That's all I did in color.

We're gonna put it in the back chair.

It's a root strategy that comes from the college.

Front row, then too much of a back road show.

I mean that's that would be the idea.

Not entirely now last week, but my comments has the six months.

Then when you get there, that's the thing.

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Um, I don't know.

But we've got to bring a lot of those.

Yes, and questions.

Not related.

I'm gonna get it.

One of the three model like that.

My wife is painting my last one.

So we're gonna go um start off this special meeting.

Uh uh April twenty second, our special meeting for uh presentation by Anisda.

Uh we'll start with a roll call.

Ms.

Hafa?

Mr.

Pungo?

Here, Mr.

Napoli.

Here.

Mr.

Bender.

Present.

Miss Santos?

Here.

And Miss Scarlock.

Here.

And Miss Moda is on teams.

Great.

Thank you, uh Ms.

Orkego.

Um good evening.

Um tonight's a continuation of our a public meetings with our community partners.

Uh our objective is to strengthen communication, improve coordination, become better informed, and focus on identifying opportunities for Allentown residents, the business community, and our visitors.

This evening's special meeting is to allow Steve Bamford, the executive director of the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority to present their mission, current and future initiatives, and their impact to the city of Allentown.

I'd also like to welcome to the meeting uh some folks whose roles intersect with ANISDA from time to time.

Uh we have a chairman of the UNISDA board, Cy Trab.

We have our CED director, Miss Vicky Kissler, our CED deputy director, Mark Hartney, our city controller, Jeff Glazer, and uh unfortunately Frank Kane couldn't make it.

So um So thanks everyone for joining.

Um I'll introduce uh I'll introduce Steve Bamford, um executive director of Anezda.

And thank you for coming.

You can take that spot.

And um problem.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Yes, uh, welcome.

Thank you.

And thank you all for having uh provided this opportunity for us to talk a little bit about the NIS and answer your questions.

You know, at this age, it's a little challenging for me.

I need to take my glasses off to read what's in front of me.

Or I have to put them on to read what's in front of me, I take them off to see what you're seeing on the screen.

Yep.

Okay.

So um I'm gonna start off with just a quick history that I know some of you are probably very familiar with, and others less so.

Um, just quick history to show where we started on this path to over 1.2 billion dollars in investment in our in our downtown in the neighborhood improvement zone.

The NIS legislation was initially initially passed in 2019 by the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

Um that uh I believe you already you have a copy of the of the legislation, so I won't go into a lot of detail.

I'll just hit what I see as the the two main um points of the legislation.

The first is it allowed the city of Allentown to create a zone of no more than 130 acres.

In this case, uh, and it's a very irregular-shaped zone, um, but it's primarily in two portions of the city.

Um center city Allentown, and then the um western banks of the Lehigh River.

Um what this uh state legislation has done is create a very robust development finance tool that's very unique to the state of of or to the city of Allentown.

It's the only one in the commonwealth.

Um what it allows us to do is apply virtually all state and local business taxes generated from businesses in this 130-acre zone to be applied to debt service on the debt incurred to do development in the zone.

Um the the Allentown Commercial Industrial Development Authority was the entity that originally determined the boundaries of the NIS in Allentown, and it was also the entity that entered into the lease and development agreement for the arena block development, which is PPL Center, um, the two parking structures that are attached to it, the Renaissance Hotel, um, and one city center office building.

Um in 2012, bonds were issued to fund the development of the arena, the parking facilities, and platforms for the hotel and the in 2012.

Um for the purposes of administering the NIS and the financing of development and improvements within the NIS.

Next slide.

Those um members of the authority are selected by the mayor, uh our two Pennsylvania state senators representing Allentown and our three Pennsylvania state representatives for the city of Allentown.

Uh the members serve until their terms expire.

Uh I'm sorry, continue to serve until they're either replaced or reappointed.

They serve for five-year terms.

Um we are audited, uh despite contrary to what some people think, we are audited annually, and our audit financial report is available on our website, and that's a link to uh the 2025, I'm sorry, the 2024 audit, which is the most recent audit that's available.

We're currently um under uh the audit for 2025 is currently underway.

Uh, auditors were just in our office this week, and that will be presented at a public meeting of the authority in June, and then it will be posted to our website.

Next slide.

As I mentioned, virtually all state and local taxes that are generated in this 130-acre zone can be applied to debt service on debt incurred to do development within the zone.

It is important to note that in 2025, 90%, 96%.

I'm sorry, 96% of the taxes generated in the zone were state taxes.

So I'm I'm referring to the pie chart on the right of the slide for 2025.

Um a little over, well, 112.7 million dollars in state taxes were generated in the zone, and a little over 5.1 million in local taxes were generated in the zone.

2024, the preceding year, um, the numbers were slightly less, but the percentages were very similar.

95% state taxes, 5% local taxes.

Next slide.

This is a list of all the state taxes and local taxes that apply.

What's really important to note here is what is not listed here.

What is not listed here is real estate taxes.

Real estate taxes are not utilized in the NIS.

The city, the county, and the school district get every penny of real estate taxes that they're due.

Um it's also important to note that a business that's located in the in the zone pays no more or no less taxes than they would otherwise.

Um the only thing a business in the zone has to do that they wouldn't have to do elsewhere is file a report.

Uh by January 31st of every year, a business in the zone has to file a form electronically with a city, and a form electronically with a state that reports on a cash basis, the business taxes they paid in the preceding calendar year, less any cash refunds they may have received in the preceding calendar year.

The state then certifies, the state and city certifies the amount after reviewing the reports filed by all the um the businesses, and then those certified state and local taxes are um transferred electronically by the state to the escrow agent for the funds, which is Bank of New York Mellon.

Next slide.

This is just an example with real numbers for the most recently completed cycle, which would be 2024 NIS revenue that was used in 2025.

In 2025, the amount certified uh was a little over 98 million dollars in state taxes, I said, a little over 5 million dollars in city.

So a total of a a little over 103 million was remitted to the escrow agent in certified taxes.

Um the bottom part of this table shows how those tax dollars were utilized.

A little over 66 and a half million dollars was applied to debt service on debt incurred by um to support developer projects.

12 million five hundred and sixty-five thousand five hundred was allocated to the principal and interest payments on the bonds that were issued to construct PPL Center.

And then by agreement, the authority is required to return the first 22 million in excess after we've made all those debt service payments.

We already returned the first 22 million to the extent there is access to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

And we did that.

We do that most years.

Um, and we did that in 2025.

After returning that 22 million to the state, we then can make an annual payment out of excess to the extent there is any, and there was five million available to do so in 2025.

We make a five million dollar payment on the line of credit that we utilize to do public improvement projects in the zone.

And then after we make that payment, if there's still excess, we return it on a pro rata basis to the state and to the city.

Um for in 2025, we returned almost 1.9 million dollars to the state, which is 95 percent, and almost 100,000 to the city, which is about five percent.

Uh just one comment.

It's important to note that when you look at the uh use of the public improvement projects, which are basically city improvements that would normally be paid for by the city.

And you realize that the circul the dollars are circulating that the city is losing through the and the NIS revenue is coming really back through public improvements.

So the city is really benefiting through the public improvement dollars that are coming back, and most of this is really being funded by the state.

I have some examples later on in the presentation of to illustrate some examples of public improvement projects.

Um to illustrate what Sai is speaking to.

So the increased assessments and the increased real estate tax collection continues to go to the city, the school district, and the county.

Here's uh I'm gonna provide you with three examples to illustrate what I'm talking about and why it's clear the downtown can be an economic engine funding city services throughout the city.

You know, these are these tax dollars flow to the city, and the city can use it as you see fit.

Um the first example is three city center, which is uh an office building developed by City Center on Hamilton Street.

Before development, that property was assessed at a little over 363,000 dollars.

That generates an estimated 11,359 dollars in annual real estate taxes.

After development, it's assessed at over 25.5 million dollars and generates 793,573 in annual real estate taxes for the city, school district, and county.

The in order to kind of illustrate the the benefit here, we have in this table a cumulative number.

So the cumulative real estate taxes at the prior assessment level, in other words, this number is as if three city center had not been built.

From 2016 to present, the cumulative real estate taxes are a little over 100 would have been a little over 136,000.

Since Three City Center was built, the cumulative real estate taxes, the actual taxes since 2016 total almost six and a half million dollars.

So that the cumulative benefit, the taxes that you get you've gotten over that period from three city center compared to what you would have had three center three city center not been developed, is over six point three million dollars.

That's the bottom line.

So that that is you're obviously receiving your portion of that.

Um that is available, as I said, for the city to use the city uh sees fit.

It can be used to provide city services throughout the city.

Uh next slide, please.

The next example to illustrate the real estate tax benefit is Strata West, um, which is on North 7th Street.

Uh, we're using this example because it it's a it's a mixed-use project.

There's commercial components to it, but it's primarily a residential building.

Um before development, the the assessed value was 286,000, um, which generates a little over $9,000 a year in annual real estate taxes.

After development, the assessed value is $18 million, generating over $566,000 in annual real estate taxes.

So we went through the same exercise here to give you cumulative figures.

Um the cumulative real estate taxes at the old assessment is over 108,000 a year.

Cumulative real estate taxes, the actual number now that uh strata west has been developed is over 4.8 million dollars.

Cumulative benefit of over 4.7 million dollars.

And the third illustration I have is Moxie.

