We have seven seated, so we have forum, Carol has been joining us as well.
So good morning, welcome to the meeting of the Economic Development Partnership Board.
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2025.
It is 11 of 3 and we have established forum, so I'll call the meeting to order.
The first item is to identify and confirm approval of the January 8, 2025 minutes.
Are there any questions?
Seeing no questions, I'll...
I'll make a motion to approve.
Thank you, Jeremy.
Second.
Approval and second.
Thank you, Rick.
Any conversation around it?
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Nay.
None heard, so that carries.
Thank you.
The next is we'll begin our work session with item A, EDP 25-00404 for discussion regarding
the economic development strategic plan.
Erica and Matilda will present this item.
Yes, they will.
I'm going to do a little intro though.
All right, let's roll.
So this item is an update for the 2020 economic development strategic plan.
Is this on?
It's on.
Okay.
Let's see.
Okay.
All right.
That works.
All right.
This item is an update to the 2020 economic development strategic plan.
We are bringing this to the board because during our last meeting, Tony Clark had concerns
that this was a duplication of the competitiveness study RFQ draft proposal that we presented.
And so we actually went back and searched if this team had completed a previous incentive
study.
And so we confirmed that we did not.
And so we do believe that he was referencing the economic development strategic plan.
So we're here today.
Erica Sullivan, our economic development program administrator, will provide an update or an
overview of how the strategic plan was completed back in 2020.
And Matilda Whedon, economic development specialist will provide an update on the tasks that have
been completed.
I'll begin with the first portion of it and Matilda will follow and then we'll go through
that.
We'll begin with the economic development strategic plan.
So we engaged TIP strategies in the fall of 2019 to lead our efforts in our planning process.
And on the left-hand side, you'll see the guiding principles, there are five.
For resiliency, for future focus, inclusive growth, entrepreneurial spirit, and cultural
vitality.
And so these provide us with the core items in how we define economic development.
And then on the other side, you'll see the goals of the strategic plan.
So it's built around three goals, accelerate recovery, foster growth, and strengthen community
inclusion.
And these provide a roadmap with the objectives of the strategic plan on how we are supposed
to organize our programs in economic development.
So this board was engaged about four times during the strategic planning process, officially,
for four workshops in January, February, June, and July in 2020 during that planning process.
A number of these, the board also participated on stakeholder groups with different industry
roundtables, developer input, that type of thing, and interviews, particularly leadership
like the mayor and so forth.
And so through that planning process, one of the things that came out of that is strengths,
weakness, opportunities, and threats, or SWOT analysis.
And you see as you're going on the outside, it's global, national, state, and local.
So we'll focus on the state.
I know some of these are hard to read.
But some of the highlights from the local level that are the strengths would be our
downtown, our power generation, our universities, some of the weaknesses and threats would be
the lack of resources, both high end, the lack of high end housing, and the lack of
affordable housing at the same time.
So that's kind of interesting.
So then we have our opportunities and threats.
We'll talk about some of the threats.
Again, in the local regional, in the center there, you'll see some of the threats that
we have, industrial workforce, aggressive growth with the area, cities, higher wages
again, in the Metroplex, and then we'll end on opportunities on the left-hand side.
So the opportunities were a debt and catalyst fund which we created, expanding entrepreneur
tech innovation, which we did with our entrepreneur tech program, and then utilizing DME with
our energy growth provider.
So TIP strategies also examine and compared the city of Denver with other area DFW cities.
And so you can see some of the programs here, so the cash grants are 380, property tax abatements,
sales tax rebates are also done through 380, fee waivers and impact fee, permit fees, infrastructure
grants, special development districts, TIP, TURS, PIBS, and then expedited services.
Now the gray areas and the shaded out areas, Carrollton, they wanted to know that they
only do sales tax rebates for data centers, there was a note for Irving because they only
do sales tax for retail developments, and then Denver, at that time, you could pay for
expedited permitting for large scale projects, but that's no longer available.
If you see in the center, Farmer's Branch offers the most.
What our plan said, according to them, is that we offer a wide variety of incentives
that the city of Denton does, and they recommended that we update our strategic plan to match
and align with our policies, to match and align with our strategic plan.
And we did that in 2022, and we also aligned it with our city core values.
So the incentive recommendations that came out of that, the capacity building, they recommended
that we create a catalyst run for multiple sources.
They recommended incentives include general SAR tax statements, so 380s, infrastructure,
we have our utility line fund with planned water and wastewater plan lines, innovation,
we have our tech entrepreneur grant, and access green incentives, we already have green incentives,
and we continue to foster those and expand those, and then also the target office space
initiatives.
One of the things that I did was when I updated the infrastructure financing policy, I applied
it to downtown, it was just industrial, and we also applied it to our office space, so
that's one of those targets.
Next.
So investment to implement the strategic plan, staff, TIP strategies, a whole host of people
came together to create different scenarios which are conservative to aggressive growth.
