Good morning.

Today is Wednesday, July the 15th.

This committee of finance diversity, equity, and inclusion is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the role.

Here.

Thank you.

We're gonna always start out with guests, but before we go to guests, I do want to make sure that I clarify a question that was asked at the last uh committee of the whole.

And I want to make sure that this is uh clarified with all council members, if I could.

And the question was in committee of the whole, do council members each get a vote on all the legislation or vote um taken by committee.

Um after asking the attorneys to review this uh this question, the answer is council members signed the legislation by committee to record their recommendation of votes.

Council members do not vote individually on all legislation.

So under council rule sixteen, um, we called the meeting.

Um I called the meeting as a whole for committee of the whole without objection for the purpose of conducting business generally with all committees present, and rule sixteen states that the rules of council shall be observed in the committee of the whole, and no roll call of yes or nays are taken.

Council members sign legislation by committee to record their individual votes.

So as usual, under Rule 15, a majority of council members of referred committees report on legislation by signing the back of any legislation recommended for passage.

Council members may speak when acknowledged by the chair, but do not individually vote on every piece of legislation heard in committee of the whole.

However, only the finance committee members will be the ones that will actually make the referral for the full floor vote, not all of the committee of the whole.

Okay.

Okay.

So just wanted to make sure we clarify that so that I know that was a question that members had last time, and I did um want to make sure I reviewed that with everybody.

Okay.

That being said, I'm going to bring up uh first the finance uh director.

And uh this is ordinance number six eight nine to six.

And I believe you have a guest with you, and I'll read this into the record.

Uh this is ordinance number six eight nine-2026 as amended by councilmember Griffin by departmental request.

An emergency ordinance authorizing the director of finance to enter into one or more contracts with PFM financial advisors, LLC for as needed, financial advisory and consulting services for the Department of Finance for a period of one year, with two one-year options to renew exercisable by the director of finance.

And the amendment states there is no legal objection to this legislation if amended as follows.

One, in section two, at the end, insert the director of finance shall provide written notice to the clerk of council whenever any purchase is made through the cooperative process, which notice shall include the details of such cooperative purchase.

This is dated 714 2026, signed by Vishnu Ganglani, uh assistant director of law.

And uh director, you had the floor and you can introduce your guests.

Okay.

Uh through the chair to the committee, um we have uh Jeremy Needfeld with PFM today to answer any questions you may have.

Um introduction to this bill, as you all will recall about a year ago I came to council with the idea to have a strategic advisor for the entire city instead of having each division uh contracting out a different advisor.

Uh since then, PFM has become ingrained in several projects.

They've helped us revamp our debt program.

They were in an integral part of that.

And again, keep kept helped us keep a $68 million liability off of our books uh this year.

Uh we made an agreement with council that we would come back in one year um to see how things were going and request a contract extension since the original contract was for one year.

Uh just a reminder, we did do a competitive process for this.

We did a uh request for bids you know when we went out and and awarded the business to PFM.

So now we are here asking um to enter into a contract with PFM for another year with two one-year options to renew.

Okay, uh, I do have a few questions, and um I'll begin by asking why is this uh contract structured as a retainer?

Um, how many hours of consultation did they uh receive and under the previous contract and why not structure it under billable hours as opposed to not to exceed amount?

So to the chair, um it's more economical for the city.

Uh so I've done a lot of business with PFM when I was in Jacksonville, and um, you know, the work that they have done well exceeds uh the retainer amount.

So the retainer amount covers a span of services.

If we had paid that individually and hourly, um it would have been much more expensive.

Um and through the relationship with PFM, we were able to um you know negotiate a uh you know uh an arrangement or retainer that was beneficial to the city.

Um also there was a deep desire by PFM to do business with the city of Cleveland.

They've been trying to do business with the city of Cleveland for a long time.

Um and you know, they wanted to, you know, um foster that relationship through their fee structure.

Thank you.

And I don't want to be rude.

Did anybody did your guests want to state anything?

Yes, good morning, Mr.

President uh Jeremy Felt with PFM.

Uh appreciate the opportunity to be here and uh the relationship we've built with the city over the last uh couple years has been great.

Uh some of the innovative strategies we've helped implement uh have been beneficial and we'll look forward to continuing to do that.

So just um out of curiosity, PFM is a national company.

Am I correct?

And because I know that I've worked and had conversations with the local PFM partnership.

Why are we going with, and this is I'm just trying to understand why is this economical to go with a firm that is not Ohio-based but Florida based?

So to the chair, that's a great question.

Um there was a conflict of interest with the Cleveland team.

Um we are looking to see if we can remove a firewall that was in place as part of the conditions.

Um we are using the Orlando team because um essentially uh there was a conflict um in terms of you know there were different interests with a party that they issue debt for that um you know conflicted with our interests.

So we ran this through the ethics um officer as well as through the law department, and they said that if we put up a um a firewall and PFM agreed to adhere to that, then that would you know check the box essentially, and we could bring them on.

I will say that we are uh I'm in talks with the ethics officer since that conflict seems to be no longer existent um to see if we can lift that firewall, uh, but that has not yet been lifted, so we're here with the the Florida team.

Bless you.

Okay.

Um so that's uh so we already do business with the local PFM, which we don't, or we don't do issues with the local PFM.

To the chair we don't because there was that conflict.

But we are looking to there's a firewall in place right now so that the team in Florida cannot communicate with the team in Cleveland on business because of that potential conflict.

So they are essentially contracted with us, but we are looking to get that firewall removed.

And and I understand that, but my question was why did we go straight to Florida and not actually entertain the local PFM is what I'm trying to understand.

Yeah, so to the chair, um, you know, I I worked a lot eight years with Jeremy and his team and have the utmost faith in them.

Um we've been through a lot of battles and solved a lot of problems in Jacksonville.

I had the utmost confidence uh in him and his team to be able to assist the the Cleveland team.

Um I I thought that was more beneficial than going with a team that I'm not familiar with outside of you know Cleveland.

Um so I thought that that was best for the city.

Mr.

Gentel?

To the to the chair.

I mean, we were precluded from using the local team because of the conflict.

They represented people that didn't have the you know, had different interests than the city uh at the time.

So we could not use the local team.

We could not use the Cleveland office.

Okay, are there any other firms locally because and let me say this just with all due respect to our Florida friends?

One of the things we try to do is we try to make sure that Ohio um companies, specifically Kyohoga and Cleveland companies, uh actually are able to have opportunities to do business with the city of Cleveland.

Um okay and want to make sure that you get the right team in place to be able to be effective as you want, director.

But I'm just trying to understand that we're gonna get the calls from local companies of saying, why were we bypassed?

Because I understand that this was a no-bid contract.

Yeah, so so to the chair, we did do a competitive process and we did do a request for bids, and we looked at the scope of services.

So PFM, there are very, very few firms in this universe that can be a comprehensive municipal advisor.

There's maybe two or three companies that can do this, period, uh at this scale.

I mean, they can do everything from you know, tax credits to helping us restructure our debt program.

I mean, almost anything.

Um they're helping economic development, bring in business, um, so pretty much anything.

And the firms that can actually actually have that scope are few.

Uh we did receive responses to the risk for bids, and after evaluating them, we did feel that PFM was the most qualified.

And again, understanding that need for the local presence, we are trying to lift that firewall and have that local office involved.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I do want to um make sure that any if you do have any ethics um opinions, if you could share it with this body uh through the clerk, just so that we could have it on file uh that we actually uh did get any of that uh information, okay?

Uh can you explain how the scope of work in this contract isn't currently being provided by the finance director, the debt manager, or the bond council?

I know that we have um I believe Ms.

Ruby that usually does a lot of this, and uh we also had Squire Sanders and others that have done this in the past.

Is it the intention to have this contract replace that entire team?

No, so uh to the chair the intent is not that we're not replacing anybody.

This is more to compliment, and again, we were already doing this.

Um, you know, for instance, if just throwing out a division, economic development needing an advisor on you know, some sort of uh you know business relocation plan or something like that.

Um they would go out and contract their own advisor.

And then if C D needed an advice, like it was just kind of discombobulated, and you know, we wanted to centralize that and make sure that we had an advisor that really deeply knew the city, and that's why we you know went out to to do this strategic advisory uh firm.

Okay.

Were OEO goals uh waived for this contract, or what are the OEO goals for this contract?

To the chair, they were waived.

Say that again.

They were waived.

So why were OEO um goals waived on this?

To the chair of the council uh president, it's because the the retainer was uh uh sixty thousand.

Sixty thousand?

Yeah, that was last year's retainer, yes.

Okay, but it's doubled this year, right?

Are we doubling it from last year?

Yes.

Um if I could ask your um guests, do you have any um MB or FB participation or CSB participation in your firm?

Yeah, through the chair, uh we we do oftentimes have uh subconsultants that we do work with uh through a contracted requirement.

Uh it's not something that's standard as part of our normal offering.

I think the complement of the team, you know, has uh sufficient diversity from a planning and and consulting standpoint, but to the extent there's a requirement, then we would uh we would provide those options.

Well, we're a city that's huge, and I know that we have a federal government that's not big fans of DEI and for diversity equity inclusion, but this city believes in that.

So I just want to um understand, you know, moving forward that we will be looking closely and considering if there is OEO participation.

Now I know that this is uh sixty thousand dollar contract, so I don't um I I think that you know I don't think anybody's gonna down the hill, but I do think that we want to make it clear that um OEO participation participation in Cleveland is very important um to this council at least.

Okay.

Um just want to say um the scope attached to the proposed contract is similar to the previous iteration.

Can you help us understand why it doubled?

Is this because it expanded to other departments or why did it double?

Yeah, so to the chair, um, you know, that that 60,000 again is less than pretty much one person.

Um we looked at the amount of work that PFM was doing and had those discussions uh and felt that you know 120,000 made sense.

And I believe we actually have a handout PFM does on projects that they're they're working on if you guys want to see that.

Please if they can um where's uh Miss uh is that Niz around?

If one of our team we'll get one of our team to pass it out in one second as soon as she gets back.

Could you uh make sure that all the council members get a copy of uh what they have right there?

Yeah, so when PFM was first brought in, I think the goal was to really look at the debt program, see what we could be doing better because I know council had concerns about us going out and borrowing and then um having money sitting around and not not spending it as quickly as we would like.

So collectively we all work together, and again, I appreciate the workshops last summer that council members attended.

Uh we were able to come up with a solution working with PFM to do that.

Since then, the scope has really expanded.

Um so obviously we have a lot of challenges around the city.

Um the sheet that's being handed out kind of outlines some of those and some of the things that PFM is is working on, and they're becoming uh or they are a crucial member of the team now working with any other advisors we have, strategists.

Uh so they've really become ingrained.

So for the scope of work, as you look through this and the problems they're assisting us to solve, um 120,000 to me is is still pretty low.

I know the co-op that we did last year with Fairfax County, they're paying them roughly a million dollars a year, I believe, for the same services.

So even though the scope of services uh as outlined in the contract hasn't changed, um the amount of work that they're doing and what they're involved in is still you know a really good deal at 120,000 for the city.

Okay, my last question is is PFM a fiduciary and uh is PFM contractually obligated to act in the city of Cleveland's best interest, and uh also with the incentive structure as proposed, multiple instances of city borrowing and new debt and capital plan would seem to benefit PFM.

And uh we want to make sure we understand is the new structure to our benefit or theirs and want to understand how it benefits Cleveland, if you could explain that, sir.

Sure, Mr.

President, thank you uh for that question.

We are a fiduciary to the city.

Uh we have an obligation to provide financial advice uh per MSRB rules under the SEC uh in a way that benefits the city.

So to the extent that uh we've helped uh restructure the debt issuance program over the last year and moving forward, uh we've demonstrated uh success in saving uh the city money and and how the city issues debt.

Uh my job as a a partner of the firm and managing director is to provide the resources to ensure the right people are assigned on the right tasks.

Uh so we will uh be able to fulfill that role as a fiduciary to provide the the necessary recommendations and and the complimentary services to Paul's point to director's point on on providing uh staff with what they need to make recommendations to the policymakers.

Okay.

Yeah, and through the chair to the committee.

So um also uh I'm sorry, I just totally blanked out.

So just the last question, you did um you mentioned already that this was bid out, so this was not a direct award, this was actually bid out.

Yeah, yeah.

Through the chair, yeah, I did get my thought back.

So thank you for the pause.

Um so yeah, the team did not change.

You asked about uh whether they were benefiting off of debt uh issuance of debt.

Um they are not in terms of like you know, being the advisor.

They they advise on the debt as part of their retainer, but they're not receiving the fees for an issuance.

We have a team in place, we had a team in place, and that was not changed.

We kept that team consistent.

Um, you know, uh the we value the relationships with them and Miss Ruby is still you know running the debt deals.

Okay.

Mr.

Gentile.

Yeah, just to to the uh to the chair.

We we did the competitive process last year.

So I just wanted to be clear not for this one, but because they're part of the already part of the team and they're working on a lot of these projects.

It's not really prudent to switch firms now.

But last year we did a full competitive uh process that PFM.

So you basically just extend it because you are satisfied with the returns that you were getting on on their on their work.

Yes, and they're midstream on some of these projects for us.

And I take it that they are very familiar with your new process of how you're trying to structure debt um to use the um I I know it's uh three three uh three tiered uh to use cash on hand, then short-term bonds, and then go into the market.

Yeah, so so to the chair, they were the architects uh along with us internally um to creating that program.

And as you'll remember, uh Jeremy was in those workshops over the summer, he flew up here from Florida to attend those.

Okay, and at some point time it'd be great to see the update because between us and Ms.

Majesto and our financial team would love to see how it's yielding results and how we're actually getting a better return on our investment.

That concludes my questions.

Do we have any other questions from any council members?

Councilman Christopher Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm a little bit worried.

It feels like uh being a boiled frog.

Um through the chair to the director, uh, how many staff members do you have working on debt management?

So through the chair to the councilman, we have one full-time person working on debt alone.

Um we have another one that assists with uh under that person that assists with some of the paperwork, but their duties are kind of spread in with other things as well.

So through the chair, what is the most number of people we've had working debt management for the finance department?

Through the chair of the council member, we've we've historically just had two total.

Two.

So through the chair, 120,000 seems like a pretty decent salary for one person.

Have we have you explored hiring a second person to help the loan debt management person when we used to have two, and there's clearly a need to address this work?

Yeah, so through the chair to the councilman, uh in the budget last year, we did add an assistant um debt manager position um that we are currently interviewing for.

Uh and the reason being is um you know, with all the new things that we're doing, I think the debt program was pretty uh consistent for several years over a decade.

Um and now with all these changes that we're doing and all the new challenges that we're facing, we felt that we needed uh and the new tools we're using, like for the police stations using the lease purchase agreement.

We felt like we needed a a backup, first of all, and and someone to assist.

So I totally agree with that.

I I uh there should always be two people in every department.

Um at least uh but my my my concern is this um administration's change.

You're the second finance director under Mayor Bibb.

Um when administration's change and personnel change, we don't want to lose all the information that was done underneath that person's uh watch.

So if we have nothing but contractors working for the city of Cleveland and a director goes bye-bye, uh we don't know where those contractors are, where those relationships are, where that information is.

And this list of projects touches every single corner of the city.

These are some of the biggest projects that we're working on right now, short of core, Hopkins Rebuild, uh gateway funding, water systems.

Um I would be much happier if this 120,000 dollars was used to hire somebody who lives here, works here and stays here in between administrations because then they know Mr.

Gentile is one of the most valuable people at City Hall because he's here and he knows.

Um I just want to make sure that we're first, you know, trying to hire people in the house.

Yeah, so through the chair to the councilman, absolutely.

Like I understand that concern.

Um I also know as great as Mr.

Gentile is he probably couldn't solve all these problems.

Uh PFM with their national and global reach can uh assist us with these things.

Uh and these are big complicated problems.

And I feel like we need a combination of that internal expertise and for the cost of um you know, essentially one senior person paying the PFM contract, you're getting a slew of services across um you know all municipal uh you know needs.

Mr.

Gentel.

Yeah, through the chair of the council the committee member.

Um right now we're in the process of hiring an assistant debt manager, and then we have a person that does more of the clerical stuff for debt.

So we will have three.

Part of the reason too is to transition, you know, Beth Ruby's only gonna work so long.

She isn't announced anything.

So this assistant debt manager is going to make sure that they learn the debt stuff so there's not a drop off.

Yeah, and because she's got a lot of years, and you know, we don't know.

Yeah, and through the chair to the councilman, I'll add one thing um to your record retention concerns.

Uh we are looking at systems.

Um, PFM does have a relationship with debt book.

Uh so there are similar programs that we're gonna go out and look at so that we're not accounting for our debt portfolio and other things that we're working on in um spreadsheets and paper.

Uh we want to um make sure that we have electronic modern systems um at a reasonable cost.

So those are things that we're exploring along with PFM to your point for knowledge transfer and to make sure that that we have records of everything we're working on.

Um I think um we need to uh make sure that the city finances are handled by people who are committed to the city of Cleveland long term.

Um and I'm uneasy about uh having consultants on such uh uh you know important work for the city, but uh um I'll I'll yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

And I actually that's one of the reasons I asked those questions earlier about local firms and making sure that we have intellectual knowledge because um we want to watch this new transition very close to see how it's yielding results.