What I want to point out about the Moxie Hotel is although it's in the NIS and it generates NIS revenue, it was not funded by the NIS.

Um we didn't we didn't fund that project.

We funded the Archer music hall um in the same block, but we did not fund Moxie.

Um before development, the assessed value was a little over a million dollars, generating a little over 32,000 dollars in real estate taxes.

After development, the assessed value is almost 5.8 million dollars, generating over 183,000 a year.

Um so you can see the bottom line there in the net benefit is 162,000.

And keep in mind, Moxie just was finished or just opened in 2000 or um yeah, 2025.

So that cumulative benefit is only continue to accumulate um as it's open for a longer and longer period of time.

So let's talk a little bit about the the public improvement program.

Once approved, we enter into a triparty agreement to manage the project.

So I want to explain the roles of the three parties to the development agreement.

Ansda is strictly a funder of these public improvement projects.

We can fund the construction costs, obviously, but also the design costs associated with the development project.

What we can't do is fund maintenance, programming, or ongoing operational costs.

That's strictly from the NIS Act.

The NIS Act allows us to fund debt incurred for development and improvements, not for operations or maintenance.

The other party to the triparty agreement for public improvements is the public property owner.

In most cases, that would be the city of Allentown.

You're all very much familiar with the new sidewalks.

Those are all in the public right-of-way.

So for purposes of the tri-party agreement, the city of Allentown is the public property owner for those.

We have done some public improvement projects for other public property owners, primarily the Allentown Parking Authority.

We did two projects with the Allentown Parking Authority.

We funded the parking kiosks that were installed throughout much of the NIS.

And we also funded the project for Lanta at the Allentown Transportation Center.

That's on real estate owned by the Allentown Parking Authority, although it's obviously operated by Lanta.

So in that case, the City of Allentown is not the public property owner, the parking authority is.

The public space in front of the Da Vinci Science Center, as well as the path leading from the parking deck, the spiral deck to the rear of the Da Vinci Science Center was one of the projects that we funded.

It was a little over 1.6 million dollars.

That parcel of land underneath the plaza is actually City of Allentown parcel.

Da Vinci Science Center in this case served as it as the sponsor because it was constructed in conjunction with the construction of their building.

So Da Vinci was responsible for managing the construction and then turning over ownership to the city.

And once again, a NISD's role was simply to be the funder.

And then finally on the third uh example I wanted to show you was the wayfinding project.

So the city has undertook, has undertaken a an initiative to improve wayfinding, not just in the NIST, but through throughout the city.

And the idea here is it's different types of signage that's targeting drivers, pedestrians, and visitors to help them navigate the city regardless of their mode of transportation.

City of Allentown in this case is the public property owner.

The sponsor was City Center, they were responsible for managing the installation of the signage, and the ANISDA was the funder.

One is the assessment of the effectiveness effectiveness of the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone that was produced by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and published in May 2024.

This was a study undertaken by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission at the request of a NISDA.

We felt that that was a logical party to undertake such a study because LVPC does not have a role in the NIS.

So we felt they were a third party, an objective third party.

But if you haven't seen it previously, I believe you were all provided with copies recently this week.

But some of the highlights from it's it's a it's a very thorough analysis.

So they had to look at the census track that uh covered the NIS in its entirety to do their analysis.

Um the other uh document that I I cite here is a fiscal impact report.

Well, let I'm sorry, let me back up to uh another thought on the work that the planning commission did.

The timing of that.

The first development that was the catalyst for everything that followed was the arena block.

Uh and PPL Center opened up in 2014.

Um 2024 was the perfect time we thought to uh conduct this study because we were basically 10 years into this program at that point.

Uh well, 10 years into the development.

Um, and it was it was an appropriate time to take a look at where we stood.

The program will be in place till 2042.

So, although we haven't met all of our goals, we've made an incredible amount of progress in a very short period of time.

Uh, and that's what has been documented in that Lee Valley Planning Commission study.

And that includes not only the real estate taxes that I just talked about, but also earned income taxes, local services tax, apartment inspection fees going to the city, and parking fees going to the outtown parking authority.

So with that, I'd be glad to take questions.

I'd be glad to have you know have discussion.

I would just like to make one comment before we get into questions and answers.

And that is to understand this entire program, you have to understand the fact that this is not a short-term play.

The NIS the NIS concept was a long-term play to begin with.

And once you realize that we're in 2026 now, this will expire in 2042.

And after 2042, you will have probably as much as maybe two billion dollars worth of development.

And all of the taxes that are generated in that two billion dollars worth of development, whether it be real estate and all of the taxes that are generated in general, are free to be used by the city and the state.

So this is really a long-term play, not a short-term play.

We've made a I think an amazing amount of progress in the short term.

But the real benefit of this is what you will have in the long term.

Okay, uh, thank you.

And uh so yeah, so we're we're in a question and answer period.

So I do have some questions from my colleagues.

So we'll go through one by one and uh address those, and then there'll be an opportunity for other questions from the dais if uh if some folks have questions.

So uh you did the first one was feedback on the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission assessment report.

I believe you gave you already have given your feedback.

Any more feedback on that report?

Um no, I I don't I don't think so.

Okay, I just had to follow up on that.

Um, just interested in um the one data point about poverty being reduced, and I wonder how much of um we've we've torn down a lot of buildings and then a lot of um more of the lower income folks are no longer living in the NIS and have been replaced by higher income folks.

So, how much does that contribute to that change?

So we we were fortunate in that when the boundary of the NIS was established, it was primarily commercial properties, and at one point years ago, I worked with city staff who went through um the rental records, uh, and it was determined a very nominal number of people, uh a very small number of people were affected.

Do we have the number of how many people were displaced?

I don't know.

I this this isn't something I've done recently, um, but I could look through records that from that going back a number of years.

Yeah, president, I can address that.

Yeah, I've been following the project since its inception.

And one of the things I did is created a chart.

Microphone.

Thanks, sorry.

Um, I've been following the project since its inception, and one of the things that I did is create a chart to look at what properties were acquired uh for the NIS and going to the real estate records to see how many rental units there were in each property.

Now keep in mind that not all of these units were habitable and/or rented at the time.

Um, but from the beginning up until um uh the uh the yarn store uh was purchased, and then the properties across the street, which I know had been vacant, there were 127 units there, only 127 units.

And once again, I can assure you that not all of those were habitable.

They were listed as rentals, but they were some of them probably were not habitable, and having delivered furniture to some of those places, um, they were barely habitable when they were habitable.

So 127.

Yes, okay.

And I think when you um out of the total number of housing units downtown, I think that's that's not a large number.

And that's inclusive of the affordable housing at 7th in Linden, the public housing essentially across from 7 Eleven.

Not be inclusive of that.

Um, but it's my understanding that the authority might have shut that down anyway because it was in poor shape.

And once again, there's a property I have delivered furniture to back when I wasn't using a walker.

And um they were barely habitable then.

Gotcha.

But that would be inclusive of the entire 600 block of Wong and all that, just not the public housing.

Yeah.

Okay.

And thank you for pointing that out.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, uh appreciate that.

And um, and I'll also add that there were there were I remember years ago we had an extraordinary amount of surface parking downtown, and a lot of that surface parking has been um replaced by development.

So that's something that um I think is I've seen a big difference uh downtown with um the NIST development.

Um question number two.

Um if you can give an example of a of a NIST scenario in the process, that a developer comes to you and says, Hey, I have a plan, I want to do a project.

Help us in a general view, take us from point A to finish line.

Sure.

We we have the board has adopted formal guidelines for obtaining financing through a NISDA.

Those guidelines are available uh as a PDF on our website.

Um so one when I the earliest discussions I have with a would-be developer is we go over the guidelines so they understand the process.

Umce they uh are comfortable and they want to proceed, they make a submission um and provide application materials uh to a NISDA, and as staff, it's my job to review them for completeness.

There's always a bunch of back and forth.

I always have a lot of questions.

Um included in that submission are the things you would expect.

Uh design uh documents, renderings, drawings, uh construction or development budget, um, a description of the proposed use for the for the project of the property, um a pro forma, and perhaps most importantly, a term sheet from a lender.

Um review that information while I'm reviewing that information, I I'm also reaching out to Jennifer Gomez, uh planning director.

Um, and she provides me with a uh uh letter with comments on the project because we want to make sure that the authority and the city are on the same page.

We don't want to be approving financing for a project that doesn't have a chance of getting approved um by the city from a land use perspective, from a zoning and land development perspective.

Um so uh Jennifer and her predecessors give me review comments in the form of a letter.

Um the other uh review is a design review.

Um some of you may be familiar with Goody Clancy.

Uh Goody Clancy is a design and planning firm that the city hired way back when the NIS was formed uh to develop um the Allentown uh downtown development and an urban design plan.

So we engage Goody Clancy to review uh any proposals that come before I NISDA to determine if they're in general conformity with that plan.

Um so once I've done the staff review, once I've received uh comments from uh Jennifer Gomez and Goody Clancy, we then schedule a public meeting of the authorities' public review committee.

Uh the public review committee, um that's an advertised public meeting, the public review committee uh receives a presentation from a the would-be developer.

Um if the project review committee likes what they see, they make a nine non-binding recommendation that the project proceed to a public meeting of the full board, an issue's full board, um at which time the developer comes back, makes another presentation, answers questions, um, and if the board um um approves, uh they do it in the form of a resolution that formally approves the project.

