Jun 12, 2019 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2019-06-12 11:00 AM

Good morning. I'm Marty Rivers, the chair of the Denton Economic Development Partnership Board. Welcome to our meeting. We were going to start the meeting at 11.03 a.m. Our first item for consideration is item EDP 19-031, which is to consider our minutes from our last meeting on May 8th. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Minutes are approved. And item B, EDP 19-027, our staff report, so I'll let you guys go ahead and present. Well, we'll continue our tradition of saving time if at all possible. We're happy to answer any questions about the staff reports, but we don't have a formal presentation prepared. That's it from the city. And I have some notes if you want me to go over mine. I'd love to hear some notes. I know you've been on the road. Sure. So some highlights would be awesome. Yeah, no problem. Right now we're at we've had two new projects for the month of May. We're totaling 40. We have a total of 49 for this fiscal year. Keep in mind that as part of a city chamber contract, we have to be at 42. We're at 49 right now with four months still left to go. So we're already beating that target and we'll be way ahead. Additionally, we've had eight site visits this year, which on the contract we have to have seven. Once again, four months left to go. So we're beating that by one. We will certainly have two or three more, I would expect. Most active projects that we're working right now, one of them is called Project Global. It's a company out of New York, Amsterdam, New York, that is looking to relocate their whole project to Denton, Texas in the Westgate Business Park building. Right now they have about 65 current employees. They're looking to lease about 20,000 square feet out there and relocate some of those employees but then hire new additional employees here. A company called Project Element, which is a manufacturer of specialty ceramic coatings for the aerospace and automotive industries. They're looking for 50,000 square feet and will create 40 new jobs. Project Terrazzo is one that originally Christina and the city started working with them. It's kind of a, it's a joint effort now. We're all working on this project. The consultants came in town the week before last to kind of talk about potential incentives. This is a manufacturing project. It's a great company. The average salaries without benefits will be $51,222. With benefits will be roughly $58,000. And we're looking at about 90 new people, capital investment of about $26.2 million. They've already been to Denton. The company's been to Denton. The CEO's been here. The consultants have been here. So they actually sent over the preliminary application this morning. So the city will start working on that process and hopefully we'll get them to Denton. They are looking at a few other locations in DFW. We're doing our best. We'll get them here. Project Bell is another manufacturing operation. They have been in town. All the company executives have been here, including the CEO and their attorneys out of California. This will be a relocation out of California. I showed them five different sites over in the industrial park. They've narrowed that down to two. As of three weeks ago, we've made it to the final steps where they have now asked for some estimates on construction costs. We've put them in touch with Lynx Construction here in Denton. They're working over those cost estimates and a timeline which is going to be very important as well. Adam, I'm sorry to interrupt. Sure. Did you say project name Bell? I called this one Project Bell. Okay. I just didn't see it on the sheet so I wondered. Oh, okay. I didn't miss here. It was really the fairs or the blue edge. The five that I'm bringing up there, I call them my most active projects, but they're not necessarily the new products in the format that you have in your backup. These are the more active that are really looking here and have already been here and we're working through the process with. It's fantastic. Even more. Sure. Thank you. The last one I call this Project Pickle. They make little Vienna sausages that you probably all ate in college and things like that. They come in a little can. I met them on a marketing trip with Team Texas in Chicago. Their headquarters is in Chicago. They're looking to do a small cold storage plant here in Denton. It'll be more on the pickle side of things, which is why I call it Project Pickles. They do Vienna beef and pickles. They're importing their pickles from Mexico. Thank goodness the Trump tariff didn't take effect because that would have killed their whole operation. We are working on that. It'd be about 30,000 square foot cold storage plant and 50 new jobs. We all know what happens when cold storage plants look here. We don't typically lose. If they get serious, we'll probably get it. New EDP investors. Once again, it might not be in the backup, but we've had five total new investors for the year, increasing our private revenues by $7,000. The newest ones, as of the last 45 days, are Pacific Western Bank. They just have one guy here in DFW. The banks are all in California. They just have a guy here on the ground doing business development. They wanted to join just to see activity reports and things like that. The embassy suites by Health and Convention Center came in at the $1,000 level, and then Surf Pro, which is a company that was already in force. They opened up an expansion here in Denton, and they joined at our biggest level, the chairman's level at $5,000. It's a great new company. They also joined the chamber. They've been great at being a good citizen. Marketing activities. It attended the Industrial Asset Management Council's spring professional forum. Once again, IAMC is the one where two years ago we recruited Penske trucks from this one, so it's always a good one to go to. Key contacts from this one were NFI, which they have a fourth location. We worked a project with them a couple years ago that we ended up not getting here in Denton because we couldn't have a 700,000-square-foot building built within six months, which they hadn't had that time frame, so they expanded within Alliance. But I'm still keeping constant interaction with them to hopefully work something in the future. Addison Young, Lennox International, Prologis. Prologis builds a lot of big industrial buildings. Ben's Wanger, which the head site selection consultant for Ben's Wanger is out of Dallas. Holmes Davis, who did bring us the Tyson Foods project that we located two months ago. I've known him for seven years. I just stay on his radar all the time, taking the lunch in Dallas every time I get a chance, and constant interaction with him. And then McGowan Real Estate Advisors. They worked with Winkle Foods of expansion operations from the past. They didn't do the one here in Denton, but they've done others such as Idaho and Phoenix. So constant interaction with all those site selection consultants. And recently attended the area development consultants forum last week where there were 17 site selection consultants in attendance. I met with about three-quarters of those personally on one-on-one interaction. We did get a new project from one of them as well that we're working immediately. It's a standard DC operation for Lowe's, about 125,000 square foot project. But we are helping him with the site selection work right now here in Denton and have found two locations for him. So I'll keep you all apprised of how that works out. The next upcoming marketing activities and opportunities, International Economic Development Future Forum, International Economic Development Council. That was earlier this week from June 9 through 12, a professional development forum. And I'm leaving tonight for the Texas ED Council's media conference, which is our state, our state group. And I'm on the board for the team Texas marketing group. So they asked that I attend all those GDC events. That's any questions? That's all I had for that report. That's all going on. Yes. For those of you who may not have seen the press release at the end of May, our own Adam Gavrowski was named by his peers as one of the top 20 economic, top 50 economic development professionals in North America. So I just wanted to honor you, Adam, and thank you for that and recognize you. Thank you. I was excited to see my name on that list. They just started doing that last year. And they put 50, you know, they recognize 50 people across North America. And that's, you know, you can figure there's 6000 economic development directors and VP. So to get recognized as one of the top 50 is great. And that's just from the site selectors voted me in on that and then my peers as well. So it's best practices and marketing activities and just how they view you out in the public and working projects and things that you're doing for your community. So great job. That's also comes from ADP being very helpful and responsive. And so it's a more of a group award, I should say. Thank you. Thanks for bringing that up. All right. Our next item, you may have any questions. Thank you. Just to hear what's going on ahead of time. Next item is ADP 19 dash 029. We're going to receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding our economic development downtown didn't task force. And just we brought this up in the past just kind of that's a subcommittee slash task force of this body. And I'm just going to give everybody an update on where we're at with that and maybe send direction on how to move forward. If anybody has any questions, Hank Dickinson with the University of North Texas athletics is here to answer questions. He's on he's been on that task force for 15 years, probably close to that. So he's here to answer some questions if anybody has any directly. Thank you, Jessica Rogers, director of economic development. And there are lots of people in the room who have more experience with the task force than myself. So if you see me kind of point to someone or if I need to call on Julie, I certainly will. But I appreciate all of the knowledge that everyone has. So I'm going to give just a very brief overview over the roles of the ADP and the downtown task force. There's a little bit more of a robust timeline in your backup. This is just going to be a super high level. So the ADP was actually formed in 2003 under the direction to provide guidance to the city council and the Denton Chamber of Commerce on matters related to economic development in the city of Denton. The original duties were established in 2003. They've remained fairly constant. There's been some minor changes. There's been about five or six ordinance changes over the years. But the current duties and membership were set in 2017. Those included that you have the ability to create task forces or subcommittees within your own membership to assist with the implementation of projects or activities that you deem sort of related to the economic