good to see you. Southern for Steve this morning. So good
morning. Welcome to this meeting of the Economic Development
Partnership Board. It's Wednesday, June 12 at 1110. We
have established a quorum, so we'll call the meeting in order.
Our first agenda item is to sign number 8, EDP2405, approved
limits of the May 8, 2024 Economic Development Partnership
meeting. Are there any questions? If not, at this time,
the chair will entertain a motion to approve.
Rick, made a motion, adjourned and seconded. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, I call the vote. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.
Our next item is item B, EDP24-047. Consider recommending approval of an economic development agreement for 50% property tax rebate under Chapter 380 of the Local Government
Code to promote economic development, stimulate business activity, and economic growth of the City of Denton between the City of Denton and South Wire Company, LLC regarding the expansion of operations for an amount not to exceed 1,955,700. Authorizing the expenditure of funds thereof and providing an effective date, Chair recognizes Erica Sullivan to speak on this item.
So I'll be presenting this for a little bit, but my name is Brisa Till, I'm the economic development director, and we're very excited to present South Wire Company's incentive application. A little history about this project is they first contacted our office back in February of last year, initially just inquiring about incentives, and through a few additional months in September, an official consent proposal was sent over to the company, and after a few months of deliberation, they decided to come back to our office back in February, and we're here to present
their incentive application. So let's get started. Our objective is to present an incentive application for South Wire Company, and consider a possible incentive proposal. A little bit on the company background, they're North America's leading manufacturer of wiring cable used in the distribution of French electricity, oops, sorry, they're headquartered in Carrollton, Georgia and founded in 1950.
They're an existing Ditton company. Back in 2016, they acquired the United Copper Industries, and it significantly increased their manufacturing capabilities and geographical footprint in the region. In total, the company has over 60 plus global facilities.
Fun fact about the company, they provide half the cable that is utilized to transmit and distribute electricity throughout the United States, so one in two homes in America is powered by South Wire's cables, which is pretty neat.
Today, their reputation for quality and service continues to grow with more than 7,000 employees globally and 324 employees in 10. The company is located at 2727 Geesling Road off of Highway 380. As you can see in the picture, the facility is located underneath the Red Star, and they plan on expanding to the west of their facility.
Their incentive request, the company is examining multiple expansion opportunities in the United States. The Ditton facility has been identified as potential location for a 100,000 square foot expansion, and their request is to modernize their existing facility and install manufacturing equipment to increase copper wire production by 50 million pounds.
Currently, they are looking at four other locations across the U.S., three at their existing facilities and one in the Mid-South region, so this is a very competitive project.
In their incentive application, the company has stated they will create $69.7 million in total capital investment, $15 million in improvements, $54.7 million in business personal property, and 95 new jobs.
The weighted average of the jobs is $61,552 for all positions. This does not include intangibles, which is a very conservative amount, so intangibles are software program warranties.
Next slide is Erica Sullivan. Erica has been working on this project since the very beginning, and so she's our incentive guru, and she'll finish the rest of the presentation. Thank you.
Good morning. My name is Erica Sullivan. I'm the Economic Development Administrator, and I'll be providing the remainder of the presentation. We'll start with the job and wage information.
You can see that 95 jobs will be added over a three-year period. You can also see that the weighted average wage of the 95 new jobs is $61,552.
34% are above the Denton County's average wage of $58,000 roughly, and 16% of the jobs are above the City's bill of paying over $75,000.
There's one thing I did want to highlight. When we were reviewing our incentive policies, this board decided to expand one of our considerations to look at a total benefits package, so I did want to highlight some of those things.
Next slide. Education stipends and tuition reimbursement, age and gender diversity of women make up 20% of their workforce. They have a pension 401(k) matching program.
They allow work from home and flexible work arrangements. They have a project, give volunteer program, a power fund emergency grant program that awarded 1.3 in grants, employee assistance program, and they also have an adoption assistance reimbursement policy as well.
We'll talk about some of the quantitative impacts. We have a model that we used to quantify this. We'll start on the right-hand side of the screen, so we have 95 direct jobs created by the project, and then the spinoff additional jobs, 63.8 bringing the total to nearly 159 jobs.
You can see the salaries that correspond with those jobs as well as the capital investment of nearly 70 million. We'll move to the left side, and you can see that the net benefits, less the incentive, is 1.7 million.
Looking at the bottom, you can see the rate of return of 22.9% and a payback of almost three years.
You'll see the projected incentive and revenue generation in these two tables. We'll start with the bottom table. You'll see the project's land improvement and business personal property, the current valuation, the current conditions are 98 million, the estimated increase in valuation 69.7, the current city revenue, and then the estimated increase in city revenue, which we're focusing on, and then the total city revenue of the project.
This does not include land in the first table as it's already existing on the tax rules, and it does not include the property that they're moving into, which is another 5.3 in land.
So over the 10-year period, this analysis has 195,510 for both parties, since it's 50%, the incentive for nearly 1.96 million, and then the city revenue over the same period. And again, it gives lands not included if they are the same.
