Oct 09, 2019 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2019-10-09 11:00 AM

Good morning. My name is Marty Rivers. I'm the chair of the Economic Development Partnership Board. It is 1102 am and I call the meeting to order. I'd like to welcome everybody here. Thank you for being here. We've got several items on the agenda today, and we'll go ahead and start off with our first item for consideration is EDP 19-066. Consider approval of the minutes of our August 14th and September 9th meetings. I move for approval. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the minutes as presented. Both minutes, that is, August and September? Yes. Oh, thank you. Both sets. Comments or questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. All right, the minutes are approved. Now we get to get on to the fun stuff. Item EDP 19-058 is to receive nominations and elect a chairperson and a vice chairperson of the Economic Development Partnership Board for fiscal year 2019 and 20. All right. Well, good morning, everyone. October is the start of our new fiscal year. And so with that, we started the appointment process. So those of you whose terms had expired in 2019, we went through that process with city council. So the board is now set for the next fiscal year. So the board needs to nominate and appoint a chair and a vice chair. As I included in your pocket currently, Marty serves as the chair and John Baines serves as the vice chair. And the rest is up to you guys. I move that Marty serve another year as chair. And I'll second that and add who we do vice chair. We'll just go ahead and do Marty chair. I'll second that. All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'm glad you didn't say nay. This will be that'll actually this will be my last year. So this one got one more year ago. All right. How about vice chair? Any nominations? I nominate John Baines. I'll second that. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. I guess if you're not here you can't. All right. Thank you for letting us get that out of the way. The next item is to consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing a city manager to execute a professional services agreement with tip strategies for the development of a comprehensive economic development strategic plan. Jessica is going to go over that. Right. Well, a lot of information I'm going to be presenting is items that you have already seen. But just to give you a little background, the City Council provided funding in the last fiscal year to fund a comprehensive economic development strategic plan. Staff drafted a scope of work that was presented to you at the joint city council meeting on September 9th and we got direction to move forward. Just to remind you of what that scope was we split work into two phases. The first phase was a review of the contract with between the city and the chamber that works in progress. That component was negotiated separately so we could get that in process very quickly. The second phase is the comprehensive strategic plan scope that included the assessment of the community and comparisons of similar communities, a vision and goal setting, working with a number of stakeholders to define what the vision of economic development is in Denton. We talked about target industries and what sectors and subsectors we'd like to focus our efforts in for marketing and recruitment incentives and different tools that included both traditional and non traditional incentives as we've talked about with this group. Also making recommendations regarding areas that are ready for redevelopment or areas where we'll see new development in the future. We're also asking the consultant to put to help us put together action plans specifically to guide our work over the next three to five years, so that we don't just have a plan on a shelf but we actually have strategies and tactics and projects that we can execute on and report that on. So we saw proposals from a number of firms, and we are going to be recommending executing a contract with tip strategies tip is a well known firm and they've produced a number of high quality economic development strategic plans for many of the cities in the Metroplex so they're very familiar with this area and sort of the economic ecosystem that we all operate in their base out of Austin, but make frequent trips up to the Metroplex to do work. And through their proposal they've demonstrated a commitment to meet both our defined scope and timeline, but also to use a unique engagement process in which stakeholders would be heavily involved in helping determine key aspects of the strategy. That staff recommends that this board make a recommendation to city council to adopt an ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute the professional services agreement with tip strategies for the economic development strategic plan and amount not to exceed $135,000. So I have a question on phase two. I didn't see in there anywhere like music venue or sport complex or any type of art related, which I consider pretty big economic development factor in a community such as ours is that is that a sub sector. I mean that included or we didn't include anything related directly to the creative sector in the broad overview of the scope, I would say that I would integrate that into the areas for for redevelopment, meaning that we want downtown to be a focus area of the redevelopment part of this. And so, as the live music venue that's something that our department's been working on we've been focusing on the downtown area within the cultural district so it may tie in in that capacity but we didn't specifically call out creative sector or music or athletic venues as something specific to ask for doesn't mean it won't come up in the process as an important economic development tool or strategy that we want to pursue. I don't think those will all be part of the conversation that we're looking at. Should we bring the Google's or baseball team downtown, wherever it's a word regardless of where it's at. I mean we didn't, I don't think we called out anything specifically on anything else as a broad overview so I think that would be part of the conversation we need to make sure it comes up. And I think that that would be as we're developing our stakeholder team, making sure that the creative sector or something from the entertainment sector is represented in the stakeholder team so that that perspective gets included. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't getting ignored and because it's it's pretty vital, and we have lots of opportunities here to enhance those sectors. Absolutely. Thank you. I think also this is looking at the tools, bringing jobs, kind of an overview of jobs versus like the destination or something that you know as far as events that bring people in for the night. I think this is, I mean so it's just a broader overview. It's pretty comprehensive so we're going to work with the consultants over the next kind of few months to really start narrowing down when we say these things this is what we mean and so I think we're sharing those comments that we can make sure that we integrate that when we provide them direction. And I think we can all in discussion say we want to have gigantic skate park, they may say you don't have the infrastructure for that or those kind of you know I think anything everybody's on the table work what do we need to focus on. And we all want to focus on this they may say that's the best thing ever or, you know, you're never going to get there. What's the trade on. Here's where here's where you have the most major bug and from our perspective. Everything is on the table. What's the, what's the goal for timing. We just go through the process and have some kind of report back, probably about six months to completion from our start date, I started speaking with tip as it relates to timing and how we would move forward we had a pretty aggressive timeline in the proposal. We're kind of a little bit delayed from that so we've already started renegotiating what that timeline looks like and they gave me the estimate of about six months from the go date, and we're anticipating that being sometime November, early December at this we have to kind of work into their project schedule and their assignment schedule when they can get a staff member assigned, and of course, holidays. So, is that for just is that for both phases or phase one is nearing completion so that would be the start of phase two. Do you need a motion from this group to move forward. Second. The motion is second. Any further discussion. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed. Carries, right. Looking forward to being involved in that process. All right, our next item is consider a report give discussion and give staff direction regarding a downtown reinvestment grant for the property located at 104 West McKinney Street. The downtown Economic Development Committee has recommended a grant in the amount of $25,000 and that was a nine to zero vote. 104 West McKinney is right now, and you probably noticed the former being a towing company. Do you have the owner of the building here Mr. Cheap. So this is kind of a map it is right. If you walk up from the post office it's right up there on McKinney. It faces that way. This is what it looks like right now. I think the cards are out of there. That's what it looks like. It does not include the old gas stations. So here's the just the drawings. They're looking to open a restaurant here. They're not sure exactly what type of restaurant it's going to be. But that's that's the plan. It's going to be a restaurant and they've got some elevations here in your backup and front elevations. I apologize that these are crooked. My old scanner this week it's gone. And then just a sketch of the inside and how the layout they think is going to look. I think some of this may be flexible as to when they get a tenant and just decide what kind of restaurant is going to be. Some of this on the inside may change. So their eligible expenses for the facade rehab is $69,910 signage. I think is underestimated at about 10,000 impact fees at 20,000. That also is an estimate utility upgrades because they're going to have to put in a lot. There's only one little restroom in there at that point. There's no water and sewer, et cetera, for a kitchen facility. $87,000 on utility, about $220,000 on interior code improvement. And that's a new category this year that includes asbestos removal, mold removal, and sprinkler system. So the sprinkler system is the big ticket item there, which gives them an allowable expense of $403,910. Total cost of the project I also think is a bit of an underestimate at this point because it's not finalized, $612,935. They did ask for a $25,000 grant, and on August 8th, the Downtown Economic Development Committee reviewed this and they recommended $25,000 for nine to zero. It was unanimous. So they had an average score of 26. I did include the score sheets in there, so take a look at those. And the score of 25 to 30 gives them a recommendation up to $25,000. And like I say, the [inaudible] is requiring it now, I did recommend the $25,000. Any others here? Or I can answer any questions if you want to ask questions. >> So the $25,000, that's as much as this building can accept, correct? So there wouldn't be anything left. So my question is, so there's not a tenant yet, but signage was on there as an expense. So does that mean that they're going to pay for the signage for the tenant when they get in there? Because if not, I'd rather leave some allowance for a tenant to come in and be able to use- >> Ask Mr. Dow if he can come up and address the microphone, please. >> My name is Chi Da. I'm the owner of the 104 West McKinney, and can you repeat your question again? >> So for our grants, there's a $25,000 maximum on each building. So if you had a tenant move in, they wouldn't be able to use this grant for anything they needed, because it would all be used ahead of time. And then on the list, it listed signage, and I didn't know if you were going to purchase the signage for your tenant. >> The signage? What does the signage mean? >> Signs. >> Signs, the signs business. >> I think I'm going to put almost like 80 or 90% of my money into a restaurant, and later I may occupy that space, depending on how I feel that time. >> Are you buying, paying for the sign, or will a tenant have to pay for the sign? >> I want to pay for the sign. >> Okay, so on the visual, it looked like there were people sitting out in front. Are you planning on having, because McKinney's very busy, were you planning on having an extension or a protection put in if there's a patio? >> There's a patio, but there's a wall in front of that, like a pane in front of that. See the small wall in front of that? >> Oh, there's a little brick. >> The opening there, it's inside the building. >> Oh, okay. >> Okay, the