to and promote our
community number three is platforms and schedule of social media and planned
marketing trips the first ad that we do per year is the site selection magazines
Texas wide open for business guide such selection magazine is it's a
international publication for economic development it goes out to site
locators and company executives and this particular issue has a Texas polybag
edition so it's all Texas communities so we advertise in that to make sure that
we keep keep on top of everyone's radar we also do an ED directory listing
inside selection magazine and this is in their annual economic development guide
that gives the context for each individual community and then the other
main advertisement that we do is the Dallas regional chambers economic
development guide so this is the one that goes out to all the brokers and
real estate people within the DFW Metroplex one other small insertion that
we do it's not an ad it's just it's kind of a little insertion that we buy that
goes in the in the middle of this magazine it's in business expansion
journal and the web banner on the side that you see is a it's an economic
development marketing company a small boutique marketing company in the DFW
area that represents us at certain trade shows and things like that we have a
small web banner on their website as well and they generate 30,000 traffic
hits per per month and that directs directly to our website maintenance and
updates to didn't EVP calm we we have a checkpoint list of about here and how
many items do you think 35 things that we go through every single month so we
keep that all that data up-to-date on the didn't need p.com website so it's
important to keep all demographics and all building the sites and everything
accurate on that website and it's so that's we put in a lot of effort and
work so that all the sites to let site selectors and brokers and real estate
people that go to that website have all that data in case they choose not to
call us directly and then also photo updates we can't we are constantly
keeping up-to-date photos on the website and refreshing those making sure that
they're high resolution and things like that platforms the schedule of social
media LinkedIn is what we start we use LinkedIn to target the site selectors
brokers and realtors across the entire country and worldwide for that matter we
update that bi-monthly or send out a bi-monthly advertisement through LinkedIn
Facebook is we kind of we use that more for advertising to the local community
and keeping them up-to-date on things that are going in on an economic
development from the chamber from the city or whatever is going on at that
moment but we try to post at least one item weekly I think we're doing probably
a little bit more than that but at least one weekly and then Twitter we do weekly
as well and this goes to everybody who are our current followers and site
selectors and real estate people and also quite a few people in the in the
community as well mark last item is marketing trips we we have a few that
are operations funded out of the city general fund budget that comes to the
development and some that are private funded which is the majority and
operations funded or perfect they also fund professional development forums
which we do for per year want something to do estate and into their international
economic development forums and in target marketing and then private the
private funding funds all target marketing aside from that the the two
that are funded through operations that are professional development there they
are listed again the Texas Economic Development Council so it's it's we do
two of those per year it's where everybody in the state gets together and
then we get to hear the governor's office come in and speak then we meet
with regional representatives and everybody from the state that comes and
everybody that they invite as well the International ED Council is similar
except for it's it's open to economic developers worldwide it's it's mostly
within the United States but you'll have people people from all different states
and governors and everybody else that shows up to those things and then target
marketing a few items that are funded through operations team Texas it's a
state team Texas a statewide Martian marketing initiative and it's a pay to
play initiative there's about 110 communities right now currently us being
one of those so we were planning to do two trips with team Texas through the
operations budget and those are typically through target market trade
shows such as trade shows that would be fun that would be within our target
market so Fabtech is one that we just did for instance which is metal forming
fabrication welding high-energy users and then those high-paged high-paying
advanced manufacturing types of operations so two of those advanced
manufacturing expo is coming up in January it's it's one that I've done
every year for a few years now and it's your advanced manufacturing companies a
lot of them are centered in New York which is why I like it because you get
to meet with a lot of those companies that are you know hopefully looking to
jump ship in their future and we try to meet with them and and tell them did it
message and what we have available to them as well Southern Economic
Development Council one of those is planned through the professional or I'm
sorry to the operations budget DFW marketing team we have two of those trips
planned DFW marketing team is a regional collaboration that is run through the
Dallas regional chamber and I think there's about 13 16 counties now that
they cover didn't Tarrant wise and all the way out to Rockwell County I think
even up as far as Kaufman County but we have the option they take usually seven
to ten I'm sorry five to seven communities when we when we do a
traveling mission to let's say one of the larger major metros such as Chicago
LA or Atlanta and we go visit with brokers consultants seal all executives
and disappointments that they set up for us we go and present ourselves as a as a
as a region and then we get our elevator speech to to present our community as
well so I think those are definitely important they've been very beneficial