On policy and plan alignment, we have our city of Denton's strategic plan key focus area three. It addresses economic opportunity and affordability. Our strategic plan, Accelerate Recovery, addresses two of those goals, business retention and expansion with workforce development, retaining this existing business we have in Denton, goal two, fostering growth.
So we have highway access. We've been working with the company and tech stock and city engineers to try to work around a connection issue with U.S. 380 that's going to go through their adjacent property.
Energy efficiency and conservation as well as green building standards. The bottom here in blue, you'll see our incentive evaluation matrix. So they received three points in the SGA category for diversification.
Priority considerations, 50 points, public benefit 45 points for a total of 98 points, which ranks it in the excellent category.
So we talked about the quantitative impacts and I'll talk about some of the qualitative impacts. Obviously extending the tax base, quality jobs created, reduction of brain drain in this case, business retention. So they have 324 jobs at the existing facility, 100 of those are Dent residents, which is roughly 28%.
The Dent labor force, you can see that here as well as the new census estimate that came out last month.
They have different educational programs throughout all their locations. One of them is a 12 for life initiatives that supports at risk students and offers them opportunities.
Moving on to sustainability, Southwire launched a target of net zero emissions by 2025. They also have their ESG environmental, social and government score of 70, 72, 70 is considered good, 50 is considered poor.
A charitable company, they manage a power fund that provides short term emergency assistance, which I highlighted in the benefits package that they have.
And again, that they awarded 1.3 million with 985 grants. They also have educational partnerships with the ISD with build the backpack programs for back to school events and CTCs pathway to success program.
And then they do mentoring and hiring interns through the local universities as well.
So our incentive recommendation is a chapter 380 rebate for 10 year period at a rate of 50%. We're going to work on agreement that will include valuation job residency threshold requirement and a cap on the funding amount.
And then once if this project is awarded, then they would make them eligible for the state program and we would nominate them should they choose to proceed that program.
So the staff recommendations a 10 year performance based chapter 380 rebate not to exceed 1.96 million. And then the next steps would be consideration by city council and we're estimating that that would be done by the end of the summer, assuming that the tech stock improvements go well.
We'd be happy to entertain questions at this time. We also have Pinnum Mahali with Ernest and Young here and she will also be available for questions for the project as well as breaking it up.
Could you go back to the job creation.
So, my question would be just an interesting question for me. These new jobs, would they be hiring from within the existing market? You know, people are already here or would they be bringing people out in from outside to fill these jobs?
I'm just curious about the demographics of that number or those job opportunities.
Some would be hired here, but I'll refer to Pinnum Mahali if there's any additional relocating. I wasn't aware of that.
No, there may be some folks from other plants that come in for a short term period just for training purposes, things like that. But by and large these full time employees that you see here, the 95, that really make up the operational folks that would work on a full time basis at the expansion location.
Would be either from within the city of Denton, which the company has history with its existing facility in employing workforce from within the city in terms of city residents, and then the surrounding North Texas area.
Any idea of the impact to DME for revenue? Actually, we did. This project did go through DME. Unfortunately, it didn't make the qualifications for the growth rider, but it was in consideration, so it was close.
And then DME offered to look at it again when they get their operations online to see if they might qualify because they were close enough that they could recalculate that.
The thing with DME with that is it doesn't include the existing facility, so you would have to have the additional requirement in the expansion alone of that 100,000 square foot expansion.
One thing I think would be interesting to see in future submittals would be just what their permit costs are going to be for this, how much of it's coming back to the city, because it's going to be a considerable amount of what we're offering to them is incentives going to come actually back to the city just through permits, through park, road, sewer, you know, just to at least see what that number is going to be in the construction because the incentive probably isn't as big as we think once we add in all the permit impact fees.
Some of that's calculated in our total impact model, so we use total impact by data source in Austin.
So you'll see the benefits, the cost. That's one of the things we liked about this model is they had cost per service where Reming and some of the other ones didn't.
So they actually go into our budget and take our franchise fees and some of these things. They may not capture all the permit, but they capture some of it so that when you're looking at the net benefits, that's less.
Those do some of the calculations.
On the one page deal that was sent out, it says jobs on the top right. This is 158, 95 are direct and 63.8. What is the 63.8 spinoff?
So our economic model uses, they use regional multipliers that calculate the spinoff, which would be the, you have your direct jobs, your 95 direct, you have your induced and indirect jobs.
So those two create your spinoff. So let's say that you have your 95 jobs and then they go and they eat at a particular restaurant.
Well, that restaurant will hire a certain number of people. So this, they use multipliers to calculate what that would be.
As well as construct. And they do it specific for that industry. So the multipliers have different rates, depending on what industry it is.
Yeah, I would just first of all say great putting this all together and lining the ducks up and it hits on so many things. I would just offer a comment as this heads to council.