So at a minimum, every project that comes before NISDA is reviewed in at least two public meetings that are advertised and open to the public.

Once we've uh adopted a resolution approving the project, we then proceed to work with the developer and the developers council and the lender and the lender's council and our solicitor to draft uh bond or loan documents and a funding agreement that spells out um how the authority is going to fund the project.

Once there's closing, um the developer can proceed.

Um on an annual basis, we allocate the certified revenues generated from that developer's project to the debt service on the debt incurred by the developer to do the project.

That's how it works.

Okay, thank you.

Does the developer get any funding up front?

Well, they don't get up front.

Um the once we close on the loan, um, during construction, tax revenue can be can be generated during construction.

So uh for instance, Pennsylvania state sales tax on certain materials that go into a construction project.

Um taxes on the earnings of construction workers, that can be applied to debt service on a on a development project.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions or comments?

Uh Mr.

Pongo, go ahead, chair.

Um as part of the analysis to you know allow a developer with their performa and and everything associated with that.

How does there any association to the terms of the loan, especially let's say at closing, that determines how much they receive as part of that debt obligation?

If the closing documents say their debt obligation is to pay back, let's say a quarter of a million a month, and is that how what determines how much they get for their debt obligation, or can they request polls of any amount so long as it's servicing that obligation?

We we'll allocate all the tax revenue generated less authorities' retention, I'll explain that in a minute, to the to the debt service, up to the debt service, right?

Like you you can't get more than your principal interest payments.

Um in the case of bank loans, if their um if their principal interest payment for the year is 200,000, um, and the project only generates $50,000 in tax revenue, the developer is responsible for that difference to their to their bank, to their lender.

Um I said I would explain authority retention.

So if you look at our guidelines, um we have a target um retention of uh 20%, which means our goal is to retain um 20% of the tax revenue from a project and have 80% available to be applied to the debt service.

The reason uh we have retention is um those tax dollars are then pledged to the debt service on the arena bonds.

No tax revenue.

I should I should make this clear too, no tax revenue is used for our operations.

The authorities operations are funded through the rent we receive from PPL Center, the authority owns PPL Center, but we don't operate it.

It's operated by Jim and Rob Brooks, and they pay rent to the authority.

Um we also generate fees when we do a financing.

So that's how we fund our operations.

Our operations are not funded from tax dollars.

And I guess my other question associated with that is as far as the horizon, so the the time horizon for the investment.

So I know back in in 2012 and 2013, you had roughly 30 years to recoup some of this debt obligation.

What happens, or at least as part of the review, is there any consideration for the future years and whether this debt obligation is covered during the term of the NIS or Yeah, you're you're exactly right.

We can't allocate tax revenue beyond 2042.

So the there's more of a sense of urgency now for developers to utilize the program because you you're correct.

Back in 2012, you could amortize that debt over 30 years.

Now we're here in 2026, and and you know, you're only gonna get tax revenue allocated to it to 2042.

So that's that's a factor.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh go ahead, Ms.

Garlock.

Uh just how many developers have received um funding through a NISTA?

Don't know off top of my head, but I'll name them.

Um City Center, uh, the waterfront, which is the Jandles.

Um But's Corporate Center, phases two and three.

Uh the Browns who developed uh the Shones building.

Uh Sacred Heart Hospital was one of the earliest ones.

Um the America's Hotel.

Who am I forgetting?

The um the um the car places oh uh new new wild, thank you, new water lofts, right?

Uh which is now urban residential properties.

And the um the O A and B of the RB, R R B collection.

Um the Ruazi brothers uh that have the car restoration business down in front in Hamilton Street.

Um but but we we didn't we didn't fund their development project though.

That was a public improvement project side.

Right.

We funded the streetscapes around that that building.

Um but da Vinci.

Yeah.

Don't know how many that is, but I'm just rattling off off the top of my head.

I I hope I didn't forget any others.

Americans, yes.

I think you got it.

I think I got them.

Okay.

Okay.

Um sounds good.

So we'll keep moving along.

Uh number three, I think you've answered both of these.

How many years left?

Any impact on future projects.

Um, I think the last question, he pretty much addressed that regarding how much time's left.

Um, go ahead.

Just one thing associated with that.

So I guess you kind of alluded to the fact that you know, essentially a developer would be on the hook for anything beyond 2042.

Are there any expectations of a developer that receives a NISDA funding for whether that's just maintaining the property or its operation or anything that kind of keeps the developer in the city, whether that's temporarily through 2042 or beyond, I'm just curious.

Just as we get potentially new people who could be able to do that.

Well, the real estate's not gonna go anywhere, but you mean the ownership of the ownership or ever, however, that kind of benefit is maintained.

So if um if a developer were to sell a property, um our funding agreement requires them to pass on the reporting obligation to the new owner and the obligation that the owner include in any leases, the obligation that their tenants report.

So that is our effort to ensure that tax revenue generated in these projects will continue to be reported and then certified by the city and the um commonwealth, and then ultimately remitted to the escrow agent bank of New York.

Okay.

Um go ahead, Mr.

Bender.

Yeah, so just real quick.

Um, so from from a project decreasing perspective, your your anticipation is that basically incrementally year over year, this is probably going to the attractiveness to take advantage of this is gonna be decreasing as we go forward, most likely.

Is that fair?

Well, the the benefit will be of this program will be decreasing.

What we um expect will happen though, is the market forces will will prevail.

In other words, we will have created an environment that's conducive for more private investment without an incentive like this.

Okay.

That that's that's what we aspire to.

Okay.

Seeing that now.

We're seeing that now with some of the real estate.

Uh basically we're seeing um development of um housing uh without without uh the use of the news.

Yeah, an example of that is city center's project uh at the morning call site, the standard, the residential project under construction.

Uh, we didn't we didn't fund that.

Okay.

All right, sounds good.

Um number four, um, you you touched on it, but I think we can go into some more detail.

Uh the use of public improvement funds year over year and the origination of the funds, sure.

Um, where they came from.

So as I as I explained earlier, the NIS Act, we're constrained by the NIS Act.

We we have to fund, we have to use these tax dollars to apply to debt service on debt incurred to do improvements and development.

Um so in order to do the um public improvement projects, Anisda uh secured a line of credit from a bank, people's security bank and trust.

It's a 10 million dollar line of credit.

Um, and the debt on that line of credit is serviced with excess NIS revenue to the extent we have it.

I the example I showed from 2025, we made a five million dollar payment on that line of credit.

So it's a revolving line of credit.

We we run it up, we pay it down, we run it up, we pay it down, and the way we pay it down is with excess NIS revenue.

Um that's the source of funding uh public improvement projects.

To date, we've approved as I showed on an earlier slide, over 27 million dollars in public improvement projects, and they've been funded through this $10 million revolving line of credit.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Hello, that's me again.

Okay.

Um so I just had a question related to obviously the zone has grown over the over the past you know decade.

Um, and I'm I'm curious how do we look at it for long-term planning?

So clearly, excess funds have become more and more common, I think, in the past five to eight years as opposed to the first four to five.

Uh is there any consideration on long-term planning for either growing that credit line or um having projects that maybe are of a higher value and a greater community impact that you know we can kind of say, okay, maybe there are um are some debt obligations that are due to fall off in 2035, that between 2035 and 2042, there's a chance we're gonna have much more in excess funding that could be used towards public improvements.

The planning um for related to public improvements is is being driven by the city.

Um so we're open to you know talking about you know the what what the plan is and and Vicky Kissler and Mark Hardney are here, and they're frequent uh they have frequent appearances before the ANISDA board presenting these public improvement projects, and um they're welcome to chime in if they want to, but um you know we're we're we are the funder.

Um we're taking direction um from the city as to what the priorities are when it comes to public improvement projects.

If I can add um if you I was you you beat me, Tio.

I was gonna ask if you have um some future plans in the pipeline, maybe that you're able to share.

The public improvement monies have to be on city-owned public land, and they have to be um a true public improvement.

It's not programming, it's not um that type of thing.

So it's concrete, it's concrete um ramps, it's bus improvements, it's uh for bus shelters, it's benches, it's the amenities, the trees.

It's outrageously expensive, but all of that work that's been done in the NIS saved that work from the public works budget.

So normally we would be paying for that concrete, we would be paying for that thing because we own the parts of the right-of-way.

So those are the kinds of improvements that we've been putting forward through studies of where is the pavement cracked, where is there no mobility and handicapped accessibility, where do the ramps need to go?

Public works chimes in on that, we chime in on that.

Coming up will be some structural improvements along the path that the kids from central elementary school will walk every day to Da Vinci.

Right now they're being bussed, and they're being bussed because it's not really a safe crosswalk, it's not really a path that's um not uneven.

It's it's a bit of a nightmare, and it costs the school district money.

So we're hoping to get a walking path in decent weather that uh has the ramps, has the openings, those kinds of things.

So, in tandem with public works, DCED gets together as well as we take the input from the merchants and the property owners up there who say, look at this.

And often what Mark ends up doing more than I do is going in front of the ANISDA board with pictures of broken curbing, broken sidewalks, tree empty tree wells with big rotted stumps, um, uneven sidewalks that make tripping hazards that end up in lawsuits to the city.

Those kinds of things is what we take before them right now.

Um, but it has to be within the confines of the NIS, and it has to be that level of public improvement.

I don't know if that helps.

That's helpful.