and so two of those are requested as well net car is the North Texas
Commercial Association of realtors expo this is something that we've done for
the past five years here and my predecessor might have done it a few
years before that but I've done for five years we have actually have a booth it's
down in Dallas so it's all the Dallas in Fort Worth real estate people that come
to the same it's very well attended we always get anywhere from 60 to 100 new
contacts from our contacts that we that we already know and then some new ones
but we always come back with 60 to 100 cars we follow up with we send them our
market materials and brochures and you know we're calling on them we get we
always get a few leads from this thing it's one of the one of the best things
we do I think in the year and then so those were all through the operations
budget then to private to the private budget it's all target marketing area
development forums I have two of those budgeted for these are forums that are
hosted in a given region but they typically this area development is a
magazine but they actually host these consultant forums and they'll bring in
anywhere from 18 to 25 consultants per per event and then we get to go and
network with them and we get we get one-on-one meetings with each and every
one of them to give them our marketing materials and tell them about new
updates that we have buildings and sites that we have going on and and the
brokers that in real estate people that come to these things are all people that
work national projects so they are people that would work a project in the state
of Texas at some point the consultant connect forum which is they call it the
economics forum but they do one of those per year they started doing it three
years ago I've done it all three years it's a great form similar to economic
development or the area development forum there's always 20 20 plus
consultants there and we do the same thing it's one-on-one meetings and you
give them your materials and tell them about buildings and sites and new
updates that you have within the city and it's always important we try to keep
our real estate in front of them so all new buildings any new spec buildings
that are coming up or any properties that we're trying to push and new we tell
them about new products that we have coming in and new products that we've
landed in the last few years and I think that helps drive interest to our to our
community IMC two of those plan for that's the International Asset Management
Council this is mainly comprised of it's it's really half economic developers and
then the rest are comprised of company executives that handle real estate
within a within a firm for instance we got we recruited Penske trucks from this
from this particular from one of these actually a couple years ago is a smaller
operation but about 15 to 20 jobs we met them here and they ended up locating
here so it's it's typically somebody like Penske or Coca-Cola or Frito-Lay who
would have their real estate people at these things so we kind of eliminates
the middleman the real estate brokers that we would typically market to and go
straight to to these firms another Southern Economic Development Councils
annual meet the consultants forum we have budgeted through here through
private we had one through operations one through private the site selectors
guild is another one similar to these two the first consultants forums that I
mentioned except for this one is the one of the larger ones so there's typically
40 to 50 brokers and consultants and for them for these consultants get invited
to the site selectors guild they have to work there's a threshold they have to
meet of annual projects that they work on and products they've located with
their with capital investment based a new job so they have to meet a
threshold so that's one of the best best times to do for the year in a type one
marketing trips we have two of those budgeted for that's where I typically go
alone and I'll go to a major metro area Atlanta Chicago or LA and I'll preset my
own appointment so I'll be calling brokers and companies that we've been
working on in the past or companies that I know that are relocating or
expanding and then we go make our own personal appointments face-to-face with
them and then two more of the team Texas industry targeted shows that I mentioned
before budgeted through this one that concludes that my presentation is there
any questions or feedback
okay we can you remind me or what is your marketing budget for separate from
the trade show budgets that you attend or is it all one it's separate it's
separate we have a separate we keep a separate line up for the print and what
did do you know I don't know what the total is I know for the for the one ad
we we spend around three grand a year the other one is about 4,000 so I think
we're spending about 7,000 for the year I'm just down the ads are you talking
about for the total marketing I don't know the exact number right now I can
get that for you and email it to you are you talking about through operations
funded or both yeah just what you spend on on marketing total marketing yeah we
can do that I have a question please Adam can you describe your your operation
as Spartan or are you are you incorporating your wish list here where
are we in the spectrum I mean I think we're aggressive aggressive very
aggressive okay yes okay so there's more and more aggressive communities and in
the Metroplex okay I mean as far as our spending are we being our spending yes
where we're aggressive where we're aggressive okay we are we're doing the
things that that make the most give us the Mustang for our buck okay I mean
there's a there's a ton of other things that we could be doing but these are the
things that prove beneficial and you know there's a handful of us that do
these things you know it's San Antonio Dallas Fort Worth they're doing all in
Plano and there's a reason why there's a slight you know there's typically 15 to
20 of us that are all seem to all be doing the same thing but I mean there's
a ton of things you can choose from these are the things that are proven
