Getting settled in, so we can go ahead and start our work session.

Um, and all of us are present.

So I think we'll just go ahead and start with our city hall check-in.

Good afternoon, Mary and Council.

Matt Stewart with real estate and housing.

Tonight we're going to discuss uh the future city hall development and the highest and best use analysis that you had asked us to do when we met back in November of last year.

I'm joined tonight by Katie Brooks, our economic development officer, and in person I have Garrett Rapsilver and Colin.

I'm sorry.

Will Quinn with Cone Resnik and HNRA.

And then online we have Lester Cow, uh, Benjamin Cole, and Noemi Plaza with our other consultant groups.

So they'll be chiming in if there's any questions that come up.

So just be on the lookout for them chiming in as well.

Purpose of tonight's is really to review the findings of the highest and best use analysis, kind of narrow down the list of properties we'd like to evaluate as a future city hall site, and then identify kind of next steps.

So we've sort of proposed kind of a five-year work plan, and we'd like to go up through those steps and kind of get direction from council tonight to want to proceed.

So I'll give a brief history and background of our facilities to date and where we were with the process.

I'll talk about the space needs and how we sort of set the parameters for how we wanted to model this.

I'll hand it over to Katie to kind of walk through some of our economic prosperity goals and the takeaways that we're hoping to achieve with this process, and then I'll hand over to Garrett to talk through the highest and best use analysis, and then staff will bring it back to kind of overlay our recommendation and walk through those next steps before handing over to council for some future discussion.

I'll pause at kind of each rate for each of these.

So if there's discussion related or questions related to what we just reviewed, we can take in a few minutes to kind of walk through that.

So as part of our history and background.

So the building we're in today was constructed in 1990.

At the time, we had just over 25,000 people.

Uh or I'm sorry, the buildings over just over 25,000.

Our population was just under 30,000.

Over the years, we've acquired the rest of the buildings on the block except for the dry cleaner at the very corner.

So those buildings have all totaled about 18,000 feet as part of our annexes here on this block.

We've also been leasing the building across the street, the Wall Street Annex since 2014.

That's about 15,000 square feet.

So in total, our assets here downtown that we use in uh as part of our operational administration role is just about 60,000 feet.

Usable for office space is about 50,000.

So that's where we're at today.

Kind of pre-COVID, about 10 years ago, we started doing a lot of our space programming.

So that included both our public works, our city hall, and our police.

So in 2015, we updated our downtown program report for city hall.

At the time we had 185 employees, and we looked at what a build-out of a new facility would look like in 2050.

At that time, it recommended evaluating something around the 85,000 square feet mark.

A few years later, uh, based on uh us relocating transportation, our other public works up for utility departments to public works campus, we did a master plan for PD, which looked at them expanding into 15th Street and the transportation building there as well.

Um and that looked at a build out for 2040, and at the time we had about 135 officers on staff.

In 2020, 2021, we began the city hall search site for this location.

Uh this was at the direction of council, and we went ahead and moved forward with a proposal for advisory services with Cushman and Wakefield.

We evaluated a variety of sites in around Bend that was based on that 2015 program report.

We really sort of narrowed it down and focused on the core area and the Bend Central District.

Uh as part of that, what came in out of that is focusing on the properties in and around the former Rainbow Motel.

Uh there on Franklin Greeley for second street was sort of the focus.

And it also kind of evaluated what a joint venture or P3 would look like.

So introducing that kind of topic as part of our development scheme.

In 24 and 25, we completed acquisition based on those recommendations.

So to date, we've acquired about 3.2 acres on two uh pieces of property, two acres continuous around the former Rainbow Motel, which is now the Franklin shelter that we currently are in partnership with.

And then we have a one roughly one-acre, 1.2-acre site that is the former uh gas depot there on First Street and Hawthorne.

At the same time, in that time frame, we went ahead and updated our program report to kind of adjust with because with COVID, we started experiencing different growth than we originally anticipated out of that 2015 report.

That looked like a bail-out for 2060.

And at that time, it was recommending a much larger facility at 134,000 square feet.

And as we met with council, we moved forward with bringing in the consultant team to kind of evaluate how do we move forward with potentially building that city hall and what would that would cost.

In November, we came with you with those kind of results.

What kind of came out of that was the cut very the cost, which was a little bit out of our range to go ahead and move forward with 134,000 square foot site.

Based on council's direction, we really we asked to kind of expand our evaluation of properties and look at what we own in general here within the city limits.

That included downtown, the properties we own in the Bent Central District, and at 15th Street.

And as part of that, council asked that we sort of evaluate all those properties around this highest best use analysis.

So looking at what the opportunity cost is, development potential of each site, and then what is the public benefit that each site could offer with or without a city hall in it.

We also asked us to kind of look at what the impact would be if if development occurred beyond our limits here in downtown.

So we also looked at the downtown extender version, which looks at kind of the surface parking lots in and around here.

So the service parking lot with schools as well as kind of Troy Field and the service parking lot there.

So what could happen in downtown if those properties were also able to redevelop and what would kind of that impact be.

And so I showed this graph last November, but this kind of tracks where we're at in terms of our space and our our uh employee population.

It assumes a 2% growth.

I can say right now, like as we go these next few years that might be down a little bit.

By using that kind of metric of a 2% growth, the key thing that we're looking at is wanting to secure a building sometime around 2038 to 2040.

We definitely need a new space that is about 85,000 square feet in size.

So that is kind of where we focus this highest and best use analysis and study is we use that as our kind of barometer for where we needed to reach and study and analyze and what would actually be built in 10 plus years.

Katie?

Okay.

Any question on history?

Sorry, the background.

Just to set context.

If I could so I'm just trying to get a sense of like this building's built in 1990.

Yes.

25,700 square feet.

Population is under 30,000 people.

That's 856 square feet per thousand population.

85,000 in 2040, we're looking at like 145,000 people or something like that.

Yeah, about that.

So the ratio, like that building is actually a smaller building than this one per capita.

Correct.

Then okay.

So I'll do the general rule of thumb is six to seven employees for every hundred or a thousand people per or capita.

Um so that's kind of how we base how the program reports based.

And then we look at square footage is how much space do I and every staff work can occupy.

We want to be somewhere between 275 square feet to 300 square feet for an individual person.

And just to make the point, we did not have the public works campus separate, right?

Back in the 90s.

Now we have that separate space.

So this is gonna be not for every employee of the city.

But I should highlight PD was here uh back in 1990, so we had a lot of other users in this facility.

Yeah, thank you.

I was gonna ask kind of a related question.

Um, so engineering was here too, and now they're out of the public works campus.

And water services had space across the street, and now they're out at public works.

So it would be helpful for me to see.

I've asked for a facility plan, like kind of a long-range facility plan for all, you know, of the departments.

I didn't see that as part of this, but it would be nice to see like what staff are out of public works, how is that going to accommodate growth?

What staff were anticipated for city hall, and that you know that I have questions and disagreements with how the space planning report was the future city hall.

And when we get to the next step, you'll see that's part of our recommendation is is doing that again and updating that.

Um I will say a few things.

Just as we move to public works campus, it gave us an opportunity to reevaluate our sites down here as well and reshuffle.

And I think it's part of that process which is we actually have adequate space among our existing campus today to facilitate a generous amount of growth, which is why we're saying I don't need anything in the next five years.

We're probably really looking at more 10.

So we can accommodate a decent amount of growth in the next few years just because we've been able to open up the space here and kind of spread people out.

I will say that doesn't solve this room.

Correct, doesn't solve this room.

And again, I think that's a consideration.

Yeah, um, but also remember we've we've moved from kind of a hybrid office to a full-time, and this is now the I think this last six months of the first time we've had everybody in an office with our own desk, not hoteling, and that's that's been a big uh change for us operationally, and then we still have room that we can grow into.

So I think you're on the right.

I think I've not just yes, I think we need to look at it again because the models have changed and our trajectory has changed.

I mean, I kind of want to look at it from both like the okay space needs but also the cost because um there's like we've we've we've got now this public works campus and we've got the debt service that we're paying on that.

We're gonna have debt service on a city hall, police facility, they're gonna grow out of that if they haven't already.

I've heard they have.

So it would be nice to see the full financial picture, even if it if we're looking 30 to 50 years into the future, because decisions we make today are gonna really impact that decisions made about the public works campus, are limiting what we can do right now.

So I just want to make sure that we're really kind of thinking about that in like the big big picture.

Yeah, it's all right.

I think we'll get to the next step.

Sorry, I think I'll tap into that, and then I think we can talk about it more when we get through this.

And then I think we're on the same page wavelength a little bit while we're going.

Yeah, if you want to.

So to provide some context and how this intersects with our our economic prosperity, your economic prosperity goal.

We thought we'd just take a couple of minutes to really talk about the the bigger picture of how we're using city properties, how do we get the highest best use out of the city property separate from just asking where's the best place and how do we pay for a city hall?

So a few takeaways is uh includes ensuring that the city is leveraging city owned properties located within urban areas to achieve council goals of creating great places to gather, to live, to work.

We know this is one of our our major um pieces of work as we we move forward with our economic development strategies, identifying a future location for City Hall, administrative facility that is accessible and a benefit to the community, and that also means a city council facility that's uh accessible and a benefit to the community.

Those may be the same thing, they may be separate.

Integrate the learnings and the results of the analysis into the development and prosper property disposition strategies for downtown, for the central district, for 15th Street, and how do we look at these more holistically as assets that generate revenue that generate place that generate jobs and places to live?

So there are lots of moving pieces outside and within this uh study that really will affect one another, and we thought we'd call some of these out.

With the highest and best use analysis, we also are going through a Bend Central District Transportation and Block study right now that's taking a look at the long-term effects of putting the Hawthorne Overcrossing in.

How do we get uh north-south as well as east-west movement for bikes, pedestrians, vehicles, um, and delivery vehicles as well.

We're also looking at a potential public assembly venue.

We presented that a few months ago.

Um, the next steps for that are coming at a later date, but it's still out there.

It's still one of those questions that fits into this puzzle.

We're conducting a retail study that you folks asked us to do several months ago that starts with the urban renewal areas, but really is citywide that will tell us a lot about where the best places to site retail is, how um and what the dynamics are around whether or not they're successful and how they enhance the community around them.

Then the Benn Central District and downtown vision and identity development.

That's something we'll be working with CAV on for the urban renewal area.

Um also downtown in the future.

What are the themes?

What is the long-term plan as far as not just what types of development will go in there, what kinds of spaces do we want to encourage, how do we create connectivity with the new Hawthorne River Crossing and a master plan eventually for the Benn Central District?

A property disposition strategy that will accumulate all of this information and bring it to bear on all right, what are we gonna do with our properties and how do we use them best to leverage the goals that we're looking for?

And then public-private investment and vertical development.

We know we're driving in that direction.

When we do the property disposition, we'll know which ones we want to hold on to potentially for City Hall.

We already have a good idea of which ones are pivotal, for example, in the Bent Central District, and how do we spur economic development and actual vertical development by leveraging that asset?

So that gives you a little bit of context of all the other things that are swimming around this highest and best use study that's going to inform the decisions that you folks will make in the in the near and midterm.