The thing that makes it all make sense is what you said verbally that wasn't true, which is that they're considering multiple sites. They're going to just do this anyway. Why is that we do this if everybody wants a subsidy?
Everybody. Well, it probably even deserves a subsidy. But the competitive aspect of this is really what makes it a proposition. There's four other places they're looking at.
Correct. Kentucky, North Carolina, one of the South Midwest states in us. Yeah, it's like, I mean, just the suggestion is like, go ahead and build that into the pitch. Thank you.
You can add that to the presentation. It's just an immense.
Rick, does it mean they are spread out as you have indicated they are often as a airplane and bring the big waves in and we show them what our airport has to offer.
We haven't given a mature of our airport that I'm aware of, but in there, we do calculate in their application how many people they bring in so that's calculated into the economic model.
We can break out a break. Definitely. That's a good idea. Thank you.
Yeah, just a point of curiosity, when they set this zero net carbon goal for next year.
So they must be awfully close to that now.
I can share about what it is that can be doing that's maybe newsworthy helps. We definitely would like to promote that once they achieve that and we definitely want to promote the project should it get awarded.
Can you speak specifically how far they're at quite a few sustainability goals and endeavors kind of across their enterprise.
Buildings are leads are tied buildings including this one.
The products that they make go into things like electric vehicles, etc. So that's, you know, what their contribution is to their overall goal of being net zero.
So we've got a lot of federal, federal green incentives as well that they qualify for our, and so they're very much a key player in just kind of the US goal as well.
That's good to know.
So, so just a comment, not a question regarding following your question earlier.
I guess it's kind of a slippery slope that we want to incent people from outside of the area more than people inside the area.
But in reality, all like we're in competition with singer wherever, all the time. So, I just want to know that it's fair to not support or not put local businesses in the same light as, you know, an international or national business that does have sites all over and they could expand elsewhere.
We're thinking about this. I get your point. But it seems like we're maybe putting the people that are committed to getting at a disadvantage.
So in this case, it is again, I get that I get that but if you have another business that is solely didn't that doesn't have a bunch of different areas, you're saying, maybe the competition to go elsewhere.
We just want to make sure that if we're, if we're contributing, you're forgiving a subsidy or whatever, or whatever the inducement is that it's changing behavior.
Otherwise, why are you doing it right. Right. Well, and I think the financial metrics that they're presenting do that. Yeah, but it wouldn't be totally jobs at 60,000 heck we just approved a deal on the square that has an average pay of like $15 an hour.
And then I'm very supportive of this. The point is that we're, we're putting together an incentive package that will result in jobs that wouldn't have happened otherwise, that that's that's all I'm talking about that it might have gone somewhere else.
Right, but I think any most any project, that's the case, because whether it is a small business or a bigger business they could go, they could just up and move from them and go to say here anyway.
So I mean I hear the point but I don't want to put a lot of weight on that, personally, because I think there's a lot of other factors, and I like that the job profile and everything that this presents.
There's a business retention and expansion even though it is a global company.
Right, we should really support the local businesses as much as we should, and then our expansion opportunities, as much as somebody coming in from the outside, I would, I mean if they're generating new jobs that are coming I think your first question.
If we can get jobs that are coming to the area that's our ultimate goal right we don't want to cannibalize as much from, you know, another business and then we want to have a net gain and then, and I think that's our goal and then it doesn't matter.
I think I'm just a little, you know, half a cent more on it. In the scenario you're describing, which I think is completely persuasive, it just makes it even more persuasive if, however credible it is, that there are options outside of debt.
I don't really care personally, where the, in this case, where the company headquarters is, whatever, it's just that it is, it's persuasive that they are really looking at other things, it would, so that just adds to the conviction that we're really generating.
So what type of business do we have and that we have a monopoly on, that they, that we don't have competition in other cities for where they could get. Are we still talking about this incentive? Yes.
Yeah, I guess theoretically they could, but in terms of using like, you know, using our city resources, people want it to be used for roads, they want it to be used for, you know, more police work behind our police, like we have to weigh every dollar that we deploy.
So all I'm saying is the more credible it is, that there's a, that they might, the dollars might not come here, the more compelling the opportunity is. That's all I'm saying.
I just think the fact of the matter is on this particular one, if we, if we say that anytime we create an urgency or competition, I agree with that, you know, we need to look at all those businesses, but on this particular one, that's just a little quib, arrow and quiver, so hey, there's competition out there.
So on this particular case, not looking at a global, you know, picture, because I agree, we need to make sure our local businesses and everything here, we look out for them just as much, because we've seen that in the past, but I think to your point on this, that's just another arrow and quiver.
If we put some urgency to the other council members, hey, this is something we need to get done, because there is competition out there, so I think that's a global conversation that is really, really important, but on this specific one, I think that's an arrow and quiver, just to say, hey, there's competition out there.
I was going to say, I was going to close our discussion, but if you want to add something. We did present to city council a few weeks ago, and so I think it's what Paul is referencing to add a few things to the presentation for next time.