sidewalk is only about three or four feet, so you can see that. >> Right, that was, okay, I'm sorry. >> Joe? >> So have these numbers come from estimates? Have you signed contracts? Where are you with the timeline? >> Yeah, I already signed a contract, quit a contract with. >> Okay. >> And I already paid for the permit for this morning, and the impact fee for this morning, about $35,000. And I paid for a contract that's about $100,000 so they can buy the insurance. They start working on that this week. >> Thank you. >> And just as a reminder, they have to complete all the work before they get the money, so if they-- >> Yeah, I still have to pay for health department. >> What type of restaurant are you envisioning? >> We haven't decided to find out yet, but it depends how I feel. Because I'm 70 now, so if my son agreed to run it for me, I might let my son do it then. And I might decide, you know, I haven't decided what kind of restaurant to do it. Maybe a coffee shop, maybe a bar, or maybe a small restaurant. Just serve the breakfast only. >> Do you have a history or background in restaurants? >> My parents used to own a restaurant in Minneapolis. I'm an engineer, but my parent was on the restaurant for a long time back home. >> You might tell them the other property you own downtown. >> I have another building in downtown. It's 102 North Locust, and my son is occupying the front of it. He's a podiatrist. >> It's next to the house. >> It's next to the bank building. >> Facing on the right side of Jibber House. He has been here before, and we did that on the building. He's got a good track record with us. Any more questions? Do they want to jump out there with the motion? >> I'll move that we take the recommendation of the downtown task force and recommend the 25,000. I think that this seriously expands the footprint of the economic area and continues to widen the destination and share the wealth that is bringing people downtown. I'm excited on that street to see some new development. >> I will second with the knowledge that you intend to purchase the sign for your tenant, if you should get one, so that's already covered. I'll second. >> We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. >> Good luck. >> Next stop, City Council. >> Well, actually, it'll go to -- so you're seeing all of these today. These are the last four grants that you'll see. They will then go to the TURS board, but because we will hit the funding cap for the general funds in the process of these four, we don't know which one of the four will be the one that triggers that change. So all four get to go through both EDP and then the TURS board and then City Council. So they have one stop. >> I think I'll say it. We don't need to make all four of them do that. We've got money in the general fund. We need to not make all these people go through four committees for money. I mean, we used to do this, see manager approval and all that stuff, so I hate to -- my opinion, but I hate to make all four people go through four committee meetings while they're in the middle of spending all their money. If we can limit that to one person doing that, if we run out of money, that can be done simultaneously, so it won't take any longer to do. Somebody can go to the TURS board. Somebody can go to the City Council. There's no reason to make all four of them do that. I don't think so. I don't know who makes that decision. >> We can check with our legal department. We just wanted to make sure that we have the right approvals that's required. >> I want the right approvals, but I don't -- I don't know when those boards meet and timing and the City Council and all that stuff, but I hate to make these people already go to Economic Development Downtown Committee, TURS, and City Council. That's too much to ask people to do, in my opinion. >> Okay. >> We will research that and make sure that we follow it. >> All right. EDP 1962 Receive Report and Hold the Discussion for a Grant Request for 108 West Oak Street. The committee recommended a grant in the amount of $3,309 and had an 8-0 vote on that. >> All right. We do have the order of the business here as well, so they're really pretty much dead middle of Oak Street, straight across from the courthouse. This is the finished product. She went ahead and she turned the application in before she started, but she's gone ahead and moved ahead with the awnings and the signage. So there's signage on the door. There's signage -- the awnings up here, and there's a blank sign, which is right there. And, of course, some paint and other things that happened here as well. So the facade rehabilitation was $3,100. Signage was $219. The awnings were $3,302 for an allowable expense of $6,621. Total cost of the project was $12,000. The grant request is half of the allowable expenses, so that's why it's kind of an odd amount on this one. September 26th, the Downtown Economic Development Committee reviewed this and recommended $3,309. They scored 21, which could be up to $10,000 because she has only spent $6,621 in allowable expenses. Then half of that is the $3,209, excuse me. She's here if you have any questions. I would like to recommend approval. For me, all the points basically could go into that other section there for much-needed children's clothing down on the squares. Anything for kids and children down there is a plus, so I would recommend approval. Any other motion? Anyone want to second? Second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion or any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Question carries. And moving right along, we will take a look at EDP 19063. Receive a report to hold the discussion and give staff direction on a grant request for 216 West Oak Street. The Downtown Economic Development Committee recommended a grant in the amount of $25,000, 8-0. Do we want to try to do these together? Actually, so when this was first turned in, they turned in a grant for each address, and that's why that topic is a little bit larger. So when we started investigating, the way the grant is awarded is it's $25,000 cap per building. These are actually two different buildings, so there's multiple addresses on each building. So this first one is 216 West Oak and 205 North Sea. I can show you just a couple of fun historic photos here of that block. This is the building in question right here. So the building kind of wraps this corner, and so this is the oak address, and this is the