All right, any questions on this?

Can we get it?

All right, thanks, Matt.

Um, hi everyone, again.

My name is Garrett Rapsilber with HRNA advisors, and um our firm was tasked with leading the highest and best use analysis.

And really exploring the development income potential for each and ultimately helping to provide information for you all about what strategies or paths forward can help optimize the monetization of city owned sites, again, as revenue that could be helpful to fund new future public facilities while also advancing the city's broader economic and civic goals.

And so the only thing I wanted to point out on this slide here, we've already covered them.

I just wanted to point out here just the range of acreage of each of the sites, which will come into play as we uh go about discussing our results.

Um again, the the smallest site here that we were evaluating is the current footprint in downtown, about 1.8 acres.

Um, uh Franklin about 3.2, and then you'll see the downtown extended in 15th or much larger, um, about seven and ten acres respectively.

And so for the highest and best use analysis, we really had three questions that we were seeking to answer.

So first, we wanted to understand what realistically could be developed at each of the sites.

So if the site had City Hall there, or if it did not have City Hall there, um, what else could go at the site that would be developed by a private third party?

Um then we also asked ourselves then what was the what would be the potential um financial and economic impacts of that development.

And then finally, we asked what does the city forgo by using a portion of one of those sites for a city hall or administrative facility.

And to answer those three questions, um, we followed uh the six-step process that you see below.

Um we we began by first developing a realistic vision of what a development capacity and program could look at each site with and with or with and without the inclusion of City Hall.

We then used a cash flow financial model to understand the feasibility of each of those development scenarios to understand whether or not those developments could happen today, or if there's some uh timing mismatch issues given current real estate economic conditions, and then uh from there we evaluated uh each of these ancillary developments across three different parameters.

We looked at their ability to generate financial and fiscal value to the city, ability to advance economic development within the city, and then an ability to align with city's priorities across several goals, um, whether it be housing, uh land use diversity or increasing uh connectivity across the city.

And then so we'll walk through those first five, uh, and then we will present with you a summarized set of results uh across each of those three evaluation criteria and ultimately provide you with some thoughts for consideration and presenting from our highest and best use perspective on what that analysis suggests should be the recommended site for city hall's location.

And so uh now I'll now I'll walk you through each of uh those components, and so first I'll start with just the ancillary development process.

Um how did we come about what would be a development program potentially at each of these sites?

And so there's really four main inputs to that process.

Um we considered the site area and its existing conditions, so the amount of acreage you have, the zoning, your density, your height limits, uh setback requirements.

Um importantly, we um we took into consideration uh where the current real estate market is.

So we looked at real estate trends when it comes to rents and construction costs.

We looked at precedent projects that have been built recently in Bend.

Um, and uh and very valuably we also had an opportunity to have several broker conversations with people that are intimately familiar with Bend.

And then finally, we had the consideration uh of the city hall's own requirements, so that 85,000 square feet as well as uh parking that would be needed uh for that facility.

So about 300 parking spaces in any scenario.

And so when we tested the financial feasibility through this cash flow analysis, um things became immediately apparent.

So, first was that 15th Street was feasible, and so um this development uh the ancillary development for that was uh different than then the downtown and Franklin site.

Downtown and Franklin, the ancillary development uh mostly um apartment and mixed use.

15th is retail and townhome development, so slightly lower density, reflecting the characteristic of 15th Street.

And so what that means is essentially that today the city could go out and find a development partner for this development and have through land disposition or ground lease have revenues that could immediately help fund a portion of City Hall or other city priorities.

Downtown and Franklin, on the other hand, are not feasible today.

And so the cash flows were negative, and is really a reflection of the challenging real estate environment, particularly with high construction costs and interest rates.

Just to put that a little bit in perspective, since 2020 rents across the city on average have increased about 16%, whereas construction costs have increased 36%.

And so we're in this in a period of disequilibrium.

But we also realized that the investment in City Hall is a long-term investment and not something that is likely to happen immediately today, as Matt had mentioned.

And so we we conducted some sensitivity tests.

So we looked at rent appreciation, we looked at changes in interest rates, and what those changes could how that could change the development environment moving forward.

And so ultimately what we found is that by the mid-2030s, call it eight to ten years, that all of the sites produced positive cash flows, meaning that all the sites have development potential and possibility, at least in this like medium longer term time horizon.

You can see on the on the table to the right, there are some you know large values ranges.

And what this really is is this is the raw land value that came out of our financial modeling.

So this is without consideration of you know improvements that might drive a purchase price higher, what a developer would likely pay for the raw land, either through land disposition or ground lease.

So these represent values theoretically that a developer might pay the city to develop an ancillary development.

And the ranges are pretty large here and really represents you know, 10 years out, there's a lot of uncertainty in that slight movements in rents and interest rates can drastically change the development conditions.

You could just clarify the so ancillary development, we're looking at housing, retail, and hotel.

We're not talking about like office space.

Yeah, we're not talking about office space.

So when we went and developed these ancillary developments, um, so part of it was looking at the market conditions and um in talking, especially as also talking to brokers, um, apartment and hotel was what there's the most demand for.

Um so to give you perspective, so like downtown extended, um, so the additional parcels look we modeled about 900 um apartment units and about like a 300 unit hotel.

Um you have less at Franklin just given a smaller size, and uh, and then each of those has about 10,000 square feet of you know more like ground floor retail.

Um, and then for the town homes, uh, there's about 400 town homes at 15th Street.

And again, the the goal here was not to create exactly what will happen in the future here, but was to present realistic development frameworks that could allow comparison across the sites.

And so, what I would what I would say is that ultimately when we get to the summary matrix, I think most important here is the relative um difference in comparison between them.

Thank you.

Yeah, um, and so I'll quickly go through the the next two slides.

Um economic development um potential.

I just wanted to give you a little bit uh additional information about what we looked at, what did that mean?

And so we looked at both the ability for the sites and the development that could happen there to stimulate new business activity, again, primarily through new residence spending at existing businesses, and then we also looked at the real estate uh potential, and so the ability for these sites to catalyze additional development around them on underutilized parcels.

And so that the way that we defined it for this analysis was uh site was underutilized if the improved value was 50% or less than the land value.

And finally, we also looked at a series of city goals, which you can see here, there were five of them.

This came through looking at various city plans as well as conversations with city staff and really focused on the ability for each of the sites to deliver housing, importantly, ability to deliver affordable housing, to diversify land uses, increase connectivity through the built form, also connection to transit, and also this concept of future centrality as the city centroid of development really shifts eastward as development heads there.

And so wanted to take into consideration the accessibility of City Hall to the majority of Bend residents.

And so we we compared each of the sites across each of those three evaluation criteria, and here's a summary table.

And we we applied a high, medium, low scoring to each of these.

And so essentially what this measured was the disposition value that the city could either sell or ground lease these sites for with and without City Hall.

And so if you build City Hall, there's obviously less land for a private developer to come in and build upon, and also subsequently less revenue in property taxes.

And so here, low is good.

Downtown and Franklin are high here, primarily because of just the size of the sites.

And so as you saw at the beginning, those sites are quite small, and so by placing City Hall at these locations, you lose about half of the revenue generating potential at those sites.

And then downtown extended 15th larger sites with and without City Hall, there's a minor minor impact in revenue generation.

The economic development and growth potential.

So this again is the ability for the sites to encourage that economic activity.

Downtown scored highest really because of the presence of all of the wonderful businesses here in downtown Bend as well in the Mill District, and the ability is particularly in the middle district of some redevelopment infill potential.

Franklin was medium here.

There's a lot of redevelopment potential, probably the highest of all of the sites, but there's fewer existing businesses right in the core of directly next to the site, and then 15th beyond the site itself, there's not as many more opportunities for infill.

And then finally, just in terms of public benefit contribution, downtown and Franklin really scored high across the board for those three five different categories.

The downtown footprint, the downtown current footprint was medium, really reflecting the smaller size, it's a lower ability to build housing there, as well as its lack of centrality.

And then 15th Street, again, medium, mostly because of its ability, lower ability to produce affordable housing.

There's a possibility, but just generally private for sale town homes are less likely to produce affordable housing than say an apartment project.

And then wrapping up for the last two slides here, we wanted to just provide some other considerations just beyond that summary matrix, and so really around timing and complexity.

And so, in terms of timing, again, 15th Street, there's immediately there's actionable potential there for the city to seek out a development partner.

Other sites are going to take a little bit longer until the real estate market improves.

Obviously, is the most complicated.

And so ultimately, if we go to the last slide, no worries.

Listening.

Yeah, no, uh ultimately if we go to the last slide.

So where the highest and best use ended up for the preferred option was 15th Street for really all of the reasons stated above.

There's in particular the lowest having that really low opportunity cost that doesn't forego the revenue generating potential at both the downtown and Franklin sites to help fund future public facilities.

Great.

So we're gonna get into staff recommendation next, right?

Matt?

Yeah.

Okay, so that was the from the report, what the recommendation was, and then we have some staff ideas on next steps and how to put that in to practice.

So uh recognizing the findings from the report, staff is requesting and recommending that we kind of narrow down the list of possible sites for city hall.

Our recommendation is to exclude downtown and downtown extended from the conversation of City Hall and focus on 15th Street as well as uh the property in the BCD, more particularly the one along First Street, so the one acre along First Street.

And that's mostly because we're not in any rush to make any decisions today, so we can keep our options open as we go through the next steps, and then really in five years, that is when we can kind of reevaluate and actually come with these two options to say, okay, which one is best and make the decision then in order for us to make kind of the 2038 timeline for a new development.

If we're ready, I'll kind of dive into the next steps.

So, really the first thing we want to do is as I highlight in the graph, and we've talked about before in November, our lease across the street that we're currently seeing that expires in June 2029.

Knowing that we are not in need of a new city hall facility for 10 plus years, I'd like to pursue securing that for much longer than 2029.

And that could look like the form of us pursuing a purchase or asking for a lease extension.

Um, kind of touching into we've done some work and we'd like to continue work evaluating how do we use our existing facilities.

So evaluing some remodel options.

Uh, we're currently working through some safety and security exercises, and the results of that could sort of push us towards wanting to look at council chambers in a different light.

So we'd like to look at how do we could be more efficient with the spaces we have, and perhaps even look at expanding the council chamber to accommodate um additional people during our public hearings.

And then the final question, and I'll if you have a question, Katie could probably help with this.

But I think we want to take the two acres there at Franklin where the Franklin shelter is and sort of ask Borough if they have the capacity and the ability to fund this to go ahead and start initiating that visioning.

What do we want to see there?

Uh, what should that look like?

What are ultimately the uses we desire there?

What kind of elements do we want to develop or and and work through that process here in the near term, and then we can kind of discuss how do we move to that next step from there.

Um, so that's sort of helping with the with the desire of the BCD and uh us moving forward the central area, sort of putting our foot down and saying we're not gonna hold up any further discussions of what we're doing here because of City Hall.

We're gonna move forward with a vision exercise for what we would like to see there, and then come back and then we can discuss at a future meeting how do we go about disposing that?

