Here.

Um we're here tonight uh for the town council study session.

It's April fifteenth, twenty twenty-five.

And I'll call it to order that the study session, which we have two topics tonight.

Uh, the first is uh the parts recreation open space and trails, otherwise known as pros, strategic plan update and performing arts center feasibility study.

And the second item is affordable housing and the housing at Village at Cole Creek.

And so we're going to start with the the proost and the uh um the performing arts feasibility study.

So that I'll turn it over to Luke Bullinger, who will uh take it from here.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Council, Border Director of Parks and Recreation.

Yeah, tonight we're gonna really introduce you to our playbook.

And uh we uh we're really proud of the the name of the playbook because as Rachel and the rest of the team were kind of figuring out how how how are we going to take this document, right, which is big and chunky and not all that fun, and make it really engaging for staff and the public to pick up and read.

And we started talking about, you know, this the strategy behind how you how you organize and run a park and recreation department.

So we adopted the playbook, right?

We want to be open it up what is our play this year?

What is our play in the next five years?

What's our play in the next ten years, right?

So after after a comprehensive search, we hired DTJ to uh help us with this plan.

And uh with us tonight, we have Keith and Michelle, uh, who will be helping me present.

Uh, and what we're going to go over tonight is the work that we've done so far, and the work to be done, and then hopefully answer any questions.

So that's kind of the agenda, right?

We're gonna go over the we're just gonna do a quick project overview.

What are we doing?

Why are we doing it?

How are we doing it?

What's the pro plan purpose?

You know, who are we reaching out to?

We're gonna look at the timeline, make sure uh that we're meeting our community's needs in terms of engaging uh with them at opportune times.

We're we're we're meeting them where they are.

Uh we're gonna talk a little bit about keys and and trends uh that we've that we've uh seen so far in our engagement, and we're gonna talk about what the priorities of the plan and what it is, including the performing arts feasibility study, and then we're gonna talk about next steps.

So we're gonna leave plenty of time for uh questions.

So we're gonna we're gonna go through this presentation pretty quickly.

Um then uh yeah, I'll turn it over to uh Michelle and Keith if you want to introduce yourselves and I'll let you guys roll.

Yeah, well, it's great to see everyone tonight.

My name is Michelle Regan.

I'm a land planner and landscape architect with DTJ Design.

Um we're the primary consultant on this project, um, and really happy to be here to talk with you all tonight.

And I have with me here also Keith, and I'll let Keith introduce himself.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Keith Walzak, DTJ Design.

Our office is in Boulder, but we also have an office in Denver, and uh I'm the director of urban design and planning for DGJ.

Glad to be here.

Yeah.

Um so with that, we'd love to yeah, basically just give you an overview of what our um this project is all about.

Uh what as Luke said, what we've done to date, where we are in the process, and what we're gonna be doing next.

Um, so really just um taking a look at this.

The PROST strategic plan update is now um referred to as the playbook, which is perfectly appropriate and really great, as Luke said.

Um it's meant to be a guiding policy document.

Um, and it's a comprehensive plan for parks, recreation, open space, and trails.

Um it's a document that is identifying trends and community needs.

Um, so we've had a pretty you know engaging um community outreach process thus far in the project, really trying to hear from you know people who live in Erie or people who use the PROS system of Erie products recreation open space and trails.

Um, as a part of this project, also though, is a performing arts feasibility study.

So it's sort of two projects that are kind of running in tandem together because they are a little bit integrated or they do relate to each other.

Um so the performing arts feasibility study um looks at different trends that are going out out there right now as far as performing arts centers or performing arts opportunities, um, also looking at market analysis, analyzing user demands.

Um, so those are kind of all the things that we're doing as a part of this project.

Um we do have a great consultant team, you know, Keith and are with DTJ Design, mostly on you know, land planning, urban and regional planning, open space and trails planning.

We also have um Bollard King on our team as our fellow consultant, and they're doing uh a deep dive into more of the recreational part of this project, really focusing on that.

And then we also have web management who is conducting the performing arts feasibility study.

So that's sort of us in a nutshell as an introduction.

And just to clarify on the performance arts, performing arts feasibility study, that obviously came out of our 2023 community survey when we're looking at the town center a site on the civic space and performing arts center rose to the top.