cedar address coming around the corner. Just a little side of that. There is a door entrance on that side as well. Right now, they've painted. They've put some new awnings up. They do have a tenant called Thorn and Rose. That's it, Thorn and Rose, that's going to move in a retail shop. So the two of these together, and that's what I did on that first page there, I added these buildings together. The façade rehabilitation, $55,795. Awnings, $37,242. Signage, $16,400. Impact fees, $5,331. Utility upgrades, $33,193. For total allowable expenses of $147,961, they did do asbestos removal, which on the scoring system gives them some points. But that is not eligible for reimbursement because they did it prior to turning in the application. So it counted as far as the scoring went with the other committee, but it's not reimbursable. The total cost of this project is $213,020.81, which is very precise, and they're asking for $25,000. The Economic Development Committee looked at this on September 26 and recommended $25,820. Their average score was 25, and the score of 25 to 30 is a grant recommendation up to $25,000. John McDonald is here with Scott Brown. Scott Brown is the owner. He is here if you have any questions about the project. So this is the first building. Yes, sir. And that's the one on Oak Street. The official address is 216 Oak Street. Do you want to do the next one also since they're contiguous? I can do that. So the next one is 211. This also includes all of those little addresses down Cedar Street, which is 207, 209, 211, and 215. And this is a site view of a couple of those doors on Cedar Street. It, too, has been painted in new oilings that have been put up at this point. These buildings are also in that. This is just a close up as they were doing some work on this building, obviously, at the time we took this photo. And this goes around to the back of what is now Summit Gym has taken over where the lab was, and that's the patio back there, which I think Scott also has that. So adding together all those grants that came in separately at first. Facade rehabilitation, $45,215, awnings are $32,870, signage $12,800, and impact fees $15,400. Utility upgrades, $79,854 for allowable expenses of $186,139. Again, this asbestos removal was done prior to turning in the application, so it's not, they've done it, but it's not eligible for reimbursement. The total cost of this project is $222,900.90. They did request $25,000. The downtown economic development committee looked at it on September 26th and recommends $25,000. Their average score also was $25,000, and $25,000 to $30,000 is eligible for up to $25,000. So it's two separate buildings with various addresses, but because it's kind of one project, I was hoping to go through that. So if we had any questions for John, he didn't have to come back up here. Any questions for John? John, would you mind coming up to the microphone? I guess we can go ahead, Kiwi. Good morning. Good morning. My main question is why did you paint the brick on the outside? Well, the consensus was in our group and the tenants that we currently have that thought the brick was really dated and not, I think it was probably a '60s brick, brick maybe in '60s, and the color just, nobody liked the color, and it just, it was a yellow color, and we painted the brick. And it kind of matches, if you look across 10 powers, turning in the 940s, everything right there across the street is painted as well, so that's why I'm painting it. I was just a little disappointed to see that, but I can understand why. Yeah. And it's wonderful. And part of the building down the street on Cedar Street, there's one of the buildings, the 211 North Cedar. I think we're going to leave that. We didn't paint that. It's definitely a little bit older. See the red up there? It kind of sticks out. We thought that looked a little bit more old school. It was definitely built a different type of brick, and we're going to leave that unpainted. Are you, while we're looking at this picture, is that you fixing that awning? This awning is one of the awnings. We have not replaced it yet. We were going back and forth, whether it was fabric awning or metal awning, and we finally decided that metal was the way to go after experiencing some other problems with fabric. So that is being ordered. They're working on it now in the shop, the welder and the awning guy, and so it'll be replaced in probably a week or two. You'll see it being up, and it's going to match the awning down Cedar Street. So this whole sidewalk area is included in your property, and it's built out for one tenant? No, ma'am. We have right here on the white part of this right here is the photographer. We put a new fence in here, and there's a courtyard back there that we fixed up so he can use it for photography. Then right here is a financial planner, the one in the green right here. He's there already. And then there is a, down on the white, just on Cedar Street, 207-209 is Micro Brewery called Howling Mutt Brewery. And they're open. They're open for business at night and a few days a week and seem to be doing well. Is that two-story? Yes, ma'am, that's a two-story. And part of the renovations are, is to, of the cost of renovations, we haven't started on that project. We're focusing on the model project, is to put something up there. I'm not sure why, if it's a little loft apartment or possible. The brewery was talking about putting a lounge up there, so I'm not sure, but there's several options. There's plumbing. We had to do all new electrical. On the whole project, both projects, it was a mess. And all new sewer, plumbing lines, electrical, everything. We did electrical upgrade with the city, new service and everything, so that's all brand new. So let me see if I can frame this right. So the two properties, this was the one on Cedar Street. David Piccolo was already a tenant. He's on the tenant. The photographer is a new tenant, and then they give lease space to the Howling Bud Brewery, which is a new business that's going in there. On Oak Street, on the front, in between the brewery and the gym, is the new clothing store. Clothing store, Rosen Thorn. Rosen Thorn. So he's taken Sues, which had two employees and added two new businesses. For Hartford, they expanded that whole thing. And because of the brewery and the clothing store, I had to upgrade, add restrooms, upgrade givers. It's just been a lot of money to make those. I'm very excited to see this kind of investment on this side of the square. I think there's room for growth, and this is the right place to put it. I'm very excited to see you expanding our economic base. Well, thank you. We're excited for them to open. It's been a slow process, but we're excited for them. And the brewery's open? It is open. I think they open at night about a week ago. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, and then they've just been a week open, so they're trying to determine what their best hours would be. I love that Denton people are reinvesting in Denton, and same thing with the groups that are already here. Sometimes I'm working with groups in other states that are just kind of buying and turning over, that kind of thing. But that there is more confidence and the care of what they're going to do there and how they're going to behave and give back to the community when it comes to long-time Dentonites that appreciate it. And so that's exciting. Well, if you know Scott Brown, he's very passionate about his projects. One of the, I think, one of the things that came out in the, I don't know if we can go back to that picture of the other building. A lot of, yeah, that one. So the awnings, a lot of the things, the utility upgrades, people don't see those. I mean, when somebody goes in and takes, if you go down Hickory and you look at the mellow mushroom as an example, that was a dirt floor warehouse. They have to upgrade pipe sizes and add bathrooms. That's why this whole thing is on properties, not businesses. Where the brewery works out or not, that building is now ready to handle the next business that comes in there. So you don't see those kind of things. But those awnings, that's actually spending the money to put in the metal awnings versus the fabric kind of thing. So that's a huge deal. If you've ever been out in the sun or the rain, having those around the square, you find out really quick when they run out. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of cool. I think they're also more historically accurate, correct? And I just want to say something, too. One, I love the railing there, but also I'm really glad to see that these interior code improvements are being used. That's one of the things why a few years back I suggested that they become part of this grant because I knew how important it was, especially when investors were coming in and wanting to rehab an old building. And I know that you can't see them and they cost the most. So I'm glad that you're taking note of that here. I think Rosenthorne will be open in a couple of weeks. What kind of clothing store is it? It'll be a moderately priced, ladies and some men's clothing, a little bit lower probably than JT's down the street. Nice. Great. More variety. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions, colleagues? All right. So there are two agenda items there. One is for 216 West Oak for $25,000 was the recommendation, and the other one was for 211 North Cedar for an additional $25,000. Anybody like to make a motion? I move we approve the recommendations of the Downtown Task Force and give the full amounts of $25,000 on both properties so that we can couple those. You're my man. We need to do it separately. Then I would like to make a friendly amendment to my motion, if that's approved by me. It is to go with the, I guess we start with Oak Street. Is that the first one? The 216 West Oak. 216 West Oak. Who's got a motion and a second? Yes. Any further discussion? We're on fire. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And item ADP 19-064 is for 211 North Cedar Street. I'll take a motion on that as well. I would continue the motion that has been proposed for holding the recognition for that property as well. For $25,000? Yes. And I will second the motion for Cedar. Any further discussion on that item? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Thank you guys for being here today. Appreciate everything you're doing. Thank you so much. It's exciting. It is exciting. The next item is 19-067, receive report, hold discussion, and appoint or report members of the Downtown Economic Development Committee. And we have an agenda information sheet there. Julie will go over that. Sure. So as you're aware, the committee formerly known as downtown task force is now an official subcommittee instead of a task force. And they're a subcommittee of this body. And we have talked about this a couple of times in previous meetings. We've done a policy, which is included in your backup on page 171. So we talked about who those members should be. The dedicated, as we're calling it, kind of for shorthand, went through the people that were there that day and then I called a couple of other people that were not in attendance to see if they wanted to continue to serve. So you've got a list at the bottom of 169 of the recommendations from the Downtown Economic Development Committee. So if they are not in bold, that means they've been in the committee and they want to continue. So that's Peggy Capps. John Cartwright in bold would be a new person. He is the Main Street Association president. Hank Dickinson, who hits several of these categories. University of North Texas, the Chamber of Commerce, the CBP Board. Monty Jensen, who is a part owner in Miller Mushroom. Melissa Lenneberg, who owns some buildings downtown and also lives downtown. Beth Lewis with TMU. Brock McKnight with First United Bank. Nick Miller is a new recommendation. Nick works for Brandon Martino. He is one of his building managers. Brandon, due to his travel schedule and his work schedule, has decided he really can't do justice. He would like to step down, but he would like to remain sort of involved, and that's why he recommended Nick Miller. The Dedic Committee would find that. Bob Moses, Beth Marie's property owner, owns a building and a business. Georgia Ngozi, the creator of Denton Arts Council. Alex Payne with Alex Realty owns multiple buildings downtown. Marty with EDPB, and he will be our chairperson also on the Dedic. And Michael Talley, who is the Denton County Economic Development Director. That is a new recommendation from that committee as well. Do we have the new people on here agreed to do it? Yes. Great. One of the things, just participated, I didn't participate in the meeting. I watched one of the comments where we, so this board's direction was to add somebody from NCTC, the downtown, and somebody with urban planning, the