Um I know that you know any finance director, any director wants to have a team that they're comfortable with, but I do share the councilman's concerns about making sure that we have institutional knowledge because too often when certain people leave, they take a lot of that knowledge with them.

And I know Ms.

Ruby is a very valued um employee that does a lot of great work here.

So I just want to make sure that we are making sure that we're transitioning and keeping all of this intact because these are huge bets for over a large period of time.

So no matter who's mayor, who's council, we want to make sure that uh we have a stable you know process in place.

Yeah, and through the chair to the committee, this is my general policy for all of my divisions.

I the first thing I ask my commissioners when we do performance reviews is who's your number two and how are they doing?

Um, to make sure that we have that uh knowledge transfer occurring now and not when somebody leaves.

Thank you.

Do we have any other questions for ordinance number six eight nine-2026?

Hearing none, ordinance number six eight nine-2026 as amended stands approved.

Thank you.

And uh look forward to seeing your work and love to see some time where we can um meet with our staff so we can see how everything's produced.

Absolutely.

He had an issue this morning, he ran a little bit.

We're behind.

All right, uh the next guest and the next person that we'll bring up is public safety.

Uh this is ordinance number 557-2026 uh by Mayor Bibb.

This is an emergency ordinance creating designate a designated outdoor refreshment area and establishing requirements to ensure public health and safety within such area and declaring the same uh to be an emergency.

Before I move forward with this and uh the guests come to the table, I believe this is in councilman star's ward.

Is this councilman stars work?

Um I don't see him as a sponsor.

Is this something that you wanted to be as a sponsor, sir?

No, um I think when it was initially put in, um it was coming through the mayor's office.

Okay.

Um I did talk to the folks at Playhouse um prior to it, but I think it was something the mayor wanted to give the eye.

Um so uh um I wouldn't be mine being added as a sponsor.

Okay, uh Miss Uh Inez, could you make sure that uh we add councilman star as a sponsor to this?

And as we'll um we'll go through this uh and anybody else if they would like to be added.

Uh this is an uh ordinance number 557-2026 by Mayor Bibb and add councilman Richard Starr and emergency ordinance creating and a designated outdoor refreshment area and establishing requirements to ensure public health and safety within such area and declaring the same to be an emergency.

Uh I believe uh special assistant Reeves is going to present, or is it going to be Mr.

Bruno?

Special Assistant Reeves, you have the floor.

Please introduce your guests.

I know them, but everybody may not know them.

Absolutely, thank you.

Uh pleasure to be here with you this morning.

Uh we've got Bobby Bruno with uh with economic development who have been in close support uh in development of the Dora.

Uh and then of course this morning representing uh Playhouse Square.

Uh, we have Nate Kelly and Nick DeLillo.

Okay, thank you.

Uh just uh for the record, this was relieved by DPS.

Is that correct, Councilwoman Santana?

Okay, please uh proceed.

Uh so we're here this morning, of course, to talk about the Dora uh designated outdoor refreshment area.

Um if you could flip to the I don't know who has the uh perfect.

There we go.

You'll be up after this.

Um so the establishment of DORAs here in Ohio uh is covered under the Ohio Revised Code Section 4301-82.

Um a couple of details that I think it's important to know.

First, uh the legislation and the beginning portion of the process is always initiated uh by the mayor uh and then approved through city council.

Um we've already been through the safety committee uh and as well, had an opportunity to brief um uh councilwoman Santana as well before this morning.

Uh and then following approval through city council, uh there's a state level of approval that uh that occurs as well.

Um the biggest part of uh the process is an application that's put together uh by the group that's sponsoring the establishment of the Dora, in this case Playhouse Square.

Um these uh uh applications uh typically are are pretty robust and comprehensive, and certainly in this case, uh Playhouse Squares uh was no different.

Um demonstrated uh the ability to be economic drivers, uh particularly in downtown urban environments, uh similar to the Playhouse Square portion and district of downtown Cleveland, uh, and especially when paired with uh events and programming uh to help support uh and continue to drive economic development in districts like Playhouse Square.

Um revised code, uh cities the size of Cleveland may establish up to six DORAS, spanning 640 total acres of the city.

Uh currently, Cleveland has one DORA that has been established on East Fourth Street.

However, at this time, that DORA is not yet active.

Uh the folks that work to establish that DORA are currently working to get that up and operating in conjunction with some development opportunities that are going on along East Force that that'll help support that DORA once it's up and operating.

Uh I referenced earlier that application, you know, best practices for a sound application, uh, our engage uh engagement with district stakeholders and property owners.

Uh the folks that have joined us this morning from Playhouse Square can give a little bit more insights into that, as well as residents uh in in that district, um, as well as a strong safety and sanitation plan.

We had a good opportunity through the safety committee presentation to get deep into the elements of that safety and sanitation plan, which is uh a big part of a successful DORA operation.

Um, and then a strong events and uh activations plan as well, uh which you'll hear from the Playhouse Square folks is a big part and a big rationale behind the establishment of the DORA.

Um overall, um, we're exceptionally comfortable with um this plan, mostly because of the partnership with Playhouse Square.

Uh they're certainly a trusted brand here in Cleveland.

They have uh strong operational capacity uh and a proven track record for responsibly balancing risk and opportunity.

Um there certainly would be at the top of a short list of trusted partners here in the city uh to help leverage leverage economic development tool like the DORA to further strengthen strengthen their reputation as a world-class destination for arts and culture.

And with that, I'll turn it over to the Playhouse Square folks to go through their presentation.

Thank you.

Uh Nick Kelly from Playhouse Square.

I want to thank everybody for their time and interest in this topic today.

We've been working with council and the administration and the we've gotten great advice from City Hall to make sure that this goes great.

Um what we're planning to do is operate a DORA so that you know around the Playhouse Square district, but in a limited capacity.

Um the way that we will do it is initially and typically, uh, even though Playhouse Square has the theaters that most people are familiar with, we also have two apartment buildings, a hotel, three parking decks, 18 different retail locations, and most recently the Greyhound station.

So we anticipate that we will have the Dora, which I'll show an outline of when it's activated, we'll be able to take on different parts of the campus area that Playhouse Square controls, both in terms of its property ownership, but also with the security envelope that we maintain.

Uh we hire a number of CPD that are with us for our own 24-7 security, in addition to uh auxiliary staff.

And hearing from Councilman Palency and the safety committee, one of the number one priorities is safety, in addition to making sure that maintenance and trash pickup is a priority.

You can see the plat map here is any a short way of looking at it is anywhere inside the Playhouse Square gateways would be an area where we would activate the DORA for outside events.

But we anticipate only doing that about four or five times a year.

Events like TriC Jazz Fest or Borderlight Festival, that was last weekend.

Uh perhaps some people have attended uh other events throughout the year.

That's when we would activate the outside portion of the DORA.

This allows us to use the vendors that are already Cleveland based.

It allows us to avoid some red tape with the state in getting temporary licenses and allows us to put up uh permanent signage and other things that designate the area so that we can create more reasons for people to visit Playhouse Square besides ticketed events.

During ticketed events, however, inside our theater space are common areas where we are surrounded by restaurants and food and beverage outlets for our concessions.

But right now it's not legal by state law for us to have people carry um open containers from a restaurant into our theaters.

So part of the Dora is an administrative tool for us to make sure that we're complying with state law.

And that'll be something that people won't actually notice a big difference.

It's it and it's intended to make sure that we're compliant, but also um uh exhibiting the same level of safety and control of open containers that we've been doing for years.

Um our priority is on cleanliness.

We have a designated liaison with the city so that any time there's an issue.

Well, first of all, there won't be issues.

We'll make sure that that doesn't happen.

But if we have an issue or anybody wants to communicate to us, um we have that uh already in spades.

We have communicated with all of the property, um, all of our tenants, both commercial and residential, and held a public meeting, both a formal public meeting led by the city, and then we also have our regular town halls where all tenants in the district are invited, and they've all been briefed on the DORA, and we have uh wide, wide, wide support.

Um, of course, we'll follow our requirements for yearly reviews.

This is the designated DORA cup.

So you cannot bring an open container into the DORA without it being in this designated cup.

Um you couldn't bring your own booze and pop it open without uh our security team getting on top of that issue.

So we also have signage and additional garbage cans throughout the district, so that when we do activate the the DORA, um it's tidy, it's secure, and well maintained.

But that's our briefing on the DORA.

All right, thank you.

Yes, Mr.

Chairman and my noble colleagues and to the representative of Playhouse Square.

We asked some very um uh important questions as it pertains to public safety as it pertains to litter, as it pertains to the geographical area.

We wanted to make sure that nobody from the outside was able to carry an open containers uh and be disruptive, and they assured us that there would be proper security, that the perimeters would be policed and that all uh litter would be picked up and that the beverages served would have to be in a special container identified as the Dora on the containers for the um public safety personnel that would be working.

So after long discussions and debate, we supported it unanimously.

Thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Santana, you um allowed us to go to committee at home.

Yes.

Um thank you to the chair.

I I met and I uh first of all I want to confirm that Councilman Starr, did he say that he's a sponsor on this piece?

It has to be added to the legislature.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

The only concern that I had, and I was uh sharing um with Luke Lucas, right?

Lucas was I was at Columbus and I wasn't sure where the designated area was.

So let's just say I'm carrying a drink and I'm out the line, you know what I mean, and the police stop me.

Would I get a ticket, you know, or a citation?

So I'm not sure how that's gonna be clear around the geographic area.

Absolutely.

So anytime we have one of those four to five events we have each year, there's gonna be barricades.

There's gonna be two or three points of entry and the same points of exit, and we'll have staff security guards there.

So at that point, uh you'll know exactly when uh you're in the space.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

And if I could just add to that uh before I go to councilman's life, uh that is uh similar to what you did with TriC Jazz Fest, right?

Because I went down to Tricy Jazz Fest and it was pretty much operable there, right?

The exact concept, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilman's life.

Thank you, and Councilman Casey has to be on too.

Um I apologize for not having been able to be at the safety committee when this came up, uh, but I want to share, I I'm a little confused because I feel that the way this is being represented is just a fundamental disconnect with what DORAS are supposed to be.

So if you've been to Cincinnati, uh along the riverfront, there's a large development, like what's what would be planned for the lakefront, maybe, or the flats or something.

And when my wife went to a concert there two weeks ago, you can walk out, not because it's a special event, not be just because it's any gate day of the week, you can buy a drink, you can walk through this entire development, you can go to shops, you can just in this area have a beverage.

And and my my good friend of mine lives in suburban Columbus.

Any given Saturday in Powell, Ohio, you can walk and get a drink at the brewery and then walk to the art gallery next door.

And as long as you don't go out of this area that's signed, you're allowed to have an open container.

So I'm confused why by a couple things.

One, why this is being presented as being around limited special events, because that's not the purpose to me of a Dora.

A Dora is supposed to be that this is a permanent thing.

I mean, I think we have street festivals around the neighborhoods where we have specific beer tents and businesses will ask, well, why can't it just be like an open container zone just for the day?

And we're like, well, there's no such thing as an open container zone for the day.

You either have a beer tent or you go through this process to establish a designated outdoor refreshment area.

So I'll I'll I I want to hear a little bit more about a response to that in a second.

But the other the other le discomfort I have with this is under Ohio revised code, we're only allowed to have six of these citywide.

So this would be number two, right down the street from another one.

And so what happens?

Are we gonna now have a third one on the lakefront and a fourth one on the riverfront?

And what happens if in just any other Cleveland neighborhood, somebody wants to explore the opportunity to have an outdoor refreshment area, so maybe at I don't know, 25th and Clark, people could buy something at Central Via and walk next door to the place if that's appropriate.

People want to do that there.

I'm confused as to why we're not combining the one on East Fourth and the one in Playhouse Square, and at risk of I I don't understand the controversy between someone buying a drink at Parnell's and walking to Progressive Field.

That's that's the intent of a Dora.

Uh or someone having dinner on East Fourth having dinner at the Dolly Parton place and getting one more drink for as they walk down Euclid to go to with a theater.

That's the purpose of a Dora, not to be able to have special events six times a year where you can basically have an open container zone uh without having to have a limited beer tent.

So I'm I'm I'm confused by the evolution of this, why we're going about it this way, and what the plans are moving forward relative if this passes to the other four DORAs, because I I'm not gonna be supportive of only looking at this as an oper economic development opportunity in the downtown core.

Mr.

Chair, Councilman.

The reason why we took this limited approach was actually at my request.

We wanted to make sure that we got in a couple of reps and did it right before we open it up to a more broad use.

You'll recall that we have a park right there at Playhouse Square Plaza on the corner of 14th in Euclid that we're programming a lot.

We've got something good social kitchen that brings in a tremendous draw for unticketed events.

And we're trying to increase the amount of activity that we're having that are not for shows.

But we want to make sure that we don't screw it up.

If we have one bad incident, then it can be detrimental to all of Playhouse Square and the 1.3 million visitors that we have every year.

Not to dunk on the rock hall, but that's twice their visitors.

And so we want to make sure that we do it right.

My ambition is that after we've put in some reps and people know how to use a Dora in Cleveland, that we could expand it.

I love the idea of combining ours right down here on to a gateway district Dora, but would defer to the city when the time is right to do something like that.

Okay, so so thank you.

To the mayor's administration, is there a legal mechanism to combine so okay again?

This is would be two out of six.

Are we able to combine two into one and still have five others?

I guess I I don't I don't think people buying 14 dollar wines are the ones that I'm worried about creating problems downtown.

I think people right now can just come downtown and create problems that they want to.

So I I guess I'm a little less anxious about this than others are because it's happening in Cincinnati very fluidly, it seems.

So so but can you walk us through if this passes, what happens if are we gonna come for uh a flats Dora, a lakefront Dora, and now we have four, and then Brian Casey at some point wants to explore this in his neighborhood, but we've tapped out all six.

Uh through the chair to the the councilman.

Um, you know, uh it's interesting that you referenced the Dora in Cincinnati, uh, that's the banks that connects the the two uh sport facilities there, both football and baseball, uh very similar to to our gateway district and the potential for what our gateway district could could be uh leveraging an economic development tool like the DORA.

I think um first the ability to expand DORAS is absolutely possible.

Uh so the boundary that's being presented today, uh we could come back and look to expand that DORA.

Uh I cannot exactly say whether or not uh two DORAs could be merged together, but I'm I'm fairly certain that there is a way that you could unwind one Dora and expand the boundary of another to uh encapsulate that that area, thus preserving your ability to um have additional DORAS outside of that that district.

So I think the the other main thing that I do want to echo um that that uh uh Nate mentioned from Playhouse is really wanting to get this right, uh wanting to make sure that we do this in uh in a safe way, uh, get it right, and then look to be able to expand beyond that because we do understand that these DORAs are a true economic development tool, and we want to be able to leverage them as such.

Okay, I'll I'll end it here, Council President.

But I'll just say I don't I personally don't understand the anxiety.

Uh the East Fourth Dora was designated I think two or three years ago, and it's not even active.

Like this is there's there's a real precedent that this works in other places, but and I I I don't understand why we have to be so cautious to implement and onboard something that seems to be working everywhere else, but here and I don't I don't know if we're dealing with different circumstances or what, but uh that this seems this seems like a no-brainer to me, and just the the the presentation circulating it around the idea of special events, I just think is is not in keeping with what the purpose of a DORA is.

So thank you.

So just to uh add on to his question before I go to Councilman Starr, why can't we just do that?

Is it something state law that prevents us from him just or us making an amendment to just expand the district and just do that?

Because I do agree with the councilman that we need to have a uh broader plan for how we're gonna do this with the entire city.

Many of us have entertainment districts uh like Shaker Square and Little Hidley and Ward 6, for example.

So how are we looking at this from a broader perspective as opposed to just trying to do this step by step?

Uh to the council president, I think one of the most important elements that we did touch on a little bit in the presentation this morning is the safety sanitation plan.

Uh so any notions of expanding beyond what I think we've contemplated so far to date in this application uh would be challenging from that perspective to make sure that we can maintain that level of sanitation and security across a larger footprint.

And so I would I would just echo back what what we've shared, which is we want to make sure that we get this thing right.

Uh we're working with fantastic operators who have you know tremendous amount of um experience producing events, uh and we want to be able to allow them to to do what they do best, which is uh get this instituted and then uh think about how we can grow it in a way that makes sense.

Uh there's uh a significant amount of business support in the Playhouse Square uh district within the current boundary that's being proposed, tremendous opportunities there to leverage uh the expansion of the Dora uh mostly probably around uh hours of operation uh and how folks are are moving from those businesses into Playhouse Square and and and vice versa.

But I think we really want to get this right before we look at it expanding it to a larger footprint.

Okay.

Um we're gonna just be very close to make sure that we watch, you know, that and I would ask if uh councilwoman Santana could maybe bring you guys back during the fall or something for a hearing so that we could think this through as a council and maybe share ideas and notes of how we can actually make this a broader scope.

Uh because I do think that there's an opportunity for us to do this in some other areas too.

I was fortunate to go to the Tri-C Jazz Fest, and I see that it worked very well there.

Uh very well organized and it worked very well there.

Uh so that being said, I'll go to Councilman Casey and then Councilman Star wrap us up.