Well, I'll just, in closing this conversation, I've been on this board for a long time, and me, our existing companies that have proven their ability to be good corporate citizens, like this company has, to me, it makes it an easy decision to help, hopefully, help them expand and grow in our community.
So having said that, I want to entertain a motion.
I'm going to motion it, really.
Jeremy, second by Paul.
Okay, the motion to approve this request by our staff has been moved by Jeremy Foxx, second by Paul.
Any other discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries. Thank you.
Next up, we will begin our work session, item A, EDP 24-351, Receiver Report, Pulling Discussion, and give staff direction regarding an economic development site database. Chair recognizes Charlie Rosendahl to speak on this item.
Charlie.
Hey, good morning, everybody. I'm Charlie Rosendahl, Business Services Manager.
Today I'm going to walk you guys through what we've been working on. I want to recognize two members of the staff. We have Megan Chittenden and Jacob Crocker who have been working on this project with us to develop a site database.
So today we want to present it to you. We currently have some test data in here and we're going to move forward with collecting real data and having somebody help get some more information in here. But we wanted to get your feedback on where we're at right now and any opportunities for improvement.
And this also will be a living, breathing thing moving forward. So as we get ideas for improvements and we get additional information that we can bring in, just want to let you know that we're going to continue to improve this moving forward.
So what is a site database? So the site database is really a tool to use for site selectors, businesses, even city staff on what kind of property is available for somebody that wants to locate here.
They want to expand, they want to grow their business, and it's also for city staff to use when we respond to RFIs that come through on businesses looking to locate here. So some of the information that we're going to bring in, size, condition, use of structures, infrastructure and proximity to major infrastructure, contacts, and then demographic and economic data.
Some of that information that might be pertinent to the site is zoning, allowed uses, some topographic information, transportation connection points. So we wanted to provide all of that in one central location for somebody that wants to do business in Denny.
So as I stated earlier, you can see here that we don't have all the products available in Denton right now. Some of our goals moving forward are to collect information from sources that we already have available of sites that are available in Denton, as well as we've developed on the backside of this as a way to collect data.
A form that we can send out to local brokers and real estate agents that can also go in and put some information on sites that they have available that would then come to city staff to review and publish.
So you can see here, let me walk you through the site we have on the left hand side here, just general listing information about sites, what the site is, price, address, type of listing, building size or acreage.
So this can be for buildings available for lease or just general acreage available for sale to be developed.
And then we also have some filtering functions down here on the right, as well as some overlays that we can go through.
So let me start with what happens when you click on a site.
So here we pick, let's say we like this site, we're going to click on it, it zooms into the local area and the building specifically if it's a building for lease, provides some information, general information about that.
Available parking spots, some high number of doors if we have that information, water, wastewater, natural gas if it's available.
And then also we wanted a takeaway for people. So if the agent has a brochure on the site, we've included the link here, but also we'll develop city specific brochures on these, for these sites.
Oh, it's on the guest.
I won't be able to get to the brochure but I can send it out after afterwards so people are able to see it but the brochure. Generally we give some information demographic information generally about the city, and more information about the site with
maps that that shows a different information topographic information FEMA floodplain information. So different maps available for each of the sites.
And then, you know, as we develop these incentive packages or a one pager that kind of completes the following, you know information and next steps for them to follow up with the city staff if they're interested.
And then as long as along with that we have some information here if people are interested more on the site. What is the future land use if it's a site that needs to be developed.
Zoning tax increment financing districts, I'm available.
Just stuff like the transportation routes.
One thing we always struggle with just from experiences like text items this but the city owns this like so when you're trying to coordinate transportation issue or drainage issue or something like that it's like, who am I supposed to talk to and get
the information. And the reason that becomes important is it is a capital budget cycle from a major investor perspective.
They're trying to get stuff in front of their board and everything and they're typically given a budget that says hey, I got, I got basically one shot at this before I have to go about eight levels of right to make sure that I have the required money
available or whatever to get a good project so any of that we can know or perspective person can know ahead of time is very valuable when they're trying to come up with budgetary information.
And I know they work with their GC and engineers or they should with that but that always seems to be a sticking point.
Yeah, it's not something we have currently in there but that's the kind of feedback I wanted to get from this group and so more specifically are you think of like the adjacent road yeah so for example.
I mean I'll just tell you we have a project and you know I 35 like so our Woodbrook project right we tried to expand and y'all been great for trying to expand the parking lot or Woodbrook office over here. And we do we get an engineer do all this study we get preliminary capital all this stuff, and then find out well I made the assumption in my engineer made the assumption that my drainage was okay, and maybe someone city did but well, oh no text.
You're right away on this part and they don't want you to use their dream and so now I have to put the tension in so it becomes a almost one and a half times factor on your capital sometimes just putting in these different things that you might be able to get ahead of if you knew kind of who on what if that makes sense.
Yeah, I'm trying to think there. I think that's something that we can incorporate. Yeah, it's almost like you're on your transportation or on your planning section it's like who.