background, and based on the number of people we already had on the committee, and this board limited that committee to 13 people. We really don't have room to do all of it unless we want to kick somebody off that's been on there, and we really didn't think we wanted to do that. So we'll have to work on adding somebody down the road as we put the terms. So we'll be adding term limits to all of these folks for the first time. And so as those things come up, we'll start looking to add somebody from NCTC downtown, and try to find somebody with an urban planning background, which may be easier said than done. We do have some staff members that if we wanted to, we could invite them to those meetings, and they could be there when items like that come up that might need their expertise. So we need to accept these members? Or give us new names. I've got a list. Just a question. Nick Miller was okay with being nominated? I did check with the people that are new, and made sure that everybody was going to serve. I'm excited about Mike and Tali. I'm kind of surprised he doesn't know what to do with them. He's got a big county to cover. That's great. Any questions, comments, or a motion? I'll make a motion to approve as presented. Do you want to second that? Second. All right, we've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Our next item. We're getting all the way down the middle of the alphabet today. EDP 19-068. Receive a report, hold discussion regarding the city of Denton-Ike development department's fiscal year-end update and the Chamber of Commerce annual activity update. Okay, I'm going to jump right in and do the Chamber of Commerce. At home is out of town recruiting prospects this week. All right, thank you this afternoon for this opportunity to present our annual report. This is going to be all good news. I'm excited to share with you about all of the successes of our opposite economic development in the past year. I need my name for the doctor, Ms. Erica Cameron. For those of you who don't know me and those watching at home. I want to remind you that -- let me see. Can I get a clicker? Okay. The mission of the Denton Economic Development Partnership is to proactively promote an environment in Denton to encourage commercial and industrial development by expanding and diversifying the tax base, creating jobs, and improving the quality of life. As you well know, the city is a partner with the Chamber in this. We have the public-private partnership, and we are excited about the work that's been done on this in the past year. We did have the opportunity to present this to our membership a few weeks ago, and I'm excited today to help share the story with you. Over the past year -- and your packet does include a lot of extra metrics and a much thicker packet, but I'm going to pull out just some highlights for you today and keep it short and sweet. In this past year, Adam has taken 25 out of -- well, he's gotten onto an airplane 25-plus times. This is outside of meetings in Denton and meetings in the DFW area, but he's gone on 25 separate marketing trips and opportunities outside of this area. That's a big haul. I don't know how often you guys get to sleep in your own beds, but he does not. He logged over 26,000 air miles, taking those opportunities and promoting Denton. He's out there selling our product, and our product is our community. Anybody notice the lady standing next to Adam up there? She's our former economic development director here at Denton, Karen Dixon. Okay. Adam is on the board of Team Texas. That's something that also happened this year. I wanted to pull out a couple of especially impressive numbers out of our successes this year. Our contract, as you know, requires us to have 42 new leads in a year. We shot over that by 62% at 68 leads. You were asking for seven site visits. We did 11, so we overshot that by 57%. The number of private investors our contract requires is 68. Again, we went over that by 10% and recruited some new private investment dollars this year, and those private investment dollars went over the recommended $75,000 to $84,850, an increase of 13%. Again, I appreciate the support of everyone in this room who continues to tell Denton's economic story everywhere you go. Here's a couple of our closed deals, what I want to call our big success stories. Fisher 59 is opening up a new lead certified bronze facility over 220,000 square feet and adding an additional 67 jobs and a $31 million investment in the community. Tyson, this deal looks like a field, but this is happening. They're coming in with a 350,000 square foot facility adding 100 jobs. They're a two megawatts, two megawatts, yeah, megawatts. That probably is like a gazillion watts. One of our target industries is large utility users. They'll be doing that. They're basically building a 350,000 square foot freezer and a $97 investment. Go team. These properties, you may recognize this, this spoke very loudly to our membership. Economic development is not what I call walking around knowledge. Not everybody in the community completely understands how this happens, so we broke it down into numbers like this. These three properties before any development had a combined property tax value of about $95 for the city coming in each year. Now with the development, the top two have been developed, so those have been assessed at now $565,000 plus dollars a year, which that number will increase once Ironwood puts their site facility under two. Those numbers sort of help tell that story in a much simpler way. $95, $565,000 dollars. More high fives. Go team. Thank you all. As you all know, we're going to keep yelling about this for as long as we can get away with it. Adam Spears have nominated him and voted him to be one of North America's top 50 economic developers. That includes Canada and Mexico, by the way. So we're proud of that, and we're going to continue to tell that story. I did look at the list to see who else in Texas was on that list, and there's only one other person, and I think they're in San Antonio. So he's killing it for us up here. And if you have any questions, I would love to entertain those, or high fives, I can run around with them. High five. So where's Adam today? He's at TEDC, Texas Economic Development Council Conference, Continuing Education, which is another part of our contract that he would continue to stay certified in the top 50. He's, remind me where he's going with all the tech. Portland, Oregon, I