You know, don't forget me, uh Council President.

That's why I was swinging over there.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Mr.

President, to to our presenters, that was kind of uh jumping on the bandwagon of Councilman Slife was where my some of my questions were going was that if who is responsible for setting up the East Fourth Street Dora?

I mean, we designated that uh years ago and it's still not up and running.

So is the same person who's designated East Fourth in charge of this DORA as well?

Uh, through the chair to the councilman, um, the city had been working with the MRN group on East Forth to establish that Dora.

Uh the MRN group is uh going through a development project on East Forth currently to uh put some uh additional food and beverage operations right there on the street to complement that DORA operation, and so they're waiting to launch that DORA until that development is complete.

Right.

And and since everybody likes to compare to other cities, and I I do believe that Cincinnati's DORA is probably one of the elite ones in the country, and they're doing it right.

And I just don't see why we wouldn't include we'll just say a gateway playhouse square DORA, right?

Just one that goes from the stadiums down East Forth right over to Playhouse Square.

Uh and it just I I again when we haven't got the first one right, I don't see this second one being successful, especially when it's not an always DORA, it's only a special event Dora.

Well that's just my opinion.

And um, Mr.

President, um this piece of legislation did not come to us by departmental request, and there was not a council member designated on this piece of legislation.

So, Mr.

Chairman, and uh and I hate to put you in in this in the in this situation, but where's the mayor?

This is his piece of legislation.

How come it it's not by departmental request, it's by the mayor himself.

How come he's not here to present his legislation?

Through the chair to the councilman.

Um the mayor had been involved in uh working with Playhouse Square to make the connection here.

Uh strong Dora applications, uh always involve a lot of collaboration between the the applicant and the folks that are putting together that application in this case Playhouse Square.

Uh he asked that uh I take the lead here and work cross-functionally with the departments here at the at City Hall.

Uh we've had a lot of engagement with um public safety, uh with city planning, uh, with uh other departments across the city to make sure that we have the collaboration to vet through this application, make sure that it satisfies uh the needs that that we have to make sure that it's a successful application.

Uh and so um we've we've brought it forward through that process.

Well, and Mr.

Chairman, and and again, this is not not a knock on you, maybe it's just a knock to whoever's here listening across the hall.

It's tradition that when a sponsor of a piece of legislation brings it before anybody that they show up, uh, even when council members do it, right?

We have to present, we have to be the one to defend it.

So it's only appropriate for any piece of legislation that is not by departmental request that the mayor is on that.

I believe the mayor should be here to present that piece of legislation.

This isn't the only piece of legislation that we're gonna hear today that just has the mayor's name on it.

So uh with all due respect and I can appreciate and I and I understand the situation that you're in uh by asking, but this piece and any piece that is presented just by the mayor, the mayor should be here as a show of respect to the council and the legislative process to be here and to present the legislation himself.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Councilman Kevin Conwell and then Councilman Richard Starr will wrap us up.

All right, thank you very much.

Um listening to uh council member um Casey listening to you, Mr.

President.

You requested that they bring this back, um this project back um in the fall.

Is that correct, Mr.

President?

What I asked is if they could um work with the councilwoman to talk about how we can roll this out and what the plan is to do this city by so if the councilwoman under uh DPS uh can actually maybe bring them in for a hearing to talk about this part.

Okay.

So right now, through the chair, you guys are doing a case study and you're in implementation of this.

Is that correct?

Through the chair.

Of the door.

I mean, I dig it it swings, man.

It swings.

So you in implementation of is that correct?

Through the chair to the council member, uh, if I understand your question correctly, um, we're looking to have the DORA established so that Playhouse Square can get it up and operational.

Um we will be working very closely uh in collaboration with them as that implementation occurs to make sure that it's going in the way that we've all planned and intended it to.

Uh and then to the council president's point, um, look uh to to the fall to have conversations about how that's going, uh, even though it'd be very early on in the in the implementation of the DORA, but but look at opportunities to uh expand it and be more inclusive.

And so are you working on a DORA right now as we um are you presenting to us through the chair to um I forgot your name, I see you in the hall.

Uh through the chair to the councilman Lucas Reeve, uh senior advisor in the mayor's office.

Yeah, we're this morning the legislation before you is for the establishment of the Dora.

So are you working on it right now?

Have you started working on it, putting systems in place to work on it?

Through the chair.

Uh through the chair to the councilman uh after um the DORA passes, if it should pass through uh city council approval, it would then move on to the state for their approval, which would then provide Playhouse Square the opportunity to actually launch and implement the program.

And so the win you'll through the chair, you'll you'll start um executing on it.

Yeah.

Councilman, we're ready.

You ready?

We're ready.

We have worked with the administration and different departments around security, signage, all of the work is at this.

We're ready to cross the Guru Bacon to get your approval, then the state approval, then we will start to run it.

We'll run it in a limited basis.

Once we feel like we have enough reps, we'd love to come back and talk about expanding it.

One of the benefits right now of the district as drawn and proposed is we own all the property.

All of the tenants that are in that property have to adhere to our operating hours, that sort of thing that's controlled by their leases.

So it is a limited run that we can control most of the levers.

Gotcha.

And then when it goes well, then we can go down here on.

We can we we work very closely with Gateway with East Forth property owners there, but we have to negotiate and work with them instead of just be in charge.

So that's one of the reasons why having this limited rollout is beneficial to the city and to Playhouse Square.

Yeah, so you, if everything goes well through the chair, you expect to execute on this win.

When you guys approve it, we'll take it down to the state.

I don't know how long the state will take, maybe six weeks.

And then we'll constitute our oversight committee, and we'll be running it immediately thereafter.

I'm gonna guess what is it, before end of September.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I was getting getting to.

Now you mentioned that you were going to uh to the chair evaluate it first and then bring it to the other key stakeholders through the chair to um I mean because that's what you mentioned when I was walking in.

So there's uh a an a requirement of an annual formal evaluation with the city.

We will make our own assessment about how well it's running, how many times we want to activate it.

We're gonna talk to our tenants, to our operators.

We have two new operators coming into the district that will have more beneficial hours that'll be more like what's in Cincinnati.

Um looking forward to uh announcing those.

And so that'll give us the opportunity to start moving west.

Gotcha in the DORA if the neighbors want it.

You know that he wants it.

Through the chair.

Let's say, for example, in we would love to have it if I after the evaluation process, you hit your goals and objectives and university circle.

We would love to have that there.

But I'm gonna say this and close out.

University circle is different than Playhouse Square and all these other areas.

So you set your systems in place, but as other areas have different, you know, goals and objectives, or it's not a one-size fit all because of the culture of these different communities.

You see what I'm saying?

Through the chair to uh whoever want to answer that.

Yeah, uh, through the chair to the councilman, uh absolutely.

Uh and and that's why I think uh two things.

One, uh, to have a strong successful DORA, you've got to have a great partner, in this case, Playhouse Square.

Uh for university circle, I couldn't speculate necessarily who someone like that could be, but you would need that as an important element.

Uh and then as as Nate described, uh, the level of engagement with business owners, property owners, and residents is significant.

You want to make sure that all those people are on board, understand what's happening and feel like they see themselves in in this uh and that it can be an economic development tool for them.

And so all those things come together to help create the the atmosphere for a successful application.

So to look at other neighborhoods, you would need all those things to come together.

So to the chair, you studied um this project elsewhere in Cincinnati and other places, and you looked at what was successful, and you looked at the barriers and all of that through the chair.

Through the chair to the councilman, yes.

Um and had an opportunity to speak with a number of folks in other cities uh who run DORAS as well to understand that um the operational piece that is critically important to successful operation of EDORA.

Um and uh interestingly enough, I'll just share one kind of anecdote uh with you all that I I thought was very interesting, which is that some of the businesses that saw the greatest impact, uh economic impact from the establishment of a Dora are retail businesses.

Uh where uh it's it's uh where you have a mix of of traditional retail businesses, uh bars and restaurants uh and events that kind of tie all those things together.

Uh that's really where you see really successful uh Dora operations.

I think we have a lot of those pieces in place in Playhouse Square.

Um and and I think we have the ability as Nate described uh to evaluate and look at look towards expansion to help think about how we use this tool to fill empty storefronts to bring more people uh downtown to have greater walkability and connectivity uh amongst the the retail environment downtown.

This is an important piece to help get us to that place.

So when you go through your pre-testing and post-testing through the chair, and you that's gonna be part that will be part of your evaluation process.

Is that correct?

Pre-ting in the beginning where you at with the door, you looked at lessons learned, what's going on in Cincinnati, because you can't just say you're gonna evaluate something and you have you don't have the tools to evaluate.

So you take the tools from Cincinnati, pretesting, post-testing what might be different from the outcome measures, and you could use that which you studied here to post-testing other communities.

That's what I'm saying to the chair.

Yeah, through the chair to the councilman, I think that's right.

I think we've done the work uh up front as you described to understand what success looks like in other places.

Uh, and then I feel very confident that we've got the right team at Playhouse Square to Nate's points about uh the type of control and influence they have over the the current boundary.

Yep, yep, yeah.

I think we'll give them the uh a much greater ability almost even than some other places to have a sense of what the impact is, uh what's working well, what what opportunities need to be addressed.

I I think that we're actually in a really good place uh to look at uh how this could scale uh in a in a in a much more expedient fashion than perhaps other places.

Yeah, I'm gonna close out.

I'm very interested, do the chair, and what else we could that evaluation would be able to tell you what we can add, add to it or take away from it, or then we could bring in the arts to correlate with it.

To see what can we put in there as well.

You know, so it'd be very interesting.

I want to see it.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Thanks, Mr.

President.

Thank you, Councilman Joseph Jones.

Thank you, Mr.

President, um, to um the members who are assembled here for Playhouse Square.

Um looking at your um uh hearing the testimony um of the whole um situation here on page five of your subject area, expand it.

Would that be everything that's included uh in that black zone this this outlined it, outlined?

Yeah.

Okay, so now the next question I would have how big is, and I haven't heard this question uh at the table, um, how big is your security team?

We have over 40 off-duty police officers 24-7, and there's two at least on patrol uh each day.

I just want to make sure that's 24-7.

That's not all the time, is it?

I mean, 24-7.

You have you have that many police officers at the Playhouse Square right now?

Yeah, 24-7, yes.

And or 42 off-duties that are on our payroll.

That's on your payroll.

So when you're having these events, you're absolutely a secure zone.

Yeah.

Okay.

So and how long have you been um I I saw in some of the presentations since 2024?

Is it when you've been trying to seek to have this?

Yes, uh Q4 of 24.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, uh, this council member doesn't have any unreadiness on it.

Um I had some questions earlier that was uh answered.

Um want to say congratulations on being able to get it.

I don't see no unreadiness, uh, Mr.

Chairman, uh, from me uh here on this end and uh my colleagues and um we look forward to having an opportunity to to participate in your door at some point.

Thank you.

Councilman Charles Slife, I wanted to go back on on saving uh councilman Richard Starr, who's the council of a record in that area for last.

Thank you, and I'll be very brief.

I I'm I uh support the idea of doing a larger scale analysis, and we'll just note uh in section two, it it clearly delineates this is for a three-year approval, but after one year there's this presentation back to us uh to determine if this should be extended for the duration of that term or dissolved or altered or something.

So my my ex the expectation of this council person is that that one year can coincide with a larger conversation and perhaps a merger of this door with Gateway and East Forth so that we can really do this as it's intended to do, uh, because I don't want to end up in a situation where we've created so many of these in the urban core that there's just not one available for Little Italy.

Uh trying to find the way to do this six times strategically out of an 80 square mile city uh will be a challenge in and of itself, and and I want us to be mindful of the fact that there's opportunities to use this outside of the the downtown business district.

So thank that's it.

Agreed.

If we could uh work closely with uh Mr.

Reeves on that, that'd be great, okay?

All right, thank you.

Councilman Richards Starr to wrap us up.

Thank you, guys.

Um, I'll be as quick as possible.

But one of the questions I was first to say thank you to Playhouse, thank you to Nate for reaching out to me um earlier this year um about this opportunity to expand a door um in the playoff district, which is I understood from our conversations, um, what was the need as well as um from the jazz festival, um, different other activities that you have um within the city um activating the downtown space.

But I do have a question I would like to ask, obviously, to Mr.

Rees.

So Mr.

Lucas Reese, you're the senior advisor to the mayor.

What do until is that basically as far as your job description?

What is your basically a day-to-day responsibility as the senior advisor to the mayor through the chair?

Through the chair to the councilman, um, as a senior advisor in the mayor's office, uh, I work on a daily basis to help advance key priorities of the mayor's office.

Uh some of those things are longer term projects.

Uh some of those things are something that needs to get figured out by the end of the day uh and everything in between.

Um a lot of my work recently, as you know, councilman has been related to downtown efforts, uh working as a liaison between the mayor's office and various other uh organizations downtown to help you know further strengthen downtown.

All right.

The reason why I asked that because I know um back in April um you reached out to bring this conversation to me.

And the thing is, from your standpoint, you basically work with the mayor on top priority initiatives that he deemed is something that he wants to make sure he has a close eye on and be able to get those projects to the finish line and provide um day-to-day support, which is needed on projects, especially if it's something that the mayor is pushing and want to see through having eyes on it is important.

I know you reached out to me back in April of 2020, April 29th um of this year regarding this conversation um with the possible um legislative support.

And one of the things that is big to me, Mr.

Reeves, um, as a senior advisor is partnership and collaboration.

Like you heard from the council president, the minute this was introduced, it was introduced as a piece of legislation straight from the mayor's office.

But meanwhile, I've already had conversation with um playhouse folks about this opportunity, and then therefore, once it was getting ready to come to a committee, I received some information from you, and I don't see that there was really that much communication as far as collaboration if it's going to be introduced as something that the mayor wants.

When I met with the playhouse, I told them that I got support on it.

Then on the back end, I hear from you, and then it's like, okay, this is just something the mayor wants to do.

And I think that sometimes is where things get tricky for me because I want to be a partner.

I want to collaborate and I want to see things get done.

But sometimes when it's like you're not invited to the cookout, you just not invited to the cookout.

But then now we're here at the cookout, and I was like, do I want to participate?

Do I want a grill?

Do I want some burgers?

Do I want some some drinks?

And at times it seems as if you're not in you're not welcomed.

And I don't think it's from the door folks or the playoffs folks who is coming from this.

I think is internal in City Hall.

So I definitely want you to know as a senior advisor and as one of the three members that represent areas downtown, we have to partner.

We have to partner because it begins very political when I have a relationship with Playhouse, and they talk to the administration, and administration introduced the legislation, and it all includes me.

That's when it gets big because then we're at the table and I'm asking to support something to co-sign on it on the afterthought, as if it doesn't need legislative support.

Because through this process that we had through our charter, it could be introduced from by the mayor, but I could single-handedly ask my colleagues not to support something because I was not included on it from the mayor's, not from the actual applicant.

So I want you to understand, Mr.

And if it's something that he has a priority with and is dealing with the council or dealing with the city, I'm urging you to connect whatever councilperson in that area as early as possible, because the applicants are contacting us first, and then it just goes to the administration as if it's just you single-handedly bringing the council without the partnership.

I just want you to know that from my standpoint.

And then also I definitely would be remiss that I know you did handle other priorities.

So what is the status on this East Fourth Door project and this initiative?

The reason why I asked this is because earlier this year, um, as early as April, May, as well as in June, I've been sending communications with you, Matthew Moss, um, and other people from the city about some of the challenges that I've heard from residents that live on East Fourth involving this door, in which they have some issues with noise levels.

They got issues with people being actually over drunk out on East Forth.

Um the sanitation and cleanliness is not being addressed there.

And I've been able to connect with Director Laird and his team to talk about this, but I have no communication from no from you or Matthew Moss regarding this as if this is not a priority.

So through the chair, it's East Forth issues that these residents downtown, who is a community as well, are dealing with related to the East Fourth Dora.

Is that a is that a priority for you, Mr.

Reed, to the chair?

Through the chair to the councilman.

Um I think as it relates to East Fourth, uh and what I understand to be an update on the Dora is that the folks that had submitted the application, MRN group, uh are waiting for the development to be complete before they launch the Dora on East Fourth.

So for this moment, the Dora is not yet active on East Fourth.

Now that doesn't mean that any issues that are happening on East Fourth are not a priority and need to be have some collaboration and communication around looking to address those things.

My suggestion would be that we you and I uh get together at some point very shortly to talk through any public safety issues, any cleanliness issues, and we can start to muster uh cross departmentally here at City Hall in collaboration with your office uh to do the level of engagement with business owners and residents there to help ameliorate some of those issues that are going on because it's it's certainly an important one, and I want to make sure that it gets uh the airtime that it needs.

Thank you.

And I think that is important that you said you were welcome to collab because like I said, I've sent emails and communication about this.

Thank you to Director Laird for for responding, calling me, connecting, and seeing what his and ask what his team can do.

But I haven't heard nothing from you or your team about what you can do to help with a door or the actual outdoor activities that's going on in East Forth.

Like I said, there's residents that live there, live up atop of those apartments, where a lot of those retail places and restaurants are going.

And if they're not supported, then there's a problem.

And I know you mentioned the you said an MRN group.

I haven't met with them either.