I should also point out when these public improvement projects that we're considering, um, they also are reviewed in a minimum of two public meetings.

We have a public improvement committee that meets as needed in an advertised public meeting, and then they make recommendations to the full board that meets monthly in public meetings.

But you have to understand that the public improvement has to be within the NIS.

Because we can't spend the money for anything other than from within the NIS.

So that's also a restriction.

Understood.

A couple questions.

So the last meeting, you you're right.

You if you were looking for you would only see the agenda, you wouldn't see the minutes until the next meeting where they're they're approved.

How often do you often do they meet?

As needed.

Okay.

So the the board meetings are the first Wednesday of every month.

We cancel them on occasion if there's nothing requiring board action, but they're advertised in advance the first Wednesday of every month.

Okay.

The committee meetings of which there would be the project review committee, which is the committee that's reviewing the buildings, and the public improvement committee, which is reviewing the public improvements.

Um those are not scheduled in advance.

They they're scheduled as needed.

Uh and we advertise them in the morning call and we post them on our website.

So it could be you're simply looking at the most recent meeting and said, where the heck are the minutes?

I thought I went back by a couple of them, but it could have been that there has not been a meeting since then, so that might be.

Okay.

Uh we there's not a glitch.

But okay.

And then do we post those meetings on our system?

Do you know, Mike?

Okay, so there it's really unless you're unless you're looking at your website or you're reading the morning call, you wouldn't really know.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, so the other question from the standpoint, you said the city sets priorities, so every single incident that uh that's happening for public um projects is all determined by the city setting that at this point.

For the for the most part, now like I pointed out earlier.

Um the the city's not the public property owner in every case.

We have done two projects for the parking authority.

We did the we funded um the parking kiosks, um, pay stations.

Okay.

Within the NIS, not the ones outside the NIS to uh Chairman Trapp's point.

Um and then um for the Atlanta redesign at the outtown transportation center, parking authority owned the real estate there.

So the parking authority was the public property owner in that case.

Okay.

Um so and it's conceivable um the county or the state could possibly have have something.

Um those of the projects are city either city owned or in the city right away.

Okay.

So the arch that recently went up, that was the city's desire, and it was just funded through the NIS.

Correct.

Correct statement.

That is.

Okay.

Um so I guess the question that I would have then, um, and I'm I'm I'm I completely understand the um focus on the street projects and that kind of thing that that benefit looking at the NIS overlay map.

Um, there are a lot of areas outside of Hamilton Boulevard that um that I think we could all agree have a need for sidewalk improvement and that kind of stuff.

And I guess my question, maybe this is a city question is is are we going to be turning our focus more towards those?

Because that seemed to take priority over some of the recent things.

So I don't know if that's a fair question to ask, right?

Are you asking me that?

I don't mean I guess like Mark might um how about this?

Um you want to come up, Mark, and fill us in?

Sure.

So he was not in his head.

Like uh so what I would say is you know, the focus has been there it is.

All right.

So the focus has been getting Hamilton Street from 5th to 12th.

Now we're starting to look at the side streets.

Um so uh we're preparing an application for 8th Street and 9th Street uh within there, and um like the connector between the PP, the what would you call the the former PPL parking deck um out to Hamilton Street?

There's a little section there.

So yeah, the idea is that you know, within the entire NIS, you know, hopefully we'll improve all the sidewalks there.

And in the center currently, obviously, we're all seeing the center square development.

That's all being funded by the NIS as well.

We're funding a portion of it.

Okay.

And then City Center funded a portion of it, and the city has a very small portion of in it as well.

And then at the same time, the city recently published a schedule with phasing.

So at the same time, Center Square is being done, some of the streetscape improvements in the 600 and 700 block are being done as well.

And that was funded with 1.7 million dollars from the NIS.

Okay.

And I apologize.

I was trying to grab Mark before he went to what's that done.

But with respect to the projects, um, I know that the city underwent the whole 2030 plan and and a lot of these looking for community feedback on things we could do.

I know some of them are programmatic programmatic things which we couldn't be funded through this, but I guess are we looking at some of those maybe structural things or desires that residents had wanted to go towards that we could use that as prime as a potential option for some of this funding?

Um we had an extensive safe routes to schools as well as a mobility assessment, public works.

They're identifying some of the street areas, and that's why we're targeting them first over others to get those repairs done.

But for example, Center Square, um, a major public engagement activity went on through consultants that identified what residents wanted in public in the public space and what kinds of activations they want within the public space.

That was all incorporated into the design of Center Square.

We also have engaged a consultant when we brought the downtown, I know Lisa's here tonight from DAA from our downtown Allentown Alliance.

That consultant did tons of street interviews, business interviews, um, constituent interviews both in the city and folks coming into the city for events.

They walk the streets during events.

All of that public input is taken into account when we're trying to design or trying to come up with what we want to do.

But again, this is concrete money in government entity-owned space.

So it's not, I don't want to say it's not very creative.

Center Square certainly can be creative, but you understand that there's a there's other funding sources coming into center square, and the city's commitment in center square is relatively small, and most of it is through in kind like the permit fees or or things like that, that it's not a ton of just cash being put into a project.

So we do when we can, but a lot of the public improvements that we've done right now are also dictated by the ordinances that cover those improvements.

Like we have to put in handicap ramps.

We we have to put in um or we go by as Kyle's here, um, the tree recommendations for what are the appropriate trees to plant within those walk of ways that aren't going to uproot the sidewalks, that aren't going to create asthma, that aren't going to um be dirty trees.

But as they said, we also have to realize that once it's done, it's ours to maintain, and we have limited resources to maintain it.

So although there may be public input saying we'd love pocket parks here and here and here, or we'd love community gardens here and here and here, if we don't have the resources to maintain them, it limits what we can do.

So if we don't have the staff to mulch and weed, or we don't have the money to support some of that, we have to be careful what we commit to in terms of those long-term structural things that we have to plow or shovel or maintain or water or commit to.

I don't know if that helps.

Yeah, it helps.

I think what I all I would say in that belabor, but um if it's the kind of thing where community outreach is saying, hey, a pocket parking here is really really important.

I think that's it's worth bringing to try and have the discussion of say, okay, the 10-year maintenance for that is X.

If it's if it is really going to benefit the community more than maybe sidewalk replacement, and that that maybe that is something that's there's an interest in the city because it's it's benefiting a lot of people.

So I think it's it's worth evaluating versus just casting it off because it might cost um I'm not saying you're doing that just absolutely, and I can make the commitment.

This is this is a council that we've come before and said this is what everybody wants to do, here's what it's gonna cost.

Public works does that, we do that.

Um, and we have a lot of these, it's the beauty of master planning.

And although I said that we weren't getting into the whole master plan idea, we'd love to someday have a complete master plan for downtown for the whole area, not just the NIS, but the whole area of our downtown that would guide some of those future details.

But I'll be honest with you, it's been removed from the budget more than once.

So those master plans are expensive, and the community engagement with truly doing it correctly is expensive.

So when we pull all that together, it it's a cost.

And I know it would make Mark extremely happy if we had a master plan for downtown because it would dictate more easily than us constantly scrambling to say, okay, we have this much money this time, what's our priority?

Because again, as you heard, it's based on what money's available, and you don't know what money is available until you get that number, and then you kind of match your needs to that number.

So a master plan would really help.

So if if in lieu of having a master plan right now, if when you find out the 2026 number, because I guess we don't know that yet, right?

Uh I I don't know the amount of excess.

Okay.

So does that then what determines what the what the plan is, then I guess is like do residents have any input in that, or is it kind of okay, we've received X amount, we contact, and then this is just what we do.

I think because we've had a list of so many street areas in bad shape, we've been working through the list.

Okay.

And I think that's because of trip and fall risks, and that's because of safety, and that's because of again, we had a mobility study in there.

I personally it was removed, but I personally struggle with the fact that people who have limited mobility really have some challenges here.

If you think about you know where you park and how you get to events and how you get to center square and you're uphills at times, and you know, we don't we don't have that prioritization, but I think once we worked through a lot of those street issues with the pictures of all the broken sidewalk and the bus shelter that didn't have a bench or the you know, whatever, I think that it would be great if we would have more community input.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

To pick you back a little bit off of that, tying it a little bit back to a NIST that is just I think as part of getting that input and and potentially future planning.

Um two questions essentially.

The first one being the amount would as much as it's dictated by the access funding, it's also really driven by the line of credit and where we are, right?

So I think that's something where we would know kind of where we are today, correct, even though we don't maybe know the excess.

Um so uh maybe that's something we could also look into.

Um, but then the second part of that is I know there's been conversations of reallocated plots of NIS land, and so I'm just it's not necessarily on our agenda questions here of the kind of the requirements for that, but I guess my general comment would be you know, if there's an opportunity in the future, if the public need is great enough to reallocate an unused NIS plot for a major public improvement.

And I just I'm just I guess my question briefly if you can, just the the requirements for a reallocation of a plot.

Yeah, we we have formal guidelines, um, which are also posted on our website.

Um the the big picture here is we can't increase the overall size of the zone.

So if we put an acre in, we gotta take an acre out.

Um we've done that for public improvement projects.

Uh initially um heading uh on Hamilton Street um west um zone ended at 10th street.

Uh the city wanted to do streetscape improvements in the uh out to 12th Street.

Um so we needed some uh this do a swap to get just the sidewalks and crosswalks into the NIS.