So they looked at those scenarios and made the recommendation of seven to nine million
for our catalyst fund, and then they looked at different programs that the catalyst fund
could support in the plan, and I won't highlight all of them, most of them are on goal two,
which is to foster growth, and you can see business recruitment, obviously we have our
new headquarters grant, we have our grant for relocation, we have all the tools that
we use for recruitment, business retention and expansion under goal two, also innovation
on entrepreneurship, so we have our entrepreneur tech grant program that we started, then we
also have infrastructure utilities, our utility line fund, which also goes with that class
A office space which I mentioned down below, green centers under two, and then the affordable
housing under goal three, we've been promoting community development and working with them,
I have participated in their housing assessment study, and I've been utilizing that and sending
that to developers so they understand the market, we also, they have a tool kit for
affordable housing which we've shared with numerous developers, and now they have affordable
housing grant program that we're also working with them on, now we'll pass it on to Matilda
that's going through the progress, and then we'll both be available for questions.
- Thank you Erica, okay, I'm going to run through our progress on our strategic plan
which we report on an interactive dashboard, at the end I'll be able to show you how to
access that, in the interest of time, I'm just going to cover goal two, foster growth,
which is separated into four separate goals, but overall we are 72% complete with our economic
development strategic plan, skipping this one, it's COVID related, and now on to goal
two, foster growth, we're going to start off with Connected Denton, so oops, sorry,
this one is related to business retention and expansion, recruitment, West Park infrastructure
and partnerships, some of the things that we're working on to move to completion is
marketing and workforce pathways, next we have Creative Denton, this one is really related
to tech and startups, a lot of the pending and in progress items are related to venture
capital and startup incubation, so that is something we are working on getting connected
with those groups and how can we better support and create an ecosystem for startups and creatives
in our community, now we have Sustainable Denton, this is a pretty small section compared
to the other three, this has a heavy focus on green development, incentivizing and encouraging
things like weed certification and environmentally friendly building standards, one thing that
we do pretty well is marketing our 100% renewable energy that the city offers, especially in
recruitment and things like that of businesses, they're always looking for new green initiatives,
so that's a really good service that the city offers for businesses, and then finally
a point of this section that Clay is working on as our business recruitment specialist
is targeting environmentally friendly businesses to locate here and then one good example that
you can think of in our community right now is Tetra Pak, they make sustainable carton
packaging, next and finally under Goal 2 we have Competitive Denton which has a heavy focus
on Coal and Hunter Ranch as well as infrastructure, there's also a lot of office space in here
which is kind of interesting because we have office vacancy but not a lot of Class A space
so there's a lot about balancing that and helping to develop office space, Class A especially
all across town including downtown, and the work that Hillwood is doing now will help
move this needle away further now that they've started to build, I'll skip these two parts
just for time and then finally this is where you can find it, I have a QR code but it doesn't
show up very well on your phone on the mobile view so if you when you go back to your office
today are interested in seeing our progress you can go to the economic development page
on the city website which you can find it on your departments, I didn't include that
very well but once you make it to economic development on the right hand side we have
the strategic plan dashboard as well as the PDF plan, the dashboard has I think 100 something
items that I individually report on every quarter and update so there'll be more information
of what we're doing right there, thank you.
Any questions for me or Erica?
I guess this may lead into the next item, I know I brought this up before but when this
plan was hatched, the idea that competitive debt meant class A office space made sense
to everybody and then for a while after the pandemic or during it, shortly after the pandemic,
I was hearing that office space, class A office space was not such a thing you know that it
was not in demand, I get the impression that it's kind of coming back we're kind of looking
to Jeremy you know because I think you might have your finger on this, you know is that
still you know a competitive requirement or are they looking more for like I'm really
guessing here innovative live work play kind of environments or?
I don't know that I'm going to be able to help on that, I don't know that we have much
class A.
That's the point right, the point was that we don't have it right so that's what we needed
to you know to be competitive but you know it's something to try it out.
On our side, the cool downtown live work kind of play office you know we own the railyard
building across from the city hall down there and we've had a hard time leasing to office
space like almost negative and to the point where we're thinking about a convertment.
To what?