I don't know who they are either.

But I know they took away one of the actual um valet spots where tenants used to be able to pull up and unload their groceries to go upstairs.

They took that away.

Then they blocked off the side of East Fourth from Prospect Ave, which is a place that they was able to pull away, and they took that away, but the side on Euclid is still active and open.

So there's a lot of challenges that is going on long before the door even exists with that East Fourth Street.

So if you're helping with possibly working on doors and downtown um initiatives as well as other important key elements from the mayor's office, I need some response when I when I reach out.

I and I would not sit here and say that I am responsible on every email.

Sometimes I miss emails too.

It happens when you're when you're working.

But at the end, I know I responded two or three times, full communication, and I haven't heard nothing from them, the mayor's office as far as from you and Matthew Moss, who I thought is the ones that I go to when it comes to this type of issues.

But like I said, I do give kudos to Director Lear because he was responsive.

He started talking to, he said, Hey, what can we do to get together?

And I'm just trying to pull in my last response and opportunity for us to get through, and nothing has come about.

So I will look forward to wanting to connect with you and also want to ask some questions for this upcoming door, um, because I don't want to see some of the challenges that we may have on East Fourth expanded to East 14th Street or in the playoffs district area.

Um, so I definitely want to make sure you know that the residents' priorities, the key issues that they're dealing with, uh, making sure we got the actual management and enforcement is in process, um, making sure that we understand the role.

So within a door, like like we're trying to talk about for Playhouse, um, is what role does downtown Cleveland Inc.

place into helping support this initiative for a door um through the chair to anyone at the table.

Yeah.

None.

Don't play none.

Okay, so therefore, if something is needed or updated, it'd be directly with the playhouse to the chair.

I mean, we'll coordinate with them because of the clean and safe efforts and whenever there's sign intercommunication going on.

That is what we do daily.

But in terms of ownership and making sure it goes well, that's gonna be on us.

Okay.

Perfect.

And then I know you did talk about the different current security measures, ambassadors, and support that you have, which is important.

Um then also I know I was looking up as we was discussing this.

Um, from the internet, it was basically saying that um the distance for a door um is allowed to carry alcoholic beverages one foot within a specific city boundary in Ohio.

The state regulated the size limit for a single door up to 640 continuous acres, which is roughly one square mile for large cities.

So from that standpoint, if we were to expand just from my my small math from east fourth to possibly east 1415, that is that close to being one square mile to the chair through the chair to the councilman.

We haven't done that analysis, but uh my understanding is that that 640 number is is pretty large.

You could you can take up quite a bit of area, and I would be shocked if if one singular door at downtown as described takes takes that entire area.

So we would still have additional space to deploy in other areas of the city.

Yep, and I think from the standpoint that you are from a couple of my colleagues, it will be it will be the smart thing to do if we're gonna do it instead of having just single areas and then create more so a collaboration.

And then also, you know, if there is ways to involve downtown Cleveland Inc.

to help support the initiative, I think that would be great.

Um but one of the main things that is important to me is just making sure we have checks and balances in place because the minute something goes wrong, um receiving all the calls to me is not the best thing.

At the end of the day, I need to be able to connect with who is responsible to hold each other accountable, and how do we make sure the city services and resources that is needed to explore door actually take place?

And um, as far as this ordinance on 557, um council president, thank you for making sure I was at it.

Um I do support this initiative and I look forward to future conversations in the DPS committee, figuring out how do we expand this door to make sure it's not just one ops and create one just big door and be able to manage it together as a collector.

Thank you.

And uh I'm gonna remind everybody uh the committees that you serve on, please sign on just under the committees that you served on.

Um, and if you could in this, could you also add me to this uh ordinance number 557-2026?

All right, uh saying other questions, ordinance number 557-2026 uh stands approved.

Once again, please sign on to all of the committees that you represent.

Uh we go to the development department, and I believe that they have uh some guests here from the development department.

I will start out with uh companion pieces, uh 695 and 696.

This is 695 ordinance number 695-2026 by council members, House Jones, Santana, and Griffin by departmental request, an emergency ordinance authorizing the director of development to enter into a tax increment financing agreement with RJL 2230 SA Holding LLC and or its designee to assist with the financing of the Helen Keller Cone Project to be located at 2230 Superior Avenue to provide for payments to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and to declare certain improvements to real property to be a public purpose.

The companion piece that goes with this is ordinance number 696-2026 by council members House Jones, Santana and Griffin by departmental request, and emergency ordinance authorizing the director of director of development to enter into a tax agreement financing agreement, tax increment financing agreement with 2202 Superior LLC and or is designated to assist with the financing of the Helen Keller Cone Project to be located at 2202 Superior Avenue to provide for payments to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and to declare certain improvements to real property to be a public purpose.

Good morning, Council President.

I think the director might be in the spillover room.

It was uh busy in here at the beginning of this meeting.

Uh but yes, uh joined by some guests here.

Uh next to me is Rich Morehouse from KJK, uh, David Abersall from KJK, uh Tom Flynn who serves as the director of construction for Turn Dev, uh, the developer on this project.

Uh so this is a TIFF project uh downtown on Superior Avenue.

Uh and I will get into these uh these slides.

Uh so uh the project site for this is 2202 to 2230 uh Superior Avenue here in Cleveland.

Uh Turndev is gonna be uh leading this historic uh rehabilitation of these two former textile buildings.

Uh the project team is led by Mr.

John Penny and uh some of the other recently uh completed projects or in prop process projects uh include the cross-country mortgage headquarters, uh which is really right adjacent to this project, uh shooters on the water on the Cleveland Police uh headquarters redevelopment, uh which is also on the superior corridor.

Uh in terms of the property itself, so these are two buildings that are right next to each other, kind of attached to each other.

Uh they comprise just under a hundred thousand square feet, uh three and four story buildings constructed around 1910.

Uh they have industrial zoning, so uh the uh residential heavy redevelopment being proposed is certainly uh less intense than uh what's allowed.

Uh and these structures are both uh historically uh constructed to have been textile complexes uh were their original uses.

Uh in terms of the project that this uh property is subject to, uh it would uh redevelop this hundred thousand square feet of building space into a hundred market rate apartments, 108 parking spaces, and a ground floor commercial retail space uh that could be utilized by uh a retailer or a restaurateur or a cafe uh per se.

Um those residential units will break out to be 84 one bedrooms and sixteen two bedrooms, uh, and through the uh management of the residential community and the inclusion of the commercial space uh project has created is uh gonna create seven and a half new full-time equivalent jobs.

Uh total project cost will exceed uh 45 million dollars.

And um each building, just for some context about the two pieces uh regarding the TIFF, each building sits on its own parcel, has its own ownership entity, uh so technically it is two pieces of legislation uh to bring this TIFF project forward.

Uh this project is subject to a an expanded community benefits agreement uh that has been finalized between uh Turndev and OEO, uh including uh some other various projects that Turndev is uh doing around the city of Cleveland.

Uh and in terms of this tax finance, uh tax increment financing uh projection.

Uh estimated total value uh is three point seven million dollars uh benefit to the project over its term.

Uh we project that CMSD will benefit about six million dollars uh from the project over the term.

This would be a non-school TIFF for 30 year 30 years at 100 percent of those non-school tax millage.

Uh and the estimated net increase in income tax revenue and those payments to the schools uh is estimated to be uh six point three six uh million dollars over the course of the uh TIFF deal.

Um with that, happy to uh turn it to the project team if they'd like to add anything or answer any questions uh through the chair.

Thank you.

Project team and welcome, director.

Project team.

Um thank you, council members, uh, for the opportunity to present uh this project before you for uh council's support and passage, hopefully passage of this legislation.

This is the uh next phase of Turndev's overall large investment in the Superior Avenue Historic District.

The first phase was the cross-country mortgage headquarters, the subsequent phase was the small mixed use buildings right across, I guess, on the same block right next to cross-country mortgage headquarters that are gonna be complete in September.

And then um, and then also the new headquarters of the Cleveland Division of Police, and then um this is the latest phase.

Uh the the project is supported by tax credits from the state of Ohio.

Thank you.

And anybody else from the comments?

So I'm Tom Flynn.

I direct all our construction for intern dev.

I think we're a great asset to the community.

As you've seen, we worked on cross-country mortgage.

We're finishing up a mixed use project at the corner of 21st and Superior, which will be a restaurant this fall.

We've completed we're coming up finishing completing the police station.

What we really like about this Heller Keller Cone project is we originally were going to put 145 apartments in there, but we've turned it into the hundred uh indoor hundred apartments, but we're adding a hundred indoor parking units, so we will not have any issues with parking for this property.

Great.

And our ex-economic development director, Mr.

Ebersall.

Good morning, everybody.

Um happy to be here.

And uh they they said it really well.

I don't really have anything to add um other than we're really excited to be uh working in the superior arts district and bringing this project forward.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Santana, you graciously allowed this to come to committee of the whole.

Did you have any comments?

Um no comments.

I did have an opportunity to meet what chief about this project.

I did have some questions as I was reviewing the legislation, just out of curiosity.

Every time I open social media, there's a building closing in downtown, right?

Like we're losing high-ends, we're clubs are leaving.

I'm just curious to know how does that affect the tax increment the TIFF in that area?

Like, would you be impacted?

Because I know that this is a project projection, but how does that align with what's happening in downtown?

Yeah, I think uh the TIFF, it's one of the tools that's available to the city to help stabilize and provide certainty, reduce some of the risk in this time of volatility, if you will, because there's changes and things are cyclical as we move forward.

But uh a tool like this TIFF helps to take away some of the um potential pain from the volatility that you spoke about.

Um hopefully um you know things reach the point now where we can just go upward and onward and upward.

But um, yeah, the TIFF means a lot to the project.

Got it.

And my next question is I mean, as we talk about community benefits agreement, um, one of the things that I've experienced is you know, taking a tour of projects, but not knowing who is being hired for these projects, and I know that um limited of my residents are being um you know have an opportunity to be part of this work.

So I wish that when we present these projects, at least we would get at least a copy of benefits to know, you know, are our residents benefiting who are the seven, or you know, who are we seeking for those seven jobs?

I mean, it's important if we're approving these projects that each of our neighborhoods um benefit from it.

So I don't know if the benefit agreement through the chair to the director, it has been finalized, or could you guys send us a copy?

I would be curious to see that.

Uh, through the chair to councilwoman Santana certainly will get a copy of that community benefits agreement over to you.

Okay, thank you.

And just on on top of that, uh, when we used to get legislation, it used to actually be a portion in the executive summary that showed how that breakdown was happening.

And I know it's too late today to try to rehash that, but that's something that I think we should really make sure that we revisit because then that will give clearer picture about uh the entire scope and and most of the time those uh community benefits should be attached to the file so that we actually can actually make sure that they see that there's an official record of those benefits.

Yeah, and I would just add, and you know, just once again from my experience when I go take a tour of these developments and I propose hiring local residents, it's almost like the staff is already in place.

The workforce is already in place.

So what do we add to it and what do we get in return for our votes?

So very important.

I think that we need to stay on it and see how our residents are benefiting from these projects.

Thank you.

And councilman, you bring up a very good point that we'll have uh some more conversations on that.

I always give the oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I just I just want to address um a comment that you made.

Um, Council President.

We do typically include that information in the RLB, typically at the second um piece of legislation, not for a chain of title, but we can make that amendment um where needed.

Thank you.

I always give the council person a record in that area the option if they want to go first or last.

Councilwoman House Jones, do you want to wrap up?

One last.

Okay.

Uh Councilman Casey and then Councilman Joseph Jones.

Thank you, Mr.

Mr.

President.

Um Mr.

President, to our presenters.

Um first of all, Director Small, are you able to pull up the community benefits?

Because that was one of my questions.

Are you able to pull up the community benefits agreement now?

Um I can certainly try to find it, but we also have um a D Curry here with us who um whose department works on those CBAs.

Right.

That that definitely is something.

Knowing what those community benefits are prior to us passing any legislation should definitely be known by the council, and not just we have a community benefits agreement in place.

So if you could work on pulling that up, I'll I'll continue to move on.

Um Mr.

Chairman, to um whomever can answer this.

Um Turndev does not have any properties in the City of Cleveland or projects that are in default or behind in property taxes, do they?

No, we don't.

All right.

I just want I didn't think so, but I just for the record we are well branched out.

We are well branched over the City of Cleveland.

We have uh land in Murray Hill, we have land on Breakwater in West 58th, we have land on West 28th.

So we are our we are in our own backyard developing our old.

I I just want to make sure because I know that there's some developers out there who are looking for TIFS but have let properties go by the wayside, so I just want to make sure that Turndev is not one of those.

Um Mr.

Chairman to to uh the director, 100 market rate apartments.

What is the payment for the CRA for not having affordable housing?

Uh through the chair to councilman.

Uh if I could pull up the specific term of that really quickly to get you that information.

One second, sir.

All right.

And then Mr.

Chairman to turn dev who's who's your your power source to this project.

Our general contractor?

What electrical yes?

So we work uh on this one.

We're working with first energy.

We always go to CPP and First Energy who's ever serving the property.

All right.

So what Mr.

Chairman to I forget your name.

Tom.

Tom.

Um I'm sure you did your due diligent your your due diligence as to um converting this project uh over to Cleveland Public Power.

So what was the reason for not converting over to Cleveland Public Power, knowing that we're giving you uh a TIFF that's worth what's the TIFF worth?

Did you say 3.7 million?

What's the total TIFF worth?

Through the chair, yes.

Uh 3.7 million is the projection.

Right.

So knowing that you're getting a $3.7 million break, what what was the reason for your due diligence when you went through to see what it would cost to convert over to Cleveland Public Powers to why you haven't you decided not to?

First energy was the existing service there already.

Okay.

And Cleveland Public Power wasn't uh on that stretch.

As you see it, even the Cleveland Police Department.

I know they brought C CP brought it all the way down from there.

So it can be done.

It could be done, but it was just it was an existing condition uh because we back up to the iron workers hall there and was already existing, so it was the most uh uh sense to go there.

Did you want to add?

Yeah, um Andy Wolschlager, the the CFO of Turn Dev, he reached out to to CPP and asked for a proposal and um looking at the the cost from CPP to provide service, they'd have to put infrastructure in there and the cost of providing the infrastructure made it uh not feasible for the project.

So, Mr.

Chairman, to I forget your name as well, but um what was that cost?

Um I'd be speculating if I told you I could provide that to you is several hundred thousand dollars.

Right.

So seven hundred thousand dollars was the cost, and you're getting a multi-million dollar TIFF.

Um doesn't sit well with me, right?

Because we're looking for investments through the whole city, right?

And and an investment in Cleveland Public Power is not just an investment right there at that facility, but it also helps uh the whole general footprint of Cleveland Public Power, which is why we attempt to make that part of the community benefit.

So it doesn't sit well with me that it's a that it's a couple hundred thousand dollar to switch over when you're getting a multi-million dollar TIFF.

Thank you, Councilman.

I appreciate your comments.

This particular project, the construction budget with the volatility and construction costs it was really tight with the process.

Yeah.

Um with the volatility and construction costs that we've been experiencing, all the all everyone everywhere has been experiencing that volatility.

Um the project uh couldn't have was super sensitive to any uh cost increases.

So I hear your explanation.

I don't buy it, but I hear it.

Um I get to tell you right now, we as I shared with you earlier, we do have three existing other properties that are coming to development in the next uh 18 months, and we've been talking with CPP about bringing power.

Most of the properties we are finding were for our redevelopment uh right now both have CPP and First Energy, but we are uh talking with CPP actively about all our future developments.

All right, and and that's appreciated.

Um thank you.

Mr.

Chairman, to our directors have we able to find the uh yes.

Uh through the chair to Councilman Casey.

So that um the payment in lieu of affordable units related to the residential tax abatement, um that is five hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars total.

So, Mr.

Chairman to the directors we have, and again, I like Turndev, right?

But you can afford to pay five hundred thousand dollars to not allow market or to not allow affordable housing, but you won't pay a couple hundred thousand to convert to Cleveland public power.

You can kind of see where I'm going with where I the with the position that I take on this, right?

So I look at it like you'll pay $500,000 not to have poor people live in a brand new remodeled building, which is well needed in the neighborhood, but something that we that you know we're going to ask about, which is your power source, it's too expensive to convert.

But you can afford to pay $500,000 not to have poor people living living in it.

So um thank you very much for that information.

You're not the only ones that are gonna hear that today, so so don't you know don't don't take it personal, but you have to look at how how we're how at least I'm starting to look at things when it comes to offering TIFF dollars and everything else.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilman Joseph Jones, Councilman Starpolis, Councilman Allen.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I'm gonna be brief on it.

You know, I've always uh think that you know when you're building a community you and you're trying to do everything you can to bring in development, you welcome as much as you possibly can in the city because the city of Cleveland need as many investors as we can possibly get.

Um and so on that um thought um my question is for Bordeaux Smalls.

I look through this here portfolio and I see that uh the 3.7.

Is there any other funds that the city has put together to be supportive of this project?

And what is that total package?

Uh through the chair to the councilman, uh no.

This is the uh only tool that we're using out of the uh Department of Development.

And is is all of these units uh is my understanding that they're supposed to be all market rate?

Uh through the chair to the councilman, yes.