How do we go about establishing in a request for proposal or request for qualifications and identify a development partner that can be a part of that?

In kind of the midterm, so this is really the next biennium budget.

Uh, we would like to update our space programming.

Uh that's really looking at both PD and City Hall primarily, but we can expand it to our other departments as well.

But that's really gonna look at how do we efficiently use our spaces.

So we could both evaluate City Hall and administrative functions along with PD Muni Court at 15th Street and see how which kind of efficiency of space we can incorporate there through a new facility, and then obviously we'd look at it between both uh PD expanding at 15th and City Hall going at the piece on First Street, and then from there we would sort of do a similar sort of visioning exercise here with the downtown facilities.

So putting together a group to sort of imagine what it is we'd like to see if this if if when we leave, sorry, when we move out of downtown to one of those other locations, what is it we'd like to see this project develop as?

Um, and then we would be in coordination with our growth management team as they're working through the comp plan.

We'd want to evaluate 15th Street to potentially changing the comp plan designation to something more dense and intense.

Today it's uh public facilities and RS zone, so the lowest residential zone.

We'd probably want to evaluate that and also look at us from a uh climate-friendly area, CFEC.

Um, this could be a potential area that we would want to extend for one of those rules too.

So we would work with them to sort of identify the site and then look to sort of master planning, developing that out.

And then lastly, uh, and this can happen, doesn't have to happen, then it could happen sooner, but reviewing those concepts and figuring out a disposition strategy for the Franklin piece of property with Borough.

And then long-term-wise in the next kind of five years, reevaluating our our financial and development performance, uh, doing an exercise like I say in the back of the executive summary, which is called value for money that really looks at the various delivery methods that we can partner and pursue a P3 partnership and how we develop City Hall.

Um, and then we'd look at how do we sort of take those master plan findings and create a disposition strategy or a development partnership opportunity for the eight to ten acres we'd have at 15th Street that we can possibly bring to market.

And then of course, really by 2032 is when we'd kind of if we were to make the 2038 deadline, that is sort of the last chance where I need to sort of make the final decision on where we're going and kick off the city hall process.

So from there, our kind of ask tonight is council directive or council supportive staff's recommendation to sort of shift our focus where City Hall goes to just the first street property in the BCD and 15th Street, and then are you supportive of our next steps?

Crucially uh the ones we want to do in the near term here in the next few months.

Okay.

Thanks, Matt.

So council, now's a good time to have a discussion on your reactions to this report and information and what you think about the recommendation to focus, particularly the city hall development in those two areas.

And noting this um staff also has those next step recommendations that we can look at as well.

But who would like to start?

Question actually just to on that last bit.

The recommendation for 15th Street.

The in the summary findings, it says 15th Street has no financial opportunity cost, but that's because it we're only looking at public potential uses, right?

So 15th Street, we kind of divide it in half.

So they were focusing on the lower half, the the half, the northern half, so in and around where the fire station is, police, um, and then where the transitation building is.

That's probably always going to be some form of public facility.

And that's part of the area we would look at redeveloping in around the former transportation building and the adjacent lot next to it that was used as staging and storage for our vehicles for fleet vehicles and our street vehicles.

That's probably the area we would focus on as a city hall, and that eight to ten acres on the south side, that's where we're really talking about the ancillary development that he was going into.

That could be markets.

So they don't negatively affect one another because we have enough land there to address all of those.

So assuming we set aside something to address fleet needs, yeah, future needs.

Why wouldn't we also consider the potential scenario of surplusing that land and doing something else with it?

I mean it completely.

Yeah, we could.

Okay.

I I mean, I think um as we grow, uh, I would I would always I'll be remiss if I wasn't advocating for keeping assets in place.

I mean, we we're continuing to use that facility now just from a street's operational standpoint because it is the center of town, uh, and it's easy for when we have to do work on the south end of of town that we can have a gravel pit there.

Um, so our when they're coming around laying down any of the uh um cinder when we're doing snow that they don't have to drive all the way to public works campus to refill a truck.

So I I think we'll always kind of have we'll always want a presence there.

I don't think we want to give that up completely.

I think it's just the scale of what then we want to redevelop is would be the discussion.

Yeah, Steve Matt or Katie.

Uh if you're a if you're a central district business owner, um and the sort of this visioning exercise force right here.

When do you think you'll have some some clarity on disposition of the two acres?

Yeah, I think that starts.

Um we're actually going to be starting uh kind of the thematic development of what we want to happen in the BCD this year, and next year um it morphs into just a master plan that that dovetails with this effort.

So by this time next year, we should have a pretty good idea of what the potential is of the site, what the master plan is, and be well into the disposition strategy and and next steps and start to look at who would be a partner, what kind of development do we want?

So the way I look at this, it finally gives us a chance to move forward on making something happen at that property.

Having said that, there is a use on it right now that's extremely important to this community.

There are families that live in that shelter, and we're not ignoring that at all.

We're we're looking for uh and actively working on how do we make sure we take care of those folks, not just for the space but the services, and look at that property as an asset that it is in spurring other development in the central district.

So this kind of this gives us permission to move forward on it because the city hall isn't gonna happen for a number of years.

With this decision, we can move forward.

Yeah.

Thank you for explaining that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Have we thought of um inviting the core area advisory board to be a part of this Franklin BCD?

Absolutely.

Yeah, because I don't see that here, but I I to me that's like a really key part of this.

Yes, absolutely.

If you're thinking my intent is borough, gives the core air board the direction.

So it's great.

And I mean, I think we should introduce the topic at their meeting next week.

Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I I support um the first question, um, but I think we need to keep first street on the table as part of the and I know that's essentially what you're proposing.

I'm just going to emphasize that um as part of the discussion for the location for city hall.

But I do think it's important for us to consider first street because it still um could have some real benefit as an anchor tenant and you know, or an anchor presence, I guess not a tenant um in the central district don't really support the um the overall redevelopment and and potential for that area.

Okay.

I agree, Mike.

I'm really interested in first street.

I think there's there's a lot that could happen there with the thing as Hawthorne Bridge is that gets completed, we see that construction.

Yeah, I think that area and what the value of that property could also change, and we may we want to keep that door open for how we want to incorporate the use from that site to the bridge itself, and how is that just bigger fit in the area?

Sure.

Okay, counselor.

Um I have a couple couple different questions.

First, though, a comment.

So we've not received some of us have requested, but we haven't received the full um highest and best use report.

So I just want to say I I don't feel comfortable giving direction on either of these two questions tonight until that report is circulated and the community gets to see it and we get to see it, and then we get to kind of get some feedback from the community.

Um also kind of concerned about making decisions and giving directions in a work session, because we're not supposed to be doing that.

We in our council rules.

So um, but with that said, I look I'm happy to be having this discussion.

Um so two questions.

It it there wasn't really any discussion about what moving City Hall would do to the existing downtown businesses.

And I'm really concerned that you know, moving a couple hundred employees out of this area where they have all these services that they use every day.

I mean, I s I see y'all walking on the streets every day.

Um, so I'm really really concerned about that.

And then when I think about 15th Street, it's like, geez, if we move this facility to 15th Street, there's nothing there.

You know, so that's really doesn't comport with our goals of you know, trying to improve walkability and bikeability.

Um so I'm curious if you thought about that.

And then and then second question, why did you look at um the first street property in the central district and not the Franklin property?

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you were this like this says first street, but it doesn't, it doesn't mention the Franklin.

Is it is that just not on this uh it's as well we identify for City Hall.

So don't put City Hall where the rainbow Franklin shelter is on that two-acre block.

Look at it, allow that to be vision and and potentially redeveloped, and then consider a city hall on the first street portion that we own the one-acre side.

That's what we're proposing on the as this set aside that.

And there's a few reasons why one, the Hawthorne construction makes and we're also decommissioning the site this summer, so we still have findings around the environmental we have to discuss.

So I would say we don't need to make a commitment on that site either right now today, but we should hold it and consider it for the longer term of what the use is.

Um that that was why we the Franklin was more like push that out to the market in the cab or advisory board, let them discuss what can go on that two acres, and they may want to expand that visioning effort to be the whole block.

And um and kind of focus that way.

Uh downtown.

Uh well I'll only if you want to chime in.

You can't do it but I I think the first thing is it was looking at what then would replace us.

So the factor is so if we leave and we move 250 employees out, but we bring in 250 units of apartments, or we add more retail, or we add a hotel.

Is that enough?

I don't know if you guys actually looked at what that difference is between us as office.

And I think that I think um that provides a little more 24-7 activity than we necessarily do.

So I would argue a little bit that if we are able to replace it successfully, and I think that really goes into when we go to the next step of visioning for the site, what is it we I think we should take that into account is what is our current economic impact and then making sure whatever goes here is either generate a grading one or at least replacing it, if not an adding that value.

Um achieve it.

Yeah, I mean we we didn't look into that, but I would say at least from other like fiscal analyses that we've you know done for other communities where we've we've we've actually looked at that.

Um is that generally residents tend to spend more money than employees.

A lot of times people will bring their own lunch to work.

Um and and so you generally you're you're more likely to spend um spend money if you're a resident living and so it should on that be positive um from the the substitution between the two.

Um I just don't have the actual like number for back porch copy would not survive.

By keeping the first street on the table, yes, there is a direct connectivity to the Hawthorne pedestrian overcrossing.

That's finally joined.

Absolutely at it that way.

So then just to say my like my view of like taking all this, and I really do want to see the full report, but like my if you want to kind of narrow down the options so that we don't have like too many options that we're evaluating, like what makes sense to me actually is keeping downtown and BCD on the table, not 15th Street.

I just have a hard time like from a from an urban planning perspective, I have a hard time kind of putting a uh an a bit a building that really brings a lot of like serves a lot of public needs in a what is mostly a residential neighborhood.

Um I feel more comfortable putting that in a commercial area, an existing commercial area.

Um, and so that that's kind of why I mean as someone who came to comes to this building regularly, not as a city counselor, but like for work and things like that.

Like it I I just don't see that as an ideal scenario.

Can I give some feedback as our east side Dennison?

Um I think I think that would be and I'm gonna say I'm I really want to keep First Street on the table, and I'm really still committed to really thinking about City Hall and the BCD, but I'm also really excited about getting Franklin going on that corner going faster and getting some redevelopment there.

Um 15th Street, I think has a lot of potential, and actually, if you look at that area, you are right next to a school, you are right next to a corridor of commercial that goes all the way down to where we have some of the densest housing in our um city.

Um you have access to grocery stores and all the things down that corridor, you are right next to the Larksburg Trail.

Um, there's parks around that area, um, and it is near the areas that we were looking at for CFEC.

So I I don't agree that it's there's no walkability and bikeability there.

There are very much is I live there and bike there, do those things.

Um so I think, and then the financial analysis makes sense why that has the least potential, and also sort of the most potential because it's 10 acres, and as Ario was alluding to, like, there's a what can we do there?

What could go there?

There's a lot of potential that could even if we have a city hall, though, there could still be more things, including creating a commercial hub on the east side, which is what people are asking for us to do.

Um, so that's a lot of potential I see there, though I'm as I'm saying, I really want to hold on to first street as well.