believe is the next trip. He is taking a local tech expert. I know we talk a lot about technology, and we are using some of our private economic development investment funds. We've partnered with a local tech guy. Some of you may know him, Marshall Culpepper. He has designed software that goes into space. That is all I know about that. But Marshall has some very significant relationships out in Silicon Valley and in the tech industry. And those of you who have IT support in your companies know that those people speak their language. So we partnered with Marshall to take him to a tech-centered development conference so he can help interpret that language for us. Great idea. Yeah, we're excited about that. Well, and you get on it. Because we raised more money than we had in the past, we were able to pick some of those wishlist things that we didn't have the budget for to go do that. So that's important. And there's a small group of -- well, small and growing group of extremely high-tech folks here in Denton, and we want to partner with them and support the growth of these companies that are small now, but they are those higher-paying jobs that we're all looking for. And as we support that, we anticipate that will turn into much larger endeavors. See Google, Facebook. Didn't compute this. Comments, questions, stuff? Great job. Thanks, guys. Jessica, are you up? I won't run around into a high five, so I'm up for it. So I am really excited, more than anyone, that Adam travels so much, because I can show you what we're able to do while Adam is managing that for us. So I'll tell you a little bit about what we've done here with the city's economic development team. So you may be familiar. You get a report monthly that goes over the city's strategic performance report, and we focus our work in six key areas. And those are business development, entrepreneurship, workforce development, the creative sector, community engagement, and administration. We have that bonus area there. Those were metrics that were included in the citywide strategic plan in 18-19. We've talked about it, and I'll kind of go over it a little bit sooner. The city doesn't have a new strategic plan, a citywide strategic plan going forward, but we want to keep those metrics because we think that they're very valuable, and I'll kind of detail what those are. So I just want to take some time to call out some really impressive numbers. One is that we had 484 business assistance interactions that we gave in our department. Breaking that down, we're less than six full-time people. We're 5.75 FTEs, and at 365 days a year, that means that one of us is out helping a business every single day, which if you kind of hear me walking around our office, I kind of say our job is to help any business at any time with anything. If they walk in our door and they ask for help, we're going to give it to them. And so that's a key focus for me is I actually -- that's great that we hit that, but we can do so much more going forward. And so my challenge for the department next year is how do we actually raise that number even further. We also did 48 on-site BRE visits. Again, we have two staff members that go on BRE visits regularly, one focused on our primary employers, our larger employers in some of our key industries, and one focused on downtown. So we certainly can improve in that area and make sure that we're getting out into the community more. Myself, being new to this position, have started going on some of the BRE visits to get to know everybody and what they're doing and hopefully in this next year can really step up and help with that. We did return 28 RFPs that we received. We get them from the Dallas Regional Chamber, from the state, and from direct leads. But one of the most interesting things is a few lines down you'll see that those direct business leads, those are people that contact the city directly and want to locate here, and we have 20 of those. So that's a very impressive number as well. Looking at entrepreneurship, this is one of our most successful areas and also one of our areas that we really want to focus in in the next year. As Erica mentioned, we're working a lot with some of our tech and startup groups in this area. So you'll see a little bit of amendments in the 19-20 draft plan going forward in this area. But that first one is on our coordination with Stoke. I meet with them monthly. We missed one month of meeting and we actually had a teleconference call. So we didn't count that as a full meeting, but we did have a phone call that one month just to go over their monthly metrics and reports and activities. And some new things that we did was co-hosting the Creative Economy Conference. That was the Flint Conf, if you'll remember, which is planned for next year as well, and we're excited about that. Hosting a small business resource fair and then finishing up the Stoke contract renewal. So all of those were accomplished this year. Jessica, what's HRV? It's Hickory and Rail Ventures. It's the holding company name for Stoke. So in workforce development, again, this is a key focus area that you'll see some changes in the 19-20 draft. I want to have more emphasis on workforce development moving forward. But one way that we really reach a lot of both our partners through education and industries is through hosting two job fairs that we partner with, the School District, the Chamber, NCTC, DCTA, and getting sort of all of the players in the room, and we did that twice this year. One area that we also work in that's a little bit outside the scope of this board, we also have another board, our Public Art Committee board that we work with regularly, but know that we're focusing on the creative sector as well. And we've talked about with this board how important those creative elements are at making Denton an attractive place to live and work and make people want to stay here. And you'll see a number of things that are in process and that got held up for a number of different reasons, but are moving forward now, and that is some of our art location and art projects. The biggest thing that we did in this area is that we did receive the designation for our cultural district. So we're very excited about that. You should have received an invitation because the representatives from the State Texas Commission on the Arts will be here on October 17 to do our official state proclamation declaring the original Denton District an