And Mr.

Chairman, um uh is these all rental or are they for sale?

Uh through the chair to the councilman.

Um the uh pro forma for the development that the city is reviewed uh indicates uh all rental product.

Um I'll let the project team confirm that's the case.

Correct.

Um to the councilman through the chair, um it is a hundred percent market rate, if you will.

The um, you know, there are various submarkets in the city of Cleveland and the the uh rents here are are priced where um where we think we can get the rent to support the the project.

They're not affordable rents.

Um what is Mr.

Chairman the cost of uh of uh renting there if I wanted to rent there?

A two-room, a two-bedroom.

Yeah.

Um councilman, I can provide that information.

Uh we have studios that start at $1,450 a month.

Uh it's $1,450.

And those are your market rate prices?

Uh correct.

And then one bedroom units range from $1,500 to $1,600 a month to $1,600 a month.

And um and none of these you can actually purchase.

You have to, it's all on rent alone.

Correct, sir.

I see.

And Mr.

Chairman, um, to uh uh the distinguished gentleman, how many minority uh contractors do you have working on this?

Yeah.

Um the um Turndev has negotiated a contract for the construction management with independence construction in independence construction has incorporated the goals, the OEO goals, I believe you're seeing a copy of that being um sent around the table right now that incorporates those goals.

I don't know about the number per se, but independence construction is programming their subcontractors to achieve compliance with the goals that we negotiated.

So you don't know if we even got anybody yet?

I don't personally know not even one person.

No, we have I I think our target is about 30 percent, sir.

I I know, but the question is do you have someone here now in mind that you I know that the uh I presume the independence is the prime primary contractor doing the work?

Yes.

And so they when will the work get started?

The work has been started, we're about thirty thirty percent complete.

So you can't so I'm asking you a question, somebody here at the table should know with 30 percent of the work complete if we have any minority contractors on the job.

Yes, we do.

So who is what I'm asking?

How many?

I don't know that I can get it to you, but I will just share with you we have like uh gateway electric.

Um is that Mr.

Singh?

Yes, Roger.

What about African American men and women?

Yes, sir.

How many African American men contractors and African American women contractors are on the job?

I'll have to check with uh independence on that and get that to you, sir.

And see, Mr.

Chairman, I just and this is to the administration, you know.

We want to support our local contractors who are uh in the city of Cleveland who are working.

And you've completed 30 percent of the project, but we can't name one person.

And Mr.

Sings gets all the stuff on terms of electricity, he's been getting it ever since Gateway started.

And so um I I just want to see some new faces, uh, Mr.

Chairman, and to the administration, um, where you're really truly making an effort to uh delve deep into the minority neighborhoods.

There's a reason why there's two Clevelands, uh one that's prospering and one that's not.

And part of that is because we're and we talked about eloquently, um Jasmine Santana talked about um being able to uh be a part of the package the city has given you.

But to see here, sit here right now and see that you've you've done 30 percent of the work and you can't name off anybody, and this is not to embarrass anyone, it's just the reality of what we're dealing with.

I I could share one with you.

Our first contractor on the site was our Bateman contractor was eight A and T Environmental, which is uh a minority-owned firm.

It's a minority-owned firm.

Yes.

Okay.

So it would be good to to Mr.

Chairman.

I'd like to follow up with you, Mrs.

Bordeaux.

Uh who is uh watching over the group to see and check balances on who is uh actually the accountability here?

Um through the chair.

Uh we have with us uh a member of uh OEO and the OEO department monitors um MBE um CSB F Earth market.

So who do we have, Ms.

Bordeaux?

Who?

Uh good morning uh to City Council through the chair.

This is Michael Curry, I'm the assistant director of the Office of Equal Opportunity.

Uh this project, as we're bringing it to State Council now, um has not been under active monitoring, but as soon as we have a firm agreement with uh the team at Heller Color Cone, we will begin monitoring, which will look back to all work that's been previously uh done on the project.

So we will be monitoring the use of minority-owned business enterprises, female owned business enterprises, clean area small businesses, as well as the use of Cleveland residents uh and monitoring the rest of the community benefits agreement over the course of this project.

So I can assure you that we will work uh obviously very closely with our development and contractor partners uh and hold them accountable to the agreement that they have agreed to as part of this investment.

So my question, Mr.

Chairman, and I didn't want it to be long at all, uh not you just opening up so much.

Um the next question, Mr.

Chairman, is what why haven't you been working on uh how does this process work?

We're we're sitting here, we're negotiating.

The system has already started, they're 30% complete.

When do we start evaluating if they are matching the criteria that this council has passed in terms of having minority participation?

When does that start?

80% when it's complete, or do you start at the beginning?

How does that work if you could be so kind, distinguished chairman, to explain to me what that process is?

Uh through the chair to the councilman.

So that process will start uh once an incentive or a financing agreement contract is finalized.

So that sort of monitoring kicks into effect in this case, it would be when the TIFF would kick into effect.

So, but the next question is uh the group knows they're gonna get the resources, they for the nine times out of ten, I don't see us really turning down any developments here, even with Mr.

Um Casey's uh uh uh discussion concerning making sure we support our local utility.

So the question is um since they know that how why haven't they began the proposition to already start down that route and have that lined up I can speak to that um through the chair to the councilman?

Um we've been aware of the um of the city's uh OEO goals and we've been working proactively on several projects um with OEO um and NDD for for several years now, and so recognizing that there can be starts and stops.

We try to work at work ahead of the the process, if you will.

Um and so um we've been continually engaged with the parties on on parallel paths, working with City OEO, um Director Curry and and his team, and as well as um director small and her team, um you know, just to try and minimize the uh bumps in the process, but only deliver to the city you know what what we're trying to achieve, and that's increased diversity and you know focus on local hiring and local contractors.

So um we've been working in in good faith to achieve the council's objectives, even though it's uh seems a little, you know, copy for the horse at times.

Um we are actively in good faith trying to hit those numbers.

And councilman Jones, your time is up.

So if you're and then ending thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I'd like to follow up um if our team that's there um uh with um within the next 30 to 60, 90 days, if we could have a report to talk about where we are in terms of capacity of minority participation in terms of contractors, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh I would be appreciative of that.

Do we have that?

We got that down.

So in and in 90 days, if you could report back and give us a report on how many minorities are participating in the contract.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

And Councilman Jones asked some great questions, and as we preempt to councilman starr, we have uh Starr Polency, Camwill, and Shaw, and then once again, House Jones is going to wrap us up.

I do want to caution everybody that we have approximately uh six pieces of legislation that we heard, and we have approximately about 45 more to go.

Um I do know that um one of the questions, the reason I said the councilman Jones asked some very good questions, is because in meeting and talking with many of the prime developers, you're exactly right, councilman.

There's only a very small minuscule amount of people that are getting these contracts.

And what I think we need to do a job of which I hope that Councilman Starr would, you know, help help with that effort, is to recruit and find out how we get more MBE and FBEs certified because they can only go to the pool that's there.

And Raj is pretty much one of the only people that actually has the capacity to do some of this, and he is a minority.

So part of that onus that you bring about, which is a very valid question, is that we have to literally probably roll up our sleeves and say, how do we get more people in the door?

And I think that's a conversation that we need to have with um um Mr.

Director Um Mitchell, and hopefully, Councilman Starr through the workforce committee can lead that.

That's more of a proactive effort as opposed to how do we deal with it now?

Because that is something that I haven't heard just from this developer, but from several developers, that the pool is so shallow, it's hard to find um as many people.

We need to really do a better job to work with Director Mitchell to recruit more people into that pipeline.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Some very good questions and appreciate the enlightenment overall because I wasn't aware.

Chairman very good questions and appreciate the enlightenment overall because I wasn't aware yeah so councilman star you had the floor did councilman Palency Conwell Shaw and Councilwoman Jones will wrap us up I do want to caution everybody that we have a lot of legislation though.

Yeah thank you Council President and through the chair definitely um to Mr.

Moorehouse if I may ask um are you a United States American citizen through the chair?

Yes sir I am all right in addition um I would definitely want to bring up from the workforce standpoint and I um echo what one of our colleagues about um the workforce and actually hiring local um contractors and employees is is it is very much important and I think um one of the things that we we may have to revisit like we talked earlier this year council president when we have these CBAs how are we able to review these CBAs in a committee and I would be welcoming and opening to making sure CBA agreements um just added another um committee to go through so we could be able to vet those to make sure it is not all just a couple committees so we can be able to handle that part from a workforce standpoint to ensure that local people are getting hired that is a very much good question that I believe um councilwoman Satana asked because if it's something in War 5 and then there's no local hire I will be pissed I would be frustrated I would be angry um on initiative and I wouldn't support legislation as well so I think if we can be proactive and possibly review um some of our committee functions um I think that would be something that we possibly could look into and that's something we could talk offline um as well as those CBAs but also I know that we heard that there is a penalty when um developers are receiving an affordable housing and if they choose not to add the affordable housing they can pay the penalty um and then that penalty allows them to just do market rate.

Now I know we do have um some different challenges that we have if we do a whole bunch of affordable housing or do a whole low income housing we have just certain blocks of just that um but mixed housing we've seen mixed housing is a great tool that can basically stabilize a neighborhood stabilize a community so my question was um where do we have or what ordinance that was passed that created that opportunity for developers to bypass actually um incorporating affordable affordable housing into their projects where they can just step aside and and pay a penalty because I think I heard this penalty is around 400 some thousand dollars or something where do we have that in the legislation or do we got anything like that that allows people to opt to do that through the chair through the chair to the councilman um so I know the CRA residential tax abatement program was last updated in 2024 uh by ordinance um that ordinance number was 719 2024 719 2024 which was able to create an opportunity potentially um to address if affordable housing wasn't offered into the housing stock then therefore there's a penalty for that which is a tool that's been used through the chair uh through the chair I can't speak to how the program worked before that ordinance uh but I know certainly that was the last one to update the program um and get it into the current form that it's in yep and through the 719 ordinance 2024 um does it states what that penalty dollar goes through through the chair um I don't know that it names it specifically but I think it the intention is for it to address affordable housing so therefore do we know where do we put that money at and for so once so say from example if there's a developer who's who's going to do market rate housing and they're not doing any affordable and they're going to pay a 400 or a 500 thousand dollar penalty that money goes into what account through the chair um through the chair my understanding is that the legislation created a fund for those uh dollars to go into and then through the chair to Tina through our staff is there a way that you could pull that actual fund and see how much money is in the account as well as possibly pull what ways those dollars have been spent since 2020 2024 that's when it started through the chair yes and see what dollars have been spent and how they've been airmarked and also any rules um tied to that affordability you get to so you you will need the sub funder if we can get that over to our staff because I would like to um definitely explore um what is going on with these different funds because if people are doing this we definitely need to be able to be intentional and strategic on making sure we do have affordable housing um offered in in the city of Cleveland and I yell chair thank you and councilman I really hope that you and director Mitchell because even though I know that I was the author of 719 I hope that we do a review and see where we need to strengthen it and where we need to maybe have some adjustments and that's something that Director Mitchell has asked us to uh you know consider.

And I yell, Chair.

Thank you.

And Councilman, I really hope that you and Director Mitchell, because even though I know that I was the author of 719, I hope that we do a review and see where we need to strengthen it and where we need to maybe have some adjustments, and that's something that Director Mitchell has asked us to uh you know consider.

So once again, if you could take up that charge, that would be great.

And uh we'll talk offline about some of the other things you are asking questions about.

Uh next I have Councilman Palency, Conway Shaw.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I'm gonna be break to the point.

The um I I appreciate uh knowing that area uh as well as I do.

I appreciate the enhancements and the improvements that have taken place there.

I've been in a cross-country building, and I'm impressed with it.

And when I was a kid, my mother worked in one of those buildings.

I can't remember which one, old Lion Taylor, whatever the Lion Taylor was over there.

Um used to take the bus.

Would take the bus from Colloway down St.

Clair and walk up to Superior to go there in a long time ago.

The five hundred thousand dollars, and I'll direct this to both you and to the administration.

The five hundred thousand that is being paid in lieu of the affordability component.

What fund is that going into?

Um through the chair, uh, I don't have the fund number with me, but that's something that can be provided.

Do we and do we know how much money is in that fund?

That's the same question that Councilman Stark said.

So, what we need to do is if we can get that fund number, and then Miss Majesto can tell us how much is in there.

But I believe the person who actually monitors that on the day-to-day is actually Director Mitchell, and um that's something that we need to make sure that we get that fund number and get the amount in there.

And Mr.

Chairman, how are those funds dispersed?

That's the other question I ask as well.

Okay, then briefly back to the um to the administration.

Um I'm gonna follow up Councilman Casey's comment.

It's critical that the administration drive home on all projects going forward the use of Cleveland public power.

I it's uh I'm to be sitting here and hearing this discussion again, Mr.

Chairman, is extremely troubling to me.

That um I when you amortize out uh over the course of their loan or their assistance that they're getting versus the impact on Cleveland public power.

Does anyone has anyone calculated that out?

I I can't believe for the life me anyone has.

Um we've got to be more proactive.

The city has to be more proactive.

The Bib administration, the mayor has to be more proactive in supporting Cleveland public power.

And I don't see that happening.

I just don't see that happening here.

So I'm again, I'm troubled again on another project before us, Mr.

Chairman.

I'll leave it at that, that we don't have Cleveland public power supplying the energy for these projects.

That has to cease.

Um we cannot continue to keep losing, and we're losing too often in this city, and it's it's becoming very troubling to me.

So I'll leave it at that point.

I'm hoping people in the administration is there, I hope they're listening.

Thank you, Councilman.

Share your concern.

Uh Councilman Kevin Conwell, Councilman Shaw.

Okay, and I'll be uh real quick.

Do I hear that right?

That um to the chair of Cleveland Public Power, we they're not going to uh be the energy supplier for this project.

Did I hear that right?

Yes, sir.

They need to be in the agreement all the time.

How can you not?

If you're the mayor and you're over Cleveland Public Power, I would put them on everything.

They have to grow.

You have to have Cleveland public power in here because it affects um our bottom line.

And uh have you already cut the uh the deal with uh through the chair with first energy?

Yes, sir, because it was exact existing power transformers there.

There was no way you could uh work with CPP through the chair.

We did look into it, and as I said previously, and other other projects, our first call were is always the CPP.

We're working proactively right now with them on three other building sites that we're gonna come up in the next 18 to 20 months.

And one of the biggest difficulties we run into in most properties is CPP is there and first energy, and there's cross easements and stuff like that.

But on this particular project at the Heller Keller Cone, first energy was there and CPP wasn't there down on uh St.

Clair.

You know what?

Um CPP, they have to always be first.

Um talking to the um director on every single project, and they need to execute also with the developers so that they could be in that project, even if you have to hire someone to make sure that they're on or have a team to make sure they're on every single project.

I mean every single project, because there would uh it's Cleveland public power.

How can you come to us and you're not thinking about Cleveland public power?

That has to be first thing first.

I I never could understand that.

I could never understand that.

And and that's the way moving forward, you have to we have to do business, CPP, CPP.

Because how can you come to us for resources and and you don't have CPP there?

So I echo with uh my other colleagues, uh Chairman Brian Casey as well as council member um Mike Pelinsick is narrating to you, you know, to put more Cleveland Erds to work and the whole nine yards.

Um I'm gonna move right along.

Is um director Tyson Mitchell is here?

And he has to sign off on this um on this project.

I I like him a lot through the chair.

I like him a lot.

And when he tells me he's gonna do something, he ended up doing it.

And when he put his uh Midas touch on something, Director Tyson uh Mitchell is done.

He'll evaluate um the project to make sure African Americans and people of color are working on this project.

Um I used to before he came, I used to go out and protest projects.

I get with Norman Edwards, we bring a hundred men, and we used to make sure African Americans working on the projects.

Ever since Tyson Mitchell is there, uh he tell us he's going to make it work, he makes it work.

So I I uh I appreciate that um young director a lot.

Now, something that we need to add to uh all projects, and I just don't see it in your agreement, is purchasing and procurement.

That need to be on every single project because here's the thing.

When you do construction, it has a beginning, and then you close the project out.

It's the ending.

But if we do in our agreements, purchasing and procurement, you have to always do preventive maintenance, you have to always um uh it's ongoing with any single project to keep that project alive.

But I don't see it in there, and that's why I need to know are we looking at that as well to make sure that uh the people of the city of Cleveland are working on this project to the chair, through the chair to the um director, and then I'll yield through the director, uh, through the chair to the councilman.

Uh the short answer is for this particular project, we don't have any extending elements of the community benefits agreement.

We have started implementing that on a number of our projects, uh including some you'll hear later today, where we've actually considered again the long-term employment at the facility, future procurement and other elements as part of a community benefits agreement.

These elements are always evolving, and as we identify issues that uh obviously that uh reflect the needs of the people of the city of Cleveland and their representatives, um, we're always looking for new and innovative ways to leverage the city's financial investment in these projects to long-term benefits.

And you know what?

When you put it when you put team together this project and they sit down with us, even in construction, where the project is moving forward, in that project, let me see which one with phase.

Um you execute on a on the project, it's purchasing and procurement, it's right in the execution of that project to deliver toilet supplies to deliver um things that the workers need is right there and baked into that project is purchasing and procurement before you even close out the purchase um the project that's in there, but I don't see it when I um read our um scopes.