effective these are where the big brokers and big real estate people are
going sometimes in budgets people come in with a just a bare minimums wish list
but this is more of a no it's not bare minimum there's a bare minimum I wouldn't
be doing this much stuff we're doing more than than what is expected so thank
you very much absolutely
something that we can identify that we've done in our marketing plan that
would have brought them to us directly I think my marketing perspective well it's
the marketing I think I think all these companies are hearing about us
especially food related products such as Tyson US cold storage Winko foods target
I think they're all hearing about us you know through marketing in various means
Tyson for instance they were working with a broker called bins wanger which
is out of Dallas homes Davis is something I've been talking to for years
and years so they were working through a broker and consultant but then they had
their company with the folks with Tyson calling Caroline and calling I guess
there are other states and stuff like that the broker is you know doing the
site selection work while the company was doing the standard work did that
answer your question I mean the marketing yes we do have a cluster here
of food especially refrigerated distribution and like Adam said when
these large projects start gathering in a community word gets around so but
every that's always the challenging thing about I mean I think about economic
development in general and particularly the marketing side of it is you're out
there planting seeds and it can take it can take years for them to bloom and also
you never know how word gets around it's a pretty small tight-knit group of
people so all of the things that Adam does lead to outcomes you know whether
it's a clear direct line from one thing to the next or it's a little bit more
roundabout you know all of the things that he does all the things that my
office does it works together to create these opportunities so that's a little
bit more of a philosophical answer we have you know we have a specific target
markets that we go after the advancing me I know food related products aren't a
specific target market but they fall under that advanced manufacturing
category I do actually target market the food related brokers and consultants on
I constantly look at the CB Richard Ellis website or the grub and Alice new
more tonight Frank look at their websites and they have global food
properties groups and they have a director within that group who I've been
reaching out to and sending out fires to you and calling and not just from that
not from Dallas also but from you know Orlando from Atlanta Chicago LA New
York New Jersey each each one of these firms has people that work food related
products some that just weren't distribution only some that work high
tech and office projects and stuff like that so thank you sure I think talk
about the budget might be good to remind everybody on the chamber side that Adams
budget has to get presented to the Denton Chamber Board and he gives a
presentation of those folks so he's doing this on both sides citywide and
that so it he comes up with it it gets talked about at the chamber board then
it gets presented to the city on the total budget so right we get to see that
several times and it's keep in mind it's a completely separate budget from the
chamber so economic development is completely separate separate bank
accounts we don't pull funds from chamber chamber doesn't pull funds from
us completely separate economic development accounts and we do have a
we have two separate accounts within our economic development accounts so we have
the private and the operations funds that comes from the city the private is
what all of you guys give us through private investment individual companies
within the community Marty didn't the joint agreement was was ratified or
approved for the next calendar year the city okay it has it's been approved as
part of that 2018-19 contract with the city that's we have to give an annual
marketing presentation on our plans for the next year and we do that our fiscal
year started October 1st so we have to do it every November it's hard it's
hard I've been doing this a while it's hard for me to keep up with all the
acronyms and there's lots to hear that and be reminded what all we're doing out
there and it does Caroline said it does take a long time to meet somebody three
years ago at one of the conferences and remember that we're on the map and it's
at the same time we do have a little bit of a snowball effect going here with the
food distribution industry it is pretty high-tech so anyway thank you Adam you
make have you else anything to ask good presentation thank you thank you thank
you we have the minutes to approve from our September 12th meeting it was
previously distributed and happens to be on page 47 in your booklet so we need to
approve those if somebody wants to make a motion I move to accept the minutes as
presented we have a motion and a second any discussion
absent motion and a second to approve the minutes as amended any further
discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the minutes are approved
and we have staff reports does Caroline so I will let you guys know that you are
not seeing a monthly report from city's economic development side in your packet
here because we're gonna be revamping the reports that we present to you based
on the city's new strategic plan and our new departmental strategic plan which
are still in process of being finalized right now we want to make sure that
we're reporting to all of you on all of the strategic aspects that we're working
on during the year so we're still tracking our activity and you'll be
seeing that in a beautiful new report as soon as we can get those strategic plans
finalized the thing that I would like to let you all know about is Christina
Davis is going to stand up at the podium and tell us about this year's shop
holiday campaign quickly this year for the shop small Saturday last year we had
a wonderful turnout with people shopping and visiting but one of the components
of the feedback that I received from the businesses is that they want to focus on