Who kind of has right away for that piece of the land.
When it comes to that shared.
You run into that, I don't know if y'all run into that for the airport with airport roads with textiles versus city, but that same thing kind of happens anytime you're dealing with how to get back and forth or typically detention, because it's such a big deal right with blood and attention, that's typically where it hits your costs is who's going to own the who's going to who's going to run who's going to own the runoff.
I don't believe you've ever run into that with the absolute the development side of it absolutely and I don't know that on the city GIS website there is a specific layer that says what's text our own one city road.
Yeah, I don't think there's a layer on the existing.
That would be helpful, just because not just what you're talking about, you know, where do you have to have text up permanent practice.
I think it shows if it's an artery a major thoroughfare or what it is.
Yeah, I think, you know, especially as we're looking at the site specifically it's something that we can take into consideration and look at when we're building.
As far as the mobility plan didn't want to show here so you can see that we do have other layers integrated here.
Utility plan pedestrian plans utility providers so what's in the city's water CCN and wastewater CCN and if it's DME or another electric service provider.
That's actually really helpful.
And you can see here in the legend to some of them are.
Another, another thing that came up was floodplain and he says, so we do have the ability there to show that information.
As well as we've incorporated demographic data.
So overall population and income data.
Job data so anything that the census had available that we can populate into the map that might give more information about that site specific.
So that was really it our next steps are we're going to start gathering more information about different sites and start populating the map and then we're ready to get this going in the next couple weeks.
Put it out on the website but really wanted to take in as much feedback as possible and it doesn't have to be a one shot if you have something in the future you can send it over to bring the air myself and we can get that incorporated as well.
You maybe shoot out like a detail on a couple of these just to look at like just so we were providing it help us I think provide some feedback.
Unless we can have access to it we have access to it just give us access to I know it's kind of like a test mode so I didn't know if that was.
Yeah yeah we can get back to this right yeah yeah we can send it out.
I mean something like you just someone like you would for sure be better than me.
Probably give me some very good feedback in detail but I think you're the way you look at it too is yours vendors that want to be close to you guys.
If you could send them a quick report hey this is what's out there absolutely that would be really helpful if you get one more role and guys so I can look at it through a raw land.
This comes up it comes up with a typically are like our up fitters so the people who take the trucks and like say put a concrete body on them or something.
This would be extremely helpful for them because they're always looking to get closer to here.
Have you guys talked to costar at all because costar would make this would be a great plug in for marketing for them to say look we'll let you guys go in our system and pull all of our information of all the listings it's already in the county.
And I don't know that I don't know their license we're we have license for costar but if I'm said that costar I'm going this is a this is a free marketing window for my business right.
So is there a way that they that you could plug into them and then they would contact their brokers directly.
I don't know it may be worth a phone call to them just to say is there a plug in.
We actually have access to costar so that would be one of the sources we use.
I mean you could plug in the it has a lot of that information already in there and just pulls up as that would be a may want to look at your license agreement before it goes out to public use rather than internal use.
But if they would allow you to do that that would be a really good resource for pulling out.
Where's this data being pulled from now.
So we use some information that we already have on some of these sites and then also some from loop net.
So we're manually putting it in putting it.
For the test data yes we have do have a back end data system where we can pull information in on some of these sites.
Is this just an add on to the existing system or is that a different system altogether.
So it's a different system so part of our overall we have these web user interfaces and so it takes it takes data from a bunch of different sources within our current system.
So what's the incremental cost for that.
Zero speaking of cost typically these costs about three to five thousand a year and so we are saving significantly on taxpayer money from our department because of Jacob Megan Charlie's work.
So that's one thing that makes me happy.
They've done a great job.
Any other questions for Charlie.
So thank you and we'll get that sent out to the group.
Okay.
Moving moving to staff reports I'll call out BEDP 24-049 receive an update on various staff reports number one EDP the partnership update Jamie Adams.
Thank you Jamie Adams.
I want to start touching on some business retention and expansion visits we did over the past month.
Let's start with a bad story Almond Raft House as you close they bill Gia Tino reached out to us a couple of months ago and we tried to been helping them fill their space with events Brian and I reached out to him trying to do some meetings there.
He wasn't anything we didn't do the movie industry he shared some data with us the first quarter was the worst ever movie industry and the moral day weekend was the worst one in 29 years but we're going to try to follow back up with him but we put forth a good effort to try to help them stick around.
Hopefully there will be he always said that building is going to be there in a cinema will hopefully take its place at some point.
Wink oh a great visit Wink oh Matilda let me out there for that visit.
Just a couple things they have some cold storage rent who was looking for some cold storage space they have a pretty good area there and we're sharing out with some individuals if they're looking for 5000 square feet or less they've got the space to rent.
The other thing a lot of people may know this they do a great job with hiring individuals with disabilities in training room dedicated for individuals with disabilities.
They have their overnight staff it's a lot of people with sensory issues and they can work overnight but they don't want to tell that story but I wanted to mention to you guys.