I mean just because it's vacant right and of course the homeless has been a big part
of that problem in downtown but class A office space you know the hard part of it is it costs
so much to build and what rents have to be in that you know thirty dollar rents triple
that that works off of 121 in Frisco right you know but here in Denton it's kind of a
catch-22 we go build that can we really get those rents and have the confidence that we
can recruit a company that needs that space yeah so I go to Jeremy said Jeremy loan me
this I gotta get thirty dollar rents he says no way I'm loaning you money thirty dollar
rents at that so that's kind of you know where the balance is we can't go build it because
it won't underwrite today's rents but do I think we need that to get those kind of tenants
here but you know yes so it's a chicken-or-the-egg thing right I mean you speak that a little
bit of like first-hand knowledge is like you know our location where we're at a university
certainly not class a but there was a big remodel done in 2020 on that what we thought
rents were going to be at that time and then like once you perform and then what reality
is way different so then you end up having to drop rents just to get the occupancy in
there but I would agree with what Lisa and thirty dollar that it is the expense is going
to be there which is going to command a higher rent you're going to get that in debt so maybe
this maybe that's not the strategy that right to shoot for something that isn't really buildable
yeah they are going to be making buildings and that's what you're going to wind up with
well I think strategy could be to accomplish that is if we said okay we want to recruit
somebody to move their headquarters here Schwab or whoever those are how do we recruit them
to come make the capital investment because they're going to be their own tenant right
so maybe that's a strategic way we can get that done and that's that could take saying
the cities to get that kind of campus will participate in the land acquisition will participate
during utilities will participate in those kind of things where they're making the capital
investment because they're the ten that could be a strategy to get to that goal and utilizing
incentives to pull back is a way that you can do that unfortunately this plan was developed
I started right before COVID and hit during COVID we did the ending stakeholder groups
virtually we did business retention virtually in goal one that she you know went over because
that's mainly accomplished so yes to this point saying sentence would help fill that
gap and that's kind of what we were doing when we did really are we were trying to meet
a lot of these this was before this was done with the with the incubator center in there
that was really cool we did that through a 380 agreement to pay the rent for that it
was a good mission it was super cool is what we were trying to do was give it a little
work downtown kind of feel and incubator things worked and the cities to continue to support
that which is really good but kind of what our vision was to get tech companies in there
to come out of that to take bigger spaces yeah that was our vision for that and it kind
of worked you know but the incubator thing is working you know but getting them to grow
in the larger spaces was our real long-term goal right how do we get these companies to
get enough employees they got to get out of here so we were able to do that with human
defenders and they're actually looking at expanding again so it's working so that one
is an example of one that came out of that and i think our confederate cities too frisco
and mckinney they're doing a good job of recruiting some of those tech companies and
to take office space but i think in the case of lgbv too like i mean they wanted to downsize
the building and they were looking for 80 100 000 sources of office space and so some
of our surrounding cities they do have that space and just a minute that so there's opportunity
for us to implement an order from each country for sure but on the flip side of that you know we
deal with a lot of banks and they use us to go underwrite their troubled assets a lot of banks
call us and we'll as a consultant we'll go look at their troubled assets how do they get redeveloped
we get a lot of calls for big office i just got one last week for 120 000 foot office lead what
do we do with this thing right and so i'm putting together a package for them right now to figure
out what they do with this troubled asset and so it's scary you know as us as the developers we
would not go put that on the ground anywhere right now in the metroplex not just that i wouldn't go
put that on the ground anywhere it's not a personal guarantee how long was it you had the all northside
town bank before you and t-butt as long as i can remember just uh the example that i would give
about the sustainable debt and strategy working it's a weird one because you don't get a lot of
credit for it locally from the people interested in environmental issues but core scientific
is massively remunerative to dentin and it's and it's all about tech companies
that want their data centers to be renewable and it's a huge win for dentin and you know even if
you're just evaluating it on the pure green benefits having that here rather than somewhere
else it wouldn't be on renewables you know massive win what scientific contributes to our cattle spot
exactly virtuous virtuous circle sustainability in the sustainability section are
data center related um yes it kind of acknowledges that we should recruit and attract high energy
users but data centers are kind of on the cusp of energy innovation and green technology to support
all of that so anything else what's the uh an example of something in the catalyst fund
has been used for uh team of defenders it was the investment fund at that time so it was the
investment fund before the catalyst fund team of defenders from the future um and saffron were all
funded through the investment fund so that was funded it created in 2016 and funded through um
we tried to find in close nexus mixed beverage so 150,000 per year so that funded those the catalyst
fund was renamed and given additional funding sources in 2022 it was approved of the budget
and in august or september actually um and so with that we funded engine tech so engine tech is our
first one that we funded with it being the catalyst fund so it's 20.2 we funded engine tech and that's
it no the other two were funded with the investment fund and their five-year term so they continued to
be funded through the catalyst fund so all of the the job based grants and expansion grants that i
mentioned they're all funded through either the investment fund and then catalyst fund because
their term continued into the catalyst fund and what's the what's the balance of that fund or what's
is it if we go to the slides there's some hidden slides so there's 4.3 in the fund the fund is
authorized for 7.3 which hidden slides behind behind the question um one of the clickers works
yeah it's 4.3 million we're authorized for 7.3 million but it'll go into the specifics of it
so if you go up to 20 so this if you're authorized for 7.3 we didn't get 7.3 our balance you see at
the bottom there is 4.3 of course scientific did go into bankruptcy they did come out of bankruptcy
in february of last year we also split that investment revenue with two other programs
and one time with the general fund so this is actually where we're at with the catalyst fund
now they are regrouping they came out of bankruptcy they're going into ai if you've
been reading that so i think they'll perform better but we haven't had a transfer of that yet
