Okay.

We're going to go ahead and call the afternoon session back to order.

We're going to move on down to three point one.

Marty.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

And Council.

Marty Weeder, executive director of the Arlington Economic Development Corporation.

I've got Dus Garcia here with me, and I'm going to speak kind of for Big A.

Several things, a couple of different different items on behalf of both of us, but he's going to be here with me to respond to any questions if you've got any.

And our staff lifted listed there to the right, and a new piece that Teresa Burnett and Kristen Wagner put together, showing the working together piece.

And related to weekend we do.

And so you're able to see a picture on the far bottom right hand corner of all the team as it was a kind of a snapshot that we took over at Spark, I believe it was last summer, with the team that was in place at that time.

And that that involved, by the way, as you see with the staff, a lot of the folks that we've got involved from the finance department from the city attorney's office, and as well from the Office of Strategic Initiatives.

And as we did previously, we did want to make sure to include the the awards, the rankings for the city and specific to, as you might imagine, economic development related uh matters that uh cause people to want to stop and look at this.

And as I was telling Lindsay, as I was showing this to her before we got started while we were in the break here.

This is both a reporting document, but it's really a marketing document, too.

I'm uh I'm speaking to a couple of different groups in the coming weeks, and I'm gonna make sure and hand this to them.

It's a good summary of the things that took place in 2025, and I think it gives us a great opportunity to remind everybody as well of the demographics of the city.

Now, granted, this was based on what was published in 2024.

Lindsay was reminding me the Census Bureau just released new numbers a week or two ago in January.

So we couldn't, we didn't have time to include that to get it published or get it printed up.

Uh so that'll be included next year.

But we always want to remind people too of the uh of what we look like in the way of our census.

The the metrics for the year are included, and you're gonna hear about some of this in a moment too, because we're gonna do the grow our economy update for you.

Uh, but this will give you a full picture of fiscal year 2025.

Uh, and certainly good to see that what's been committed to projects, some of the efforts we've been doing, both in Gus's team and and I and the one I work with, as well as all the other departments that are part of that economic development team, as Trey likes to say, economic development is a team sport, and uh that reflects that.

We uh we amended this a little bit just to show, certainly we wanted to include within with the strategic plan the fact for those who weren't aware that we did uh have do a bond sale for the first time in the history of the economic development corporation, got an excellent number based on the city's financial strength.

But we don't think that should be missed out by anybody who's contemplating investing with the city.

They need to see that too, that uh that we've got an excellent rating, and I think that played into uh why we were able to get under construction in such a smooth fashion uh when it came to eSpace.

And in a moment we'll show you eSpace in particular.

Some of the things that we've introduced this past year, we wanted to talk about was the Arlington Development Network, the DevNet event.

We had our first one uh iced out a week or two ago.

We're getting ready to have another one in in uh February, early February, but uh or late February, but now uh we can get together with the theater and bring the development community together and talk about topics.

We also, there's those pictures I promise you can see the entrance in and the offices for the economic development corporation up on the third floor uh of Choctaw Stadium, and we love being there and certainly teaming up with the convention and visitors bureau beside us.

And then just a couple of other things related to EDC specific programs.

Part of that effort that you all agreed to put in place with exchange of funds, for instance, that we put in to help with uh wastewater uh line replacement for Main Street, and there were dollars that came back.

Some of the things that we do specific to small businesses.

I'm thrilled that Hayden uh Blackburn of our staff was able to restart the Strategic Solutions Fund.

Uh we'll tell you about in our subsequent presentation about some applications.

We're thrilled we're getting those contracts for applications for grants to manufacturers.

So we're seeing real enthusiasm with that.

Glad he restarted that to see the new industry-specific small business cohorts.

Kay Brown Patrick brought them to you a few weeks ago, I think, for a proclamation presentation and recognition.

And then we celebrate that we received, you received really an IEDC International Economic Development Corporation award for that innovative financing that we just described.

Uh, and it tied into the buy down program too.

They really liked the fact that you were willing to work with Lyft Fund to provide another source of zero interest rate financing for small business owners who had applied somewhere and didn't receive funding.

So we provided another alternative.

And then, of course, this is inside your piece, a two-page spread.

A number of you were there that day when we broke ground what's shown on the cover.

Uh, we're able to illustrate a little bit more of the site, the site plan, the jobs, the uh the salaries it'll generate and the benefits it brings to the city.

And uh, we look forward certainly to bringing updates for this after this year.

It'll be nearing completion at that point.

And then the the individual projects.

Uh the uh the a project, Benton Plaza that really involved both of our teams, and that's the case with a number of these.

We might be working with somebody, and then we realize, as we've talked about, it doesn't fit as an EDC under the state law.

So we'll go to Gus and his team, and they're able to see whether it fits in a TURS, perhaps.

Oh, there's another funding way.

Well, uh, much the same way.

The Benton Plaza had been something we kind of both work with, but they had primarily, and it qualified for EDC financing, and it's proceeding.

The Texas Trust Credit Union had headquarters.