Uh and we took some uh acreage out of Bucky Ball Park to do that because Buckyball Park is in the NIS, but will never be a development site.

Um so you're you're right, there is some flexibility there within certain constraints.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna move along.

Um next up, uh previous meetings, there's been a mention of either an amusement or entertainment tax.

Uh, can you elaborate on on how that would work within the NIS?

Yeah, let me preface it by saying I am not an expert on entertainment and amusement taxes, nor am I an attorney.

But what I can do is read from uh a provision in the NIS Act that speaks to uh amusement tax.

Um and I apologize in advance for reading to you, but within the NIS Act is a there's a clause that says no political subdivision or other entity authorized to collect amusement taxes, may impose or increase the rate of any tax on admissions to places of entertainment, exhibition, or amusement, or um or upon athletic events in the neighborhood improvement zone, which are not in effect on the date the neighborhood improvement zone is designated by the contracting authority.

Okay, so that's a state legislation, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Um Ms.

Garlock.

Is there also a contract between I guess it would be the Brooks Brothers and the arena that they also have a stipulation of no uh entertainment or um amusement tax in their contract?

We have a lease with them.

I don't know if it speaks to that.

Okay.

I've been told there is.

I don't know.

Yeah, they have I don't know.

Any retirement uh cool.

Thank you.

I haven't looked at that lease in ten years.

Sorry.

No problem, Mr.

Punga.

And I will admit to some ignorance in the specific verbiage of the law, but I think just an interesting kind of tidbit of the way that you read it, it just kind of alludes to admission, and I think I'd be curious to see if it's not inhibited on admission if that changes kind of the applicability of certain things.

But again, I'm ignorant to the law, so I'll have to dig into it and review some law books.

So thank you.

Say what you just said again.

And and I'm not, I don't know the law word for word, but I think the way that it was read, and and I think we have the text here.

Um it it said no fee tax that pertains to admission into any place of entertainment, etc.

etc.

etc.

But I think it was very key on the admission portion.

Yeah.

You're correct, you do have that language.

You it's in the NIS Act that you have.

Yeah, I I would imagine I I haven't looked at the lease, but I would imagine that they could not uh install uh an amusement or entertainment tax, the Brooks as part of their if they haven't already, and uh if they could they probably would.

So I uh I I don't think that they're they have the ability to do so.

Just an observation.

So thanks.

Um anyone else on that?

Uh we'll do public comment at I'm sorry, we'll do public comment at the end.

Um yeah, see if you can save that.

Um composition of your board, if you can speak to years of service, original members versus new members, backgrounds, uh racial and other demographicslash diversity, anything you can provide.

Sure.

We we we have a nine-member board.

We currently have two vacancies, so we have seven uh serving members.

Uh Mr.

Traub is our chairperson.

Um he is an original board member since um an Isda was formed in uh 2012.

Um we have one other board member who's an original board member, Pedro Torres continues to serve.

Um and he was an original um board member.

Um other board members include John Stanley, Dr.

Ann Bieber, Tiffany Pollock, Eileen Aguilera, and Steven Brininger.

Those are our seven um board members.

Um Tiffany was appointed in 2016.

John was appointed in 2017, and the three remaining board members, Steve Ann and Eileen were appointed in 2021.

Um you asked backgrounds.

Um Mr.

Traub is an attorney.

Um he's also the retired senior vice president and general counsel for St.

Luke's University Health Network.

Um he serves as the chair of our board.

John Stanley serves as the vice chair of our board.

Uh John is also an attorney, and he's the retired senior vice president and general counsel and chief administrative officer of air products.

Pedro Torres is the secretary of ANISDA.

Uh, he is uh a mortgage originator um professionally.

Of course, Dr.

Ann Bieber is the president of L Tri C.

Tiffany Pollock is the executive director of instructional leadership at the Allentown School District.

And Steve Brininger is VP of Corporate Audit at PPL Services.

Okay.

Yeah.

Our two vacancies are because Nelson Diaz, who did serve for many years, he stepped down.

And prior to Nelson Lewis Edwards, his seats the other vacancy.

Okay.

Any questions or comments regarding uh number six the board?

Go ahead, Mr.

Fender.

So, real quick, and um I know you pointed this out on your first slide for the uh the terms five, and then um when it expires, it continues on.

Um I just looking uh only because it goes through my committee, I believe all of them are expired at this point.

Correct.

Okay.

So I guess the question I would have from a board makeup perspective, um, just in looking at the meeting minutes for the last year, I think on average you just had quorum but one one minute, one meeting you had five.

So I guess from an interest level of of folks who are on who are serving on this.

I know this doesn't fall through you, but from the standpoint of the those who are recommending appointments to this since there's two vacancies and it seems like you know, intermittent um attendance.

If we could again it's not through you, but like having someone maybe that's in the center city area or the first and sixth ward that's a part of this, could at least provide some maybe understanding of some of the changes that are happening.

I mean, I know that that doesn't necessarily the zone is what the zone is, but it is impacting people's a lot of these areas.

So I think if there's a way of trying to convey that to those who are appointing, because I know it's two state reps, two state centers and the mayor.

Um I think it would be helpful at least to have someone sure focused in that area.

So and I would encourage you to share your thoughts with with those elected officials.

Um, you know, obviously these are the people I report to, so I I really not involved in their selection.

Yeah, um, but I I would I understand what you're saying.

Fair you got at what I was gonna ask.

So thank you.

Go ahead.

No, your thing.

Okay.

All right, sounds good.

So we're gonna move along.

Um you you did touch on the NIS audits at the local and state level, but if you can continue, maybe reiterate how that works.

Sure.

So I know I'm repeating myself, but I want to be absolutely clear because I hear about this all the time.

The authority has always been audited every year.

We have a financial audit done of the authority, and it's posted to our website for anyone to see.

Um what we have not done is a separate audit that is listed within the NIS Act that you all have, which is basically, and I'm paraphrasing here, is the authority is to contract with an auditor to audit the city's process of certifying the local tax revenues.

We um ran into a challenge doing so because we are also subject to confidentiality restrictions that the Commonwealth puts on the authority.

We are restricted in how we can use taxpayer information.

And uh it was determined that we could not use provide taxpayer information to the auditor for the purposes of doing that audit of the local certification process.

Um there is been some legislation proposed at the state level to address that confidentiality issue to allow us to proceed, but it it hasn't um it hasn't become law at this point.

Okay.

Uh regarding audits, any questions, uh comments?

Okay.

Okay.

So um why that um so number eight, uh, let's talk about small business turnover and success stories.

Sure.

And well, maybe I could maybe I can address both small business turnover uh and but the next one, minority business ownership at the same time.

This is data that ANISTA does not have.

Um however, I I have spoken to um a leadership at the downtown Allentown Alliance, um, the exec director.

Uh Lisa Finkelstein was here earlier, she's the executive director.

I've also talked to um Matt Melosi, who's the chair of that new organization.

Um they have already been in the process of planning on doing some data collection, and I suggested uh that turnover um and ownership maybe uh data that makes sense to collect.

Um and they they're open to that.

Um so uh I just wanted to share that with this group.

I know I know as far as turnover, Santo has a merchant downtown.

You know many of these folks, and and I know you may have some observations um regarding turnover.

I mean, yeah, obviously being here as long as I have I've seen it.

Um there's no no denying that, but I mean we all know in the restaurant industry, I mean it's a tough industry, no matter where you are.

We hear about closings all the time.

But I think um what I've seen just to quickly is you know, we downtown has found its footing when it comes to price point and and what folks want.

I think um some of the earlier um you know developments in restaurants came in, you know, not understanding the customer base, not understanding what folks really wanted here.

Um there were mistakes made, no doubt about it.

Uh, but I think the market is as it always does, it it prevails and and the market um is being followed, I think a little bit better now.

We're seeing more success with um the kinds of of places um, whether it's um you know convenience or approachability, I think they're just we're in a better place than we were before.

Um, and I'm also happy that there's a lot of um different folks, uh uh different kinds of places.

I mean, we have a lot of Middle Eastern, we have uh Latino, we have African American.

It's there's a nice blend of um places that you know of small businesses, and I think that's the one thing I'll quickly say, you know.

I think sometimes we get known for you know who owns the buildings, but really it's about all the small business owners who are just regular people that are just families and and regular people that are just running these restaurants, running these merchants and and um and making a living, just like the rest of us.

So uh there's a lot of good stories down there.

But I'm to get to I could talk about this for hours, but um I do I do like the fact that DAA will do um some collection of data because ultimately I think we all want to see and hear what's the data because like what is the percentage of ownership you know when it comes to different ethnicities and so that's something I'd be interested in seeing.

But the eyeball test, I mean there's a lot of folks down here, and there's a lot of different different kinds of people.

Go ahead, Ms.

Garlock.

Yeah, and if um if there was a way with that data to see if there's any correlation between business turnover and other identifying factors such as ethnicity, um gender, what have you, to see if there's any type of correlations between or most of the businesses that are not lasting being owned by a certain you know demographic of of person, or also beyond just demographic um types of businesses that are turning over, like a really kind of detailed deep dive, not just a we had eight restaurants and none of them lasted, no, like what type of restaurants who owned them, were they Allentown residents, were they Lia Valley residents, uh, to really kind of dive in to see what's working, what's not that would be great.

I I think also one has to remember that um when we first had some master planning of this, um the master planning experts in real estate uh identified the fact that until you got 1500 to 200 market rate rentals in the downtown area, you were not going to have essentially in a sustainable uh mass.