development mission that you have. You're responsible for economic development incentive policies and recommending those policies to the city council for final adoption. You are the recommending body for city council for any incentives that are authorized under the law and under the city's policies. And you can review, consider, and make recommendations to the council relating to marketing and branding for the Denton Enterprise Airport, airport incentives, airport incentive policies, and specific airport incentives. So this is much bigger up here. So on the screen, it's very small. Your board is actually made up of a really diverse array of representatives from the community, both Chamber of Commerce, the Denton Black Chamber, the Denton Hispanic Chamber having representatives, the city council having representatives, the Chamber of Commerce having representatives, aviation, of course, being related as it ties back to your charges. And then there's a couple ex officio members. Those are non-voting members of the board. That membership was established in that 2017 ordinance. And again, it's also been amended over time, but it's certainly a good mix of economic development related stakeholders in the community. Switching gears a little bit, the downtown task force was also formed in 2003 at the request of the initially formed economic development partnership board. And the goal was to assist with downtown related activities that were established in the 2002 strategic plan. At the time, it was very specific to those identified responsibilities in that strategic plan. However, over time, its duties changed. In 2007, the downtown grants, reinvestment grant was created and the task force was assigned that responsibility. Over the years, task force became the recommending body to EDPB on those downtown reinvestment grants with final consideration going to city council. In 2008, that responsibility was changed a little bit and now task force makes recommendations to the TURS board related to those grants. So what does the task force look at in terms of their general responsibilities? They're a recommending body on really a number of things. And I kind of listed off for your view sort of items that they've considered in the past, but really the key is that bottom bullet point and that they serve as a general advisory board for any issues concerning downtown. So if a city department is working on a project, they generally will go to the task force and say, we might need your feedback on this and they might consider how the task force would, representing downtown stakeholders, how they would react or their opinions and get feedback so that it can be incorporated into a project. So this is sort of a general list of items that have been brought forward to the task force since its creation. So the task force members, this is a list of the current members. Right now, the task force does not have a chair. That's because the chair is typically a member of the EDP. And right now there are no EDP members that are currently serving on the task force. EDP could certainly nominate someone and that person would more than likely then be chosen as a chair. If more than one member of the EDP wished to serve on the task force, then the task force would designate the chair among those members. We don't have this posted as an appointment today. We wanted to get your feedback generally. Our plan would be if there were any types of appointments or changes that you wanted to make, that we would bring that back in July. One of the questions that came up was what's the difference between the task force and Main Street? Certainly there are some overlapping duties related to those boards and there even I think are some overlapping memberships, but it's not significant. That's correct. But know that the task force is actually authorized under a city ordinance. Main Street Association is a separate nonprofit. It's a 501(c)(6) organization. The task force itself doesn't have any dedicated funding other than the grant administration portion, but that's actually administered through the city itself. The task force is really focused on economic development and management of the downtown core as it relates to any type of business related activities and again serving as a sounding board to city departments. That's really where there's overlap. Many times city departments will want specific merchant feedback for a project and then they might take that to Main Street and have them provide feedback to that type of stakeholder. Main Street has a much more robust membership that's more merchant and business based and not just inclusive of all stakeholders. Main Street is also funded through membership sponsorships and fundraising activities and they have a separate 501(c)(3) foundation that they use to fund certain events, that they use to fund things like the Arts Walk of Fame. And as noted in their bylaws, their focus is on historic preservation, reinvestment in downtown and on heritage tourism or cultural tourism. And that's pretty much the broad overview of those organizations but happy to entertain any questions or just turn the floor over for discussion to the board. So I guess the reason I asked to have this on the agenda is one of the, I guess two things. It's a task force, so the subcommittee of this group, we can, if we had a project going on, we can set up a task force or anything, you know, airport related or whatever we wanted to do. So this one just happens to have been in existence for a long time. Over the years, we have always had somebody from this board as chair or co-chair of the downtown task force so that when Adams came back up to discuss to this board, we had somebody here that was involved in it. So not unlike any other organization you might be involved in, if you had it set up beside a committee, you'd want somebody involved in that, being on that committee. So currently we don't have a chair, so we need to figure that out. Nothing is written in stone that says we have to have somebody that's on this board as a chair of that task force either, which has always kind of been a good idea. It started out with no funding mechanism. They weren't doing grants. It was a feedback to this board. We recognize downtown as one of our biggest economic development engines in the city. When the grant program came about, then we started making decisions on those grants and forwarding those on to the city manager of this board or city council. That has been taken away from us and the downtown task force. That mechanism is going to be, I guess, approved through our TIF funds and TIF board, downtown TIF board. So many of the reasons that those folks are getting together were to administer and make recommendations for those grants. That's going away. So I wanted to bring this up for us to talk about is downtown still important enough from an economic development viewpoint? We're not talking historical or anything like that. Economic development, this is an economic development board. Do we need to maintain a subcommittee or task force to hear, use as a sounding board to help us stay in touch what's going on there, even though that funding mechanism is not there, they could still do that through the TIF. Is there a better place for these folks? In my personal opinion, we need to keep this board and this group of people in place because there are a wide variety of folks that have some really good input and opinions to help us shape what's going on in the downtown area. So do we need do we want to keep this group involved as a task force? Do we want to recommend they go report to the TIF as a task force? Keep them with us some other idea? Do we need to have a chair from this board on there if we keep it here or not? Or how would you guys like to proceed? Mr. Baines? John Baines, my question, Mr. Chairman, is this how what is the the boundaries of the what we consider downtown? Is it is it the four streets or is it beyond that? Now there's a downtown implement implementation plan that defines those boundaries. I couldn't draw that line for you. For the common person, give me discount. It's more than a square. So it goes over to Bell and maybe across to the train station, stops at Eagle, Carroll and North. I can't remember how far it goes. It's actually right now when we amended the grant it is now the TERS boundaries because only only TERS money can be spent within those boundaries. So it is pretty much, you know, we don't include this property in the post office because it's tax free, but it does go down to exposition on this end, to Carroll on that end. I want to say Mulberry. It's kind of a long skinny thing. Mulberry and then Parkway on this top. Also the way the ordinance is written right now, the latest updates we did to it, the grants still start at the task force. So they are they are the ones who review the grants first. So it goes task force. At this point, we still have some money in the general fund, a little bit of money, like about $28,000. Once that general fund money has been expended, then the task force money will take over at that point. So right now we're doing first review by the task force, second review by you, third review is by council that will change that middle part would change to the TIF board after the general fund money is gone. So the boundaries are the same as the TIF boundaries with the change there. I wasn't aware of that. It makes sense for a visual actually in the cultural district application section of your packet. That is almost identical to the TURS boundary on page 150. Just as a reference point, there's a it goes the cultural district is a little bit further south of me for an extra street. Just as a visual, that's the general area. So the group for our purposes, just economic development focused, their grant funding that we're continuing downtown is through the TURS. So they will still need to meet and make recommendations for grants for downtown businesses within the TURS. They're making those recommendations after we run out of our funds to the TURS going forward. So they'll still do that. Do we need to have them do that with the TURS and still come be a task force with this group? I would like to keep them in place. And I think that a member from this board, especially since it's not going to come to us anymore, I think it would be beneficial to have a member from this board on that board so that we're aware of what's going on and we can continue to just just keep up to date. That would be my recommendation. So something's not coming to us anymore? Is that what the grant requests are that the funding is coming from the TURS that has its own separate board and they will be making those recommendations there? Back to us? No, to the TURS. We won't be involved in helping make recommendations on any funding of money anymore. For me, the information is still pretty vital for this board and to have someone come back here and have an update or share any important topics