but this is the latest that we have from accounting and budget and we just presented this to um in an
informal staff report the city council i've seen a more detailed report on this
i'll follow up with a question on that later
any other questions conversation thank you both appreciated there's no vote needed on
that that was information only the next item is item v edp 25-005 and britney are you doing this
thank you all right so this is a follow-up to our study rfq discussion from last meeting
so you've heard update for the street plan how it would be different from the incentive
study but just as a reminder i did a collector feedback from last meeting and i added it on the
rfb it's on your desk and it's highlighted in red the text accelerator of all the new items and it's
also in red in the presentation and just so you know the difference between the strategic plan
and this item is that this will be more data intensive it'll be an update to any of the
goals that were listed in strategic plan as well um and more like a deep dive um all right
the objective of the study is to evaluate dentin's competitiveness based on type
type top site selection prep considerations and provide recommendations to staff and edp board
members on areas of improvements and opportunities
so there are three deliverals that we are asking for in the rfp and one of them is city comparisons
and so this will be based off this um criteria which is workforce labor availability which
includes average wage comparisons cost of living for employees number two availability of development
ready sites including land availability with ready infrastructure existing building availability and
airport sites um number three cost of doing business which includes sales tax rates development
permit and impact fees development timelines timelines and this is one that we added from pre-application
meetings to completion and other related cost um and airport fee comparisons that's what rick had
mentioned number four is incentive evaluation comparison of dentin incentives and funding
mechanisms to other cities and economic development policies of top performing cities fiscal and
economic impacts of the top incentivized projects awarded to comparable cities including but not
limited to revenue recovery timeline new revenue gains and job gains tax base diversification and
other relevant factors i think this is the most important topic that we would want the consultant
to complete for us number five utilities infrastructure utility rate comparison and
access to infrastructure that includes our new items that we added water and sewer infrastructure
access and limitations within industrial areas and quality of life including executive and
affordable housing and price comparisons school district ratings and access and number seven
transportation supply chain risk and mitigation so the first of the rural of course was the city
comparisons um collect and compare data based on the criteria section from competitor cities in the
dallas potworth region including didn't but we're at dallas and kenny 40 and the new ones that we
added based on our discussion northlake alliance briscoe south dallas communities and cities near
the dfw airport i do think that whichever consultant responds to the rfp that they
will have recommendations on which who they feel are their biggest competitor
deliver number two is evaluation of existing incentives and return on investment that includes
analysis of assisting incentive policies to ensure competitiveness and evaluation of existing
incentive agreements and short and long term roi for the city's general fund evaluation of
commercial first residential land with the city limits and tax revenue generated per acre
other metric compared to other cities denton has a high amount of land that's owned by universities
or local government entities and so we're not able to collect revenue from those um those sites um so
that makes us a little bit different from other cities and that's something we're paying to do
right now is how as economic developers we can generate more revenue from the city
one that we add is evaluation of the city's current budget and impact of future economic
development projects or other considerations affecting the tax base and consideration of
other development limitations including existing zoning or other factors
deliverable number three are of course recommendations we want the consultant to
provide recommendations for improving all aspects of economic development practices policies
developer environment and incentive structure in the city of denton including the implementation
of new facilities and infrastructure improvements if relevant we also want them to identify top
trends impacting the facility location decision making process in texas the us and nationally
so if we're able to get this approved by the board today based on your feedback we will
list this online we'll start getting consultants to probably respond to the rfp we'll submit it to
consultants to respond to the rfp the proposal doesn't will be on march 28 2025 and the budget
that we just said is 50 000 which is significantly less than what the economic development plan costs
back in 2020 any questions i don't have a question i have a comment i don't know whether it would go
under criteria three or scope of work removal two i think somewhere a statement of the bond ratings
for the city county and school district okay have a direct impact on what it costs to do business
for all those entities and i think actually the three of them i think are a pretty good trade but
okay i will add it
does the cost is that published out there when you do the rfq yes why well i think for us that is our
budget anything over let's say the consultant reviews it and based on who decides to respond
they all have different specialties right then they may want to add additional a la carte items
that we can choose from and so once they submit the proposals we can bring it back to the board
and we can choose which items we want to move forward with i do think the most important part
of this study is to evaluate our current incentive policies our approval process how we compete with
other cities so we can move forward with improving those are we have some guidance and everyone's on
the same board and we can present it to city council and that's the most important factor and
but the other ones i think are probably more optional and that's up to the board to decide
man my thought is if you i'm sorry so we'd never do that yeah i don't know that any private company
would do that because if you tell me your budget's 50 000 i'm either not going to submit an rfq or
guess what it's going to be 50 000 whereas it could have been 25 000 or whatever so i just
don't understand why we would do that it's kind of the going great i believe but i can take it out
um typically i mean so different than you know if you post a job and it says the job is
a range of this if i'm applying for that job i'm gonna ask you to be up a range i mean every one
of you guys that are probably in here whenever your job is posted has had the salary range on there
so then did you do you think i leave yourself or not and that's going to be what you asked for then
the negotiation the leverage just flips to the employee right right i understand what you're
saying um typically and i think previous didn't uh proposals they do list the budget but we won't
have we don't have to list it we'll see i'm just nervous it may be over 50 000 and that's fine then
at that point we can then we can have continuing discussions with them to bring it down but let's