So we shouldn't wait until the end is right there when you monitor and control is it's in all phases.

So um director, can we bring Director Tyson Mitchell to the table?

And then I'll then I'll yield because this is important.

You can make money and you could put money in people um pockets.

You know, the purchasing department control the purse strings of our businesses through the chair to the director.

Um good morning, good afternoon.

Um through the chair to the councilperson.

One of the things, even with our 30 percent goal, our 15, 7, and 8, there are ways that you can still use procurement to make those goals.

We don't mandate that they have to be strictly in construction.

We allow supplier credit, we allow manufacturing credit.

So there are uh constructive ways.

I think we just have to create that expectation that you buy local where you can.

I mean, we have that provision in the community benefits agreement.

Um but we really need to take an assessment of how how much can you really buy local?

Can you truly buy the drywall locally and from a certified vendor?

So I think we have to take a uh a stu uh uh a pause and really look at that.

But there are ways to use uh supplier credit on these projects also.

You know, through the chair, some of the uh like as huge as this project they use just in time also, like we do it in the city of Cleveland.

So you can put your inventory in just in time, and then you pull from that inventory for your project through the chair to the um director.

No, that that is correct through the uh chair to the councilperson.

Uh one of the things we're looking at is how do you you know how do you diversify what you do?

I mean, honestly, from an MBE standpoint, FBE standpoint, we want them to make the goal.

Um we don't want it to all be in construction.

You know, what about professional services?

So sometimes we have a tendency to focus on construction and leave out the professional services, the procurement.

So those are things we're adding, and I think you'll you'll see that more on the um the next the next well on a project that's late later on.

Okay, yeah, I'm agreeing with you because I know it's it's like different um what we're I'm looking for, it's different buckets here, right?

And so it's like fund accounting these different buckets that you can uh that you can pull from.

But I don't want that purchasing and procurement because that's everlasting.

So when you leave this project and you create the building when it closed out through the chair to the director, that's one of the projects that will continue to keep going.

Right.

That is very true.

And we don't want them last point, we don't want them to make the goal all we're gonna buy all drywall from a minority vendor, but we're not gonna, we're gonna make the 15% there, but we're not gonna do any construction because we don't have to.

See, so there's a balance there that we we want to meet.

That's cool, Bees.

That's all I wanted to know.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you, sir.

Uh I have Councilman Shaw and then Councilwoman House Jones is gonna wrap us up.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I'll um try to make this quick.

Uh through the chair to the administration.

You've heard my concerns about TIFFs before.

I know some of the other colleagues have also uh brought up lack of affordable housing.

I wanted to understand why the administration continues to believe that subsidizing market rate housing units is a feasible strategy to develop downtown or any other neighborhoods.

Director Um through the chair.

Um the tax increment financing tool is one of the few tools that we have to accomplish some of our department goals, which is to activate re you know, adaptive reuse prop properties, vacant properties, activate commercial corridors, and so um you know it's the while you know the market is continuing to strengthen, it's still you know not the strongest market, and and it's you know one of the only tools that we have.

And um following up on that, I wanted to understand through the chair to the director.

Um, what zone is this?

Is this uh what type of market category is this?

Is it a market rate?

Um, strong market, middle market.

Which one is this one?

Uh through the chair to the councilman.

Uh, this is designated as a market neighborhood.

I see.

That to me would indicate it is it doesn't need more additional subsidize.

Is that not accurate, Director?

Through the chair?

Um the team has completed a butt for analysis and given their the financial analysis that was completed, um uh but for the TIFF, uh the project would not be able to move forward.

Uh I've yeah, I've expressed I think um I want to understand the TIFF will take place after the abatement runs.

Is that accurate uh through the chair to the councilman?

Uh technically, that really small space of commercial space uh will be subject to the TIFF uh during the abatement since the abatement won't touch the commercial space.

Um but the majority of the TIFF driven to the project will be in the years post-residential abatement.

So for a total of how many years will the city be subsidizing this property for through the chair to the administration?

Uh so the term of this TIFF is proposed to be 30 years.

And the abatement is how long?

Uh I believe it is 15 years through the chair.

So total combined, we're gonna be subsidizing this property for 45 years.

Uh through the chair, uh the first 15 years of that TIFF overlap with the abatement.

Uh so it would be 30 total years.

I thought in one of the pieces it was indicated that it would be running subsequently, not overlapping.

Uh through the chair, uh so the much of the value would be subsequent.

Um, but the term of the 30-year TIFF would begin upon execution of the agreement that would occur uh likely this or next calendar year, uh, and that would set the 30-year timer.

Um the abatement would also kick in at the point of occupancy.

Uh so there they would be concurrent terms.

Okay.

And um I'm sure most of my colleagues saw it, and I'm sure the broader public also saw that recently the um staff at Cleveland Public Libraries just uh held just held a strike authorization vote because they're negotiating.

Part of their struggles is because of the funding struggles that the library faces and the TIFFs that we continue to approve, continue to eat into their budget.

I wanted to understand have we made an analysis of how much money will be diverted from Cleveland public libraries because of this TIFF.

Uh through the chair, uh the analysis uh looks at the total tax mills uh that would be um foregone uh by the civic sector.

Um breaking it down at that level of specificity uh has not been done.

Uh it is something we could look into doing.

I I would like to see that amount.

I mean I appreciate the bright green letters with the um star around it to show what positives we're providing for the city.

Um I think we should also be honest and treat the negatives and the long-term subsidies that we're providing in the same manner and be clear about those.

Um it's you know critical that we continue supporting our libraries and we have to take responsibility for the fact that these abatements that we're providing on top of the TIFFs are continuing to eat into the library budget.

With that I yield, thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilman.

Can I ask a question just to the councilman's point?

Isn't it state law that by right they are available to have a tax abatement?

Or is it some kind of state law that basically says that they are um privy to a tax abatement?

Uh yes, to the council president.

Uh so this item uh today, the TIFF, uh those are negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

Um, and that is uh at the discretion of uh the municipality.

The municipality.

Um regarding the CRA tax abatement program, uh state RC allows you to set that up in various different ways.

Um the way Cleveland and uh many other communities around the state use it as like a sort of buy right.

Um they set the terms of the abatement, they set the requirements as a program ahead of time, and then if you meet those requirements, uh you get the abatement.

Uh and that is how the city's residential program works, sir.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure we clear that.

So TIFF is always up to the discretion of the municipality, but CRA tax abatement are tied to state rules and on and basically by right they're able to do that, right?

Uh through the chair.

Um the state allows the city to make that buy right on the city through its ordinances elected to do that.

Okay, got you.

Uh Councilwoman House Jones, this is in uh the area that you serve.

Would you like to make any comments?

Okay.

Uh I don't know if you can hear me, but um, is the green light on or it's on, but hopefully people can hear me online.

Because I think this might give me this one real quick.

Okay.

Um so uh I was having a conversation with um a colleague last week about another TIFF project, and so fundamentally when it comes to this project, I am um supportive of it as we are looking to revitalize um abandon, um you know, abandoned vacant properties, things of that nature.

So that's just fundamentally.

Um but I do want to take a moment to talk about just the dynamics and answer just some general questions.

Are TIFFs the best way to um I would say it are TIFFs an equitable way to fund communities?

No, right?

I think we need to have an understanding of this.

One of the problems is is that, and I think this is the work of council, is that we have to begin to put forth more equitable solutions so that developers and other people can find things to do.

And that's one of the things that I am on a pathway to do.

Um, and this is a much larger issue when we think about the tax policy structure of the state of Ohio.

Um, and this is things that I think Ohioans absolutely need to look at as it relates to the taxing structure for businesses and those who are high earners.

If you look at for the last three decades, the state of Ohio has taken approach to get to a flex flat taxing structure, which means people that make $50,000 can sometimes pay the same amount of tax rate of somebody that pays a million dollars or five million dollars or billion dollars, and then there are all these other nuances in our taxing structure system, and we need to come to a place because again, those tax dollars then go back to local communities or lack thereof, and then people then begin to fight over property taxes because that's what we're talking about here.

We know fundamentally property taxes are not the best way to fund the operations of life for society.

We collectively, as legislators, have to put forth, in my opinion, a more progressive tax system.

That is the reason why this upcoming November are we gonna have these proposals that are going to be on the ballot.

Some may win, but a lot of them are going to fail because people will not, they just can't be taxed anymore.

And we are going to have to have real conversations about who how much people are going to have to pay, right?

This whole thing about rating.

I know we just got the news that Ohio is the best place to do business.

Okay, great, but at to what extent?

People are not paying their fair share.

And I'm saying high earners in particular are not paying their fair share.

And until we are able to put forth a real plan to be fair in our taxing system, these TIFFs are gonna continue to come up, you know.

Uh, we're gonna be confronted with to whether have a development in your in your community or not.

And that's my general thing in that.

As it relates to jobs and contracting opportunities, I have talked extensively um, you know, you know, with this team here, um, they know my position.

I am very, very clear.

Uh, one of the biggest challenges we are having, um having contractors of mass, and what does that look like?

It's a contracting company that has a minimum of like 10 people in an in the professionals, like uh a plumbing company that has 10 plumbers, an electrician, electrician that has 10 electricians, those are very farm protein.

I have about five in ward eight, and I can name them aka team, next gen construction, ozane construction, Roma Construction, and Coleman Spawn.

That's what I have in Ward 8.

I don't know what you have in yours, I know what I have in my neighborhood.

For the individuals who say they want to work on projects, my office works tirelessly.

I will pick up the phone to call a company to say, hey, because a lot of these relationships be happen because you know somebody, you, my friend, I'm your friend, and we cook together.

So if there are people who want to get in these industries who want to have relationships, we are not short on development projects happening in Ward 8.

So if there are people who say, I want to sign up, I want to work on something.

It would be helpful if the councilwoman or any office knows you exist, so we be can begin to do some of those matchings because I do them.

I do them for people who say they want to be in industries.

I I share people and connect people to Cleveland Builds, other unions.

Now it's gonna be your responsibility to do the work and show up and show that you can do the work.

But I I I I introduce people plenty of times, right?

We have a we just got um uh 80 unit, the frontline development just got their gap finding for 80 units of affordable housing coming on, and we have to think about the broad spectrum of what we want the city of Cleveland to look like, right?

For working people and for world to do, those who are unhoused, and it, you know, everything in between.

We have to have a mixed income community, right?

Um, and and and people with all varying levels of um salaries and income to live and be attracted to the city of Cleveland.

I think it's crazy that people paying $1,500, $2,000 for an apartment, but baby, the people is doing it all over this work country.

And I'm like, okay, great, great.

That's great for you.

Um finally, when it comes to the CPP um and not utilizing CPP, um, what I will offer to this uh council uh utilities company.

I think we really it it we need to look at how many projects have been um in the last year or two years, how many projects have come online that did not use CPP?

We need to analyze how much money it would have taken for that company, these companies to have been switched over to CPP, and as a council in the upcoming 2027 budget, in CPP's budget or wherever, use that amount to come up with a business development grant specifically as it relates to turning over utilities.

We don't have to wait for the administration to make the decision.

If this council makes the decision, this is the investment we are going to put forth when it comes to utilities, it will be done, and these types of conversations will be non-involved.

And then when we think about in perpetuity, we will be growing CPP, something that we know has offers family sustaining wages for people in our community.

We're not trying to convince nobody to hire people because we know our hiring processes, and we are building CPP to be competitive.

This is my suggestion.

I hope this we could we can do that and put this forth in the 2027 budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

See no other questions, ordinances uh number 695 and 696 stand approved.

Once again, please sign on the committee that you address.

I want to um we have one more development piece with a guest, and we always try to do our guests first.

Um I want to just make sure everybody knows we still have approximately 40 pieces of legislation to go.

And we've gotten about six done so far.

So I just want to make sure that um everybody brought their sleeping bag today because we're gonna be down here for a while.

Everybody always are at 10 minutes during committee of the whole, so I just want to remind everybody of that.

I've actually been holding everybody to that already.

All right.

This next piece is ordinance number 686-2026 by councilmember stars, Santana and Griffin by departmental request, an emergency ordinance authorizing the mayor and the commissioner of purchases and supplies to acquire and reconvey properties presently owned by East Ninth Scarlet LLC and or is designed, located at 2060 East Ninth Street for the purpose of entering into the chain of title prior to the adoption of tax increment finance financing legislation authorized under section 5709.401 of the revised code for the project Scarlet.

Uh Director, and please announce your guests.

Um again, good afternoon, um, Chair, Council members.

Um joining me today is Afoma Azewe from the Department of Development, um, along with representatives from the development team.

Um we have with us Nathan Felker, executive vice president and general counsel for Spark GHC, Greg Kramer, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Business Development for SPARC, um Ken Kallanchuck, director and principal with project management consultants, um, and Brendan Shea, Vice President of Real Estate and Development and Owners Rep with NextGen.

Um so today, uh ordinance 686 2026 um will authorize um the city to enter into chain of title for Project Scarlet.

Um I want to note that this is a necessary procedural step that will allow the project to return to council at a later date for consideration of a proposed TIFF agreement.

Um the department is supportive of this request because we believe it advances several um extremely important priorities.

Um that includes um you know activating long vacant buildings, um putting them back into productive use through mixed use redevelopment, um, right?

So residential use, hospitality, commercial space.

The project is expected to create 95 new full-time jobs and generate substantial long-term revenue for both the city um uh and the schools.

Um with that, I will hand it off to Ufoma who will um get into more project details and later the project team to answer any questions.

Thank you, Director.

Um the chair, um, to the council members.

Um we are talking about East Ninth Scarlet LC.

I can't hear down here.

Yes, so East Ninth Scarlet LLC is a developer of the landmark rows and sloan buildings, uh, also known as Project Scarlet.

Uh they acquired the building in 2024.

And um the project will be uh at the corner of uh East Ninth and Prospect.

Um the address is uh 2060 East Ninth, and uh the two buildings are currently vacant.

Um this developer is planning to um redevelop the properties and bring them back to full productive reuse.

Um there will be this project will be the first Marriott brand residency combined with a hotel in Ohio, and this public-private partnership um will cost them an estimated 126 million dollars uh and some change to renovate both buildings.

The two buildings will be transformed into approximately 170 residential apartments and also 121 hotel rooms, plus approximately 33 uh thousand square feet of commercial offices and retail space.

Um the project will lead to the creation of uh 95 full-time jobs as my uh director indicated, and their estimated annual appearal is uh in excess of three million dollars.

Um they are requesting approval of this chain of title to pave way for the uh 30 year non-school TIF.

Um the TIFF will provide um an estimated uh 16 uh million dollars and some change over the 30-year term, and CMSD will benefit uh about 26 million uh eight twenty-one thousand uh in total new income over the course of the TIF.

Um the total estimated net increase of 29,724,571 uh dollars in income tax revenues to the city uh and uh payment in lieu of taxes to CMSD over the 30-year term.

Um we have an existing community benefits agreement with um the developer that was negotiated by OEO, and we also have a workfuss development agreement that it worked with the Greater Cleveland Works to um enter into I'm gonna turn it over then to the developer to shed some more light on the project.

Thank you.

To the chair, I'm Greg Kramer.

I'm the senior vice president of government affairs and business development to Green Harvest Capital.

On behalf of the entire Project Scarlet Team, I would like to begin by thanking the administration, Mayor Bibb, Chief McNair, Director Bordeaux Small, Director Mitchell, and Chief Administrative Officer Zoukwei.

I would also like to thank Cleveland City Council, Council President Griffin, Council Member Starr, and all members of this legislative body who have toured Project Scarlet, who have provided letters of support, and have encouraged us along the way.

A sincere thank you.

Green Harvest Capital is based in Greater Cleveland.

We operate three business verticals.

One hospitality.

Benjamin Rose was an immigrant who came to this country in the 1800s.

He wanted to build the largest office building in the state of Ohio.

And he did at the corner of East Ninth in Prospect.

Built in 1900, 400,000 square feet and 10 stories.

It was and is an architectural marvel.

It is a unique building that will house a unique hospitality and multifamily project.

Our plans are for a Marriott Tribute Hotel with 121 rooms that will be accessed off Prospect Avenue.

And I think this was mentioned already.

Project Scarlet and the Rose Buildings transformational for the City of Cleveland.

I think if you look at a map of downtown Cleveland, it geographically bridges the Gateway District, Playhouse Square, and Public Square.

It complements other recent important investments that have been made in the rock block, such as Cosm Cleveland.

Without question, this is a key corner, a key intersection, if you will, the front door of our city.

Project Scarlet will not only benefit downtown Cleveland, but it will also positively impact all 15 wards throughout the city of Cleveland.

The new jobs that will be created will pay a living wage of more than 1950 an hour.

That's my understanding.

That is $3 an hour above the City of Cleveland's current minimum wage.

And this has been mentioned already, but I I think it's very, very important.

Cleveland public schools will receive approximately $27 million as a result of this project becoming a reality.

It is one step towards stabilizing our population as a city, and it opens up downtown Cleveland and the entire city of Cleveland to additional development and outside investment from throughout the United States, not just regionally and not just the state of Ohio.

The City of Cleveland's TIFF will be leveraged against other public sector assistance we have received at the local, state, and federal levels.