Um, so I'm supportive of the recommendation at this point, um, and we can get into the next steps on what we think about those.

But um, Ariel, you had your hand up as well.

Yeah, so this I think this is this is really hard because there's so many cross-cutting issues.

If I had to let go of one in order to narrow it down, I think I actually feel like I I want to I still want to sit with this.

It's it's really hard to have these conversations and absorb everybody's input and then give direction in a work session.

I would say I'm really sympathetic to saying I would still want to prioritize Franklin and downtown, either in especially actually in the extended form.

And my my reasoning for that is um I think this the idea of future centrality is maybe well, I could there wasn't a whole lot of discussion of it, but hearing you discuss it today, it sounds like it was sort of a geographic concept, and I think that that's in my view, I think that's a little bit misconstrued because there's a risk of saying, well, if we make it sort of geographically central, it's sort of it it potentially could be either equally convenient or equally inconvenient.

And in my mind, we know downtown has a lot of activity.

It it I don't know what the analysis is about who has barriers for getting downtown.

That that wasn't part of this, but I think of centrality as more than just geographic, and so there's you know lots of other factors that go into that.

As far as the 15th Street location goes, I mean, I I I feel like I want to look at the opportunity cost in terms of something not public, and that wasn't part of this.

Um because I I agree that hearing from some of the residents in that neighborhood that I don't know that this would be something that they would be super excited about.

Um so it's lots of yeah, conflicting tensions here that uh I like the the highest potential for things like housing and I mean extended downtown, really hard to contemplate because it's so so big and so different, and yeah, very complex.

But I kind of like it.

I mean it, you know, I don't know.

It's uh so I don't know.

I I'm I I feel like I can't give really clear direction right now yet.

And I'm just gonna clarify our rules allow us to give direction to staff during work sessions, so I hope that doesn't hold anybody up.

Uh Mike and then Steve.

I think my um trying to look at this with the borough hat and the cab hat and sort of how all these things interact, and even you know, um, for me the stuff that comes up is related to houselessness and the plan for that.

I I think if what basically what we're saying is that it's 10 to 12 years before we're making a real decision and being able to say go forward on a city hall, right?

We have time to make a final location decision.

We have time to make a final location decision, but what's important to me is if we're not doing that quickly, and we have I think so far made a commitment we're gonna do that in the central district, that we're essentially pivoting to what what is the other catalytic thing we're doing in the central district.

And I think it's the Franklin property that we need to focus on.

And um, we need to do that in an assertive time frame that really gets this thing rolling.

It doesn't take you know three to five years.

I mean, I I'd really like to see us making a commitment that the construction of a project is gonna get begin down there within three years, and how do we get there and work backwards from that goal and really being assertive about that on the Franklin property, right?

And keeping First Street to be considered for a future city hall.

I hear what you're saying about different concerns about downtown and versus 15th.

I also think downtown is very thriving, and if we can come up with a good plan that replaces existing um inputs that come from all the staff and the other people that come to City Hall with other attractors and other activity in a particular housing, um that that should be a pretty good substitute what's what's here already.

So I really think that that pivot is important, and and I think I mean, whether it's tonight or very soon, we give that direction, like we want this to start um within three years or no later than the first quarter of 2030, which is still a ways out.

I think the other thing that comes up for me is the two related pieces that have already been talked about a little bit, but one is that the infrastructure plan for that central part of the district.

I don't see that in your next steps explicitly, and I think that needs to be in there that we're gonna work our way through that um and we're gonna come up with not only the plan but also a clear implementation schedule and prioritization.

This is the first thing we're gonna do, second thing, and here's the schedule, and that's the roads, right, for that core area, greeley earling um discussion, but it's uh in my mind at a minimum also the crossing of second street across Greenwood, so that we're connecting the whole BCD a little bit more.

I think that needs to be in that infrastructure plan.

So I'd like to see that added into the near-term list of things, and then we need to really work on this plan for houselessness, right?

It um Katie you already alluded to, it's really important community priority.

Where are we gonna house these folks?

Um shelters are not going away.

We also know it's gonna be really difficult to do all this stuff together at the same time, and we need to meet those needs.

But what is the kind of phase two of our houselessness work?

And I know there is an emerging plan for that that we're gonna hear more about as a council next month.

Um, so for people you know that are here tonight, um that's you know, we're we're gonna be talking more about that, and and I think we should line up the goal for moving that shelter to its new location to that three-year timeline for getting a project out of the ground at the Franklin property.

Those things should be working in parallel though.

So downtown extended with City Hall has 950 units of housing under the ancillary program.

So if you really cared about housing, wouldn't you want downtown extended to be?

I I think that I love the downtown extended project idea.

I just it's so complicated, and I'm I'm just not sure how effectively our school district's gonna be able to engage on the project in the short term.

I mean, maybe maybe they are, and that's something that needs to be explored some more.

I mean, how how much capacity do they have to really talk about that?

But it's pretty complicated.

I love the heritage square idea of all those sorts of things.

So um, but even without it, we can still there's still potential for housing and you know, downtown, even without that accessory.

Yeah, I think I think the conversation is should we consider it for a city hall or not?

If not, it doesn't stop us from wanting to pursue what does that look like as part of the redevelopment footprint as well.

Yeah, Steve.

When I first read this analysis um from you all, I I really felt as though it was looking at a very city government focus, yeah.

Uh and I felt as though it was sort of leaving out some of the the core district um concerns in the business uh standpoint.

That said, um, through our discussion and through some some other reading that I've been done and meetings, I am really actually a very strong proponent of the of the staff's recommendation for this.

And I'll tell you why, because your analysis, I think, is talking about generating dollars for us to leverage and and activate this central district, and I think the way to do that is to move out of here and to put uh a higher and a bester use here, I feel like um and and with 24-7 players who are live here and who are gonna really enrich this area fully supported by the city.

So I I'm very ready to move forward with with what's proposed by the staff on this one for those very reasons because of the the assets that we generate and what we can do to activate the core district uh from that.

So yeah, Council Perkins.

Um yeah, I mean I the first thing that I I think about is you know City Hall isn't what makes downtown thrive, right?

Um and what makes down well, we'll hear more about what makes downtown uh thrive later on today.

But um, so I taking city hall out of the equation because I don't think it's gonna change in any way, and it could only help I think the character of this area, especially if we're we're we're doing building housing here.

Um just to go back to again the co-senior person on um council, you know, Melly and I were we're on a count, mayor and I were on council.

Um when we purchased that that Franklin property and what we told the people of um the central district was there there is a short-term use for this, and then there is a long-term picture here, and we did the short-term use because we had to do that short-term use, but now it is time to start talking about how we can shift over into the longer use of of that property and the real use of of that area, which was to catalyze the central district and particularly catalyze that area of Franklin.

And and so um you know that I care um you know so much about the fact that you know we have to make sure that we have places for our or houseless um to be and that that are safe, but I do feel confident that there is a plan that is emerging that that could actually solve both of these problems, right?

Um, and have somewhere a safe place for people to go and um really urgently start to develop this this area of town because it is a commitment that we did make it.

Yeah council Norris, go ahead.

Yep, I think I am supportive.

I mean, um if I had to pick between the two, I I do like the idea of the the first and Franklin property.

Um I do believe strongly, like others have said about um you know, using we've talked a lot about using all the tools we can to get the the BCD going and and activated, and I think that is a key way to do it.

Um, you know, with uh councillor Franzosa's point about you know urban planning.

I think that that first and uh and Franklin property for City Hall is um it it feels nice, it feels right when I think about other kind of I you know I know that we're we're bent, but when I think about other iconic cities and the city halls that are a part of them, that's it's kind of what I vision.

Um I also think it would be you know nice for staff, not to say that 15th Street couldn't have some of these amenities that we're talking about, and I'd love to see you know what's you know, some plans for that, but um it'd be nice for staff to be able to access, you know, they are they're activating, they're going into the the farmers market, they're going to the restaurants.

Um, you know, it it's great for them as well.

So I'm supportive of this, but um, I think that priority for me right now at least would be um keeping it close to the DCD.

Okay.

So it sounds like we have a majority that are supportive of the staff's recommendation at this point.

Just to clarify and adding the infrastructure plan for that corridor.

Let's go to that next steps slide for the next slide for the next steps.

Yeah, and talk about this.

So just to start with, is everyone okay with Matt pursuing that Wall Street annex for some longer term time now that we're gonna be in this area, since we're not moving, we're not doing city halls as soon as we thought, and we still need that space.

What is the impact of that?

Uh so right now, I mean it's about 25% of our operational space.

So if we lose that building, we've got a place about 15,000 feet somewhere.

So we'll either have to re find another spot to lease or create new space for people to go.

And what's the second bullet?

You're talking about the public.

It's just kind of reevaluating, we're going through some safety and security uh analysis right now, just for our general facilities for this building base and also after completing public works campus, how can we make our campuses safer?

Um, but it also looks like if there's a desire of council to want to expand council chambers, we can look at how do we function, how do we make that functional within our footprint.

There are we have evaluated some uh options of of making this area larger uh and also doing some other reshuffling.

So we would all constantly look at how do we create efficiency of space with spaces we have.

That can be interesting.

I was I mean, something I've always wondered about is like why don't we hold meetings at uni court when we know they're gonna be kind of hot topic meetings and get a lot of folks from the public um because that facility is.

We've done that before.

Yeah, the safety, yeah, the safety pieces.

Yes.

So well, yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

Um, I guess my question is like what's the what's the public works building that was vacated being used for right now, and like do we need I'm just trying to like really promote fiscal responsibility, you know.

So obviously we sold the void acres, so we're just down to the transportation and fleet building that's at 15th right now.

Um that has about it's it's outdated, so it doesn't meet all of our ADA.

It does have about 10,000 feet we can use on the on the ground floor.

Currently, right now we've allowed PD to use the fleet warehousing space, and they're using some of the outbuildings as part of their kind of overflow.

Um so there's an option where we can look at if we need to expand putting putting some staff out there, it's just based on 10,000 feet.

We kind of have to pick and choose who's going out there.

Um so I would I would like to keep that 10,000 as sort of my buffer in case we do see growth within the next two years, and I need to spill over out of this facility.

But um I mean it's an interesting thought because there's a lot of parking there, so like for plan review and things, or not plan or you by like where, I'm sorry, at um by the transportation and the transportation and fleet building.

And think of the parking is.

Well, the parking in the front of the building is not being used by anyone today.

Yeah, there's not a lot in the front.

Yeah, there's probably like 50 spaces there or something like that.

Yeah, it's okay.

Yes, yes.

Um thank you for agreeing with me.

Correct.

And it's having trouble picturing that.

Yeah, I think where you're going is those who are mostly in the field, is that a better spot for them to be located that we're going to be able to do that.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes, and we have employees who who obviously we have uh who take their vehicles home because they're out in the field all the time.

Um it wouldn't do too much space.

We could look at that as well.

Again, it opens up a few more things.

So going back to what you're saying, to me, that's my that's my buffer of 10% of our square footage in case we do have to adapt to growth.