or discussion that happened there, I think would be important. Well, that's what that's the point I was getting to is making sure that something came back so that there would be information shared and I think that's important as well. I want to make sure I'm on the same page, but there's a lot of changes going on. I want to make sure that we all understand what the downtown task force is, why it's here and that we're on the same page going forward. So I'm opening it up to the group to help make all those decisions. So we won't see grant requests anymore, it'll go to the TURS, but I think it is helpful to keep these folks in place and thriving and as they've got some really sharp people involved in that. I'm asking you guys at your pleasure, do you want that information coming back to this group? It sounds like it's a yes. Mr. Chair, Tony Clark, I would be interesting to hear Joe Gesture's thoughts as the former chairman of that and kind of your opinion on where we are and where you think we need to go with that as well. Well, so I have not been present at those meetings for the past few meetings, but served in that capacity for over a year. It is an impressive group of people from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests, whether it's someone that works downtown, owns residential property downtown, owns commercial property downtown or a business. There are a lot of changes, so I think it is wise to clarify what our expectations of the downtown task forces and how it flows through us. If we, I think a good idea would be to maybe every other meeting have someone from the downtown task force come and talk to us about what is happening. And I think that that's part of our roles on this board is not only the recommendations and decisions that we make on this board, but also out in our community being someone that people come to to talk to about what's happening, concerns that they have, ideas they have as a sounding board. So I think in that capacity, you can see the value of this task force. I mean, yes, you can see that the makeup right here of who it is. I would just want to utilize them as much as possible to help us do our job so that maybe there is some kind of reporting component to it. Since we are out of the funding and grant requests pipeline, which I kind of have mixed feelings about, I would say yes, so long as it's like Mr. Baines mentioned there's some kind of flow through with this group so that we are benefiting from this group of people that give up their time to come and meet and discuss how to improve downtown and availability of services, et cetera. And then we might even discuss, is there another type of task force that would be useful to this board in making decisions and working with city council to inform them of issues that affect economic development? I don't know if that was too long or too short, I'm not sure. >> Do they have a set meeting date or they just meet as needed? >> No, they meet monthly. >> Okay. >> And I believe, hey, you're here as the representative today. Would you like to perhaps give a year or two since as far as not only the past but where you see the direction headed in the future for this task force and how they can be used most effectively? >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> I'm just happy to be listed among a group that you think is smart. It is a good group because of the makeup and I think what you get from this group that you wouldn't necessarily get from Main Street is people like myself or Beth from the universities that really value our downtown as, I call it an asset in recruiting students to our town. I don't know that 10 or 15 years ago it was as strong and our task force I think has tried to guide some decisions on how our downtown looks and feels, safety, lighting, certainly the eclectic makeup of the businesses that we get. And right now between UNT and TWU we're talking over 50,000 students in this town. So moms and dads come and making trips and really experiencing downtown Denton and leaving the money behind which is the economic development aspect. So I feel strongly that this group really represents a good clearinghouse for you to talk about things that are important downtown. And to John's question, we sometimes get that, you know, are you just worried about Oak and Hickory and the four streets down there? A lot of what we have done initially really impacted the square in particular, but we've spilled all over and downtown is a much bigger district now than it was. When you talk about spreading all the way to exposition, think of how much more growth we can have downtown on the other side of the tracks where people are coming every day via the train. So there's a lot of good decisions still to be made that are not right there on courthouse. One of the corollaries related to what I was speaking about with the boundaries is if those boundaries were set in a previous time period, it may need to be expanded, you know. So just to, I don't think there's any question about that. This is the time and place. But to me, if that boundary was set years ago, then it may be time to update it. Sure. And as it relates to the TURS boundaries, so that would only be limited to the grant funding. The grants would have to be used. But if there were some expansion of downtown or this board wanted to say, we want to be more inclusive of what we define as downtown for the responsibilities of the task force, that's something that this board could do. Other than reviewing and giving input and scoring the grant proposals and the funding, what else do you see as the role of the downtown task force, as a task force of the EDP board? I mean, just to kind of help us talk about where we are today and moving forward. I don't know that I can speak for the entire body, but I know this has come up enough. You know, part of the beauty of downtown is the challenge of how do you get downtown and what does our city look like on your way to downtown. So there's different portals coming in. I think most of us really feel like, you know, Fort Worth Drive could stand some real concentration on how it looks and how you have your gateway off the highway. I think that's important as citizens and I think it's really important if you're, again, representing the university and in my case, the athletic department, you just want your best foot forward all the time. We've got a lot to celebrate in this town, but many towns within driving distance look a lot different coming off I-35 than we do. And so, you know, that's something we've talked about. Maybe that becomes a little bit more of a task force focus for some group. And that's just one idea. >> I apologize for being late. Marty, who is the -- who's going to be the vacant E? >> That's what happens when you're late. >> Yeah. [ Laughter ] >> I nominate Steve Eggers. >> I'd like to congratulate Steve. >> I'd like to nominate -- [ Laughter ] >> Well, the question is, we just have -- we haven't had any formal rules of the task force. It's really just been a subcommittee of this group and we've always had somebody represent us at that level. I did it for 15 years and resigned from that a couple years ago. Just like somebody else needs to have fun doing that. It's a great group. It's really not that much time. I mean, probably meet nine months out of the year, really. >> Right. Take some time off in the summer and Julie pretty much gives us heads up. If we don't have a lot to talk about, then that's one thing. If we have a lot, then we definitely meet, but it's consistent. >> Well, we can. We don't have to. We can still get the information back up here through Julie. I'm throwing out ideas and I co-chaired it. That was off of this board for two years and Greg Johnson was on the board and he chaired it and I co-chaired it with him because they wanted me to stay involved in the task force. So that's kind of the effort discussion, too. Everybody is passionate about downtown on this board and wants to continue to represent us as a group. That would be great. We've got some veterans on the task force to work with. >> So you need a motion? >> I don't know. We can't do that today. We're just -- >> No, in terms of nominating someone to serve -- >> Not nominating someone. >> Just general direction. >> General direction. Okay. >> Erica. >> So you said it's a task force, but it does meet regularly. I'm a big fan of the use of task force, so my question, I guess, is, is this something that you need to have -- you feel like you need to have in place all the time? That's one of my questions. Or is this something that you can recruit periodically, six weeks, 12 weeks, to tackle a specific issue, like gateway corridors or a lighting issue or a safety issue, where you, you know, you bring them in for a specific amount of time and say, let's tackle this task and give recommendations, rather than saying, you know, hey, just keep your pulse on things and let's meet regularly anyway. And also, another part of that that I was wondering is how does the TURS board relate to this task force? Is that something that they ask for the input from this task force too? >> The TURS board would only take recommendations from the task force as it relates to the downtown grant administration. >> And have they been receptive of the recommendations in the past? >> It currently doesn't report to them because it's still funded through general fund. So when that -- >> We're in a transition. >> Right. >> Okay. >> We haven't made the full transition yet. >> I mean, this group would be a good sounding board for the TURS board also. So actually there's a couple of people on this task force that are on the TURS board. Melissa and Alex. Bob used to be. >> Anybody have any more questions for Hank? Thank you. >> Thank you for serving. >> Well, the goal of the task force members is to have a variety of folks. And you'll notice loosely we have -- want to make sure there's somebody from the county, somebody from UNT, TWU, the greater Denton heart center, and then whoever is the president of the main treat association that is an ex-official member divided to ten. So that changes. That could change every year. Just want to have those people involved. And then people who are interested, Peggy's our resident, historical person to keep everybody on track there too. So business owners, developers, bankers, property owners, all in the downtown area. >> As far as speaking to your question, Erica, I would say that it doesn't meet if there's no need to meet. And I apologize if I misrepresented. There are set meeting dates monthly. However, if there's nothing to be proposed and there's no topic, it is up to -- it's a conversation between Julie and the current chair and usually vice chair as to whether or not it is worth having that meeting. So it is a little more task force-y than a committee in that respect. So there are set times so people can calendar for the year. However, it is as needed. >> And I highlight that as -- >> Correct. >> It's really a committee. >> I'm coming from the point of view of someone who loves a task and also as someone who sees a empty space where a Chamber of Commerce would be represented. >> You've got a lot of members on there. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> No, and that's a great group. If there's an opportunity to put a voice at the table, of course we want to do that. >> I haven't been to the meeting in a while, but CVV usually shows up to that because they're interested in -- any -- so if I'm hearing correctly, the direction is we want to continue to use this group as a subcommittee of the Economic Development Partnership Board, and we would prefer to have somebody on this board chair that and/or co-chair that with somebody to be involved at those meetings so they can come back. I'm going to throw out some -- maybe it would be a good idea for us to kind of outline formally what the make-up is and how -- we're supposed to be, as a group, approving that every year, the task force members on a recommendation. Maybe we could formalize what that is so that we -- if we're missing anybody, maybe -- probably need to have somebody from NCTC on there now. >> How do the members get chosen? Are they nominated or do they just kind of -- and how often does it turn over? Are these things that we need to kind of formalize and make sure -- >> That's what I'm saying. We need to formalize it. It's been -- it is in the minute somewhere because I'm the one who did it years ago that we're supposed to be formally approving this member at this level, these members, annually. And so we -- and it's been pretty much the same people for the last four or five years. So yes, ma'am. >> I would just tell you that right now we are short a couple of people. Of course, the chair position. But Don Lee from First United Methodist, the pastor from that church, has been on this for a long time. And they've just -- as they've changed pastor, that person has inherited that group. He recently resigned. And we lost Kate Linus at the county when the -- you know, the judge retired and so she no longer works for the county. So we do have a couple of positions that -- but you can -- you can appoint whoever you would like to and we can get that on a future agenda. >> I think it would be -- any appointments ought to come as recommendations from that group. But it would be nice for us to set aside, maybe not mandatory, but target, UNT, TWA, arts, NCTC, the Methodist Church, because this downtown has been involved like that. So is that -- any other discussion or recommendations? So our next meeting, maybe we can come back with some recommendations on how to do that and put on the agenda to add a chair. >> Yeah, we'll break back another discussion on formalizing the membership and then also put an item to nominate a chair. >> Great. Anybody else have any comments or questions? All right. Our next exciting item is EDP 19-028, receive a report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding the fiscal year-end '19 and '20 budgets for the city's economic development department and the Chamber's Office of Economic Development. >> Good morning again. >> So I'm going to start it off by doing the city's economic development, the departmental budget, and then I believe Adam is going to do the Chamber's portion, so we're going to tag team a little bit today. So -- and I will say that as I go through this, we've presented ours internally. We have not taken it to city council just yet. We're scheduled for late July, early August, so certainly all of the numbers that you're seeing are really preliminary but we welcome any feedback that you have. If there's something that we can change or incorporate into our budget, we'll certainly do so. So we'll start off by reviewing our FY 18-19 accomplishments. This, of course, is just year to date, but in terms of our department, one of our big accomplishments was achieving the renewal of the Stoke contract, and that now goes through 2021. We've also updated the tax abatement policy for consideration of historically significant properties. We completed the Tyson Foods Incentive Agreement, and that will generate a net revenue of about $5 million over 10 years to the city. We've completed and repaired -- completed the repair and reinstallation of the Pops Carter statue. If you haven't been to GDAC, it's a lovely statue. Please visit it. And then, of course, we are significantly completed with the cultural district application. I'll do a very brief presentation on that later. That was a huge undertaking, and we're really excited about that and how that will be used as an economic development tool. I'm also really excited because I get to mail those applications today, so I'm very excited. In terms of our goals for 19-20, I will say that these are not comprehensive department goals, and we're certainly still working to establish these, but just to give you a high level overview of what we're working towards. The first one, and I would say is probably the biggest, is that we need to update our economic development strategic plan. Later in the presentation, I'll talk about the supplemental request that we've made for that. Our goal here is that we want to make sure that we align our work plans with the strategic needs of the city. That's very important to make sure that we understand what our mission is and what we're working towards. In partnership with the Chamber as well, and we'll talk about that again a little bit later in the presentation. A big thing that's important to me, and I know it's important to Erica because we've talked about it with both of us being new to our positions, is really how can we further leverage the partnerships between the Chamber and the city? How do we work together more effectively to achieve greater prosperity for everyone in the city? I promise I didn't have this planted, but working on corridor improvements, Hank's not here to see that in my presentation, but what can we do to improve the gateways and the corridors in the city? We actually have a meeting on that this afternoon, so I'm excited to see what progress we've been making. Then continuing our engagement and working towards promoting the growing creative sector, and that relates back to the cultural district, but certainly also in relation to the universities and then implementing year one of the cultural district. When we look at how we design our budget and how we allocate resources, we focus in these six key areas. Business development, entrepreneurship, workforce development, community engagement, project administration and creative sector. There's certainly not six probably co-equal branches of our budget emphasis, but they are the six primary areas in which our department works in. I will say, being relatively new to this position, my job, as it relates also back to the strategic plan is identifying, are those the six areas that we need to continue to work in or are there some additional areas that we need to consider moving forward? One big thing here at the city is making sure that we're good stewards of the taxpayer dollars and what are we doing to ensure that there are cost containment measures or process improvements that are going on. Things that we're doing in our department is we're holding monthly meetings with other departments, capital projects, engineering, legal, development services, finance. We're making sure that those silos are broken down. We want to make sure that any business that's operating in the city has a very seamless and pleasant experience with the city and they're not getting one answer from one department and then getting another answer from another department. We want to make sure that we're all communicating and that we're all working towards a common goal. We're cross-training staff to make sure that everyone is up to speed and can fill in. That makes us more versatile. It makes us better at our jobs and we can fully comprehend and understand the full nature of our project. We're certainly partnering with our human resources department. Again, this goes back to that strategic plan and our goals. Do our job descriptions, do our work plans, do our core competencies align with the goals of our department of the city and achieving economic development prosperity in the city. What are our completed improvements for this year? One thing that you see regularly is our customized reporting that we use for our monthly reports that we're tracking metrics that we're evaluating those. I'm asking questions. Where are we at on things? Are we going to achieve our goals? Then another big key that we have going on is documenting processes and procedures, making sure that someone could come in and take over and carry out a project. We get pulled in many different directions so we certainly want to make sure that we fully leverage our staff and can do each other's job. Then again, back to the job description and work plans, making sure that those meet our strategic goals. In terms of our revenues and expenditures, this is sort of a high level overview. I will say this is slightly different from what you have in your budget or what you have in your backup because we are constantly evaluating our incentives as we get the most up to date information. We're actually going to be about 700,000 less overall. The key drivers here are the conclusion of the slumberjay incentive, the termination of the Sally incentive, completion of the one-time O'Reilly incentive, and then in general, a reduction in sales tax that's being remitted by incentivized retail centers. That certainly impacts us both on the revenue and expenditure side. I won't spend too much time on this slide. This is just our high level overview. This actually includes both of the two operating divisions under the economic development budget. Includes both our general staff operations but also STOKE. I have those broken out. Makes it a little bit easier going forward. So quickly, STOKE. The real increase that you see there is the increase in rent and a little bit of operational costs. Otherwise, it remains very flat. Our contract with the property owner has an escalating rent clause. So that's that adjustment that you see there. Yes. Chair? Yes. And can you tell me again when that expires? 