not negotiate against ourself on the front end okay we'll take that out any other comments ideas
okay again no vote needed on this just uh acknowledgement thank you thank you for your
help this is great all right the next item is uh edp 25-003 friendly and this is you again is that
right again so for the month of january this is our update uh we are coordinating business workshops
right now for residents this is a um an idea that we have based on a community survey that
was released to residents last year um residents wanted more small business resources and workshops
for us to host and so that is why we're putting these together matilda ween is leading this effort
and she's put together a lunch with an expert panel discussion on february 28th we will send
you those marketing materials once they're completed but there will be a cpa a lender and a attorney to
assist entrepreneurs with getting into business any questions that they may have um because you
as you know if you're starting if you want to know the difference between a silver pride or lsc
this is a good opportunity for them to get um just general advice from experts
we held a public improvement district information session last uh month as well for our downtown
property owners this is a recommendation in the downtown master plan um to create a kid for the
downtown area to support redevelopment um and so we have based on the boundaries listed in the
downtown master plan we sent an email and postcards to those property owners um we had about maybe 13
attend the in-person session we had a few virtual attendees as well um those attendees we just
provided a general overview of how a pit operates and what potential funding options they would have
if they were to support it um we are we sent out surveys to the property owners and so we're
waiting for responses right now and so we're just kind of exploring the opportunity to create one
for the area um events and training staff attended a variety of events or the in january um play
attended the dallas regional chamber annual meeting in arlington actually that was matilda and myself
as well and played um we played in the icsc red river retail trade show in dallas uh christen and
matilda attended the stoke didn't accelerate her cohort event i attended the icma economic mobility
cohort event christen attended the texas main street design retreat and erica attended the
economic priorities webinar from size up matilda attended the ntx uas safety and integration
transports quarterly meeting um so the north texas cobb uh non-profit organization they
host quarterly uas meetings and so we try to chain those as data so we can know how the fa
is moving forward with um uas uh technology marketing we're wrapping up a comprehensive
marketing overarching for our staff um the community protocol is done is on your desk
um we have not ordered a bulk copy yet so if you have any edits to the profile let us know
we also have other templates that we got done presentation or recruitment presentation so
community templates and our entire response we did host a prospect back in december and the site
selector uh commended our new marketing materials so that was great it was time well spent
and best place for working parents i'm going to defer to matilda to provide an update
if you look on your desk there should be a flyer for this program this is the result
of last year's leadership and class that my fellow and other city staff i remember part of
are the leadership and program always has a big class project where you kind of can try
to solve a problem uh and child care is a really large issue across the board in the u.s and so
that our presentation of free proposals and best place for working parents was one of them and it's
essentially a free uh service for the businesses in our community in the city of denton um where
they can take a very fast and again free uh survey about their business and hopefully be designated
as the best place for working parents so it's essentially kind of a badge you can put on your
marketing materials on your website promote it when you're hiring people um and again it's free
to the businesses uh and we the city kind of we work with best place for working parents to create
the city of the region so we are sort of fronting the cost for the businesses in town to be able to
participate in this um so yeah i will be managing that if anyone has questions
um
okay so here's our recruitment stats we are finally almost over the hump of finalizing
our edu um crm database um so we have currently oh this was not updated apparently the number was
not it was down okay so for the month of january we received 10 leads
release the office and so how we received the leads is by phone by our email we have a general
inbox um jamey gets leads to his inbox of the edpb um and then we also just get general phone
calls directly to us or even linkedin um connections we have um christen had six downtown bre visits
for the month of january four in retail service one in real estate one um an educational institution
and then currently we have 25 actor projects um i will say that last year we had probably an average
of about 10 to 15 actor projects and this includes city-wide uh products and downtown um so we are
very busy at the moment but it's good news we are actually working on getting all the products from
point a to point z um they're at various stages and so we do have another report that we'll put
together eventually we'll send it to the board um the company names will be confidential but
um i just want to let you know we'll have that report next month just it's taking time to get
used to adding the information in the database but um there's a lot of great stuff going on right now
excuse me i'm sure you said it uh but i didn't get bre doesn't stand for business reply envelope
no business retention and expansion i'm sorry so what is it business retention and expansion
all right well here my RFI is priscilla davis has been working hard and responding to these
um last in january she had six that she submitted um all from the governor's office and so um the
total of all those RFIs um just for jobs would be over 1500 jobs and a little over 530 million
dollars and of course not all of those will respond back to us but we have had at least a few reach
out recently um we just had one that she submitted actually um reached out to us she submitted it i
think was it in january project opus and they um we hosted a site tour for them yesterday and so
fingers crossed that we'll be able to land it but we've had a few companies interested in landing
and didn't so we're just really trying to make sure that we're putting our best foot forward and
getting them over the hump project server we hosted them in december uh clay was going to present
that during this meeting but we had to take it off because the building that they wanted to purchase
actually got leased out so now we're actively trying to find a new building for them um so
just want to let you know we are we do have projects in the works we're working hard
and and we're hoping to bring those to you in the next few months
a fine arts theater it's moving forward you may have seen in the paper yes
um so they are planning to open in april of 2026 which is exciting uh so we're very happy for them
if you want to sign up for their email updates you can go to their new website texas fine arts
theater dot com um and sign up for their email blast and that is it well i have two more so one
thing that i would do put in the fire port presentation is that denton will be hosting a
governor small business summit in october yay that's exciting um there's only a select few