They do a great job.
Box investment groups are building the four warehouses on Highway 30 and branch road there on the north side, almost completed a tour of those facilities great looking warehouses all around 100,000 square feet.
But they have three tenants in there right now the first store facing 3A is going to be a Sherwin-Williams contractor store easy and easy out for contractors.
As they continue to fill those warehouses we'll share that with you here.
From our EDP investors we have one new investor joined the last couple weeks here at Wink joined at our corporate investor level glad to have them on board and you know we have 130 investors at this moment.
Our top three groups are number one obviously real estate number two finance and insurance and number three construction equipment contractors people ask you know who is an investor it's all over the board.
Those are our top three but we have individuals all the way up to major corporations, TPU, UNT and so on.
One thing I want to mention reporting of data, I want to be able to measure success over the course of the year.
I want to thank Christine for the help and guiding me to be able to tell that story so put together a quarter two report we can share with everybody but we're going to have a third quarter report and an end of year report that's really going to focus on data we've collected from new investments in town.
You know available warehouses office space, how do we, where are trends compared to then DFW, Fort Worth Dallas, whatever it may be business retention feedback data telling our story so be a comprehensive report that we'll be able to share and say here's where we were in 2023 here's where we are in 2024.
I want to thank you Brittany it's not great to have helping us pull together that data and the whole team but it's very, I was not used to reporting that kind of data and thank you for guiding me down that path.
I just like the pictures and we're not good at pictures we're doing data.
There's a couple events more important we had our HR roundtable event last month, had about 24 HR representatives from 20 different companies in town, our focus at the event was on mental health.
And I originally thought, yes it's mental health for the employees and all the HR people said no it's for us, it's mental health for us, you're right.
So, it was a great, great event and we're going to have another HR roundtable late in August but mentioning upcoming EVP events.
We have our quarterly forum next month, Wednesday, July 24.
Didn't high school Thank you, Dr. Wilson.
Your staff signed up to speak.
So it's going to be focused on the Hillwood property development, I have someone from the Hillwood there, Scott McDonald is going to be on our panel so if anyone ever had questions for him about the development process, he'll be there.
Lots of questions, he'll be excited to, he said yes, so we're excited to have him on that panel.
We'll have an industrial roundtable Friday, August 2nd at Tetra Pak and the focus is going to be on warehouse automation and all the bells and whistles that go with that with connectivity.
And the one thing I didn't think about we've added to it is cyber security which everyone's mentioned is very important when we bring automation to warehouses.
Last thing I just want to mention is we're going to have an EVP pickleball event at Dinkers. Dinkers have their grand opening, that's our indoor pickleball facility.
72 degrees and nice and cool in there. You know, workshelters building.
But our investors, you can sign up as a team, you can sign up as individuals, Brian I got you signed up already.
The one thing they mentioned is no gambling so we can't, this isn't like no Calcutta's or anything like that but we'll have a really good pickleball event with our investors, August the 14th in the afternoon.
Any questions for me? Yes sir.
The typical critical coverage on the Alamo situation seemed to indicate that there's some possibility that the parent company would somehow fill the gap that this operator is out.
Any sense of? He mentioned a little bit of that, we're going to follow back up. Bill, his son owned five that filed for bankruptcy in Texas.
He owned a couple of Nusota, also Nusota did not file for bankruptcy, but we're going to catch up and find some more information on that.
He did a lot of due diligence behind the scenes to try to make all this work and I will follow up and find some more information.
If it really is driven by sort of global industry trends, do you have any concerns about Cinemar, Mooby Tavern?
Mooby Tavern has not expressed concern to talk to them, they seem to be okay but I think that's a great point to reach out to them and Cinemar could have not talked to them and see how the trend is going.
Mooby Tavern, being honest, was kind of excited about the Alamo closing because they feel that business is going to come to them.
Yes sir. Thanks, anybody who came out to the aviation early session last month, I think it's important to understand how important that TWA flight school could be. Focused on females primarily, but they will live with males as they do in their other programs, but there are not many of those successful in Texas right now.
Yes. He had said they were going to take 30, I believe 34 students this first semester and before they advertised that they had the 35, so without even advertising they were filled up, so hopefully he can add some more.
And if you don't know, U.S. Aviation has a thousand mechanical students enrolled right now.
Was that a student thing that the airplane crashed? I'm sorry? Probably. I don't know. Engaged them? No, they were lined up, didn't they? Yeah, they were lined up.
Okay, thank you Jim. Thank you. Next up is Main Street Program Update.
Good afternoon everyone, I'm Kristen Polito, Main Street Program Manager. Didn't Main Street Association kicked off their 31st year for Twilight Tunes on May 2nd, which is a free concert series that we host on the lawn every Thursday in May and June.
One of the things that we're really trying to focus on is the economic impact that our events are having downtown, so one of the things that we're going to be providing next time is what that looks like, how much money is being driven during that event, and also are our businesses staying open, do they need to increase their hours, kind of like how are we supporting our businesses through this event.