We are just getting to that point uh now.

So part of the problem I think that we have is an expectation uh of um uh that we were gonna be too we we got there too fast, or we we we expected too much too quickly.

Most of the redevelopment from what I understand of cities like this takes 20 years.

We've gotten there in 10 or 12 years.

Um but we have just really gotten to the point where we have uh market rate rentals to the point where the developer the master planners have said we should get to get sustainability.

The other thing is that COVID had changed a whole lot of things.

And um young people also seem to not go out and uh use restaurants.

They they seem to stay in their homes and uh and have food brought in.

Uh the the culture has changed dramatically.

So I think uh things have changed also in the way people operate.

So uh I think that the city is and uh the businesses are beginning to change to accommodate that.

And it's improving.

Um because they've they've uh developed the right part price points, they've run developed perhaps the right size sizes for what we've uh accomplished.

So I think we're going to see regular improvement uh from now on.

Okay.

And I think you make an excellent excellent point about critical mass and and you know, getting to that point.

I think that's important.

Uh Mr.

Banfer, I would also add, ask respectfully if you can include job creation in that survey.

Um I think it's important to know jobs being created, who's who's getting these jobs, who's able to benefit from all this development.

So if you can add that to the wish list, I think that'd be great.

Uh and if we could go further into that, uh, the job creation, yeah, who's getting them?

Are they Allentown residents?

Are they not?

What uh pay rate are are are they coming in at?

Um so are most of the Allentown residents getting service jobs of you know 11 bucks an hour, and most of the non-allentown residents are getting the more of the managerial and kind of higher paid jobs, uh a deep dive.

Again, not just surface.

That'd be great.

Yeah, I be uh I I'm glad to pass this on to DAA.

I I do need to make sure you understand I'm on the board of the downtown Allentown line, so I can't speak for them.

Uh I'll make this request of them.

Um city has representation on their board.

Um so you know, uh the the city I I would hope is communicate in direct communications with DAA.

Um we're providing some uh funding for uh the alliance's marketing efforts.

Um we took it out of our marketing budget and we provided it 150,000 to DAA for marketing, but I'm not involved in the management of that organization.

Maybe Vicky wants to speak to that.

We can certainly make your survey requests known to DAA.

However, it's going to be voluntary from the businesses to be willing to provide that information to DAA.

Plus, I just want to share a couple little snippets about how hard the deep dive is, because believe me, we know that council has wanted some data and we would love to obtain some data.

But just again today, because of the struggle we have with property ownership, we verified again with another legal opinion about the definitions of LLCs.

Many, when they start any type of business, are encouraged to be an LLC.

We can't even figure out who runs an LLC or who's in the LLC, and we can't ask for that identification.

They don't have to provide that to us.

So we can't tell whether in the city a property owner could be LLC Christian, LLC Santo, LLC Jeremy, as they're listed, and that's all the same person.

That's just what they've named their LLCs.

Also in the deep dive, it's very hard in the causal effect in these deep dives to determine what really made the establishment have a challenge.

The average restaurant needs six months of capital in the bank to survive.

Most of our small mom and pop restaurants, whether they be Latino, African, Middle Eastern, whatever, don't have it.

So they they hit a snag, they hit a low month, they hit a month like we had in the winter with all of the ice storms and all of the snowstorms, and they're not delivering that day, or their staff can't come in that day.

They they're very, very vulnerable.

And most of the people who are coming in to Dan Diaz and Mike Alcohol and saying I want to start my business and I want to have my business on Hamilton are are extremely vulnerable.

One of their delivery vans goes down.

One of their employees that's key quits.

They're only Spanish speaking employee quits, whatever it might be.

So I don't want to promise that it's going to be clear that we're losing Latino businesses or we're losing Middle Eastern businesses or we're losing women-owned businesses for all the same reason.

That's because they're a woman-owned or because they're a Latino owned, it's a myriad of effects that are affecting these businesses.

And I don't know, it might be worth counsel to have some type of a focus group with businesses that have made it and businesses that have not made it.

And and deep dive actually into what their experience has been that provides the challenge.

But to truly have data that says this business went under because of this is going to be difficult.

The other thing is about the sharing of tax information.

The city couldn't tell us as internal staff how far you were behind in your taxes.

They could just tell us don't give the license they're behind in their taxes.

Because that's how strict the law is about toxic talking about tax data that our own departments couldn't share it with us.

So it's such a strict, tight data information set by law that it does make the sharing of any of that kind of information difficult.

So I just wanted to share that with you.

Not that this is not able to be done, but DIA is going to have some challenges.

I think giving you exactly what you want, especially given that right now I think they have one employee and three ambassadors.

But I do think we can take your request to them.

Okay, thank you.

Um Mr.

Pungo, go ahead.

Just one thing.

Kind of tying into that, you know, just the business environment and the challenge.

I think I'm curious as far as small business, minority of business, any types of businesses that are opening in the NIS.

What kind of level of availability of funds are there for these folks who are starting their business?

I mean, is I know you can't really use these funds for maintenance and operations, but if let's say there's a fit out for a new business that wants to get started, and you know, this business has to take a small business loan to cover setting up and fitting out their space within an existing building that's under the NIS property.

Is there any recourse for them to get assistance or is it through the property owner?

We we could there's no prohibition from us doing that.

The the what they're gonna have to be able to do is borrow.

Um generate sufficient tax revenue that there is a benefit to them, right?

Like some some one of the challenges is a small retail business, you know, maybe has one full-time um employee and a couple part-timers, you know, not generating a lot of payroll withholding.

Um, depending on what they're selling, they may or may not be generating a significant amount of Pennsylvania sales tax, right?

If you're selling clothing, not so much, or groceries, not so much.

Um, so it it the answer to your question is it it depends.

Um the other issue too is we require prevailing wage, right?

So um sometimes we'll talk to all comers, but sometimes you get you try to get the project to pencil, and it's it's it's a small construction project, and um prevailing wage increases the cost to the point where you the benefit out, you know, doesn't outweigh the cost.

So it's it's not a hard no.

I'm just telling you there's challenges associated with it.

Unfortunately, this isn't this program is not really geared to facilitate small business.

It really is more or less uh geared toward re redevelopment and in larger group larger uh in the larger redevelopment area.

And that and that's why you you're seeing the the type of uh redevelopment that has occurred.

Absolutely it's frank because it is it's it's a tip on steroids.

Absolutely, no, and I and I appreciate that.

It's a and I strictly asked just so folks who may have those questions can know.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Bender, go ahead.

Yeah, so this is from a development standpoint, and I guess marketing the program standpoint.

Um I know in in downtown areas here or downtarian area, um, you know, one of the challenges we're having as we increase population, we're having challeng more and more challenges from a parking perspective, and having more and more things walkable is important.

Um, though I know a smaller restaurant or smaller um uh store is gonna be ill to your point, is it maybe a little bit more challenging to take advantage of this.

But do you know, has there been an has there been an attempt to maybe outreach to I'm thinking of a larger grocery store or something that we have that we can get a point of presence in this area that's walkable that could take advantage of that that might not know about it?

The short answer is yes, there have there have been efforts in that area.

Uh um and obviously there hasn't been any success yet.

That doesn't mean folks aren't gonna keep trying.

Um, the the food business, the grocery business is a very tight margin business.

So they're gonna be very cautious in their site selection.

Uh and we we haven't had success yet.

Okay.

Um so in the um, I just want to maybe a point of clarification in terms of um the types of businesses, large and small that the NIS is kind of designed for in the um the um handout that is provided to the businesses.

I think it's from 2025, yes, 2025.

It says NIS benefits to your business.

So would so that would be more so for like larger corporations, not necessarily small and mo mom and pops, from what I'm hearing.

Well, well, no, a small business tenant does benefit indirectly from the NIS, right?

So they're occupying space that wouldn't exist but for the NIS.

So you know, there's an opportunity to uh occupy space in a uh brand new building or a recently renovated building uh that you wouldn't have otherwise, um, and perhaps at either a lower rent than you would have or um at market rent, but uh at with a level of finish that you wouldn't have otherwise.

What we're talking about CC is it's not geared toward a small business coming in with two employees or such and creating a redevelopment project.

It's not it's not geared to that because they don't generate enough taxes.

It's it's the taxes that so how does the news benefit small businesses if it's not geared towards them?

Because they they benefit from the fact that there is general business being developed all around them.

So they exist as they can start a restaurant, they can start a business, they can do all kinds of things that are that occur in a in a vibrant economy.

But you would also benefit the.

Well, they're not they're not creating they're not creating a new new building.

Thank you.

I think um I need to add that the NIS itself may not be the tool for that small business, but we have those tools.

We have the city's revolving loan fund at AEDC, we have the retail mosaic, and we have the Spark program to provide mentorship on four different levels, and we do not have small businesses taking advantage of that.

And one of the reasons why many small businesses don't take advantage of that is because they're exactly what he's saying.

They're a three-person business.

Now, he's right, that three-person business is going into a newly renovated building.

So they're not having electrical issues when they're trying to operate.

They're not having chipped floors and a bad um a bad image for a restaurant.

They're having a clean, beautiful space that it that draws you in, nice windows, nice floors, nice streetscape out in front.

So that's helping them.

But when they only have their three people, and they have to apply for a revolving loan fund, and they have to do a monthly report, and they have to meet with a mentor on marketing and on uh how to get a menu that's enticing, or we have assistance for them in developing their website.