cities across the state of texas that are chosen for the summit every year and so twu the city and
of course the edu will be in chamber will be involved um it's more it's woman focused um so
we're excited about that but um it should be fun uh let's see and i wanted to congratulate
brian danhoffer his new promotion of plant manager okay that is all i have thank you
i have two questions if i may um matilda for your uh business lunches how are you selecting the
panelists we received that question last time with the homebuyer seminar so i was just wondering if
you could provide that so we can advocate for our members according so we so we reached out to jill
jester on city council to provide recommendations on um attorneys and then initially wanted her to
participate because it is a city council led event um i mean not city council a city led event so we
did ask for her advice but matilda looked on your website eight people website um to check our
recommendations yep and then i have one more how does this branding play into the soon to be city
rebrand yeah i know we're participating in that so i just don't want you guys to go to all this work
and then have to so we actually made this um in preparation for the overhaul the city's overall
brand we know that they will have a new logo um it's my understanding they won't have a full
branding campaign it'll be more of like a logo based right so we don't know if that's meant for
us but we how we structure the colors is that the colors can change to match the logo so those will
be the only things that change in our marketing materials um because the the city's marketing
departments the consultant they got to do the branding overhaul will not do our own marketing
materials it's really mostly a logo so that we made it really um we told the graphic designer
implement um oh gosh i'm out of breath sorry talking too much um coordinate with epb colors
which is a lime green and the city's colors are blue and since now we're leading recruitment
efforts right we told them to add a little bit both of those elements um and so eventually the
colors may change but we need to market materials now because we're hosting prospects and so i have
led marketing efforts in other cities i know what we're competing against and if we don't have to
put in marketing materials now for positive visits we won't be taking seriously so we needed them
now and i know that the marketing um team they're working hard on it's going to be great but i don't
know when it's going to be completed so christina davis would say this is structured so i just want
to go she always gives me a hard time about that we love it thank you all right any other conversation
um i do have uh any other business to discuss or suggestions to discuss next meeting yeah so i've
got just some feedback and i've forwarded information to britney steve um so i guess by being on this
committee i guess i'm on the hotline where people reach out and provide feedback so i just want to
kind of let the committee know so uh i'm also uh the chamber uh represented here and i think
with lee as well but i went to the advisory economic olympic and the airport get a presentation
so some of the questions came from there for me to bring back but um one of the recurring themes
that i'm hearing in meetings like this is that you know west park we want to promote and grow
that area west of town and then there's also development kind of northwest
town northwest of 35 or west of 35 so one of the issues that keeps coming up is water and wastewater
deficiency or a lack of excess capacity in those areas there i haven't done research on this
this is what i was told i've passed that on britney is you know vetting that to see the
legitimacy of it or not but uh there was a new line that was put up in the northwest area
i don't have details on it but as soon as it went in it went through one property they were
told they were i'm told that that the owner that gave the easement was going to have ability to
use that once it went through uh the tone changed where it is a capacity and there's just not much
water or wastewater not sure which one it is capacity in that northwest area uh and also on
the west side i was told of another development i'll go into more details on that one but uh it's a
property owner went ahead and brought the part bought the property because they had gone through
so much of the planning process they've already they had they did have to get a special use permit
the special use permit was approved by not only city council but i guess p&z or whoever else
approves it but two two boards they were going to tie into the 12 inch line that's on the north side
of 380 the north the 380 line was pulled for the residential out west it stuck into a 12 inch line
however if you look at the overall master plan that apparently is coming out or to be coming out
it shows a 16 inch line that goes out there there are 13 months into the process that got
the approval from texthot to use that now they're working through some stuff with texthot
and then the water department comes back and says no you can't tap into the line on the north side
but it wasn't communicated to them at you know pre-development meetings and things like that
i just mentioned that because that seems to be a recurring theme that we are hearing i'm not
involved in that by the time it gets to me at the banking level all that is kind of done by that
point so but i'm just passing that on that i had heard i passed it on to britney britney did
communicate with the development services team they're working to try to find a solution because
the the initial plan that they had told this particular company was they need to bring
another 12 inch line on the south side like a mile basically from moss branch all the way out
wherever it is so this particular company does have employees they're bringing they are going
to sell there there are sales there are other locations that they have in texas that this will
probably cannibalize a little bit of the sales at other places but initially they think there's 30
million dollars in sales there so to kind of bring this full circle here you know we've talked the
last few meetings about when there is a decision that the city staff or city department is making
that is going to ruin the viability of that company coming because of the the cost dynamics
change that there needs to be communication to either this committee or the department
and this is just another example that kind of reinforces that belief that i have right or wrong
it's just another piece of evidence that kind of supports that would be helpful
because there may be avenues i mean two things number one if that department really feels that
strongly about it then they should have no problem coming here to defend that to economic development
if it's a a want and not a need then maybe they'll be a little reluctant to ask that and throw up
another roadblock again 13 months into the project when they already have all their approvals and it's
just a oh by the way you have to spend an extra x million dollars so anyway i said that and i do
feel strongly that i don't think that responsibility should be delegated to someone else it should be
the person or the department that makes that decision that comes to kind of explain that either
to economic development or not i do think we need to start evaluating you know like the catalyst
fund we have that the the financial model that we used in the last presentation i think rick
had asked can this be used in other departments in other areas and i think we have a pretty good
example of that west park area where you know there were tours that were put in place to bring