what they do best in that serving their customers and so what we decided to do
this year is this really focus strongly on our education campaign for the
community and instead of just focusing on one day or one single event we're
spreading it out from November 1st to December 31st so we've updated our
economic development website for this shop Denton texas.com website and our
Facebook page and every day you'll see a wonderful new post for me just giving
you a little tidbits of information about why it's important to shop local
and about any special events or special programming that's happening through the
community as far as retail or service industries they might have so I hope
that you will check out the Facebook page and see what's happening in the
community and if you have any questions or any suggestions I'd love to hear them
Christina also wrote the cover story for this upcoming citizen update newsletter
that everybody gets in their mailboxes we all seen that if you live in Denton so
it is about the shop small program so that goes directly to all of the folks
within the community so we're hoping to see a big turnout and good participation
in the longer long period instead of the one-day event. That's a good reminder too
I know when we're posting those things on Facebook and LinkedIn or whatever just
to remind everybody to follow economic development and why I can spread the
word and share all those good things that just helps. Adam anything
on the chamber activity? I am okay thank you. This way your started October 1st so
it blocks our slate clean for new starting the new new projects year we
had eight eight total prospects for the month of October we had two different
companies one is product Tom Collins which I'll go into in the next bracket
and then project give as well and I know now both of them are talking with the
city but both of them are looking to do speculative industrial developments
which we're seeing a trend for right now don't think it's gonna stop for a while
even once these three or four close on their products I think we're gonna see
it's still a trend of people coming in to do build these industrial speculative
buildings and then we'll in turn have to still go market to fill those spaces but
you know people are seeing the dollar signs on building these big
spec industrial develops and leasing out the space so that you can subdivide the
space so for instance product Tom Collins is going to look at building 1.5
million square feet of spec industrial space on the 104 acre site at the
corner of 380 and Western Boulevard directly across from where Lee Ramsey and
Brandon Martino are doing the Westgate business park now under that 1.5 million
square feet one one building in particular will be 1 million square feet
and the other two will be you know make up the other five thousand five million
square feet but that will be the largest square footage size building we have in
dip right now Winkle Foods is eight hundred sixty thousand square feet so
we'll have a one million square footer sitting there that's just one that came
into a site in the last month but can I add something about the spec
development so all told we have three million square feet of speculative
industrial space that is in various stages of land acquisition from letter of
intent to actual contract negotiation right now that is going to fill up the
remaining large tracks in West Park in the West Park Ters and then that tracked
outside of the West Park Ters in Westgate business park so we have been
having internal discussions about where do we go with industrial development when
that space is not available anymore and so we've been the natural place is sort
of north and west of I-35 and 380 so just so that you guys are aware those
conversations are happening and we'd like to bring some information back to
you about that when we have some more details to share with you as you all are
probably aware the city is updating the development code update updating the
future land use plans updating zoning regulations so there are a lot of moving
pieces right now but we are thinking about and planning for the future where
that's where that is going to go so it's good to have those open lines of
communication I think a couple of items on that too one where once these sites
are under contracting these they're building these buildings we're not done
so we still have to go fill these buildings so we're gonna have you know
like she said three million square feet of industrial speculative space that we
still have to go and fill which is hopefully a good handful of projects but
and it might even be more than three million now a couple new ones that are
that are looking here and then there's a there's some more land up on the north
side of you know north of 380 that you know we'd have to get private developers
to come in and because we don't have the 4a and 4b funds to for the city to go
and purchase land and develop it we'd have to bring in developers in the
future to try to develop those sites as well so anyway it's a work in progress
it's a good thing to have it'll be a good thing to have those sites on those
buildings on the ground so product Tom Collins I went over a product Gibb is
another one that's looking to do speculative industrial space he's
looking at three different sites I mentioned Collins is looking at they're
gonna they're under contract right now on 104 acre side product Gibb is looking
at three sites each one is over 30 acres it'll be smaller scale speculative
industrial development for his project product Berg office is a company it's a
lecture a local company they're in Denton County but they're over in
crossroads right now and they want to expand into Denton they would bring in
20 new jobs they're really just looking for a 5,000 square feet of office space
to put into 20 offices for 20 people product Hunter is a broker that we're
working on searching for 50 to 80 acre size to construct more industrial
speculative space and this is one that we're that we don't have figured into
that 3 that 3 million square feet already but they would be looking at
doing another 600,000 square foot facility so even besides what we already