They're they're not taking advantage of that.

It's it's driving all of us in DCED crazy.

That you go on a menu of one of our recent pop-ups, and you go on their menu online and you can't tell what they're selling.

You know that a very large number of people use open table when they decide they're going out tonight and they want to see where they can get in, they go into a restaurant on open table.

We don't have a lot of restaurants that want open table because they don't want to computerize their business.

They want to stay with the little hand pad and the little drawn order or the order in their head, and they don't want to invest in the system, even though we're giving them the opportunity to invest in the system, and we're willing to help them pay for it.

So we have that kind of disconnect between the business that comes in that's tech savvy, that wants those things, that needs that bigger space that generates that tax income to the little guy who kind of wants to do what they've always done in a newer, better space.

So the the NIS helps them in that way because the parking is better, the building is better, the atmosphere is cleaner.

Ideally, we'll have more foot traffic for them, hopefully soon, with DAA and with this type of a thing, but they're not the big gun in the development project that gets that true development benefit that the NIS came in for.

I don't know if that helps clarify, but we'll go in order.

Right to left.

Go ahead, Ms.

Alba.

All right, yeah.

Did you want me or that?

Uh no, I just want to make a statement.

Uh I agree with Mr.

Traub and uh Ms.

Kissler, I own the small business, and thinking that you're going on Hamble Street or that NISDA is the place to be, the small business is not no, it's not the advantage to be in these places.

Uh whether you're in Brooklyn, Manhattan or whatever, sometimes the best businesses are outside of that community.

Small businesses where I was on 12th and Shoe, and I was in for 40 years, but NISDA came in when I had my business near the end of my business.

I would have never moved into that area.

And I agree with Ms.

Kessler, you have to um being a small business, you do only just want the pads and the this and that.

I didn't even have credit cards at one point.

And people think, oh, I'll be on Hamilton Street, I'm gonna it it doesn't always work that way.

If you make a small business and you do it the right way, you could have it almost anywhere.

And some of the best places are on Turner or someplace on Chew Street.

The the place across the street used to be Louie's.

That that place is doing phenomenal business.

I can't remember the name of it now.

He wouldn't do as well on Hamilton Street as he's doing on 12 and 2.

Well, and so if I can in this in downtown Allentown isn't always an advantage, especially if you're a small business.

The little ones who have moved on in the restaurant industry onto Hamilton that are successful, chances are they've grown their business before they've taken on that rent, or before they've purchased that building, or before they've got that space.

So they've got experience.

Now, what we do have is we do have companies within the NIS, like City Center, who has worked with us extensively to offer pop-ups free space.

Right now, in a city center pop-up space, you have to pay the $4.50 that the state requires for your business license.

We can't waive that.

And you have to pay the $35 that the city requires for your business license.

But if you're willing to move into one of those pop-up spaces for six months to pilot your business, you don't pay anything else in terms of fees.

And you get your six months under the guidance of all the programs we talked about to try your business out.

And if your pop-up works and you see that it's working, then you can pretty much pick the space where you think it will work best.

Some of them stay in the city, others decide this is too much work and this is too hard, and there's no way that I can do this, it's too seasonal, it's too whatever, and others move outside the city.

But that pop-up experience gives them that opportunity.

And when you hear next week's proposal and you hear AEDC explain about how the city can get you through AEDC into an incubator program that grows your business large enough and stabilizes your business large enough to move into a higher price rental area like the NIS, you see how that can like that how that works.

They right now have one man who's running his winery, and that man has now gotten his wine into Wegmans, and that man is now going to expand his business and hopefully soon move out of the incubator and have a full-blown business.

We had a guy with three employees who produced plastic widgets, and he during COVID, nobody else was producing plastic widgets, and he hit huge orders, and he now has a place with us on Sumner Avenue and 150 employees, but we incubated them first before we stuck them into an environment where we said just fly and you know become big business.

So sometimes we have to go that route with the smaller business before they can jump into a bigger venue.

Okay, Ms.

Garlack.

Oh no, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Oh no, I thank you.

I've I think very quickly, um, it depends on the merchant, Ms.

Garlack.

So, like for instance, if you're like I don't benefit from the NIS.

The clothing and footwear is not taxed.

So I don't have any revenue that's gonna help lower my rent.

But to answer your question, the rents for some merchants are lower on Hamilton Street because they're throwing a lot of tax revenue that helps enables them to lower their rent with their landlord.

So it's not per perfect system.

Again, I can't benefit from it, but there are some people that are.

I mean, look at amigos.

Places crushing it.

Um, there are places like that, crushing it.

Like there, there are places that are doing really well, savvy operators, they just they understand the market, they figured it out, and some aren't doing well, and that's you know, I think that could be said in any area that you know, some operators just aren't gonna make it.

Um, but um, but I hope that helps you understand that the rents, the benefit is that if you're a business with payroll taxes and taxable products and services, that that will lower your rent versus being somewhere else where you don't have that.

Okay, no, I mean, and I only kind of asked this because I found when I heard that, I just that's I've never heard that statement before about the NIS not so much being for the smaller businesses, and so especially since small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and we're pouring billions of dollars into an area that's not necessarily designed for small businesses.

I think I just found it interesting.

Yeah, I think uh from a redevelopment perspective, uh yes, it's not designed for small, like I I can't do a project, I'm just not big enough.

But on the ground floors of the merchants, those are all small businesses.

Um go ahead.

I would also ask you, you know, as a small business owner, have you benefited from the new residents that have come downtown?

All of the new workers, like how many of those people shop with you, like that's the the small business benefit is indirect.

But we have a cap we have a captive audience, and that's and that's what helps me survive.

I mean, listen, I've been here for forever, 14 years in my my uh current location, but um having a captive audience, you know, all these folks that work down here, all the folks that live down here, they're all within three blocks of of my business.

So there is a benefit to uh to that versus being somewhere else.

And and very quickly to Miss Alpha's point, it's not for everyone.

I mean, there's some people want to be out in the outskirts, it's fine.

I mean, to each are you know there's a place for everyone, but uh there are a lot of success stories currently happening um on Hamilton.

So um we're gonna move along.

Trying to clarify the the it's not small business for redevelopment.

It's uh of a project.

That's why you have center cities doing things like that.

What you do have is the benefit of small business through the indirect, as as Mark is pointing out.

You when you have large development like this, you have a lot of small businesses benefiting from the fact that you've got an urban center that is yielding jobs and business, and most of those businesses are small business, restaurants and others, shopkeepers.

So it is beneficial to small business, but not our program is not our program is redevelopment, and that is not geared toward small business necessarily because it's based on tax generation.

That's what I'm trying to explain to you.

Okay.

Um we're gonna uh wrap up a number 10.

Um last is assessment of the goals in the 2025 and NISD info packet and how they've been achieved, and if you have any data to um support.

So I I think we've already talked about this.

So we have the assessment at 10 years in um done by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, which has a lot of good data in it.

Um that's not to say there's not more to work to be done than we have until 2042 to continue making progress.

Um so I I would I would encourage you to um if you hadn't previously um to take a deep dive into that document.

Um I think you'll find it enlightening.

Um but you know, I'm not sitting here claiming uh mission accomplished.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, you know what?

I'm putting on pause.

Just for public comment, maybe, you know, I just want to make sure we get public comment and we're gonna come back around and do communication.

Um so we are, I just want to encourage anyone from the public if you would like to speak.

I know Mr.

Jennings, you were looking to speak earlier.

Um yeah, come on up.

Floor is yours.

Let me turn the mic on.

Hi, I'm Alan Jennings.

This is the first time I've been here since the new members of the council were uh elected.

I want to welcome you to the Dais.

Um I'm a uh retired executive director of the community action committee.

We have ally, but uh I'm uh also a board member of the redevelopment authority of the city and city of Allentown.

Um and um I um I want I'm a founding board member of the of the NIS, and I'm an unrepentant uh advocate of it.

I think it has been an outstanding uh resource for the city.

I think Pat Brown did heroic legislative work in pulling it off, and I think JB Riley, I don't think there's a I I heard once heard Wells Fargo executive say that JB Riley may be the greatest developer in this country, and we got lucky to have him.

I don't know if anybody else could have pulled off what he's pulled off.

Um I do want to uh offer a couple of uh disappointments.

Um is that um I think it's it's disappointing that the riverfront hasn't taken better hold.

Most of this conversation has been about the downtown.

Um secondly, I it's disappointing that there hasn't been more organic walking of capital across the street.

Um, you know, there's been you know very little new development that's occurred literally across the street from any of the NIS subsidized projects.

Um the the arena box office has been too low.

I it's just it's a great resource, and there's just not been enough box office transactions at the arena.

I'm disappointed that suburbanites still find excuses to not come downtown, and there's only one word that I can think of to use in uh justifying it, and uh that is the R word.

And people get mad at me for using it, but uh also I'll just you know what I mean.

Um when I was on the board, my primary interest was in um trying to find a way to skim money off of the NIS into the neighborhoods.

And uh my primary uh opponent was the guy sitting over there, Cy Chop.

And so I want to offer a couple of recommendations.

One is that I think this the city council ought to capture some portion of the of the increased tax base that's coming out of the NIS for affordable housing and improving the housing stock around the collar of the NIS.