2021. Okay. Thank you. So this is our actual department operating budget. As you can see, we're relatively flat other than that 700,000 that was in relation to the incentives. And I apologize, Jill, this is very hard to see. I was going to say the tables get a little difficult when we put them on there. It's a lot of numbers in a table. But I tried to break out in terms for you guys to see the real difference in our budget is driven right here by the chapter 380 agreements. Otherwise, we're staying very constant in our expenditures. So basically the same in most lines, personnel services, that's changed based on items that we can't control. Yes, ma'am? May I ask a question? Sorry. Jill Jester. So the number going down here on the operations on the 380 agreements, is that because of the numbers of those agreements going down, therefore there's not as much operational funding needed to monitor those? Is that the reason for this? So we actually budget the expenditure related to the incentive out of our budget. So the check that we write to whatever incentivized company is accounted for here. So if a retail center is generating less sales tax, their payment is going to be less. So in terms of the general city revenue, the revenue number is going to be lower, but our expenditure number is also going to be lower. And that's you're only seeing one side of that equation in our budget, if that makes sense. Thank you. Sure. Everybody on everybody. Understand that had to be explained to me. Well, if you're just in case, I want to make sure I understand myself. If didn't town crossing is bringing in a million dollars in sales revenue in 2017 and we're getting half of that through an incentive that we gave them, we get 500, they get $500,000 in 2018. If sales go up or down, our number goes up and down because it's so there's say their sales went down to $800,000 that year sales tax, they get 400 and we get 400. We're splitting whatever they get on their sales tax every year. So that number goes up and down. We're expensing our portion that we're rebating back to them in this budget. That's the, that's the $3.6 million there. So that's a moving target. Yes. From all the people that we're giving incentive to throughout the city going, going up or down. So we're only giving them, if we are saying we're giving them half of their buckies is getting half of their money back or sales tax. We're, whatever they collect, we're giving half back. It's, we don't have any choice in any of that. And so is this determined by a projection of sales tax for going down this? Well, I wanted to talk specifically about several large line item changes. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's a combination of every, it's a forecast based on what we think is going to happen with all of these, I guess. And I'm going to guess we're forecasting conservatively based on history. But if you'll like, if you'll look at page 58, and they're back up, repeat that page number please. 58. Thank you. That has the detail line items like a 78 51 through 78 53 are main chapter three 80 agreements. You can see the years past. The peach color is what we're estimating through the end of 2019. And the green is what we're projecting. So summer up summer down. Marty, if you'll, if you'll permit me. So Tony point the chief financial officer. So there's a couple of things that certainly that's going on into that particular line item. Both we have sales tax rebate agreements and we also have property tax rebate agreements that are built into that. Part of the part of the explanation is that there was some one time expenses that were associated with the O'Reilly hospitality management that we won't see again in the following year. So that's being dropped off and the budget's been adjusted for that. And so we do have that phenomenon. We have some agreements that are actually going away based on different circumstances. And the other thing too is for the current year, we did relook at what those projections were and we've made some adjustments. And so you should be seeing a, a decrease in the estimate for 18 19 over what's budgeted. And then we took a, you know, a much closer look at what those estimates and projections were for, for 19 20 and try to, to realign them to something that's a little bit more, more in line with what we've seen historically. So there's a lot of different moving pieces to that. That information is as Marty's mentioned detailed out for you, we do have another more comprehensive sheet that we can, we can send out to you. We'll be happy to send that out to your group. I don't think that was included in your backup that gives you each particular incentive and kind of ties back out to those numbers as well. Maybe, maybe it's a little bit easier to digest. So we can get that out to you. Thank you Tony. In a, in a nutshell, all these questions are gonna, I'm going to get back to my real reason why I'm asking all this, but so like razor ranch marketplace is projected to decrease roughly $700,000. So if you look at actually the columns kind of to the left and you see kind of what Tony was talking about, the actuals. So we took them, took a much closer look in our forecast at what has actually been collected and we're adjusting that number to be more aligned with those actuals than what we had budgeted. So we're trying to get better at being closer to what it is in terms of what is the actual expenditure we expect. So I guess my, so my, the 18-19 estimate is a million nine. Is that really what we think is gonna happen? At this point, I'm going to look at, sorry, I'm going to look at Erica and see if we've updated the estimates for 2019 for this fiscal year. The number that we have estimated for this fiscal year. Razor Ranch Marketplace budget is the same as estimate. So are we, is that estimate updated based on what they're doing this year? I don't believe so at this point. Currently what we have is that we think that they're going to be at budget, we've not adjusted that number down. Okay. Yeah. Billy's getting mad at us for, you know, talking into the microphone. Sorry, I made a rookie mistake. So yeah, so currently that particular number has not been adjusted down or up. It's, so we're assuming that it's going to be at budget based on what we know today. So, but again, we're budgeting based on the previous years. Yeah, correct. So, okay. Mr. Chair, can I ask, if you're looking at Razor Ranch, there's a marketplace and then there's a town center. The town center doesn't have any estimate for budget, but there is a favorable estimate. Is that the offset? Well, that's, that's the southern part with the new, that's all the new stuff that's going on. Yes. Yes, that, that development is split into different segments. Even though it's been being developed, they have to reach certain goals where they start getting money back. Yeah. So it's just starting. Okay. If, so Slumber J is going away, we don't have to, so we're getting 100% of that money into the general fund because what we don't see here is the revenue. The revenue, whatever our expenses, the revenue is going to match and I'm going to jump ahead just real quick. We do have, so this is the other side of the equation. So if you go forward to a couple slides, this is the complete year numbers. But we do on the revenue side for the city's general fund account for the, what we call the positive, you know, revenue into the city. So budget, the expenditures out of the economic development budget, but all of the revenue coming into the city's general fund from those developments is being accounted for in the revenue, general revenue side. So we do calculate our net revenue. So while you see it as an expense in our department budget, it's about a three to one net positive to the city in terms of revenue. That's the return on this one. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. So I'm going to use Denton Crossing as an example of that. It's going away this year. Yes. 2020, 2021, it's partially, it's like August of, um, 1920. So a partial year. It'll be a partial year in, um, 1920. I believe it's August. And you'll see that in the five year forecast. I do have a five year forecast every year. We haven't distributed it to this group. We will have to redact a couple things of single taxpayers, the Buckees in O'Reilly, but I can certainly send this out to everybody. And it's, again, it is constantly changing up until we finalize the budget. So for some reason I thought Denton Crossing was going away this year. But to the chair's point, Jason Donaldson, it drops to 398 is all you're getting in Texas and when you're realizing 1.6 million, almost 1.7. So to your point, all of these are Tom. You'll see it in the end notes. I'm reviewing it to make sure Denton Crossing's 180 payments and with the eight 20 report, which will be paid in nine 20. Where I'm going with this is as these agreements go away, and we're splitting the money between 575 half and half or whatever. There has been some talk on establishing economic development fund that we would be able to have money set aside for when big projects came in that we could help immediately. And I don't see anything in our budget. Maybe it wouldn't be in this budget or not, but I would like us to find a way that's easier for me to say that always gets down to money but money set aside for an economic development fund to be able to help with projects as it come up. So, so a couple of things to that. So, so we do have an economic development fund that's already established. We're taking $150,000 of mixed beverage taxes annually we're putting over into an economic development fund. To date, that fund has about a million dollars I think and we haven't been utilized yet so it's there. What you're what you're talking about is something that that the city has discussed in the past I know the mayor had been a proponent of that at one point. I will tell you that currently that's not something that's that's on the radar it's certainly not something that we've been working towards. And so you're exactly right as these economic development agreements drop off. Those expenses are basically just going back into the general fund if you will, to pay for other things. And so they're not being captured into a separate fund. Again, but if that's something that this committee would like for us to consider we can certainly take that back. It just hasn't been something that that the council has given us general consensus on to include in the budget. And I knew we had the fund but I didn't see since we're using the the beverage taxes didn't come through this budget. So that's I guess that's what I was getting through. I don't there's nothing in here. If we're sitting inside money for economic development, you would think you would come through this budget. And I don't care how we do it. It seems like it matches up better if it's if you could tie we're setting aside money from a previous ever warm tax abatement or 380 agreement. When that goes away, some of that maybe goes starts going into that fund and we're not missing it. Easy for me to say because you guys have a lot more things to worry about. And we didn't and we didn't bring that particular budget, if you will, to this board. But we can certainly start doing that going forward. If it's something that you're truly interested in at this point, we've not had any project that we've identified other than you know, we were talking about the Sally beauty project and it was an item that came through on that that we were thinking about potentially utilizing that. But again, that that particular project went away. And so so that's no harm for consideration. But that fund is currently there