have that we think that it's under contract currently at 3 million square
feet we have three more in the lineup that are looking at other sites as well
they just aren't under contract yet project Tomahawk consulting firm
searching for a location for a corporate headquarters and manufacturing
facility for their clients roughly 12 acres of land or an existing 40 to 100
thousand square foot facility they're considering all options 40 to 100
thousands of a large bracket but they're looking at options within that that
bracket as well trips and marketing activity over the last month in October
the Texas Economic Development Council had their annual conference which is a
professional development forum which I went over that one earlier and then IEDC
which is International Economic Development Council had had theirs as
well in Carolina and I both attended that attended the team Texas board
meeting I currently hold a board position on that board met with team
Texas director to discuss future strategy and partnership team Texas once
again the statewide marketing initiatives so we're doing a lot of
marketing with them and I think we're trying to plan for trips this year to do
with team Texas also met with the Fort Worth chamber representatives over at
the Fort Worth chamber they have two new people that they brought in one from a
regional group called Columbus 2020 and another group in Nashville that runs a
regional organization those are the two new guys headed spearheading the
economic development through the Fort Worth chamber they're trying to do a
kind of regional approach for I-35 West communities we don't have a name for it
so it's really just communities from a resort that has didn't as far south as
Burleson all the communities on I-35 W which I think the main three players are
Denton Fort Worth and Burleson at the moment but so we're just trying to
figure out what to you know what we can do as a region in terms of you know
marketing and maybe future marketing trips and stuff like that so attended
site location partnerships reception and event with Chemex conference attendees
which are the trade show held in Dallas they had DFW brokers and consultants at
their at their reception reception so we met with 14 consultants that attended
the event and they're all Dallas brokers so it's people that we work products
with or looking to work products with and then it's had attempted the attended
the Fabtech expo with team Texas it was last week so I don't have all the the
numbers put together for all the leads that we told me to get but there were
quite a few of them and I'll tell you those up and get those two in a report
for next month as well and then many of you were at this at the reception that we
did for our economic development private investors we held a reception last month
it was held at didn't media company and we had 30 private investors in attendance
my last item is upcoming upcoming marketing trips and activities we have
the team Texas Advisory Board Council retreat on November 27 to 28 that's just
in Dallas for two days we have a Dallas Fort Worth marketing teams lunch in with
site selectors on November 29 there should be around 50 I think low DFW
brokers and consultants at that luncheon and a consultant connects a economics
development economics consultants form I'm sorry on December 3rd to 5th and I
whatever what that is in my earlier presentation so that's a lot of stuff
going on all right I guess that includes our staff reports the stands report is
in the back of your package also and also send out the email any announcements
from anybody for the good of the order
currently which is why I'm staying in my lane over here and then secondly I just
want to thank mr. Baines and mr. Rivers for continuing to service in the
capacities that you've been nominated and voted it's a it's an honor for me to
sit on this board with the group of people that are here and you two have
done a fabulous job and you're in good hands and appreciate your experience and
your willingness to continue thank you lastly I'd be remiss if I did not
mention I am co-chair of the Reed's sorry again this year benefiting health
services in North Texas which is December 1st at the home of Eugene and
Carolyn corporon in Montecito and we have a different artist interpretation
from University of North Texas Texas Women's University different artist in
the area and DISD giving their versions of wreaths some other shopping
opportunities but I have invitations for everyone today thank you so much for
your time thank you I would love to hear just like it I'd love to hear information
on our traffic studies that we're working on I guess out there in West
Park or how about playing out and as we start looking at incentives for other
projects or three men square foot of space come on that was the same thing I
had is we have a lot we have two ways in and out of there and a lot of truck
traffic and all that stuff so the staff could at some point in the future just
kind of give us an update on maybe some plans out there to handle all that we
have a similar topic I guess a number of years ago as far as utilities you know
be able to handle all that at the same time on the industrial space what we're
looking at down the road so where we can go with that so sorry Keely yes so we we
talk a lot about what we did today that the average pay for workers and part of
our job is to get jobs into Denton and we all know that there is a an issue
with affordability and we do want the people we bring into our city to live
here that's a goal and I found out recently about a Wells Fargo program
neighborhood lift and I know that we have a lot of banking institutions in
our city and I just would like a report or some kind of staff list of all the
institutions that provide those type of programs for first-time home buyers and
they help with down payment put that on the agenda well I mean just just in a
note to us maybe in the back up just to have that information it would be really
helpful especially if these companies are relocating and they can pass that
information out to the people that they're relocating here anybody else all
right thank you for being here we'll see you next month