Um, you know, you this is you heard the numbers, it was tens of millions of dollars, and I think you ought to set by ordinance and make it very clear to the guy up on the top floor that you want money to go into housing, and this is an appropriate place.

I never could find a way to to get that money out of here, and Sai kept beating me at it anyway.

Every time I proposed something, he opposed it.

And he always won all those debates.

But now that you've got that expanded tax base, you ought to claim a part of it uh specifically for affordable housing downtown.

Um I also would recommend that you that you set the 10% uh the requirement that 10% of the units go for low to moderate income.

So I I distinctly remember it was 1,200 units, not 2,000 units every time we meet.

I think we have a higher number that's out of reach.

And um, so and then next I want to also say that with all due respect to Cy Trap, who except when he disagreed with me, was an outstanding president of the of the uh of the board, but good governance dictates that there be limited terms of leadership, and and again, without being a critical of SI, it wouldn't matter who it was that was the chairman.

I think you you you need to have uh term limits in in the leadership.

Um and then finally, I think um the arts are being starved in Allentown.

We need to do better by the arts, and I think we ought to try to convince the arena to add like a dollar to their box office transactions.

Nobody's gonna, you know, wants to go pay 150 dollars to see Alton John is gonna reject buying a ticket because the ticket was 151 dollars.

And you could you could take that dollar for every real every box office transaction and put it into improving the arts for the regular folks, um, and and including the kids.

So that's my those are my thoughts.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to offer some comments, and I'm guessing you want to get out of here, you don't want to have any questions, but thanks again.

Thank you for uh those comments.

Um and any other public comment from okay.

Um so Mr.

Brender, you had another uh topic that it's yeah, just real briefly from the communications perspective.

Um and I'm only saying this is someone I've lived here for some period of time.

Um the I think if you were to pull most people, I think that you presented a ton of successful uh stories.

You know, I'm I've read through a lot of this literature, and it's it's you know, you can you can see a lot of the the benefits of that kind of stuff.

I think if you were to pull most Allentown residents, they don't have a positive opinion of of the NIS, and I think it's mainly because of communication.

Um so I'm not saying that anyone specific is doing anything wrong, but I guess what I'm looking at is I know you guys presented in 2021, I think was the last time to council.

Um and I'm not saying more frequently is gonna make a difference, but um, I think if there is a way you could structure that presentation when you hit your website to kind of maybe solidify the the the process and and and really drill in how much is this impacting the school district, how much is impacting the city and that kind of thing a little bit more succinctly, it might help residents who are looking at this saying, what is this thing?

It's just going to developers or all of the things other people are you know that float about that can help combat that um and and those those successes could maybe be um be trumpet a little more.

Um and I think the other thing which which I just would say with the meeting agendas, I don't know if it's something that we can work with on our um scheduling system, but on meetings that are kind of happen at random, it would really be helpful if that could be more published in it in the digital formats that are out there.

Um since we have a calendar that runs on it, and I think this serves as kind of a authority or committee that's that's in the city, it would be great if that could be at least scheduled through so it would show up.

Um, and I don't know if that's possible or not, but um just basically just saying communication I think would be really really helpful.

Um, you know, listing who's on the committees, because I didn't see that.

Um, and maybe just bios of everyone.

I don't think I saw that either.

Um that was there?

Okay, I may miss that, so I apologize.

I think they need to be updated.

Okay, all right.

So that's it.

And you have to click.

So like go have the name so when you when you click, it opens it up and gives you a bio.

Okay.

Um so yeah, I'd a claw I I figured, yeah.

Yeah, so just communication.

I think maybe we can structure a little bit better and you know, help help otherwise.

I I don't disagree with with much of what you're saying.

Just so you understand, we're we're staff of two.

Um it's me and one other person.

So um we do the best we can with uh what we have, but we can I'm sure we can do better.

Yeah, I mean, you want to tell you you always want to tell your success stories.

I mean, we look at like how the how does a community benefit.

I mean, you look at this um you know, community services for children on Sixth and Linden.

I mean, that's a tremendous asset for the community where folks are their children can go there and and have an opportunity to uh to get a head start on learning.

That was I believe in his uh initiative, right?

Sure.

We've the former morning, you're talking about the repurposing of the former morning call building.

So there's uh several not-for-profit service providers in there, including early uh childhood education and community health center.

Yep.

So I mean, like those are the to Mr.

Binder's point, like we need to be communicating more of that because that's these are tremendous assets to the city that uh do benefit others.

I think the big one is the tax revenue.

I mean, when you look at um what the school district was collecting pre-NIS and what it's collecting um now, according to Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, they only went to 2023, but it's uh it's a significant five million dollars.

Uh as of three years ago.

I know that's increased since then, but my point is all these all this development has is bringing revenue into the school district, and last time I checked, there's no kids down here.

So um, so it's an opportunity for the school district to use that money for whatever they wish, and that's a benefit to the community.

It's just indirect, and I think it's hard for we have to communicate that more.

Yeah, I I agree.

We can communicate more.

This body could also help in that department.

Um, you guys have a terrific bully pulpit here.

And um, you know, sometimes we feel as if um uh you we should be we don't hear a whole lot of um way to go coming out of um this group sometimes.

Like we feel like uh sometimes you feel it's like the NIS is something that's being done to you instead of with you.

We're supposed to be partners in all this.

Uh we view you as partners.

Um and uh we have a great working relationship with city staff.

Um we're in constant contact with the folks in in community development community and economic development and planning, and um it would be helpful um because you you you guys get people's attention and it would be helpful if you helped us tell our story because I agree with you.

Um, because you you you guys get people's attention and it would be helpful if you helped us tell our story because I agree with you.

It's um we have we have a great story to tell, and we all need to do our part in in getting the word out.

Um we that's part of the reason um because we're laser focused on finance.

You know, we we the authority was formed under the economic development financing law.

We're we're financing authority, and that's what we do well.

Um we had a marketing, we have a marketing budget, and that's why rather than us use it, we use that to help get DAA off the ground and the understanding that the funds that we provided to 150,000 is to be used for marketing and promotion of the downtown.

Um so uh that's not in our sweet spot.

Um so anything that you folks can do to help promote it would be much appreciated.

Okay.

And tonight's first up, I mean, to kind of bridge that gap.

Um I see we're all to the edge of our seats.

I just had one quick question because um my mom has texted me 20 times, where are you?

So, like I get it.

Um, so I'm going back to the Goodyear Clancy study back in 2014, and it says that um it says that at the in its own page, not that you're gonna look this up right now, but on page 66, at these forecasts capture rates, a total um of between 235 and 285 new workforce dash affordable housing units could be supported in the study area than is over the next five years.

So that would have been 2019.

Um that would have been based on the development of between 1020 and 1,245 market rate um units, and I see that one of the benefits that stated um of the NIS is that there is a range of housing options.

Would you say that that goal for affordable housing and workforce units has been met?

Well what we're seeing as far as affordable affordable housing projects, we're seeing them uh just outside the NIS.

So the project, what's Jonathan Strauss's project called?

So yeah, you have both of them.

Yeah.

So we're we're seeing we're seeing these projects pop up oftentimes just outside the boundary of the NIS.

I guess I would say five years though from 2014 to 2019.

Did we see that?

Or it was it was forecast, it said forecasted for the five years.

The old hotel at 9th Street has affordable units, some affordable units.

Um but we have a challenge with meeting that, and part of the challenge is something that he talked about with prevailing wage.

So we do need to do a better job, and that's one of the reasons why we changed zoning to have the incentives in zoning.

And now we do have a developer who has purchased a building on Hamilton directly on Hamilton in the NIS, who is using his 20% in affordable units, and we're hoping that we're going to see more of them.

One of the challenges that we also have is that folks who own the properties in the NIS want to sell those properties way above any amount of money that any normal development company would ever pay to build in the NIS.

And that's why we have vacancy among the NIS, because we have building owners holding those businesses and putting six million dollars, nine million dollars, ten million dollar price tags on vacant buildings.

We're stuck with that, and we're trying to encourage them because we do have developers right now.

We're working with three of them who are building affordable units, more affordable units than I've ever seen in development in my four years that I'm here, who would love to be building on Hamilton.

But the property owners on Hamilton and their individual owners, they're not necessarily one is collective, but the rest of them are individual, want so much money for that building that the developers who desperately want to use that incentive aren't willing to pay that for the building.

So we have a catch 22 kind of thing going in those buildings, but those same developers, we have 66 units that are coming into play right now because of the new zoning code at scattered sites.

But for example, we have others who don't want any of our HUD money, and they don't want any of our um federal funds that come to them in any way.

Because between the BABA restrictions that have changed and the prevailing wage requirement, it makes building affordable and attainable.

So if they have to pay a fortune to get a building, and they have to meet those two requirements, they don't get their rate rate of return.

So we're working on it.

We've got a developer now.

He finally snagged a building, and it's starting, but it's slow.

And until we can ease some of those BABA restrictions, until they can find a way around prevailing wage if they can, that means not taking any money from anyone.

It's going to be tough to build affordable housing anywhere, much less in those buildings that they want way too much money for.

But we're trying.

Are you guys good?

We're good.

Cool.

I always check with our controller.

Any comments?

I'm good.

You're good?

All right.

So um well, thanks everyone.

We appreciate uh your time tonight.

And um, it was very informative, and um hope to keep uh connecting with you uh down the road on all things downtown.

So thank you, everyone.

I'll adjourn this meeting.

Thank you for having me.