and there's nothing program for it. We don't we're not making any recommendation this coming fiscal year to utilize any of those funds. But again, at any point, if there is a project that there's an interest to use that on a specific project, it's there and we just have to amend that budget. So we would like to come to this board for a recommendation, go back to the council. So piggybacking off of what my colleague here said, if we're getting some some monies, what is the game plan for, you know, right now you've got mixed use. But if we're eventually going to get 100%, can we not increase that amount? What is that? What does that number come from? Well, I guess what I would like for us to see that and I'm talking in general terms to the city is to formally say we would like I mean, we have an economic development fund, I don't I don't know if we this board hasn't made a recommendation is there. So how much are we trying to get? We've stopped at $5 million, $10 million, $1 million of wheat is this board is this board said, we want to put money from whatever sources into an economic development fund until it gets to x and the city council has said yes, we agree with that. I think I think at this point, if the if the board wants to make a recommendation that staff take to the council, something like what you described, we can certainly take that back to the council as part of this upcoming budget process. Again, that'll probably be in the form of a supplemental request that will then have to look at how that ranks with all the other priorities that the city has has has identified. What I'm trying to what I'm trying to establish is a formal policy from this board and the city that says we would like to have an economic development fund with an amount of money that can be tied to probably numerous things. But once we get there, that's all we're going to keep that maybe $100,000 or $10 million, whatever city wants, or we all agree that thinks is enough money. Second to that is how do we fund that so is it $150,000 a year out of general budget or do we want to tie it to expiring contracts or however do that I just think a big discussion on here's how we want to have this much money in a fund to help with the things like Sally Beauty and how do we get there and have a formal plan that we can have a discussion on pass it on to city council and that probably didn't happen this year. But you know, where do we get there and then let them discuss that that's what I'm asking. Yeah, so, Gerard, the board member, thanks. Again, because I buy it for Kate, the two makes me crazy. And that's why I try not to say anything, but I can't take it. So I absolutely am trending with you, but for the limit, right, the limit throws me off a bit what that number is, I think if you have the account and have it grow until and then I think what's the trigger for that right to what's the activation and I think at that point you I would lean on Adam and the chamber to say hey, here's this opportunity. And here's what we're looking to activate. And here's what it would take what do we have and kind of a meeting of the mind. So I would see that fun growing exponentially until there's a trigger from and I'd say maybe it's a three person thing. It's our four let's say it's city staff kind of economic development. It's Adam, it's the chamber and some representative of the so maybe the mayor. And so those kind of heads get together and say yes, this is worthy. Here's the number that goes to that and then run it through the system. So that kind of hierarchy triggers it and then it runs through the system to get get approvals is what I envisioned just based on on your question and then I also see an influx of money coming that I'm going to push hard for the other Gerard the City Council Gerard is going to look for is from DCTA. So you understand I understand we're paying them $14 million a year $13 million a year and I expect some of that to come back because one they're not using it they're sitting on it to we're going to have new members coming in and they're going to have to then pay in so that pay in can subsidize some other costs and so I I think that that fund you target I and I envision trying to press to get some of that 13 $14 million a year past three or four years back and and what a better that's a great place to put it so that we can continue to grow our community. Yeah, I just think I'd like to have a line item for us to have these kind of discussions and I know a agenda item for us knowing that we're just a recommending board and you guys have to figure out how to pay for it and where all the money comes from but I think it would be good and I just put a cap because if we say we're going to do whatever and it keeps growing and growing and growing at some point somebody says hey there's too much money in there why aren't we spending that on new fire stations or whatever the deal is so I under I'm just trying to say I understand your limitations as council members that we just can't keep growing growing growing money over like the tree funds you know was come up as issues so it seems to me like we ought to have a formal plan to establish a fund if we want to do that that recommendation would come from here with ideas on how to fund it you know coming from from you guys yeah my question is since it's already a fund and it already is existing with can we just transfer that or set up or have a discussion on how that is accessible to us and what we can use it for can we can we just work with what we have and keep building that fund but then have this board integrated into it somehow what I would tell you is that so currently there is an ordinance the council passed that that created that particular fund there there is no cap on it if you will so so if you put a five million dollar cap on it then then it's going to be capped currently it's an unlimited cap you know and so that was that would be the only thing so what we could do is for your next meeting in July we could bring back to you just the status and the history of that particular fund the other thing too that I'll mention is that there are additional funds out there reserves in the water and wastewater fund for development plan lines and there's a million dollars in water a million dollars in wastewater that are also available we can bring you back that kind of information as well because that again talking about that economic development toolbox those are tools that are there as well that maybe hasn't always been very clear to folks and we can bring you back that kind of information as well. Tools I guess I'm asking us to more formalize you know if some say we spend a million dollars on something how do we get that back in there and what's the mechanism to do that maybe next year we don't have the funds to do it so with now we don't have it down the road so just a more formal discussion of how that we want to have that and how we get there and the comment that Mr. Hutzbit made is exactly right and so there could be in the future money that come back to the city from the CTA through an ELAP program those ELAP funds are very specific and will be used on street related improvements but there's monies that the general fund is now it's an accounting and so there's monies now that are being transferred to the streets from the general fund that could be supplanted with ELAP funds and then therefore those general fund dollars could go to do exactly what you're talking about. I think this is what Mr. Hutzbit is kind of referring to so. You guys have to figure out how to fund it I think we make a recommendation as we would like to have it we would like to have X amount of money or set aside money and just more of a formal recommendation. But I see there's two parts I do think that yes I'd like to see it come back and just kind of understand what we have part one. Part two I think it is a trigger but I don't I think to avoid exactly what you touched on as far as fire getting diverted to fire departments or the fund growing I think there needs it's a great discussion to have what triggers that so if you have something that triggers outside of the political process which is absolutely brutal then I think it helps right because then it's it's not something an elected official can trigger by themselves it's this body that triggers it so it kind of takes that pressure off that political process and politicizing the account and saying hey these these kind of key department heads trigger where that goes probably is this board right well either way we need to memorialize that to your point so that there is a process so that does remove that pressure to put it to a fire station that that that particular councilperson says I can't trigger it but for this board taking action and so then that that brings interested parties to this board to make their pitch and removes that from from the other arena. I think it's a great point I just think there it needs to be crafted well. Mr. Chairman, quick comment I've always felt like we as a as a city have been at somewhat of a disadvantage because you know we haven't had the resources like a lot of our competition and obviously we've talked about a economic development sales tax before that didn't happen it's probably not going to happen but I definitely believe that we need something that along the lines that you've talked about to have at our resource whether it's incentives whether it's corridor improvements whatever that looks like from an economic development improvement standpoint so I think that's a great suggestion however that may work out in the long term but I think that would really give us more ammunition and more opportunities to to develop our economic system. Thinking community if we were able to get a history of where we're at now I guess my when I say cap I'm always saying goal we want to have this much money in the fund at all times and so if we get to that point and then they an opportunity comes and we spend some money how do we get back to that point and the city is formally recognized that we want to be at this point wherever that is we can discuss about so a little bit of a sidetrack only just to get back to there's no there was no funding in our budget to fund that but that's coming out of a different budget so we can certainly bring back to the board the that particular fund that we can have those discussions with you exactly what you're referencing exactly what we do with the development plan lines if they're utilized over a period of time but it's a five-year period they have to be replenished and so that would be kind of the same kind of policy that you that you may be referring to that we can look at yeah I think that would be great any do you have anything else to talk about on the budget that we haven't talked about the last item would just be that we did enter in a completed supplemental request for a comprehensive five-year economic development strategic plan certainly any type of funding