Um but I think if you'd want to do any sort of um significant remodeling out there where you could add space, you're looking at six plus million dollars of work to actually rehabilitate that space to make it a functioning um spot for what we could lose if we lose that lease.

So uh with that's that's part of the discussion weight is is if we don't choose to do anything at the Wall Street, I have to do something somewhere.

Um Wall Street makes a lot of sense because the proximity location continue to be part of the downtown.

Nobody has to do it.

Whether we're long-term lease and or purchase somewhere.

Sure.

And gives us some remodel potential.

Right across the street for a meeting.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

I think we have a majority for you to go forth on the Wall Street Annex.

Um and also review the remote options.

Yeah.

Um, and I think we have a majority on the looking at getting Franklin corner going and involving CAB in that.

Um, and then what was the additional?

Well, just add adding explicitly adding the infrastructure plan to this this near term work work.

And when you say infrastructure, well, yeah, what do you mean by that?

Well, specifically the roads, right?

And but I think part of that road discussion should also be at least the crossing of second second street across Greenwood to better connect.

You know, I I haven't heard, and I asked in I think agenda review or maybe with you, Eric, where that stood, and I really haven't heard anything about the planning on that.

My recollection or her direction with the related to Greenwood was let's move forward with the planning on that.

And so I'd I'd like to see that get done as part of this because I do I think there's a bit of a problem between, and this gets into central district stuff, right?

But we're so focused on this one little area.

The rest of the folks in the in that in that district need to feel benefit from the investments that are happening in it.

It all feels very isolated to the south of Greenwood only at this point.

And this could help at least it's one first step to get some of that connectivity happening.

Our plan is to come back and talk about green.

I was gonna have that be incorporated to that.

That's an August or something.

I guess too.

Okay, so that sounds like that is in your term.

So let's make sure we do that.

Okay.

Um all right, that was all you needed, Matt, on those two questions.

Uh, unless there is consensus on the first bullet point, if not, we no, we have a majority on that.

Yeah.

I think we have a majority of the state.

Making a decision without the final report.

We're giving staff direction to focus the future efforts on those two properties.

Yes.

Yes.

We're not we're not putting a contract together, we're not designing anything.

We're saying focus our efforts on those are and this is really for us when I bring budget next year is allocating the necessary dollars to actually do the program we study, and if I can focus that on locations, that's I do.

So if there's debate then to expand that, we can talk about that as from a dollar perspective.

And just to be clear, that the the complexity of downtown extended is comprised mostly of well.

One, it's not just us, so we need partners, so taxing district partners, so schools, yeah.

And and I that's really the main complexity.

The other complexities of of doing development downtown is obviously we have to go somewhere in the meantime.

So there's a cost for us to move out of the facility to find another space for us to go on a temporary basis, or we look at basically doing things in very um element phases uh of developing structures at a time.

So it just adds another sort of component to how we sort of stage out the full development picture.

Is that level of detail in the final report that we haven't received yet?

The uh I don't I don't know if we've talked about the complexity of if we have to move out.

I don't think we've you know like I didn't ask them to address that.

That's more of our staff of what it would take to move.

But the extended downtown, I don't we're not ruling that out.

I think if other taxing districts are interested, we are willing to have that conversation 100%.

Well, I mean, we have to get those conversations started, right?

So I I mean I would be supportive of talking to the school district, talking to the library district.

Yep.

You know, I don't know what their plans for their future office space there is or half a block of part of me that they have.

Um but I I feel like it would be worth it for and you know, maybe that's that's our job too.

And I think as we progress with that, as we kind of do the visioning and we start analyzing those numbers more, it sort of opens up those conversations like hey, here's your financial economic development public benefit potential that could be on your site.

So this I I like to use hoping to kind of this is kind of the starting block to go like how do we how do we want downtown to look and what does that potentially look like, and then what is the essential service?

Yeah, and I think it's a sequencing thing, right?

So if what I'm hearing from what's an important value from council is really activating the B C D.

Yeah, we need some direction because I think if we have all these sites in play, it sort of dilutes that.

What we are wanting to do is have some permission to release a property into private hands, albeit with some planning that has to happen to relocate vote uh uses.

Um but the downtown is still gonna require a lot of coordination and planning, and that's that's all.

I mean, whether it's a city hall here or not, it is going to require a lot of work.

It's important work.

What we're saying from a sequencing is that work is going to come a little bit after.

We're gonna put more focus on the BCD first before we would spend a lot of time and effort on master planning the site.

That's kind of the value that we're asking for from master planning the city hall site when you say that's what you mean.

Exactly.

Right.

So the focus is on the visioning and concept planning for Franklin so we can get that moving and cat catalyze the E C D and the planning for City Hall can still move forward, but it's a little bit more focused.

I think you know, there's potentially still room for that heritage square idea, and it could even be without a city hall, there could be stuff.

Well, that yeah, that it's just more about that.

We're not gonna engage in that, just that we're we're saying the priority for the actual public use city hall is in these two spots, and we'll continue to engage on this downtown area because we're gonna be out of here at some point, yeah, probably, and or at least we're gonna be a smaller footprint, and so how do we reactivate what's here and how many people do we bring along with us in that work?

I think the missing piece of the equation, I think several of you hit upon it, is we have to be thinking about from a revenue perspective, because we we've really our uh plan to pay for a new city hall is really based on our a partnership of activating sites and leveraging our assets, and I think it was said activating this site will yield a lot more revenue.

So, from that revenue perspective, but I this is your job really as policymakers is to balance the need for revenue with other you know things that are important to you and the community is goals, and so that's what we're asking you to wrestle with.

And you might have different different sort of lenses that you're looking at it through.

We just at some point we need to kind of have some momentum to narrow this down because keeping this so broad is one, it's just giving staff, we're just diluting kind of the resources that we have to put towards planning.

So, do we know what the value of surplusing a portion of 15th Street is?

We can you guys had all this you gave it.

Also, just want to chime in.

I realize this is a work session with regards to the high space use analysis, but you'll notice at the tail end of the executive summary, we did put together our value for money assessment.

So if anyone does have any questions about that, yeah, more than happy to dive in.

We've estimated usually like uh based on I don't know what you guys came up with square footage.

Typically, we're seeing somewhere around 20 a square foot for raw land is sort of what we're using some there.

Um again the value today of it being an RS zone compared to being a mixed-use zone in the future, there's there's a gap, there's a delta between the right, because what you can build on RS compared to what you could build with a mixed use zone is significant for your funding.

And I think it's important to think that revenue doesn't necessarily just need to be selling the land or selling the structure.

There's a lot of ways to do a partnership or a lease or something that gets ongoing revenue coming in, so that's important.

I think to think about too.

Land lace, things like that.

Yep.

Are you the the comment that you just made about value for money?

Are you talking about the comparison between the cost of the city building, city hall versus the P3 partnership?

Correct.

So it's more in the implementation phase.

So since affordability's been an issue and concern, it's looking at whether there is cost savings available if you utilize a P3.

So right now the baseline is um the PVB, so the progressive design build, because I believe that's what you guys use for the public works campus, which you've had great experience with.

Um but it was more so looking is there potential to um to cut costs and is there value to the city if you do use the P3?

And you'll notice in the considerations we did talk about we only were modeling the baseline scenario, which is just an 85,000 or 85,000 square foot city hall standalone.

But if you do incorporate, say a broader swath of land and it is mixed use, you maybe incorporate a master developer, there are ways to make the P3 more um you know more viable.

So it looks more expensive in all cases relative to the P.

Right, just with the standalone 85,000.

But does that those other models also incorporate full operation maintenance?

So the 30-year operation maintenance right in that cost too.

I mean more certainty about the cost, right?

Which is the variable the variable that could come into the city.

And you have to realize we are looking, it's a 34-year period.

That's starting in 12 years, so the NPV is discounting it back.

And in those scenarios, um, where you're in a partnership, is there a tax liability for who owns it?

Is it is ownership transfer to a private entity and therefore there's tax revenue generation.

It would not be transferred.

So it but it would be the responsibility of that private owner to uh finance it, operate it, maintain it, which would be a positive because that way if there is something drastic that happens, it's already guaranteed in the contract of this is how much the city will pay for it versus if the city does do a PVB, then they have the onus of operating it in.

But in either scenario, there's no tax value.

The property tax is established by the use on the site, so as long as we're using it for public, then there's no property tax.

But if we're in a mixed-use building and there's an element of private part of its house, that would be so that that's that's we work through with the assessor when we evaluate that.

Yeah, I mean it kind of sounds to me like the majority just wants to look at first street, not even really keep 15th on the table.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm just that's what everyone said helping.

I'm just thinking to you know, streamline the the process.

I mean, is that what people meant when saying they support the staff recommendation?

That's not what I meant.

Yeah, I meant I'd I'd like to keep both on the table.

Okay, yeah, I mean I like keeping both.

I think there's value in continuing to look at the um 15th street, but it may be that for all the other values that kind of come associated with the ancillary development and making sure that the BCD really pops that it makes sense to stick with the BCD.

So I I sort of tend to lean that more a little bit more and wanting to surplus.

It seemed like there was some priority street.

Yeah, priority of that as a fallback is the 15th.

For these other values, right?

I mean, if we just look strictly at this financial kind of analysis, then you know, and maybe you come to a different conclusion.

But I think if we're looking at some of this other stuff broadly, um I I feel like I'm okay letting 15th Street go because of the comments about the centrality, the way that's construed, I think is maybe what is worth looking at again.

And I would like to see what the counterfactual of saying, like, well, let's have a different vision for 15th Street.

You know, we do that for some of these other properties.

We look at the you know, economic development potential um that isn't so present for 15th Street.

So I feel like I I agree, but probably stronger for the central district than for 15th.

Yeah, I mean thinking like the development community comes to the city probably more than any other group of you know members of our community, and so many of them have offices downtown or would put offices in the central district once the central district starts to get developed.

Um so yeah, and many of them also go to the county building um to get work done, um things like that.

So yeah, I mean, I think I think it's really important that we keep city hall centrally located if it's in the quarry area or down for that among the other reasons.

Okay, I think so higher likelihood stronger interest in sure, but I still think it's important to recognize when we're talking about revenue generation and all those things, and hopefully what we're hoping to see in the BCDE take off that that might change the analysis on when we get to City Hall is a little bit further away.

It's important to I think it's important to have the other one available because we may say when we get there, why not first street really should be something else?

Um maybe it should be a hotel or part of that performing arts center or whatever it is.

So I'm good, just keeping with what the staff's recommended here, understanding there's a strong interest in the first street head nods, yeah.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for all the detailed work.

I will be right.

Sure, yeah, go ahead.

You can take off.

Okay.

I have middle school graduation, so it's graduation season.

I hear the speeches in middle school graduation.

I'm really hoping they call every name.

My friend's kid that's graduated in eighth grade.

I like the now the person who's called like a lot of people.

Unless they like it.

Right.

SCCs is next.

Right.

So I know, right?

All right.

So we are moving on.

Talk about Southeast Area Transportation SDCs.

Councilor Norris.

Yes, I need to declare an actual conflict.

My employer is Hayden Hums and this I don't want to have a financial impact on them.

So I will be leaving during this discussion.