$16 million in federal historical tax credits, $4 million in state historical tax credits, the recently announced $7 million in TMUD, $2.5 million in Brownfield remediation, and just last week, the Cleveland Cuyahoga County Port approved a tax savings that will equal 1.4 million dollars for this project.

A total involvement investment, if you will, at the local, state, and federal levels of $31 million.

This unique $130 million hospitality multifamily project will bring a 400,000 square foot vacant building back to life.

It will reinvigorate a neighborhood via a Marriott Tribute Hotel and the world's first Marriott Tribute branded apartments.

Administration officials, Council President Griffin, Council Member Starr.

Thank you for the ongoing partnership.

Those are my comments for the record, sir.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go into uh questions from the council.

And before I do that, Councilwoman Santana, you uh allowed this to go to committee at a hope.

Yes.

Um, I mean, ideally, I would have loved to hear it in DPS, but I guess there was some timelines that we had to buy by to get some tax credits, but um, I'm gonna repeat what I've said even for the previous projects.

I think my frustration, this is a beautiful building.

I took a tour.

I even said in the future I would love to have an apartment there.

Um, and that's when Heinen was across.

So now Heinan is gone, I'm not sure.

This would have been a great project to subsidize the Heinens, but once again, I am not seeing our residents benefit from these projects, and it's I'm getting frustrated about it.

So I propose some ideas.

I know that they're working with Councilman Starr.

I know that this is his neighborhood, but once again, I am part of the vote, and so I would love to see more Latino contractors on these projects, and I'm not sure how do we make that happen.

I know that I mean I got this whole um agreement here, but this is just preliminary, right?

This is not something that is set in stone.

But yet today we are going to vote on this project.

So it is uh I don't know, maybe I've been here too long, but I'm just kind of getting frustrated over and over again, seeing these projects.

What so much of you know tax dollars going into um funding them, but yeah, our residents are not moving forward, they're not building wealth, and we are still considered a very impoverished city.

So I don't know what the fix is, um, director, but just like moving forward, I need to see proof that our local residents are gonna be part of these projects.

And they don't have to have huge contracts, like these don't have to be contractors.

You could bring painters in.

You could bring drywall, you could bring plumbers.

I mean, we have that available in the city of Cleveland.

So I don't know what the answer is, but that is my pet peeve.

And um again, thank you.

I love to see buildings uh refurbished.

I mean, I think this is just a beautiful building, a historic building that we are renovating, but I am frustrated about our residence not being part of the workforce plan.

And I will yield.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

And I continue to hear this theme.

I really think that this council needs a full day working session with OEO to really drill down and have this conversation because I think everybody's feeling the same frustration.

And what you guys have to understand is when we go back to the community, people are saying, I want to work and I want an opportunity in Kent, and nobody can provide it.

Now, when I did CMHA, um I actually had a project manager that made sure that we had people working in those um in those capacity in that capacity.

So I just want to make sure that we um maybe sit down with Director Mitchell, and once again, I I would defer to Councilman Starr, who is the chair of workforce, to really try to convene council to have a broader discussion over how we can make sure that our community is getting opportunities.

All of us did.

Um we we provided workforce, um how means jobs, funding, and we all had fairs that we worked with Mr.

Stokes in the past in order to try to recruit people from our community.

So maybe we need to see what we need to do to ramp up because this is becoming a recurring issue that we need to make sure that we address.

Um that being said, Councilman Star, do you want to wrap up or do you want to kick off?

No, I'm not well.

Okay.

All right.

Councilman Casey, Councilman Harsh, Councilman Joseph Jones, Councilman Michael Pilless.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, and Mr.

Chair, I only have 10 minutes, so the questions if we could just get to the answers, right?

And not explanations.

So, Mr.

Chairman to to Director Smalls first, has the CBA been uh worked on already?

Is there a community benefits agreement and we just do not see it in front of us before council?

Um through the chair, my understanding is that there is a CBA in place.

All right, if we could just get a copy of if you could contact your office, whatever that CBA is, can you get us copies of the CBA before we move out and on to the floor of council?

Okay, yes, definitely.

All right, and then um Mr.

Chairman to Director Smalls, market rate, correct?

How many how many apartments?

Uh here 95.

What was it?

171.

170 apartments, yeah.

All right, 171 market rates, which means there's no affordable housing uh in the building.

What is the cost of the the CRA that the uh project is gonna pay?

Um I believe it's around 850,000.

But are you sure it's not a million?

I that is the number I have in front of me.

Okay.

Is it 850 or is it a million?

25% of the number of units.

I think it comes out to right around eight or sixty rate.

Yeah, through the chair to the councilman eight hundred and fifty-five thousand is the math I just did.

All right.

171 times 25 percent times 20k.

All right, 855,000 to not have affordable housing in uh this what do you call it?

Are you called the Scarlet or is it Scarlet Rose?

What are you what do you call in the building?

It's it's projects to the chair, uh Project Scarlet.

Okay.

All right, so $855,000 not to have affordable housing uh at the Project Scarlet uh is a and instead you're gonna have market rate, correct?

Now you obviously I met with you guys, you know where I'm going next, right?

Uh which is your utility for the building.

Can you please tell us who you've chosen, who you've elected to go with as your utility provider?

Yeah, uh we are maintaining CEI first energy in the building right now.

And did you do your due diligence as to see what it would cost to do the conversion to Cleveland Public Power?

Uh through the through the chair to the councilman, yes.

And can you tell us what that cost would have been for you to convert it to Cleveland Public Power?

Yes.

So our cost internally, assuming CPP brings it up to the building.

We were estimating a preliminary around two to three million.

Okay, that's not what I was told.

Okay.

That's not the number that I was given.

That number is much higher than what the number is that I was given when I when I took the tour.

And that has been reiterated since then.

But either way, how much is the total TIFF worth, Mr.

Chairman, to whoever can answer that, Director Smalls?

Yes.

Uh over the cost of a 38 uh we estimate in uh roughly about 16 million five hundred and seventy-nine uh thousand dollars.

All right, so Mr.

Chairman to whomever Mr.

Chairman, I can't hear down here.

If the young lady can put her voice on outside of voice, please, so I can't say most important.

Yell into the microphone so everybody can hear, everybody can't really hear talk is to outside voice.

Okay.

Uh right.

The amount is sixteen million five hundred and seventy-nine thousand three hundred and seventeen dollars.

Okay, so there's a savings of sixteen million dollars through the TIFF.

In addition to that, um I'm gonna call you Greg, but I know I don't want to call you what you're Mr.

Through the Chair, you can call me Greg.

Okay, Mr.

Chairman DeGreg.

You had mentioned that there was also an ad an $31 million in federal, state, and local dollars that have been allocated for this building, correct?

For this project.

Through the chair, correct, sir.

Does that include the sixteen million dollars in TIFF that we're giving you?

Through the chair, no, sir.

Okay.

So we're looking at $47 million in uh funding for the project.

How much of that are you gonna have to pay back?

Yeah.

To the councilman through the chair.

The majority of those funds are grants.

Yeah.

Grants or grants or tax credits, okay.

Which are not repayable.

Okay.

And then how much is average rent going to be at the place?

Average rents are around $2,500 a month.

So at $171, $475,000, $427,500 in rent, right?

That just isn't.

Correct.

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

$427,500 just in rent.

And there's then there's also the retail and everything else, correct?

And you're bringing $95 jobs in, right?

Do we know what that $95 jobs, what that is for at $19.50 minimum an hour.

How you didn't get to $20, I'll never know.

But $19.50 an hour.

Um what is the what is that a tax rate to the what is that as employment tax that the city profits from that from $95 jobs?

Um I have the payroll, total payroll to be uh um around three million eight seventy um six seventeen.

All right.

And then um, Mr.

Chairman de Greg, I just want to go over again why you decided not to convert to Cleveland Public Power.

And if you tell me it's a financial thing, I probably won't say another word, but we'll have a different conversation offline because right now you're looking at an awful lot of money and subsidized for this project.

And I understand, I understand the project, and I understand the need for it, but I also understand the need for us to advocate for our own publicly owned utility.

And if it even in your own words, if it's two million dollars a year and you're sitting across from people when you're telling us that it's $47 million in subsidy, and you're talking $16 million that we're giving you in a TIFF, uh it looks like Pittons to convert, which would help us stabilize something that we all are advocating for.

Through the chair to the councilman.

And I think this was stated earlier with the prior group that came.

The Rose building is currently and has been hooked up to CEI for quite a long time.

Things are going quite well with it.

We have a major project.

There are timelines to meet.

Um to say it is a complicated project would be an understatement.

A lot of moving pieces and parts.

We had CPP come and tour the building.

I believe it was last July.

We've had an open line of communication with them.

Um the decision was made with the costs, the timeline having to switch over from CEI to CPP.

That the overall benefit we saw would be to just stay the course and stay with CEI.

Right.

And Mr.

Chairman and Greg, with all due respect, that's your overall benefit.

Right?

You're talking to 15 other individuals here who have different benefits and not just your bottom line.

Please direct all comments to the chair.

I did.

I went to the chair to Greg.

That's your bottom line.

That's not that we have we we see things differently on this side.

Right.

So I can I can appreciate I can appreciate that.

And I hope that we have further conversations because this is only phase one of this, right?

This is just the the title, the chain of title, correct?

This is not the actual TIFF yet.

We're getting the information, but this is this is part one.

So you'll have to be coming back for for another round to do to get the actual TIF, correct?

All right.

Well, I just look forward to keeping our communications open and further in regards to to this topic prior to you actually getting the TIFF.

Through the chair to the councilman, we have no philosophical um issue with CPP.

We are trying to make a project successful to pencil as we say, which is more than just a cliche, it's a reality.

Councilman Casey, we enjoyed hosting you a few weeks ago.

It was a very frank conversation.

I would say it was very productive, very constructive.

We would welcome the opportunity in good faith to continue this conversation.

Okay.

And to see where we can go with it.

And I can tell you this much, Mr.

Chairman to Greg.

I used to be a more than a 300-pound individual, and I could have stayed that way, right, for the rest of my life.

And I could have lived my life happily at that way.

But I decided to make a change.

And when I made the change, it was for the betterment of something.

Right?

Just because something has always been that way doesn't mean that it has to always stay that way.

So I understand the infrastructure and I and I under I get it.

We toured, I saw that.

But just because something's a certain way doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Christopher Horse, Councilman Joseph Jones, Councilman Mike Messen.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I appreciate how uh difficult these uh projects are for uh the body and for uh the people that come here and for the general public at uh at large.

Uh as you know, Mr.

President, I have a simple view of cities.

I think we revolve around jobs, housing, and schools.

Um so through the chair to our guests.

Uh this was the medical mutual building, I believe.

And for through the chair, how long did medical mutual occupy this building?

To the councilman through the chair, I believe it was over 40 years that they're 40 years.

And through the chair, when did they leave?

2023 was when they finally exited the building.

Okay.

And so through the chair, that was three years ago.

What has been going on in this building in the three years since Medical Mutual left?

So to the councilman, through the chair.

We purchased the building in late 2024.

Uh it had been marketed by CBRE, a number of different suitors were looking at purchasing it from medical mutual.

We finally closed on it in late 2024.

So did everybody speak into the microphone.

We finally everybody, certainly.

We finally closed on it in late 2024.

Since then, we've been doing our pre-construction and planning for the redevelopment project.

It's currently vacant, other than security personnel.

And uh, Mr.

Chair, I hope that I can serve as a good example of how to use your outside voice along with the microphone so that everybody can hear what we're saying.

Um through the chair, so for two years, sir, did you guys look for commercial tenants?

Did you look for a new business, a new company to come in there to occupy the the space the same way that Medical Mutual had?

No, our plan was in looking at it was always to convert it to this mixed-use project.

Okay.

And through the chair, why was it that you never considered commercial use?

Uh our company, as Greg indicated previously, is a multifamily and hospitality developer.

Um had it been looked at for commercial use, we probably would have not been the right developer for it.

So we looked at it and developed the plan to put in here this branded residences and hotel.

Okay, through the chair.

Do you know if commercial developers looked at the building to reactivate as commercial space?

Is pharma's aware the other parties that were looking at it were looking at it for similar residential conversion.

I'm not aware of all the things.

Similar residential.

Sure.

And if anybody else has uh you know any light to shine shine on this subject.

I'm just trying to wonder.

There used to be a lot of jobs there, jobs are important.

We like jobs, jobs pay income tax, jobs are good.

Uh the jobs went away.

Was there uh what was the reason we weren't able to turn this right back over into another big job center is kind of what I'm getting at here.

And if anybody has you know thoughts on that, it's been sitting there for three years and uh we have not got a new employer.

And there's a reason for that is what I'm trying to get.

Yeah, through the chair to the councilman, um there's a lot of reasons.

A lot of it has to do with the demand for office space has just gone down.

Right.

Offices have shrunk, we've lost employers, employers have consolidated, and there's plenty of other class A, Class B plus office space available downtown for tenants to go into in buildings that are focused on this with amenities already in place.

The first floor commercial has not been filled.

You there's historic tax credit rules that prevent you from getting started before you apply and close on certain tax credits.

So we were limited in that.

So, Mr.

Chair, if I'm understanding correctly, the uh demand for office has gone down nationally, regionally in in downtown Cleveland.

Businesses are doing more work from home policies with their employees, there's less need for a lot of office space.

Um things are becoming more remote.

Um and that is driving down occupancy for a lot of commercial uh buildings downtown.

I believe, Mr.

President, I was just reading in Crane's that there is a bit of a concern looming on the horizon about the value of our commercial buildings downtown because of a lack of demand for office space.

Uh which is a huge problem for the city of Cleveland as these buildings go vacant and dormant, they just they stop paying taxes.

Whatever they were paying, they stop paying at the same rate because the buildings lose value and we lose the tax revenue comes with lost value.

Um, I'm bringing this up, Mr.

President, because I understand that these position, these uh situations are difficult to talk through, they're difficult to understand, and they're really difficult to communicate.

It's very, very difficult to explain to people why we end up making uh decisions like this.

But we have a vacant building in the heart of downtown Cleveland that is doing no good for anyone.

We have a high demand for housing across the board across all economic ranges because we have a massive, well documented housing shortage in America right now.

Um and this is a project to put X number of apartments back into play um to bring some more hotel capacity to try to help our our tourism.

Uh and to me this makes sense.

I do uh greatly appreciate Councilman Casey's point that uh money can be spent um on these projects uh but not on making them customers of CPP.

I think it does behoove us to figure out how to make CPP conversion a uh applicable uh benefit for the city of Cleveland because not only does that benefit our public utility, CPP has a great track record in its employment um uh history and in hiring folks from the community and having the apprenticeship programs with our high school.

CPP does a really good job of actually bringing people from our communities into employment good, you know, household supporting employment.

So supporting CPP also supports our community in other ways, and I think that we should spend more time looking into those options.

But uh as it stands today, Mr.

Chair, I'm a yes on this, and I thank you all for coming to the table.

Thank you, Consident Harsh.

And you bring up a very important point, and uh I was trying to bring in some of the downtown stakeholders in to have a conversation about downtown.

A lot of people don't recognize this, but approximately 55 to 60 percent of Cleveland's income tax, which pays for our city services come from the central business district.

And right now we have approximately 33 buildings that are either in a share of sale, foreclosure, or receivership.

And that's approximately 10,000 square feet of empty, unused office space sitting downtown right now.

So I know that these are some tough conversations.

I totally agree with where Councilman Casey is going.

I just um want everybody to actually at one point in time we really need to roll up our sleeves and have a larger discussion, similar to what Council Woman House Jones is saying on how we look at an equitable model for the city of Cleveland, but we also have to make sure that people recognize that this is what creates services for your community.

This is what gets the snow plow, the police officers paid, and getting more bodies and creating more revenue in the city.

Uh so trying to find that balance is always tricky, and I think you did a great job of really trying to help uh in a snapshot talk about why some of these um incentives are needed for some of these projects.

Uh move now to Councilman Joseph Jones, Councilman Politic, Councilman Shaw.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, just listening to your presentation um earlier, uh, Mr.

Keller.

Uh first uh uh off the bat, uh I've had an opportunity to go and and um see the particular building and also to see the constraints dealing with uh trying to navigate all of the investment that um first energy has previously invested in that building and to change that infrastructure.

Can you talk a little bit about how much something like that would really fundamentally cost?

Yeah, so from a um to not go into a too detail of an explanation.

So first energy in the building, that infrastructure not only runs through that building but also then runs across the street or around the corner and feeds ATT, so there's a little more complexity than it's worth getting into here, but it's not just like disconnect reconnect.

Um as far as the CPP um portion goes, the reason why, I think, and this might be the number that um Cal Simon Casey heard when he was on the tour, the construction side of it is probably 1.7 to 2 million, but there's other engineering costs and things that we have to consider on top of that.

The reason why we need to spend that much money is really because the first energy equipment stays in the building.

So what that means is we can't just pull it out and just put CPPs in place.

We need to go ahead and build basically a three-hour fire rated vault so that CPP can put their infrastructure into the building.

So there's a little nuance as to why like we can't just pull it out and just put it right back in the room, it's already designed and built for it.

Um so hopefully that answers a little bit of your question.