mechanism and in any type of innovative incentive would be a part of that discussion the number that you see there is a little bit scarier than the number we're actually going to take forward I've been calling other communities trying to get a better handle on with the scope that we're proposing about how much would it cost and I think it's actually going to be closer to the 100 to 150 thousand dollar range so that's actually we're going to make that adjustment prior to taking it to City Council but the scope certainly at this point is only preliminary and it's something we would bring back to the board to better define but it's taking a comprehensive look at what are we doing and what is our goal everything from labor markets workforce development in incentives but certainly how does the economic development partnership leverage the tools that are at our disposal to get the type of development that we need or what areas can we leverage what are our advantages what are our disadvantages making sure that we're fully aware of what can we offer that other communities can't and what are they offering that we need to offer and that's generally the scope at this point and that's all I have on my budget unfortunately I think the chamber still has any other questions yours is a lot larger you may have any other questions for Jessica okay thank you Adam you're up well board members I'll try to keep mine a little quicker and painless it's not as detailed as hers as theirs was goals and accomplishments for the 18 19 fiscal year we fulfilled all the deliverables in the city chamber economic development contract at this date and time or as of May 31st we we were at 49 prospects with eight site visits from eight different companies the the city contract goals were for to hit 42 prospects and seven site visits so we still have four months left in fiscal year you see we're already ahead of those numbers and we are gonna definitely exceed those expectations at those eight site visits we've landed two products currently Tyson Foods and spec building materials Tyson Foods was the project a couple months ago it's gonna be a hundred new jobs at 20 I'm gonna cut you short here I want to talk about the budget okay you've already gone through okay we've talked about it's all great information I want to get down to the numbers I'm not trying to yeah you'll have this in your backup so if you have any questions I'm gonna that's okay with everybody we he gave us kind of an update on so we're beating all the all the page views and social media is all everything's good so I'll skip forward if you have any questions feel free to call or email the budgets remain flat over the last three budget cycles we're requesting the same amount as I'm not respectfully you okay I don't want you to get upset but I'm doing that I'm not okay absolutely you want me to skip straight to this page this is the requested budget from the city 238,836 we keep 75,000 budgeted out of a private account two separate bank accounts that we keep through the chamber here's the budget proposed for 2019-20 you can see the changes from the prior 18-19 budget year personnel services up slightly under retirement went up 3% our auditor went up went up slightly we asked for more in professional development services training or that we didn't ask for more that line item just barely changed mainly because I'm doing all the TDCs now versus just to because I'm on that team Texas board so total dollars requesters 238,836 same as the previous two years one question for you Adam yes oh I'm sorry give personal services how many people is that working to full-time staff people myself vice president and Karen bunker and does this does this budget go through another board check the Chamber of Commerce for yes and once again this does this account is kept completely separate from the chamber there's no flow through or anything like that so we keep two separate bank accounts from the chambers in the CBBs bank accounts I guess my only question Adam was it is it realistic to keep it the same as they're not our people you know well you know we can do more with more dollars but we are increasing our private budget as well so we did raise five new investors this year increased by 7,000 so we are doing more on the private side okay all right thank you sure unless I'm missing something we haven't seen this at the chamber board yet no we have not okay it hasn't been approved it will come to the next week's board meeting I apologize for that's the way right yeah so there we'll have a pretty thorough discussion on that or anything else correct I'll present the same exact thing we've got the reach slide individually at that chamber board meeting well a lot of huge changes I didn't and I didn't mean to talk about some stuff we talked about earlier yeah I was trying to report keep up with everything so if somebody wants to revisit any of that or has any questions on anything please speak up and I'll also give you a little bit of an insight sort of of what our process in Eric and Adam and I have kind of talked through this and we're just kind of following the process that this board has taken in the past and that in July we would bring forward the draft contract to this board between the city and the chamber and then that would be going to council either later in July following that meeting or early August depending on the council schedule to formalize this so that once this budget is approved of course by the chamber board it would be this board will see it again is what I'm saying but in the perspective of the contract you don't want to go to the advanced manufacturing expo we kept that we kept that one on there it's uh we'll do it as part of team texas we uh we're doing a marketing package through team texas that allows us for trips with them and now so we're going to the expo they have a booth there as well as appointment setting the council have 10 pre-scheduled appointments but you didn't budget for it what did you do in the past oh at a private uh through team texas so we didn't put a specific an exact line item for that particular show but we are going to do that one with team texas any comments questions on the chamber's part of the budget that the city helps fund there's one last question on the small business development center is that still nctc or is that um yes okay yes that's still the eleven thousand dollars to pay for them to have a person here at the chamber office running the small business development and how frequently i mean how many hours does that cover i mean if that was increased would it cover more hours or um i don't have an exact number on the hours i mean they they can give us a full report also that we can send to all of you on uh the amount of loans and dollar amounts that they've uh fulfilled through their throughout the year um typically they work a standard 40 hours a week i mean that's a full-time job it's a full-time person here at our office yeah officer okay so i did two two half days in gainsville and uh in carenth and then four days here they're working the standard 40 hours a week and they're constantly bringing in people they have their own meetings and we can get you a full report on uh the loan amounts and and those numbers if you want them who is the individual that's the advisor for sbdc right now uh brad bunt is the director um brit i can't remember his last name how you pronounce it it's hard yeah he's the one that's in our in our office full-time and then brad bunt's the director the regional director and he'll come up here the regional is up in gamesville is it not i think he's in he's in carenth he's in carenth uh-huh and he typically comes into our office one day a week just to meet with to meet with bread and i'm needing to make some referrals that's why i needed to oh good that place yeah yeah i'll get you some contact information all right anybody else have any questions on the chamber's portion of the budget so still has to go to the chamber board for approval yes sir is there anything that i cut you off on that you didn't get to say that you wanted to say uh i think i'm good yeah thanks all right we get to hear an awesome update on uh edp 19-032 hold the report proceed report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the business awards breakfast michelle cunning hand the board at their last meeting determined they would like to present both a small business award and a larger business award at the september 20th mayor council breakfast over the next two months you have an opportunity both at this meeting and the july meeting to nominate companies and so i've already received indication from one board member that they would like to nominate embassy suites as a uh a nominee for the large business award the way the process works for those of you that are new is that staff researches the companies that you nominate and those are presented back to you for your decision based on that matrix that is in place and it's in your backup for both the large and small businesses so basically you are given a grid with that information answered for each of the companies that you nominate and that way you're able to determine a business award recipient so small businesses less than 100 employees yes sir for our purposes and so does anyone have nominees that they'd like to recommend for either category and certainly don't feel obligated this will be on the july agenda as well so if you want to use the next month to think about it and we can send out a reminder as well prior to that meeting a question about the criteria um does that have someone in mind for the small business but every single line isn't checked does every single line have to be checked before that person can be considered no and that's a great question it does not have to be the reason there are that many categories is some people fit a little bit better just determined by the kind of business they are even the size i mean you could have a one person or two person business that you might want to nominate simply because of the ways that they're engaged in the community or their concept or you know whatever reason versus somebody who's maybe 99 employees so no okay well i actually had an embassy as the large um business as well and then i would like to offer for the small business um dan silverleaf um for me they've been a dentin staple for over 20 years bringing music and art uh to the community and every location they've been in they've been able to revitalize um the area downtown um and so that is just somebody i want to and every time somebody needs his business for a fundraiser or charity stores are open so i think i'm gonna have to do some more research yes before i can vote on that give me you got to visit is that what it means i think also i've not been to the new location but the fact that they have a new location and just kind of their their presence uh downtown ish i'd like to offer up steve's wine bar if it's not uh been offered up and and