utilities out there marty rivers at american national bank has and trust has put a presentation
three or four years ago together they showed what the tax base out there was at an ag level
verse what it is now at a you know fully developed area so if our mindset from the water water
department or wastewater not sure if those are the same or different but that the developer will
just develop that and let them bear the cost if we want britney to be successful in bringing new
businesses to the area i think we need to probably consider changing our approach in that
using the resources that we have a model it's going to require more work by the city
to actually use the equipment that we have and we pay for but we need to come up with some kind of
roi on if we invest use the catalyst fund to bring the water the wastewater out in those areas and
then this is what the tax base we projected to come in i'm not talking about the projections like
i got a projection in that meeting that the airport brought and they're projecting operations
increase over the next 20 years at two percent on average if you look at the last 19 years in
the same table that they presented it's 4.75 percent so we're going to a market consultant
and saying hey give us what you think and then we're just taking that and throwing it on there
when it's not really realistic i think we need to really if we want to support this and we want
businesses to grow i think it's a little unrealistic to require them to bring a model a pipe for water
to their site that everybody else is going to be able to use down the road so i think we need to
have an open mind and try to come up with what tax revenue what job creation what
sales tax property and property tax and the tax creation all contributes to to make those plans
and try to use some of the catalyst funds to go ahead and put pipe where it needs to be so we can
do that so i just say that because that's what i'm hearing on the flip side and one of the comments
was with regard to i put lutrier but i think it was mayhill
oh no i'm sorry one of them was on the mayhill same thing we came in and did new roadways but
there's still issues with some kind of excess capacity on utilities over there as well and so
i just think that as we're doing things we need to think of be proactive and think about
where we want to develop and not just put a band-aid over what we're doing and again there's
people in this room that have way more experience in this area than me i'm just kind of a relayer
but one of the things on the the airport discussion whenever they were presenting it was
288 coming through one of the updates that they said in that meeting was that the city of den is
currently in a negotiation with texas for right away on that the question that came back and i
don't know if there's anything that the city can do or not but is there anything to expedite that
process to open up that development by bringing in 288 is there anything the city can do to
expedite that and if there is you know i told them i said well the city's going to want some kind of
same roi model to you know if we're going to put x amount of dollars here what's our return going
to be and i told the city manager that i didn't anticipate the two percent growth that you're
illustrating on that deal was going to if if that's the return that we think that we're going to get
over there then i'm sure the city has a better option to get better than two percent return
so i think he was going to revisit because i was on operations dot revenue they were going to redo
that but i i just think we should as a city utilize our resources that we have in all of these areas
to figure out these models or these projects are worthwhile or not
as coming out of all that discussion britney did talk to the water department the three things that
i think that we should know or the city should know are brought to the surfaces where there are
minimal excess capacity and water or wastewater what areas and then kind of overlay that with what
the city's desires are in what areas and figure out how and then they need to explain to us the
funding is it there or is it needed and what's the timeline to address that but i told her i
wouldn't have them come until they can really address all those things so i don't personally
i don't think it's a meeting that you can have next month but she thinks that she's going to
get with them and verify they can but i think it would be helpful to over if that's it's like
whack-a-mole right whichever one's coming up the most recent that's what we're trying to to hit
and this is the recurring theme that i'm hearing you guys may have a different opinion or hear
different things that we need to whack first but that was just my relay i could speak to a lot of
what you were talking about can we talk about whether we want there's a lot but whether we want
to have that discussion a future agenda because that's really what well we can we can tie it into
the catalyst funds that's when we go back to that i think he brings up one very good point is i think
looking at our capacities and what part of the cities we want to grow and what areas that we need
more capacity to encourage to match what our plan is i think that is a great exercise and to speak
to that a little bit i think we're a little further down the road than we think on that
because the city just finished their master plan on the sewer and wastewater and their studies of
where that's at that could be why some of those things came up on your client because they did i
think they have completed their master plan and their capacity studies so they may already have
more information than we think on that so i think in this in this plan i i think what the point you
brought up is probably the most valid is let's understand in the city where we need to make
investments and where we don't and what encourages to match the growth that we want because you know
we were the first ones out on western boulevard we did a 380 degree city in the county on those
first two buildings out there two buildings at 176 000 feet and we proved rents because that was the
problem in denton right was proving rents we were able to prove we can get good rents in denton for
industrial and you see what happens and i don't think the city gets enough credit for working with
us on that project given those incentives because we didn't know if we could get those rents or not
when we built those buildings but it was a joint city and county effort that thing goes and when
they go good they're never back to city council for an update of hey this work look at the growth
to the point of the tourism i think that should be things that come back to the council we see in the
newspaper when stuff doesn't work but i that worked out there and you can see the minus square
footage to one other point on i actually have projects on mayhill and west of 380 we actually
own the largest track the land industrial land entitled and then you know 325 acres and the city
is actually ahead of the curve a little bit on that issue in that area it's probably not advertised
a lot until it's concreted that the feasibility of it works but there are some major sewer line
projects working on the west side a major water line project working it just takes a long time
you know we're doing a joint project with the city where we're getting the easements and doing things
to help facilitate that so they're actually scott mcdonnell you guys i cannot speak highly enough of
he's proactive on those issues and he's actively working on it to your client's need
their consultants probably shouldn't be a little ahead of the curve on that shouldn't let them get