And then next was our beautification efforts. We presented True Leaf with the Downtown Beautiful Business Award. They have done a great job of creating events and just creating excitement and just continually beautifying their space with cleanliness, and I think the Ambassador Program has really helped with that too.
I think all the businesses are kind of rising to the occasion to keep their space clean. And then on May 24th, we hosted several developers, stakeholders, and investors for our Imagine the Possibilities Tour.
We had 38 people attend the presentation that was at Stoke, and so they got to hear the Southeast Plan, the Downtown Plan, and then they were on a self-guided tour throughout downtown. We had two guided tours, City Hall West, and then the Historic Post Office, which the new owner of that space was kindly, he kindly opened his doors to share that space with us.
And we have had several inquiries after that Imagine the Possibilities Tour, and so there are some more developers, some more architects that have kind of already some plans submitted for some projects, so we're excited for the results of that event.
And then we have three new businesses open, Old Bear Vintage, which is their second location, so they moved into the old La Di Da location, and they still kept their location next to Kroger Oberon University, so it's great to see that small business be able to expand into a new location.
That's Pepe La Barbershop, and then Black Lotus Studio, which is a tattoo studio, and then three businesses have closed, La Mejicana, El Chaparral, and then Never Sleep. We do have a new tenant going into El Chaparral, so that space will be filled.
Any questions for me?
How's our homeless situation downtown, we're taking our business and we've got to head it off, because we have a lot of tenants downtown, we're threatening to leave downtown because of that.
To be honest, the Ambassador Program has really been helpful in that process. It's not that they're telling the homeless to leave, they're just helping them get the services that they need, and our community service team has been a good liaison with that.
So anytime that the Ambassadors approach an unhoused person, they can either direct them to community services, the Ambassador Program, and the goal of that is to really kind of get to know them and know what their needs are.
So far, from the survey that we've gotten from the business owners, this program, the Ambassador Program, has really been helpful in kind of maintaining that. So overall, we've seen positive energy with that program and helping them.
Just to bring some bad news, as a landlord, it's awful. And we're losing tenants over it, and when they're renegotiating leases with us, they're driving down rents because they're saying, "Look, business people sitting at our front doors," and those kind of things.
So just want to make sure we're not just saying, "Hey, don't leave." If they're affecting business downtown, we've got to have a strong force on that because it's having a major effect on landlords. And when we lose those tenants, you know, if you look at East End where we have Stoke, we lost all those tenants because of homeless. That building's almost vacant because of that exact issue.
So it's a real issue, and it's something that we have to – if we just say, "Oh, we don't want you to leave, and we're going to tolerate this," and, you know, using the restroom on our front porches and all those things, which is happening daily, that needs to be a top-notch, and I'd like to report back if you don't mind, please, on that because that's our worst issue for downtown.
It's not specific to downtown, though. No, it's not. Business is all around town. I mean, I got a business right next door. There's a homeless person sleeping on the front porch right now as we speak. I put it in on the engaged end yesterday. They're still there when I get to work this morning.
There's a church next door. They have free food wherever they grab the food. They open the can. They eat it as they're walking. They put it on our front flowerbed, and they keep going to trash cans 30 more yards – 10 yards down the deal. They just put it there and keep walking. It's my responsibility to pick it up.
I can definitely report back. Thank you. Yes, Megan and her team have a whole presentation on what the ambassadors are doing, and specifically in those areas, and then – gosh, I don't know what I was going to say, but I can follow up on that.
So we are presenting to Kingston next month the community survey, which is going to address the community's overall satisfaction with what we're doing in those service areas.
I can show two vacant buildings that we personally own that are pretty much vacant because of people scared to walk after dark to their cars. So if you need some survey on that, I got you.
But if we're trying to increase the tax base and help the city's budget, a vacant building doesn't help that. That's true. And they need to circulate to some of the cards because part of their ambassador services, they can do the escort to the vehicles.
I'm not going to take you to the same college. That's true. But thank you. Rick? Sergeant and one of her assistants came and spoke to Rotary two weeks ago on that very topic.
If you don't know, that police department has a group who you can call to come out and coordinate with you. And if you're a member of an organization that has speakers, you might want to invite them to come out.
They're working. We got those guys on speed dial.
I'm not sure you have the trespass form. Oh, yeah. You're doing your due diligence. But nobody will do anything, right? Especially downtown. You know, some of the other.
Anyway, I took derail this. I'm sorry for you. That's just a huge concern. There's lots of cool things happening. I hate to see one issue.
I can't derail all the 31 years of awesome, you know, twilight, you know. Thank you for your question.
You can do it. All right. Thanks for my answer. The last meeting, the business recruitment specialist job has been posted. It opened on May 23rd and totally have 55 advocates as of yesterday.
So we are excited. There's about 10 more, 10 to 15 more days left in the posting. But we're excited about that.