official cultural district. And to put that in perspective, there are only 48 cities in the state of Texas that have cultural districts. So out of more than a thousand cities, we're one of only 48. So it's a very impressive accomplishment. And community engagement, we do this through a variety of ways. But one of the most shocking numbers to me is that we did 58 presentations where we went and we talked about economic development in some capacity, whether internal with other departments, with the board or external to the city. Again, there's only about five of us that make those presentations. So that's about six presentations per person or about one a week that we're going out and we're talking about economic development. So that's an incredibly valuable thing that we're out doing is talking about what we do and talking about deaf people. So in administration, we were really excited to see all of these deals close. But I kind of wanted to point this out that we had 169 administration incentive administration related activities. It takes a lot of work to administer the contracts that we have when we do close deals. Everything from reviewing sales tax and property tax reports, looking at abatement contracts, looking at contracts, making sure that they're in compliance and that they're monitored. And we do have a staff member that spends, I would say, 95 to 98 percent of her time just working on administering those contracts. And it takes a team of people to get those done. So know that once we kind of sign on the dotted line, our department really gets to work at that point. So we're excited to keep moving forward with those. We did include a draft plan for you in your pocket on some changes for 19-20. Here are sort of the areas that I mentioned. One thing that we're going to work on is implementation of a new lead and BRE management system. We've started planning what that will look like. But what we really hope to do is really enhance communication between my office and the chamber to make sure that we're not duplicating efforts, making sure that we're working together and that each of us kind of knows where everyone is and who the right contacts are. We're also working on a corridor redevelopment plan. That is included as part of the comprehensive plan process. We're focusing training on entrepreneurship and developing entrepreneurial resources. Again, that goes back to the tech and startup community. We've heard a lot of chatter about the need to really reinforce our skill sets in that area. And certainly we want to take that feedback and enhance the ability of our office to meet the need of the community in that area. We also have begun working with the United Way, with their workforce success leadership team, about making sure that the jobs and that when we're bringing employees here and we're bringing companies here, that we're making sure that they have the backbone support to get funded and to get the training that they need to move up in their careers. And we're also working on a workforce development work plan, specifically again to reach out to our partners in the education institutions to make sure that we have employees to meet the needs of our employers. And then on our creative side, implementing the year one of our cultural district strategic plan, and then moving forward with that wonderful comprehensive strategic plan, which will take up, as I said, about six months. So it will be a lot of work that goes into that, and I'm looking forward to all of you being very much involved in that process. And that's it. Questions, comments? Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about the Small Business Resource Fair? The Small Business Resource Fair? I think Christina, was that the, that was the library? Correct. So that was one of my very first weeks on the job, so I can't give you a thorough overview. But what we essentially did was we held an event at South Branch Library, where we brought in representatives from a number of different city departments to give, talk to small businesses about what the, what resources are available through the city. Okay, so specific to the city? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I will say that week was a blur. That was my very, was my first or second week on the job, but I did go. Yeah, I just wanted to comment on the business retention visits because I've been invited to go to some of those in my district. I know that they're trying to invite council members to go to, to be there so that the business owners know that they have a year. I've really enjoyed going on the ones that I have. I can't, haven't been able to go to all of them, but the ones that I have have been very fulfilling. Are we having good luck with council members going on those? Yes, and I will say that's one of the factors in getting them arranged is we're trying to coordinate schedules with very busy council members. And so sometimes that can be, can be a challenge, but we really want, we think it's important that the council members attend when they can. And so we do everything we can to, to set the meetings at a time that they can attend. Do we have questions? Thank you. I just want to congratulate you starting only just one month after I started here and comment that coming into a new community, I mean, you were already here, but coming into a new position or a new position in a new community in coming into this environment where things are already moving and happening and there's a lot of history and there's a lot of plans going forward. It's a an adjustment period, but I just want to thank you all for helping get me up to speed, helping get Jessica on track. And when I throw up these numbers and I say, you know, like high five team, I really mean that. Like you guys did this. Most of this was done before I got here and it started with decisions, you know, that were made and discussed at this table before Jessica or I even got here. And I just want to say again, I appreciate that and I have really enjoyed my time getting down in the weeds with you all and building those relationships and being brought up to speed and figuring things out. You guys have been very helpful and I feel very welcome. That's been a changes of the city and changes of the chamber has been a busy year. All right, I think that's the last agenda item we've got to talk about today. Anything that anybody wants to add to our next agenda or discussions. Thank you for being here today.