just because out of absolute respect for primarily the uh their guacamole if you hadn't had it you have to uh i'd like to nominate my alias alias help me out alias there we go my spanish needs to be cleaned up a bit but yes i i think just one phenomenal location uh next outback steakhouse and then to grow that be it the old piggly wiggly for those that know i mean so just a phenomenal uh institution and he's hanging with us as for what drive is being recreated so i think they're doing uh outstanding you know gonna be a lot of things to talk about be thinking next for next month yeah can we email you uh recommendations or jessica if you have if you leave here thinking something i think that'd be great for us to take a look at and so whose job is it to make sure they meet these criteria i will be researching them and contacting people because i know this board is particularly interested in how they're engaged in the community and so those things typically take some digging around so if you have some ideas uh the sooner the better so that when we come back to our july meeting we'll have some things to talk about right excellent thank you all right uh item f edp 19 0 3 0 receive report hold discussion on our new dens cultural district program and jessica will i'm going to do the very abbreviated version of this in the interest of time so um cultural districts this is fun this is probably the 17th time i've done this presentation and it might be the 16th time council member head spiff and bricks have seen this presentation um so i'm sure they are very excited for this um cultural districts are new to the city of denton um and i'm going to just kind of jump right in give the board i'm not going to show the video and we'll talk about why uh but i promise i'll play it after the meeting for anyone who wants to linger there's a five minute video associated with our application and again for the sake of time for anyone who needs to get somewhere i'm not going to use that five minutes of the board's time but cultural districts are defined geographic areas that celebrate arts culture entertainment history and they're formed around existing cultural assets assets can be anything from parks to special events arts um music venues restaurants bars you name it districts exist around all types of assets um in in denton we have no shortage of cultural assets we have pages upon pages of cultural asset lists um and we have some unique ones that incorporate architecture and history parks and historic sites we have moved forward city council designated an area the area that i talked about in your in your packet on the map as a local cultural district and we are going to be making an application to the state i'm going to jump through this this is the area as well for reference this is bradshaw street so how far it goes to the east um we'll be making an application to the state for a state designation as well so once we get that designation i'm confident we're going to get it again i get to send off that application today it makes us eligible for grant funding through the texas commission on the arts and that funding can actually be used for any of these items that you see listed up here it could be a physical enhancement of the district so sidewalks lighting um something along that it could also be used for arts programming so it just has to fit in one of those five categories um and districts all over the state have used uh this for anything from performing arts centers to bringing in special exhibits um further enhancing their marketing efforts um but really it's just a tool to to gain access to additional grant funding to further leverage all of the wonderful things that are happening in in downtown denton and the surrounding areas um we're really excited about the opportunity for that i will say one of the elements of the application um that we'll move on to in a little bit um we'll talk about the marketing dollars that are already spent a little bit of the history and we've been working on this for over a year um back in february of 2018 was when council kind of gave the go-ahead so we're certainly excited to be here in june a year and a half later and ready to submit that application um the application to the state is pretty significant it had these nine sections and that required attachment section is what makes up about 90 of the 95 pages of that backup that you have um it was sort of one of those other duties as assigned type of sections where it was more comprehensive um we did a cultural asset inventory as part of this this was really fun we had to research what amenities were located in the defined district and one of the coolest things that we uh got to see was um when we worked with dana in the cvb to get the number of visitors that come to the district um i actually think the number is a little conservative uh i think dana would agree that that only equates to about 2,700 people per day coming to the district um those are sort of the direct numbers are reported i think that if we counted in people that might come from within our community to the district that that number would be much higher um and then also that we already spend about 2.2 million dollars in marketing businesses events um all different sorts of things going on within the district so certainly the district can help increase that and bring more visitors and certainly in terms of economic development supporting those businesses in downtown so we had to complete different sections of the application there's some narrative in there about um downtown and southeast ditten and its value in our community and what that means and who we are as a community i always put up this picture it's my favorite we really this is a true story we sent a photographer out for an hour and said capture the district and this was one of the photos that came back and if there's nothing more at the ditten than this a musician with a guitar and his back probably walking over to dance um along the arts walk of fame i thought that was just such a unique thing to have happen little kismet um we had to as i said do the asset and amenity inventory um on this page what you'll see is actually our mapping um that we did as well as this is a screenshot of our asset inventory that's available on the district's website um which is original dentondistrict.com we went through a planning process where we had to go through a mission and vision statement again the the idea here is supporting um arts and cultural development in downtown. Can you go back to the map? Sure. Does this district include the other side of the streets on all those? Yes so we consider it we consider it a soft boundary so we considered anything that has an address on those streets inclusive of the there's no legal meets and bounds that define the district mac and i had that discussion there it's it's a soft boundary it's saying here's what we kind of generally agree are the boundaries of the district but yes the chamber office is right here so again we went through a planning effort um this is sort of a timeline over the the last year and a half that we've been working on um one of the cool things that we did we did a community art project uh many of us got to spend a lot of time out at the community market and arts and jazz talking to people about arts and culture and denton and what it means to them um and if you go down the hallway you can actually see the art project and its final uh state and it was really fun and a great way to get to know people in the community and how they see art and how important it is um to denton um we did a lot of digital engagement we had well over um 13 000 engagements by the time that we were done in just over a month um so we were really excited about about that all right some of the general community comments this was feedback that was incorporated into the cultural district planning the goal here was just what does the community want this district to do this is going to be taken back through the public art committee council designated that body as the advisory body for the cultural district um we went through a marketing plan i have a five-year comprehensive marketing plan this is unique in that the marketing plan says a lot and a lot of it is leveraging the partnerships that we have so just like we talked about from the economic development perspective of we work with the chamber on this it's work how can we work with the cvb how can we work with the organizations that are already moving things forward to promote the district and then okay so the required attachments as i mentioned the audio visual sample there's a five-minute video if you haven't seen it um i will play it after the meeting for anyone who's left in the room um but it's one of a great representations of the city and it's had well over 8 000 views at this point so i know billy's listening billy's team put that together and it's amazing with dtv and we also had to put together a detailed cultural district plan and that's again what makes up a significant part of your backup and that lays out the work plan for the cultural district moving forward what are the next steps that we're going to take and what do we expect to kind of come out of that process and we're just really excited to to get the ball rolling with this and see what we can do to make art in denton even more supported and for this body certainly see how it can impact economic development in in that district so and that's pretty much it the rest of my presentation was related to the application which is going to have a bow tied on it later today so any questions thank you again um on this board for this board to know how hard that all the departments in the city worked and how hard you worked and you stepped in and you um you ran with it and you jumped in and i really appreciate thank you appreciate it it's a good presentation it's a giant project but i think it would be very beneficial to our city thank you any questions or comments it's a neat i've seen the video is pretty cool but you're able to show it after the meeting i will show it after the meeting for anyone who happens to linger in the as long as there's no discussion about all right any uh concluding items anybody wants to talk about or add to future agendas um did we establish a joint meeting date and time yet for city council so we tentatively talked about having it on september night um at the last meeting uh the consensus of the board was wait until you were available to make sure that that date was okay okay yes i know we talked about it earlier in the meeting but just for um concluding items that we have an item about the um fund the economic development fund come uh to us so that we can discuss it thank you when we just discussed it just wrapping it up in a pretty bow i don't know that it has to be next meeting necessarily but uh something to talk about thank you everyone for for being here and participating in the discussion and uh with that we're adjourned