We are hiring a part time contract employee to assist with data entry to enter size into the site database. So they will be trying to get us where we need to be.
We're a little behind on adding sites, but we're there. Charlie and Jacob may have a good job setting it up, but we'll have somebody managing that for us for the next six to eight weeks.
The downtown master plan will be completed August. We're very excited. There's a few recommended catalyst projects in that plan and we're very excited to present those to you in the near future.
In the meantime, we're working on updating our incentives to prepare for some of those projects. And so that will probably be brought to you in the near future.
As well as Kristen up here because we are working on implementing a downtown signage campaign with all the road closures in downtown affecting some of our businesses and we want to make sure that they are not harmed by our road closures.
And so we're working hard on that. And maybe Kristen, can you elaborate a little bit more on the road closures? Yes, what we've been doing with working with our marketing communications team on what that signage looks like.
I've gone through and mapped out where all the street closures are. I'm working very closely with our capital projects team to figure out, one, if businesses have parking specifically, that's not that that way.
We make sure that it doesn't get blocked off. And then secondly, you know, making sure our businesses are open, having signage that say we are open because as you drive around downtown, you're not sure, can you access this road?
And so we want to make sure our business that people that are coming to visit still know that we're open. Thank you.
And then in April, May, we responded to four RFIs. One's a food distribution center, a pharmaceutical company, a controlled environment, agriculture campus, and a film set.
So somebody wanted to build a film a thousand acres for a film set. It's different. Yeah, that's up for interpretation. We'll let them think of something. Consider it.
There's a product in there.
That's a very broad term.
On the environmental end, I know that Brian Danholz has suggested recognizing some of our employers that have sustainability measures. And so our staff met with our office of sustainability in the city.
They're looking at implementing an award program and maybe partner with the chamber. They have their own programs for businesses. And so we invited them back in August to present to the board.
Child care Christine, I'm going to let you talk about the designation. Sure. If you were able to attend leadership class, they presented on child care options and their program talked about a specific designation companies can receive to say that you are one of the best places to work for working parents.
So after hearing about that program, we went back and took the self-assessment as a city organization and it talks about what are your policies for remote working? Do you have health benefits for dependents?
Do you provide a stipend for health care? It had various questions and categories they assess and the city as an entity met the qualification to receive the designation as one of the best places for working parents.
The more interesting part about that is we have a meeting next week to talk with them about receiving a regional designation for that. And what that can do is we can work with businesses in Denton and conduct that self-assessment with them and then they are able to be designated as the best place to work for working parents.
So we heard you also that tied in really well with the leadership Denton project on promoting child care and then also on our incentive application on looking at the full benefits. So we saw those as two things we could tie together to help companies get that designation.
So we're going to proceed with that and hopefully have that ready to go in the next couple of months. So for those employers who have tuition assistance or listening, TWA is ranked number one in the nation in the best places for students.
Parents with students, students with children to go to. So they should leverage that if they can leverage their application, especially if their companies have tuition permission programs. Absolutely. It's a great designation program. So we're looking into more of those and then how can we help what then grants or companies available for or access to other benefit information specifically on child care for working parents.
Yes.
So last item, we're just working on streamlining our process. That's my favorite word streamline the past two and a half months. My spouse probably annoyed with me, but we're just moving the train along. Thank you so much for coming today.
Very last item we'll go through is we want to keep to the forefront on what topics we see coming up soon and then take any feedback on topics you'd like to see. It sounds like potentially an update from our homeless outreach team through the police department would be an interest topic.
But I want to highlight specifically what's coming forward in the next month. We've been working with Amy the set at 97 land. She's representing the Dallas over in the razor ranch area and they are interested in approaching the topic of reestablishing a public improvement district for razor ranch.
So, after July meeting, we are tentatively have a placeholder to present what that would look like.
You will get an update on the downtown master plan. The downtown economic development committee update from your chair, Jeremy facts will give his quarterly update of what that committee's been up to.
And then this standing item. So, in August, we'll get our quarterly report from Stoke. As you recall, the city contracts with Stoke for the entrepreneurial services for this through economic development.
We're going to receive an update from a sustainability update. And then in September, we're looking to give you an update on what we're seeing.
Britney's giving her updates as a director, but she's accomplished a lot since she's been here. That site database has been something she's running with on our targeted recruitment for companies.
So, we're going to talk about what we're including in the budget and her plan for next year on going out and doing that targeted recruitment for business attraction.
So, that is a snapshot. Hopefully, you can all be here next month. I think the razor ranch is the main item that will be on that agenda.
Sure. I cannot be here. I was the same. Are you going to miss out? Yeah. I'll send questions. By the way, we are going to put a time limit.
Okay. Does the board have any other business to discuss or suggestions?
What we want to see next meeting?
What is sustainability update? Like that can be a lot of different things.
That's an office of sustainability. So, they have business programs that they want to present on their awards.
Thank you.
All right. Another business. I will adjourn the meeting at 1210.
Thanks to the staff.