Thanks.

Still got four of you, right?

Mike's coming back in a minute.

Okay.

So we can do us to wait or let's wait just a couple minutes because we're a little out of schedule now, so we're okay.

We're not on schedule, I guess.

Which is good for us.

Wait, we have four minutes of public.

We can talk about all kinds of things.

I defer to you when nobody wanted to do that.

Oh, did you guys go to Gaff?

So we decided it's a T Mac to really good.

Yeah, T Mac, we officially don't need a T Mac.

That was good.

What about the uh what was your suggestion for uh the uh growth plan?

Um it was like Ben GPT Ben GPT, but that's not that was immediately vetoed, so no.

Okay.

We're not we could the growth plan team.

Is Jim Gaffigan tomorrow too?

Is he two nights?

It was just one, I think.

It was one, yeah, last night.

It was good though.

Yeah, I think we had six or seven city staff all that.

Hey, hey.

Okay.

All right, so uh thank you, council, for your time this evening.

Uh, for the record, Ryan Osterm, the director of the engineering department, and with me.

Elizabeth O'Shelp from the City Attorney's Office.

And so tonight is a discussion about a supplemental transportation SDC charge for the Southeast area.

So we're gonna go through a background of the Southeast area here a little bit, talk through the project list and how we develop the cost for that, and then finish this off with kind of the notification process and how this works.

This should be pretty familiar because we just did a supplemental sewer SDC in the same geographic area not very long ago.

So keep that in mind is this will only apply to the Southeast area, that geographic master planned area that's adopted in our code now.

So as you're aware, we adopted a master plan, uh council directed master plan in 2021.

Uh you can read the numbers there in terms of residential, mixed use, and employment and commercial.

At the time, we said we think about about 60 million dollars worth of needs on the sewer and transportation sides.

Water is supplied through Avian, so that's that's not in our purview here.

But just to make sure everybody's tracking, and it's it's kind of neat to see what's happened in the last five years as we you know take a little walk around the horn here.

Uh a lot of this is already built.

The 15th and Ferguson roundabout is gonna go into construction here in a couple weeks.

Sorry, I know that's gonna mess with our our traffic round.

Um everything else here on 15th has been built.

Um, this left-hand lane, some of this is a part of Easton's been built.

Um so the remaining work I'll highlight in more detail, but um it's really what's identified in this uh geographic area.

So the sewer uh pump station that we built down there had about a 25 million dollar price tag.

You elected to recover half of that, and so over the next X number of years of development comes in, the sewer fund will pay itself back for about half of that.

Transportation is a little bit different because we don't have the ability to necessarily go build 25 million dollars worth of work.

Um we are gonna have to wait for some of this SDC revenue to come in until we have enough so that we can bond for these improvements.

So uh background is we've been in conversations with owners and development here for years, even going back to when we were developing the master plan.

Uh so we we've been in constant outreach and contact with them through the master plan through the supplemental sewer SDC charge, and in January of this year, uh they basically went to the Central Oregon Builders Association and said, could you help us go have a conversation with the city and consider the idea of a supplemental transportation SDC?

So we've been working with them for roughly five or six months to get to the point where we are today.

So the just uh to dive a little bit deeper into SDCs, so we're tracking, we do already have a transportation SDC fee that applies not only to this area but citywide, and there are projects on that list.

And some of the projects, such as 15th and Ferguson, is already be fun being funded through the existing list.

Well, what we're considering as a part of the supplemental list is things that are separate.

We can't double dip, right?

We can't charge them twice for the same project.

So I'll get into a good example of that in the next slide or two as we look at a specific map.

But one of the highlight this does not overlap with the existing SDC.

The whole city would not be paying this fee, only those in this geographic area.

And to highlight that this work would ultimately, if passed, need to be folded into our larger transportation construction fund.

Normally, all these developers would get tagged with a land use requirement in their permits in land use decisions that says, congratulations on rooftop 274.

You trigger the need to build the roundabout.

And then the next developer next to them gets something similar.

And so now they're playing kind of this game of chicken of who's going to get there first and who's going to pay for it, so I don't have to.

So this really does allow us to kind of help navigate that and make it a more predictable route, not only for us as staff to deliver it, but for them as owners and developers to do their proformas to plan on not having a massive three million dollar investment hit in a couple years.

So what projects are we talking about?

So the three main projects on here.

The first one is over here on the right side, and this is a future roundabout at what's known as Diamondback Way now, which is the entrance in the High Desert Middle School.

That will eventually turn into Caldera Drive.

Caldera Drive is the main east-west collector that goes all the way to the roundabout that exists over here near Caldera High School and then continues down to Broster House.

So that will all be known as Caldera Drive, and there is a requirement for a kind of a standard roundabout there right in front of the county offices.

And so this one they asked us to do because multiple developers were getting tagged with doing this.

And this one's going to be pretty complex.

There's a lot of existing utilities out there, franchise utilities, there's going to be some ride-away issues and some coordination with some owners on the other side of 27th, mainly the county.

So we program three and a half million dollars, which is generally our cost estimate for roundabouts nowadays.

The second project is this internal roundabout.

So whenever we have these higher order streets of collectors and arterials, in this case, it's a collector collector.

This north-south collector is going to be known as Journey Way.

So we have a key intersection here in the middle.

This one should be a lot cleaner and easier to do.

All the right-away we would need for this will be dedicated to us by the developers.

It's part of their requirement.

So won't have any right-away costs.

We're exploring different concepts of roundabouts here just because yes, it will get used a lot, but it's not on 27th.

So we might even explore kind of an urban compact roundabout or something smaller that is safer but still allows for their proper amount of capacity to go through that intersection.

So we budgeted about two million for that.

Third project, and I and I broke this off into pieces just to highlight the main reason why they asked us to participate in this.

Is in our TSP, it's projects M22 through M26, and it's the modernization and urbanization of Knot Road and 27th, basically all the way around the horn here.

So portion of that has been an elbow, I think.

Actually, yeah, yeah.

Drive around the horn to get to it.

Yeah, the neighborhood wouldn't be roundabout speed building.

It is an elbow.

So a portion of this has been built.

If you go out there now, you can see Polish has already done a piece of this as a part of Easton.

So we basically calculated what's the remaining cost for the rest of this.

This is a good example though of we're already collecting 64% of the costs in our existing SDC project list.

So I can only go get the other 36%.

So the estimated cost for this full build out is about $15 million.

So 36% of that, so we're not double dipping is five and so those are the three main projects they asked us to consider as staff.

And I'll hand it over to Elizabeth for a minute to just talk through the methodology.

Yeah, so the methodology would take those project costs and then allocate them on a per-trip basis.

And Ryan on the next couple of slides will talk about the trip generation in the Southeast area.

Um but just wanted to highlight that this methodology would be consistent with our citywide methodology and the some of the direction you gave us on the sewer supplemental methodology.

We would match the land use assumptions, the use categories, and the trip counts of those various development types that we have already established in the citywide and sewer SDC methodologies.

So the tiering of residential uses, same on the square footage.

We would just plug in another column on our existing SDC fee schedule.

We would include a compliance charge to pay for making sure, you know, doing the accounting and use of this SDC consistent with the statutes.

We would include affordable housing and child care exemptions again, consistent with the other two methodologies, and then we would allow for the increase of cost to keep up with inflation so that when we do get to build up the projects, we are collecting enough money for future construction costs.

So just highlighting that those would be the same in this methodology as well.

So down of an itty gritty here, we're we're estimating about 4,000 trips being generated from the southeast area.

If you add up those three projects, it's an 11 million dollar price tag.

So you can see the math there that equates to about 2800 per trip, not including the compliance fee and the administrative cost that Elizabeth just mentioned.

And what is that percent like percentage that a percent number?

I'm trying to remember what it was on the sewer side.

I have the sewer cost for the oh the administrative cost.

For the sewer, it's hard to do apples to apples.

I think it was 77 cents per gallon per day was how we calculated because you do it by gallon and not trip on the sewer side.

Um so it wouldn't add um more than then, I think it's it's gonna be the same fees that we have in the current for the it'll be scaled down because this is a smaller fee and a smaller administrative burden than the citywide SECs.

Um I think it we haven't done that math yet, um, but it was probably not more than five or ten dollars.

Okay, yeah.

So what does this mean overall?

Here's the tiered categories that Elizabeth described.

You can pick one, let's say you're doing a 2,000 square foot single family unit, um, or it could be a duplex or something of that sort, but um the current transportation SDC is $10,230.

That's what they pay today.

Anyone in the city, this area would get an additional charge of $2660, bringing their total fee up to $12,890 on the transportation side.

Keeping in mind this doesn't account for their sewer and their supplemental sewer.

Um, and as I said, water is not administered by the city through this area.

So that just gives you a kind of a sneak peek there on you know, an approximation of where each of these would land um with respect to what the existing charges today.

So, next steps.

So the SEC statutes require um, you know, if you are uh supportive of the direction of this math uh problem and the SDC is proposed, the SDC statutes require a 90-day advance notice before the public hearing for adoption.

We would issue that notice and provide notice to uh folks who specifically have requested notice about SDC issues and everyone in the Southeast area.

We have to post the final methodology report for public review 60 days before that hearing.

Um so we would kick both of those off in the next 90 and 60 days after today, and then in September, we would have the public hearing on the methodology and adopting the fee schedule, and then Ryan would uh wait for development for building permits to come in and start planning for when these um improvements would actually be needed and get those planned into the CIPs.

So the direct question to council is do you support this project list?

Are you supportive of the cost framework and the overall approach?

And would you like us to proceed with the notification process?

Okay, questions, council.

Question about uh so the projects listed there.

Uh if I pull up the park district trail plan, there's the high desert is it called the high desert trail goes through there, and then there's a high desert trail, high desert park trail crossing.

Would those be I don't know if those have been if those if funding has been identified to complete those, would those be eligible projects to be included here?

Not within what we're showing here, those would still be all covered by the developers.

So all of the collector roads, the the dashed lines in here, they're gonna have to still work it out between themselves how to get those built based on their land use requirements.

So the things you identified, the shared use paths and other things.

One of the things I I know on the north side of not road, there is a wide shared use path that I think is a part of that.

So um why wouldn't we want to include them?

And then it would just be a more cost sharing.

Well, so the the 64% that we're already collecting in the existing SDCs is meant to cover their frontage, so that would include that path, and basically two-thirds of not road or 27th.

We're collecting the other third that would help us to build the whole thing out.

So we'll probably wind up building it on not road, but it's not part of this project list, it's part of the existing SDC project list, but would be constructed together.

On not road, but it's not part of this project list, it's part of the existing SDC project list, but would be constructed together.

We combine those SDCs and we build it.

So then funding is identified for them.

Yeah, in it between the existing, yeah, in the existing SDC project list that that's accounted for.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, other questions?

Go ahead.

First of all, just in terms of categorizing this, is this a way to for the developers kind of amortize their their cost for this over time?

Is that a way to characterize it?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, instead of any one developer having to find the funding or the financing to build a single one of these, or they decide and figure out how they're gonna split the costs among themselves.