Yeah, it it sort of kind of like touches on a little bit.

It was a little bit more in depth uh when I was on the site location in terms of the possible cost, because that was a question I brought up.

Um, are we converting over to Cleveland Public Power?

Um, and I understand um and just want to move to the next question to be uh are you would you entertain um an option of uh switching at some point uh to Cleveland Public Power, Mr.

Keller?

Through the chair to the council member.

As I discussed, or as I mentioned to Councilman Casey a few moments ago, I have spoken with ownership.

At the moment, we are planning on remaining with CEI, but we are open to having an open, honest dialogue, and um if it is feasible from a financial standpoint, from a timetable standpoint, we would be open to that conversation.

I see.

And and Mr.

Keller, in your presentation, um the city says that your the estimated investment here is is that I want to make sure I'm hearing this right.

Is that 126 million dollars?

Roughly round off 127 million?

And this is what we're investing in this building at this time.

Through the chair to the councilman, yes, sir.

Okay.

Can you you you talked about if you could elaborate a little bit more because I I don't know about um if you could tell me a little bit more detail about the Marriott branding of the apartments, through the chair to the councilperson, um thank you for that question.

Um I mentioned earlier in my remarks that we have relationships with Marriott, Hilton IHG.

The relationship with Marriott is especially good.

Um this is a very unique project.

I just don't say that as a cliche at the table.

There are not too many residences anywhere that have the Marriott or Hilton name attached to them.

I believe, and we believe that will change over the next decade.

With that said, the city of Cleveland is at the front of the parade.

Marriott has a very good relationship with us, they believe in us.

We um when we brought this project to them, they were initially skeptical.

It is a 130-year-old building, it is very large, there's challenges in urban environments, all the above.

Due to others on the team, not myself, who were very tenacious, who believe in this building, who believe in the city of Cleveland, Marriott came, toured, saw the numbers, saw that it penciled in.

Um so having Marriott part of this, both for the hotel, which will be very nice to tribute, as I mentioned on prospect, but having Marriott tribute branded apartments on East Ninth Street, as we try to stabilize our population as an older industrial Midwestern city.

And and I just I use this example very quickly.

I have a son who's 24 years old, he went to college in Chicago.

Robbie is very Midwestern, he wants to remain in the Midwest.

Well, if Robbie were to move back to Chicago or Milwaukee or Detroit or Pittsburgh or wherever, the fact that you could go on the Marriott Bonvoy website and identify a building as a parent to know that your son or daughter would be in a Marriott property, you'd probably make a pretty good decision and sleep well at night.

So I I appreciate the question, sir.

This is a very unique opportunity for the community.

And that just makes sure I'm on the same page.

Would that make Cleveland number one in the world?

Through the chair to the council member on this issue, yes, sir.

So we will be branded as number one in the world for for this branding.

In the hospitality world, which is a very small community, like any other industry, they talk.

And when word gets out on the street that there's a 130-year-old building in downtown Cleveland, that da-da-da-da-da.

People are going to come visit, they're going to investigate, they're going to see what we're doing in this city.

And not to get too far ahead of ourselves.

Our experience thus far with the city of Cleveland, and I've said this many times, from a customer service standpoint to being a partner to being responsive to being transparent.

We will be a global ambassador for this community.

And who is your because we've talked great amount about minority participation?

Who is your owner's rep?

And are they a certified minority business?

Yes.

I'm asking them.

I'm not asking you.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Please do the chair.

Through the chair, to the councilman, yes, next generation construction, who I'm I am with as a MBE certified business.

Okay.

And no disrespect to my colleague, I love you.

Talk to me about how you're doing your outreach.

Yes, sir.

For potential contractors.

So in partnership with our design builder, um, at the start of the uh before any of the packages were sent out to bid, we've been working with OEO and Director Mitchell's team to go through everyone that's on in the city's directory, uh, reached out to them, held an outreach event, um, had all the other had all the contractors there prior to any of the documents being sent out.

That way they can get an idea of who the bids are coming from, um, what the scope of the project is, just more verbally talking through it before they just get a plan of you know plans and specs in their inbox.

And and uh to um uh and I'm drawing a blank here, so uh Mr.

Tyson.

Uh can Mr.

Chairman to Mr.

Tyson can can you tell us a little bit more about because you wasn't here earlier at some of the yeah, you were here, but we talked about the minority goals, and I know we hold a strict standard to our local development CDs and development corporations, they pretty much can't do anything at all whatsoever unless they're hitting those goals.

And sometimes we're a little bit soft here on this table.

I understand in some instances why, uh, but we don't have that same level standard with our development corporations as we have with our developers here.

Can you tell us a little bit about on this particular project um uh how we're coming along?

Uh through the through the chair to the council person.

Um, you gotta remember these projects are are we we're putting commitments on the table.

Excuse me, commitments on the table.

So right now, the commitment and and I apologize because usually some we include the community benefits in the uh presentation, so you can at least get a uh eye of that, and I have the agreements, the agreements here for you.

But right now we're gonna we're project projecting uh roughly 19 million dollars in certified spend on this project.

Um this project, we're we're very excited about it because first of all, they have a certified vendor or contractor as an owner's rep.

I I can't tell you all how when I bring that up in the negotiations to developers, they don't well it usually doesn't happen, I'll say.

But to find that that we have a certified vendor from Ward 8 uh contractor to be at the at the at the construction manager, the owner's rep level.

Often we try to we put minorities at the grunt work level, but we don't put them at the fee side.

So this is what's exciting about that project here.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, I know I got a little bit more time on there, but I'm gonna yield at this point.

I'm gonna let you know uh to this group here.

I think that uh uh this kind of investment, and then to be branded uh the 126 million dollars, and then also to be branded in such a way uh given Cleveland a distinction of being first in the world is uh significant.

Um to see that you are you have minority representation starting as a rep and you and you're working with Mr.

Tyson, it sounds like you've already been out there ahead of time trying to make sure that you line up minorities for the job.

Um I just want to say, Mr.

Chairman, uh I find it to be impressive and outstanding.

Um further questions, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilman Jones, Councilman Michael Palency, Councilman Shaw.

I do want to announce to the audience after this series of questions, uh we are going to take a break and then reconvene in probably about um a half an hour after we finish.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my colleagues, and to the uh representatives here at the table.

Um it seems to be a very exciting project.

I go past the building constantly.

Um my question is have you filed before the border revision?

To the councilman, to the chair for a bear.

Property tax reduction.

Uh no, we have not filed for property tax reduction.

I am asking you again.

So there is no confusion here.

Have that has that property have you filed before the Board a revision for a property tax reduction?

Not that I am aware of the project.

Could you speak into the microphone?

Councilman, not that I am aware of that.

You need to clarify that then.

We will find out that they are going to get us that information.

I am not aware of the property.

I believe that there may have been an effort on behalf of the school district.

Okay.

Because as the council president indicated, downtown is in a free fall right now.

It's imploding.

And um I'm learning that many of the property owners, especially with the new acquisitions, or have applied for uh reductions in their property taxes, which ultimately not only affect the city, but affect Cauca County as well.

So I'm going to make that uh official request through the chair, to the administration to confirm whether this um developer has applied for property tax reduction on the building.

Um it seems to be an exciting project, but um, but the council president and others and council president and I have been in discussions about we need to bring in the council needs to bring in outside um individuals to apprise us, not just on projects such as this, but we're gonna we we're gonna be talking a little while about the IX.

We had the issue previously with the Browns Stadium.

We need to have, Mr.

Chairman, we need to have um better expertise at this table when we make decisions.

We have to make sound decisions in light of the fact that we continue to lose in the city, we're losing too often.

That's become very clear to me.

Um, and downtown is a good example of it.

This project, and I'm a capitalist, will generate about 153 million dollars just in rental alone over the course of the TIFF.

153 million.

Um, when you indicate about the 1.72 million dollars in CPP, was that your cost or was that combined cost, you and CPP.

The 1.7 to 2 million is the construction cost.

So basically anything inside of the limits of the building.

Okay.

So we don't know what the cost would be for clean public power.

Yeah, it's our understanding that they were uh working under the impression that they would be bringing the feeders on their cost to the building, and then we would do everything inside the building where they would connect.

So that's something that we collectively, as we look at these projects, and I know Councilman Casey has been very diligent on this.

We need to look at what our cost, the clean public power would be to provide power, the hookups to these projects, because that's another factor that needs to be taken into consideration.

Mr.

Chairman, at the end of the day, you know, community benefits, again, Cleveland public power, the affordability question.

Um, the issue of um the fund that has been created as as where these um deposits will be made when you cannot adhere to the affordability from the standpoint of the apartments, the whole issue of border revision.

We need to get we need to have the expertise going forward because this is this is the um with the opinion, and I think we we can all see it at this table.

Um this is the beginning of a tsunami that we're about to see with property owners coming before us for TIFS for downtown and for redevelopment.

And um that's just the reality we're confronted with.

Properties are being sold for ten cents on the dollar uh, if not less.

Um and they're all gonna come in.

I they've already told me several of them.

We're we're getting ready, we're coming in.

We're gonna ask for everything we can.

We're gonna ask for tax rollbacks on our property taxes, we're gonna ask for TIFFs, we're gonna ask for tax abatement, we're gonna ask for your first born if we can to redevelopment to redevelop these projects.

And you know what?

I don't blame them.

I I guess if I was in that situation, I'd be doing the same thing.

But we have to make sure the body cut this body politic.

We've got to make sure that we're getting the right uh advice um that we're gonna make the right decisions, and the administration is gonna have to be aggressive in making sure that um that you folks are looking out for our residents because as Councilman Santana and others have alluded to, um we continue to be on a losing end.

I don't like losing.

It's not in my DNA.

I hate to lose.

Um, and so you we've got to do things differently around the table.

And I'm hoping, Mr.

Chairman, we can have these internal discussions within the body about bringing an outside folks to advise us on on going forward on a whole bunch of stuff.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Shaw and then Councilman Star would wrap us up.

Well, thank you, Chair.

I won't keep us too long from lunch.

I want to just emphasize again to the administration through the chair for the need to provide the full range of the subsidies we're providing in these deals in the presentations.

I think it it would be helpful for us to understand that so we're not just looking at the positives, but we're also balancing out what that looks like.

So I hope in the future, any other TIFF deals that the administration comes forth with, we see those numbers in the presentation itself.

Uh I you know, I want to echo just what my colleague, Councilman Casey was indicating with the affordability concerns and CPP concerns.

On top of that, I mean, once again, it's fundamental, I think, to my colleagues.

I keep out, I mean, definitely understand what Councilwoman House Jones is saying that we have to really over take a look at how we're funding these things.

At the end of the day, we continue seeing that the private sector is here to make money.

We're not holding that against the developers.

That's that's how y'all make a living, but it is our job to look at the longer term development in this city, and we know that there is no money to be made in affordable housing.

So at which point will we, as a public sector and government, provide those solutions for our city?

Because at this point, I don't think there's a single working class family that lives downtown, and these further developments that we continue to fund will provide those.

I mean, I'm I hope that the developers know.

I mean, I'm sure you know about the high end steps closing.

Have you taken into consideration what the residents of this building will do for groceries?

Ms.

To the through the chair to the member.

Yes, we are uh first and foremost, we're disappointed.

I think all four of us um patronized that establishment frequently, and we're disappointed.

With that said, we believe in downtown Cleveland.

We have spoken with the downtown Cleveland Incorporated, we have spoken with city officials.

However, we as Green Harvest Capital can be part of a constructive productive conversation to bring another grocer to downtown Cleveland without question it benefits the project, and that was not a good day for us.

Um but we believe in downtown Cleveland.

And I'm sure we all appreciate the belief, but we're gonna need more than that, right?

To spur this type of affordability downtown, and I that I'm putting that accountability on us, not the developers.

Um so I look forward to continuing those conversations and um without affordable housing components.

I'm going to continue to be a no on any of these TIFF developments because that is just fundamentally not the long-term vision I believe that we need for the city.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilman Richard Starr to wrap us up.

Thank you, President.

Um, with this project Scarlet initiative, one I would like to say that I do support this initiative currently.

Um, and I definitely will just want to echo to my colleagues that in order for us to get the things that we want to see for our neighborhoods.

It takes work.

It takes actually work.

And what I mean by that is whilst I'm sitting here as we are talking, um, I leaned over and talked to my colleague, Councilwoman Hudson, and I just was searching in my email, just communications amongst me and the director of OEO on just initiatives and how do we get projects.

And when it comes to Project Scarlet, um I found out about this initiative, this project back in December of 2025 last year.

Um after everything went through through elections, they reached me out to me.

Um I went in in December, did a walkthrough.

Um, then they also talked about the previous council members before me actually supported this initiative and they were in support.

Both of them gave letters of support.

And one of the things that I echo to them as we left the building was my community benefits agreements are different than other folks.

The stuff that I expect for residents, the stuff that I champion and campaigned on, is stuff that I'm gonna stand on for my character.

And what I mentioned by that is how do we ensure that we are creating a place where individuals from the neighborhoods can actually get a job?

What type of training and workforce program?

What type of joint ventures do you have in place to make sure that we have some participation from all sectors?

Cleveland local business, minority, as well as female business enterprise.

How do we achieve those goals?

In addition, I asked what type of additional funding can you help and support.

If you're going to ask for 16, 20 million dollars of taxpayer support, what can we get returned on our investment?

Now, the first initial CBA that was sent over to me, it probably came, I think in March.

And I replied back to the email to Director Tyson Mitchell.

No, that ain't it.

Then I sent over to Director Tyson Mitchell a list of things that would make me want to support the initiative from a TIFF TIFF financial strategy.

From that conversation and emails back and forth, me and Director Tyson Mitchell was able to sit down and we were able to work out what we can actually do, in which there's money that are going to pay up to a fund to be able to help support different initiatives in the area where the development is coming at.

Also, they have agreed to be able to do a cohort and pay for the cohort to sponsor training for the hospitality and the workforce, in which I have uh low, moderate, uh mixed housing um unit where residents can walk out and see outside there for them to possibly get a chance to get training and certified into the restaurant industry because everyone gets tied up into the construction of the building.

But also, you need jobs after the development is done.

So, what I do, and I try to tell my colleagues is in order for you to see a community benefits agreement, you have to work with OEO, and you also have to let the developers know some things that your expectations are long before shovels hit the ground, long before we break ground.

And also understand that I am I'm big.

I don't care who's the chairperson or who it is of a committee, if my name is attached to it, if I am not supportive of it, please don't bring it to your committee.

Because I'm going to have a fit and I'm going to express my concern and I'm going to lay it out that this is not something that I supported for us to get it to it.

So before it can get to the table and it's in your ward, you have to do more work and step up further to get what you need for the residents and your constituents.

So I will say through the chair to um Director Tyson Mitchell, how often do we talk about just projects in War 5 when it comes to just community benefits and the role that OEO plays?

Through the chair to the council person, we talk very often about uh projects, particularly in your ward that are coming forward and how to best serve the residents.

And then from that standpoint, I've also in my neighborhood meetings and my community meetings, I've also included your office with Royal and Ms.

Collins, and they come to my community meetings and they explain what a community benefits agreement is.

And like what I want you to remember, I want y'all to understand on April 1st, when I sent over amendments, I'm going to let you know I put in increased local hiring.

Developers should employ residents in the Cleveland, and I put no less than 25%.

I'm setting the standard, like this is what I want to see.

I said all the participation goals outlined in the agreement should be mandatory.

The developer should not relive all any um compliance of obligations solely on good faith efforts.

I also put in there to make sure that we looked at how do we get permanent jobs for residents in the city of Cleveland, not just in War 5.

Also put in and make sure that we do community investment requirement, in which I asked for it.

Hey, how do we get to $500,000 into a community investment fund to support housing stabilization?

How do we do things like that?

And also, I put in there how do the developer also provide a minimal attendance, registered apprentice or pre-apprenticeship positions for Cleveland.

Also, I put in community engagement.

What are you going to do with the public?

How do we let them know that you're looking for people?

And then also we talked about the actual embatement.

This is just me looking at the first CBA they sent over and then me replying and sending back to OEO to us then sitting down and compromising to get things that make sense so I can be able to move forward with my continued support.

So one of the things I definitely would, I will definitely bring back up, Council President.

I I know that we did have that small line of our committee's responsibility where it did say a bland community benefits.

And I know it's very bland.

I mean you've been talking offline.

I believe given once again we're at the table.

We have an opportunity within the workforce committee to help line up the agenda to help support our colleagues on making sure they get what they want and also having that committee to support their needs of how they are ready.

Obviously, before that legislation comes to the table or come to that committee, it will be of the of the respect of the council person in that committee who wants that to be heard because they support the initiative, but also making sure we have extra eyes on the community benefits and working with OEO.

It can be something that we can actually do if we choose to as a as a council of working through that strategy.

And I and I and I yield chair, and I definitely want to say um thank you, Greg.

Thank you for the entire team.

Thank you for Next Gen Construction.

And I want you to know that, like Councilwoman House Jones talked about.

Thank you.

That concludes uh this uh reading, uh hearing no further comments, ordinance number 686 2026 stands approved.

Uh we are now going to break and adjourn.

I'd ask everybody to reconvene at approximately uh, if we could, one o'clock.

Okay.

Thank you.