that far down the road that's not 100 the city's issue you know if they had quality engineers work
on that they're going to know what capacities are out there so i don't know that there was capacity
on the north side they had all the approvals to tie into that but and and that's the thing is like
if you look at the capacity they currently have the capacity now but then the city said no we want
you to pull here because if you tie in that it's going to open up here and then if everybody down
here goes into that i think it's going to there's a little more to that because there's pressure
planes right there's an upper pressure plane out there and a lower pressure plane i'm working on it
right now and so there's maybe a little more to that but to your point of what you made that if
we have a problem with the tenant that there is an issue we could get into engineering details for
the next hour i'm not going to bore everybody with that but to your point is if there is a hold-up
and something's happening i think it would be very good if it's a if it's a tenant that matches our
plan a tenant that we're actively recruiting and it matches our requirements then they should come
to this thing and then we can see what we can do to help them um to speak to the mayhill road issue
that was a problem we go build a new mayhill road and we don't put utilities in with it
that is a big problem you know tech stopped spending millions of dollars to build four-lane
mayhill road we should come along inside the city and put utilities in there as a master development
i mean and look at a marketing study that is a good point that because i got a project i'm dragging
sewer two miles and water another you know mile to get to my side right so there's an issue on
that and that's a perfect example of we should look and say if we're putting a new road in the
tax dollars because this is being spent we put in a minimal investment on utilities that's going to
create development especially with the new bridge opening up now mayhill road is this traffic as
much traffic as loop 288 because you got to go down the buckies and make that right turn now
so mayhill road is the new corridor coming through right now so that's a great point
but to defend a little bit which pains me to do but scott mcdonnell and his development team
is doing a great scott isn't he yes it does because i don't want him to hear that so so i don't know
that scott was aware like this particular issue i don't think scott was even aware it was the
water department was aware of those guys right after jeremy the request is to get on the agenda
whether it's next month or the month after and have some city department representation to address
some of the yeah access capacity like a timeline funding address those three items with respect to
water wastewater in the city and identify and and i guess yeah does that align with
the what you just put out right for strategic vision right so if you go back some slides you had
like eight eight potential customers right that potential coming in and a bunch of them were
manufacturing as an example they think a lot of water right they do so we have the capacity to
actually have that does that need to be in the plan right if we want to recruit that person
does that need to be but where can we put them and does that fit into what we're doing exactly
and i think that's a great part of our study that you're going to incorporate that the city can help
apply that information especially they've done their studies and i think the city's open to that
right like i think if anybody brings to council they say hey if we spend dollars in this area and
show where we've done before i don't care where you set on council it's probably going to be
support hey if this is an area growth and max matches our strategic plan matches our future land
use that's not a hard sell you know but that takes an annual budget you know that's going to go in
the next budget and there might be even funds outside of our the funds we have in utility
budget for expansion of those things that we might be able to allocate for those things so
there's lots of options but if we if we come with really good data and i'm so thank we brought that
up of this is the type of uses we want in these types of areas that these types of zonings are
already here and our deficiencies may be utility capacity merging those two things together i think
no i don't think anybody i don't care where you stand politically isn't going to take that
information and go hey this makes sense so again good depending on the scale you know of the
investment and also you know potentially be very suitable for for bond yeah because it's an investment
in the future yeah so i mean like i think that i think that's what we do that's what we need to
look at right i'm going to go ahead we want to get it on an agenda item here that's the proposal
yeah and okay so let me say i know one of the other things was whether we're going to have quorum
next month it's march 12th is the targeted so we'll we'll schedule that request at the city
depending on what feedback we get on the availability of everyone the thing i would
say let's don't rush that because they it's going to take some time for them to really look at that
and look at their master plan i would rather put it on a couple of agenda items down and let them
really prepare because that's going to take engineering planning you know they got to get
that in their schedule i would rather ask them for a schedule to get back to us on that with a reason
i'm like not eight months from now but yeah i want to make sure that you have the opportunity to take
back information that will be here on 12th okay you're asking for quorum you will be here i will
not be here okay spring break okay i think that's going to be one of the challenges financial league
of cities is that day so given given that potential of not having quorum and least point on just the
veracity of the report that they're going to be able to bring back maybe we target april if that's
what the city feels is appropriate yeah i would agree i would and that's what i said initially
let them tell us when they can because i don't want to force it and then because they're going
to come here get a lot of questions from this committee yeah then you'd be prepared yeah great
thank you we're appointing a board regent this year too our board nomination committee is going
to council on february 18th so that'll just be to form the nomination committee for this group
so we can reappoint members and then let's see that hopefully by next uh even be more
board meeting we'll have new board members as well i know steve's anxious to get it replaced
but he's doing such a great job we want to give as long as possible all right so the other thing
i wanted to just make sure texas open meetings act uh we everyone has to sign up on that is that an
annual requirement or if you've done it is just one time so if there's anyone who hasn't done it
we'd ask that you do that training and get the documents signed off and that um are we supposed
to be out of this room at noon during the meeting after at noon okay and just for next board meeting
we may have a project we need your approval and so in order please let us know you can't attend or
no if you can't attend please do because we'll probably have the project if not we'll let you
know okay great conversation thank you for your attention and for uh sticking around for all of
it look forward to the next journey thank you good information good anything else really yeah
anything else with the good of the order uh hearing none we're going to close at 1207 thank you all
Okay, thank you.