They know if I build this size house, it's this cost per house, and that's my portion of these improvements, and so it's more certainty and probably less overall cost for any particular developer.

Yeah, and this is really being driven by the developers.

This is at their request, yeah.

And and another, you know, case study is you know, yes, Polish was able to build this extension off of the existing roundabout, but there's a world in which you know, then we go a quarter mile and somebody else builds another thousand feet, then another quarter mile, and it's just piecemeal, then we don't want it to be built that way ourselves.

We would like it to be a consistent project.

And when do these start hitting if we all go everything goes to plan?

When do we start collecting?

So as soon as uh res the resolution would be effective upon adoption, and then it would be charged to building permits in the area.

So September.

Okay.

So before the next legislative session.

And if you got money, if any of these projects that the the SDC statutes require that we take into account additional money received, we as Ryan said, we can't double dip um from any source, and so we would come back and we could revise the list and take projects off if external funding is obtained for anything.

Thank you.

I didn't um catch.

Did you say like when you would get started on the first project?

Would you have to collect a certain way?

Yeah, we haven't identified it's not in our current five-year CIP anywhere at this point.

So yeah, we we I need to sit down with the private development team and say, you know, when when in your view is say the project at 27th and Caldera Drive triggered by development if they were to do it on their own.

And if they're saying we anticipate it's in 2029, I generally try to hit that same date because the need will be there.

But it really just does depend on development, um, how fast it comes, and and again, I we don't have the flexibility in our transportation fund today to just say let's add another three and a half million.

So we would need to make sure we've collected enough to lease bond for that.

Yeah.

And why can you remind me why?

Because another tool to do the same thing is forming in a local improvement district.

Um, and the cool thing about an LID is that it you're not waiting on if I remember correctly from the last presentation we had, right?

You're not waiting on a building permit application to collect the additional SDC.

It's levied across all the property owners, no matter what the parcel size.

So that is true as soon as it's established.

If they're in the city, we can't do an LED until they're annexed into the city, and most of this area is not in the city yet.

I thought that was the Broadman bill.

We address that.

We would need to work with the county to do a sort of a co um to work together to get an L ID in this area, correct?

If if we wanted to act on our own, has to be annexed.

If we want to partner with the county and do an LID, um, that's an option.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking like all the the roads in the dashed line are not you know, they're gonna have to be built by the developer, and that's a pretty big cause for the developers.

They're sort of used to it.

But you know, is it in the community's best interest for us to be taking a little bit more control over that and not leaving it to the developers, you know, decisions to move ahead.

Good question.

And and in these six months of conversations, I asked multiple times, like what would you like us to include?

Because we could do the collectors as well.

Yeah, like so because right now, you know, if they build Drini Way and Caldera Drive, they're probably gonna build it to like a four-way inter stop controlled intersection until we come in and do the urban compact or the roundabout.

And so, yeah, that there is there is a sense there that says we we could go as big as we want, but this is specifically what they asked us to consider.

So that's all operating on the assumption that they have a plan internally, um, or maybe they don't, and they're just gonna let each development go, you know, the next one to go builds their stretch and their stretch, and it's really up to them.

On those collectors, would they be built piecemeal also?

Like they're only going to be responsible for certain parts of the road.

They would have to build their frontage, yeah.

Right.

So that those roads could also get built, and it's kind of a weird piecemeal.

It would, yeah.

I I mean, I I agree.

I was asking about this gender review.

Like, why don't we do all of these?

It just seems strange to me that if we're gonna do this, let's actually do it and get it done.

Yeah, my understanding from that conversation is that if they came back and said, actually, we do want to put those roads in, they could be added in for an adjustment to the supplemental SC in the future.

Generally speaking, though, these collectors are in you know, bare dirt, like it's it's they can do it cheaper than we can.

Like they can't do that.

Yeah, so I was going to ask the private development will be more cost effective to build those roads than if we're building them.

So, we're gonna be saving money compared to some of the complexities of doing this other stuff.

Instead of them paying us to do the roads, which they probably they feel like they can do those versus the roundabout being more expensive and complex, especially the one uh diamondback with the right-of-way issues on the utilities.

That's that's a big one.

The North Point or North Peak, I can't remember.

Like they're already building a portion of Journey Way through their development now.

So, like when you drive past that, they've got it all carved out.

As soon as they're done on Ferguson, they're gonna move down there and they're gonna start paving out you know their frontage portion of Journey Way, and then whoever comes next after them would do their portion, and we do have the developed cross section, it's in the master plan, they know exactly what they're required to build, and so there's a lot of there's a lot more certainty from their standpoint from a cost perspective if they do it.

I mean sorry, oh well.

I was just gonna finish my thought on the LID, which is um the the other advantage to establishing an LID versus an SDC is that the fee gets assessed on all the landowners, and you know, not having a land value tax in Oregon means that developers can kind of sit on land for a really long time until all the infrastructure gets built, and then their cost of development is uh and their process of development is a lot simpler by let by creating an LAD for an area that we have identified that's been in our our comp plan, and you know, it kind of brings everyone, you know, it rubs everyone into the um the cost as well as the benefit, you know, of funding funding all that infrastructure and it allows it to be built in a little bit more orly of a way.

So I mean, you know, we've we've talked about other parts of town, so I'd I'm really would like us to look at you know taking advantage of what Senator Bradman did for our community because we're one of the rare communities that has this like you know, urban area reserve that is annexable, and we just are waiting for developers to come along and annex it.

So um we now we now can do that.

So I think it's I just think it's something really important for us to um look at.

Anyway, if the property owners disagree with an LID, how does that change the process?

Because my understanding is they'd have to agree to tax themselves.

There is a problem.

I haven't looked at that uh code section closely lately, but I believe there is um somewhat similar to the EID process or remonstrance process.

And I think I think you'll come to us with this solution, yes, right.

So they when we um explored uh both Hillsborough and Beaverton, and they were had sort of similar issues where they had a parcelized area that was added to their to the Metro UGB, they used area plans, LIDs, um supplemental SDCs, all of that.

And that was sort of that funding strategy that we talked about with an LIDs was part of the mix.

We don't have a lot of folks that have used them here, so I think we're planning to have a round table with developers.

I think it's a conversation that we need to start socializing a little bit more with developers because I think it's just not something we've used a lot for greenfield development, but it's possible for sure.

It's just it's not it does need their support though to do it.

You we couldn't just impose it, it would have to there, there's a whole process to get them behind it.

Can we do supplemental?

I'm so sorry, Mike.

Can we do supplemental SDCs without their approval?

They could they can't object to this.

Is that weird?

This is a city council decision.

That's how we did the sewer one, really.

We we decided that one I mean, I just like other city fees.

Yeah, yeah.

I would point out that supplemental SDCs were a big part of the funding work for discussion during the CTEC process, and there was broad agreement that that would this would be.

I think this one was a higher priority choice, even over the L IDs, perhaps for the reasons Eric's saying, but I mean it's just it's been part of the discussion for a long time.

And it was actually Karna at um Cobe.

She was the COBA government affairs person at the time was really advocating that that needed to be on the list and that we should look hard at using this tool for these parts, these expansion areas to help facilitate them and get them to you know be successful more quickly.

So I'm pleased to see that COBA's actually following through on that.

They they help lead in charge with all these owners and developers out here.

Yeah, okay.

So comfortable staff going forward with the next steps in the process to bring this to a decision to us.

Okay, great.

All right, thank you.

Thanks.

All right, we'll invite um our friends from the downtown bin business association to come on up.

Forgive me, I'm not sure how to share my slides.

Last time Cyrus did all that.

Yeah.

You should have had um a meal link from Susie.

Did you guys email them?

I don't really say that.

Rachel, do you want to just email and I can I can do it?

Yeah, Eric.

Email the slides.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Just a second in joining your wife here.

Oh, yeah.

They're on the agenda.

Yeah.

You want to just use that?

Whatever's faster.

Actually, it'd be quicker for you to do it than me joining itself.

So yeah, we'll do that.

Perfect.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor and Counselors, for the opportunity to provide an update on the Downtown Bend Business Association.

Over the past year, our focus has been on strengthening the organization and enhancing the downtown experience, supporting business and property owners' experience, and I'm going to provide a brief overview of our progress through our three-year strategic plan today.

And then I'm going to spend a little time discussing a topic that's not new to downtown, and that's parking.

As many of you know, our work is guided by the main street America's Four Pillars.

This is promotion design, organization, and economic vitality.

And rather than going through each of these in depth, I just want to highlight that these areas work together to support a vibrant economically healthy downtown.

And I'm gonna go through how what we have done within each of these pillars over the last year and the progress that we've made.

So the next slide.

Promotion is about creating reasons for people to visit downtown, how they spend time here, and how they support local businesses.

This year we've strengthened downtown storytelling, we've expanded our social media efforts, we've launched our new downtown Bend gift card program, and we've increased promotion of businesses and events.

As we move into the next phase of our strategic plan, we're going to continue building that momentum through expanded campaigns and storytelling efforts that elevate downtown Bend both locally and regionally.

Of course, bringing people downtown is just the beginning of the story.

Their experience what they get once they get here matters just as much.

And then we'll move into design.

Design focuses on creating places that people want to spend time in.

This year we continued our beautification programs like our flower baskets while laying the groundwork for larger placemaking initiatives.

This includes mural opportunities, utility box art discussions, planter concepts, and advocacy around tree well improvements.

One really exciting example is we had a huge response to our call for artists for a mural spot, which is on the site of Lith Fitness Studios.

We had over 250 artists who were interested in putting some art there.

We're just working on the funding for that at the moment.

These efforts have strengthened downtown's identity to contribute to the experience that residents and visitors associate with Bend.

Much of this visible work is supported by a tremendous amount of organizational work that happens behind the scenes.

Next slide.

Over the past year, we've strengthened our committees, we've implemented new systems such as our CRM system, we've improved collaboration with our community partners, develop a board governance handbook, and created our three-year strategic roadmap that guides all of our work.

These systems create continuity and position the organization for long-term success.

Strong organizations are better equipped to respond to challenges, seize opportunities, and serve our stakeholders efficiently.

And that brings us to economic vitality.

This is again some of the least visible work, but this is arguably the most important.

This work focuses on identifying barriers, creating opportunities, building partnerships, and helping downtown businesses succeed.

This year we've strengthened our sponsorship programs, we've expanded our partnerships, we've pursued funding opportunities, and we've increased our stakeholder engagement.

One thing I'm particularly excited about is our gift card program.

Since launching this six months ago, we've already generated almost $60,000 in gift card sales that go directly back into supporting downtown businesses.

This is roughly four times what the previous program did in an entire year.

As part of our economic vitality work, we don't just celebrate what's working, we also pay attention to the recurring challenges that businesses, property owners, employees, and customers tell us may be impacting downtown success.

One topic that has surfaced consistently over the years is parking.

I'd like to spend the next few minutes providing some context around this conversation, why the DBBA chose to engage in it, what our role has been and where we are in the process, and of course what happens next.

After hearing concerns repeatedly through surveys and conversations, board discussions, working within the downtown parking advisory committee, the DBBA board authorized the development of a draft progressive paid parking concept to help facilitate more meaningful community conversations around potential parking management approaches.

I also want to clarify that this draft parking plan, what it was intended to be, and maybe more importantly, what it's not intended to be.

The DBBA does not establish parking policy, and this document was never meant to serve as a final recommendation as a techno technical parking study or an implementation plan.

If the city were ever to formally pursue changes to downtown parking, I would fully expect that process involve extensive utilization data, technical expertise, professional analysis, and a robust public process.

Rather, we developed this draft as a conversation starter.

Parking is consistently emerged as one of the most frequently discussed challenges affecting downtown's economic vitality.

This challenge we faced was that parking management means very different things to different people.

So without a tangible example, it was difficult to give stakeholders and the community to react meaningfully or to provide constructive feedback.

So we created this draft, not because we're recommending its adoption, but because we want something concrete that stakeholders and community members can respond to.

Parking, so the next slide.

Yep, parking isn't a new conversation to downtown Ben.

There's stakeholders, conversation surveys, committee discussions, and everyday interactions.

We've heard some similar themes.

It's difficult to find convenient parking.

There's frustration with the two hour limit, concerns about tickets, uncertainty, uncertainty on whether the current system is working as intended.

Whether people are favored change or they prefer the status quo, parking has continued to emerge as a recurring topic affecting everybody downtown.

And I want to emphasize that it's not our role, obviously, to implement policy.

It's your guys' role to do that.

We're just gathering information, facilitating conversation, and bringing perspectives forward for consideration.

The process that we're in today is exactly the process this draft was designed to support.

We drafted, you can continue on here.

We created a draft, we shared it publicly, we're gathering stakeholder and community input, and we're intentionally waiting until meaningful participation thresholds have reached before we're even start evaluating what we've heard.

The feedback itself, again, is the outcome that we're seeking here.

Once complete, the board is going to determine whether there are any themes worth sharing with the city or whether no more action is warranted.

So, regardless of what any final solution may or may not look like, we felt it was important to define, you can go to the next slide.

We felt it was important to define the problems that we're trying to solve, and these are the objectives behind our getting principles.

How do we increase turnover in high demand spaces?

How do we allow visitors to stay longer and spend more time downtown?

How do we provide affordable options for employees and residents?

How do we reduce congestion and the frustration of circling for parking?

And how do we ensure that if revenue is ever generated, it is reinvested transparently into downtown improvements?

And people may disagree on the solution, and that's okay.

These are just the outcomes that we've heard consistently that people care about.

So the next slide.

The concept that we included formally in this draft is a progressive paid parking model for high-demand curbside spaces.

The idea behind progressive parking is pretty straightforward.

Shorter visits remain really affordable while longer visits become incrementally more expensive.

The goal is never to force people out of downtown.

The goal is to help ensure that our highest demand spaces remain available for customers who need quick and convenience accesses to shops, restaurants, and services.

Visitors that plan on spending more time downtown can either choose the convenience of on-street parking or they can opt for the lower cost alternatives like our lots and our garage.

A specific this specific concept was included because it gives people something specific to give feedback on.

Some people may support aspects of it, they might impose it entirely.

We've gotten suggestions for modifications, which have been great, and we're just hoping to gather as much feedback as possible.

Next slide, just highlighting this quickly one more time.

Um, the reason we chose the progressive model is because it really helps solve these main problems that we're looking to.

Um the purpose of this draft was not to really advocate for the approach, but to help understand what aspects of it resonated with stakeholders in the community, what concerns it raised, and what people would like to change.

Next slide.

If the city were ever to consider a parking benefit district model, many stakeholders and community members have shared that they would like to see a clear and transparent connection between any revenue generated downtown and the improvements made within downtown.

So potential examples could include include beautification products, projects, excuse me, um, more maintenance and cleanliness, public amenities such as restrooms, which we all know is huge, uh, and future infrastructure improvements.

So the conversation is more than just paid parking, it's people want to see how this could potentially affect the a future system could affect the benefits in the community that they live in, they work, and um that they own properties in.

So where we're at today, next slide.

We're just listening, we're in the listening phase, we're actively collecting feedback from stakeholders in the community, and then we've committed to making sure the surveys reach meaningful participation goals.

Um we have not analyzed results yet, we're not making a formal recommendation at this moment.

Um we have not brought any policy proposals forward to you guys.

Uh the feedback itself is really the outcome we're looking for right now.

And then once the process is complete, we're gonna review it, identify common themes, share our findings transparently with everybody and determine if future conversations are warranted.

And then the next slide is just a couple QR codes if anybody would like to chime in on their opinion on these are the two surveys that we have.

I think we have opinions.

Oh, I think the survey.

We appreciate emails and calls and things like that, but ultimately we need to have all this information collected into one spot.

That's why these surveys are important.

Um, parking is rarely simple, it's usually very emotional because people use it.

Nearly everyone spends time downtown, and so I understand that there's a lot of emotions tied to it.

Um we believe it's better to have these conversations openly rather than just say, yeah, parking is hard.

Um, every perspective helps us better downtown, and um we all really care about downtown, and so we just want to just keep the conversation going on on potential ways of improving or making changes or not making changes.

Um so thank you for letting us share in your continued partnership means a lot to us and your support of downtown Ben, and um happy to answer any questions.

Thanks, Rachel.

Um, and I'll say um I appreciate the update with sort of the main street areas.

I think that's been a really good structure that the DBBA has adopted, and it was part of our ask of the EID renewal was that we adopt these main street principles and have DDB member because that really gives some structure to your subcommittees and some of the strategic planning that you're doing, and as the Louise and I've seen that really working out as far as having a good list of things to try to accomplish and keeping you on task for how you want to um invest in the district going forward.

So I appreciate that.

Yeah, we've got a board member.

Um Liz is here, and Ryan is here who does the maintenance downtown, and you may see him going around putting up flower baskets pretty soon with the crew and watering.

Yeah, flower baskets next week.

So um just appreciate you all and all you do for downtown.

Any other questions?

Yeah, I had a question.

I thank you for doing the survey.

I think it's great.

I'm really glad that you're gathering this information.

I'll be intrigued to see what um the results.

So I just had a question.

The one piece of feedback that I heard from people is that it's a lot of employees and owners of businesses that are taking up spaces on the street, which I find kind of confusing because I think it's time limited to two hours downtown.

But I was curious if you if you knew, or maybe maybe there's someone in the room that knows um what I thought there was like a discounted permit for employees and business owners, and where can they use it, where can they what parking lots or garage or whatever can they use?

Yeah, so there's different areas that you can use the the main garage, but there's also these sections that surround downtown.

Really, anywhere there's three-hour parking, there's usually a it's a permit zone.

Um, and they are really affordable.

Um, I know there's conversations that the business owners, some business owners pay for parking permits, and sometimes that can add up if they have a lot of employees to thousands of dollars per year.

So I think they're looking for ways to make it even better, but even if I'm I'm an employee, um, if I were to have a parking permit for the garage, I just think it's 40 dollars a month.

Yeah, which is pretty affordable for the long.

Yeah, um, and that's one of the questions we did ask in our surveys is if you're an employee, where are you parking?

And it's been pretty eye-opening so far on where people are parking.

No, I think there's also an educational campaign that can go along with that and making sure employers are letting their their um staff know where they should be parking and what's not allowed.

Yeah, I definitely have the feedback.

There are employees that go move their car every two hours.

So it's happening, yes.

Yeah, any other questions?

Um first I just want to acknowledge your work because I think that the downtown Bend Business Association plays a really valuable role in keeping our downtown bend really pleasant and nice, and it's it's uh it's really attractive and pretty special.

So um that I think you deserve uh some recognition recognition for that.

Uh my question is about in terms of needs.

I don't know that a lot of business owners would think about underutilized parking garage as a problem.

I think it's kind of a problem.

I think that um it's appropriate to have a price on the parking garage.

And so part of the dynamic then is if curb spaces are not priced, well, if you're a customer, why would you want to park in the garage?

And so the result is that we often have a lot of space in the garage.

Has that come up as a consideration in terms of you know, if there was a conversation around putting a price on curb parking that you we might see more use of the garage?

Maybe the garage costs less, you know.

But there's there's certain things that we might want to consider there to try to get the more use out of the garage.

Has that come up at all?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of the progressive model.

If somebody's coming downtown and they know they're gonna be spending a little bit of time, I mean, doing just math, looking at what it would cost to spend five hours paying on the streets will definitely be more expensive than going to the garage where it's a dollar an hour, ten dollars max a day.

It's pretty affordable.

And it's creating incentive to use the garage.

A high value or high turnover, I guess you said the high demand parking spaces downtown and restaurant spaces.

Like how are you defining where those are?

What is that is that in the survey?

Is it made clearer in the survey?

Um, yeah, it's just street parking that's right in front of the businesses.

So what we call our downtown core.

Just so it's basically all that on street parking.

Yeah, is your it's all on street.

Anything that's not the lot and then not in the garages that is okay, all right.

So we're in the downtown core, yeah.

Can you remind me if any can you validate at downtown businesses?

Has there been any study?

Um, not through us, no.

We don't we yeah, that came up at the at the annual meeting this Monday, and I think I think it's like yeah, it's and that's if we get a scheme going, that can be part of how we talk about it and how we encourage people to go into business.

And that's some of the feedback that I think there's been some early results of the survey is people asking about validation.

It's definitely worth looking into.

I know as a customer of the box factory, I think does that.

Yeah.

That's a nice feature.

Yeah, it's definitely an option.

Okay, any other questions for Rachel?

Thank you.

Thanks for lending on that.

All the hard work you guys have put into the downtown business association this last year and a half or so.

Appreciate it.

Okay, we have enough time left to preview upcoming work sessions.

Uh yeah, so next meeting, so regular business meeting, because a big item on the agenda is uh budget.

Uh we also have a few contracts, uh construction contracts, uh, and then some uh cleanup with our uh expedite expediting program.

Expeditions, yeah, yeah.

And then the work session on the 24th, uh, we'll be discussing our utility rates.

We'll also be discussing infrastructure requirements for development, particularly infill development, how to incentivize more infill development by looking at those infrastructure requirements.

Um utility rates includes water, utility.

So our utility rate is scorm water, water, and sewer.

And so we're looking at kind of that big picture of the main drivers uh with those.

We have some master plans that are in process, some that have recently been completed, so we know some of the drivers of the capital projects.

Um and then we'll just talk about how we manage that rate model, what are important values to council as we uh look ahead.

Uh we don't have hard numbers yet, we are staying consistent with the biennial budget.

So the rates that you're approving are consistent with what we proposed in the budget for this biennium, what we're talking about on the 24th, it's more long-term, you know, more long-term kind of rate planning and uh incorporating council interests in to those rate models.

So I think that's it.

I don't have it in front of me.

Is there one more on the 24th?

It was just those two, yeah.

Okay, great.

And we have a master plan next week.

Yeah, next week.

Well, I'm sorry, the master plan for two masters, well, a master plan and annexation.

So we have the uh cavi, which is the formerly the union master plan off of 15th and Murphy, and an annexation in actually in the Southeast area.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I think that's it for the work session.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks.