All right.

Welcome everyone to the City of Evansville Economic Development Commission meeting.

And it is 11:30.

So we're going to call this meeting to order.

First order of business, the approval of minutes.

Everybody have a chance to read them over.

I just have one correction before approval.

Just your last name, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Should be J-U-H-L.

I think it's J-U-L-H.

It's different in throughout.

Yeah, thank you.

That's all.

Okay, we will get that fixed going forward.

Thank you.

Any other concerns, questions, issues regarding the minutes.

A motion to approve the minutes with the proposed updates.

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

Minutes have been approved.

Number three.

So the public hearing for the car is it carges?

Is that how cargus?

Thank you.

Cargus Lofts.

So looking over the report, report of the City of Evansville Economic Development Commission concerning the proposed financing of the economic development facilities for AP development LLC and AP Cargus Lofts LLC.

And then the resolution 26 EEDC 02.

A resolution of the City of Evansville Economic Development Commission approving and authorizing certain actions and proceedings with respect to certain proposed taxable economic development tax increment revenue bonds.

Any questions or comments?

Sure, I'll jump in here.

So since a lot of us are new, just to just remind the commissioners what their role is here.

So this commission's job is to provide an independent review of projects that utilize public finance options.

And in this case, what's being done is it's what we often refer to in the development world as a developer purchase bond.

And so this is not going to be an obligation in the city of Evansville, but what we are doing is we're going to be issuing bonds whereby the city pledges the TIFF revenues, the tax increment generated by the project specifically.

And it's a way to help projects that otherwise might not make sense financially or economically to incentivize developers to do more difficult projects.

And in this case, is very much that type of project because it's they're taking the old cargus furniture factory and turning it into a multifamily.

So that is always more expensive to retrofit old than compared to just building new.

So the city believes this is a great project, you know, taking in a neighborhood that needs the housing and taking a property that's fallen into disuse for a long long time and turning it into multifamily.

So this commission finds an independent review.

We take uh comment from the public, and that's what this process is right now.

Obviously, there's no one here to provide any comment, but you can imagine maybe if if something was a little more controversial, someone might show up and explain why it's unfair that they're getting this public benefit.

And that's where you guys would come in.

So your role is to take public comment, determine that the project benefits the public generally, and make sure it's not you know unfair uh in some way economically.

So um, so here we are.

Uh, this is the public comment portion, but I don't think there's anyone here to talk.

So anyway, uh any questions about any of that?

I was gonna give a couple project specifics, if that's okay.

So the cargus lofts project is it's two parcels, if you will, but the addresses are 1501 West Maryland and then 1516 Fountain Avenue.

And so there will be when it's completed 125 uh multifamily units.

Um, it's adaptive reuse of the former cargus furniture Factory as Nick stated.

Um, and then the total project costs um estimated to be at 30 million, with of which six million is um going to be issued through the the economic development revenue bonds.

So I did have a question.

Okay.

As I was reading through this, just and mainly because I'm so new to all of this.

Um the $6 million in revenue bonds that are being issued, and then it is it my understanding then that then the city will loan, and and what you said kind of made me question it again.

They will loan this money to the project.

Well, yeah, that it's it kind of reads that way, but really what this is is the developer is able to go to a lender.

We don't really the city doesn't loan the money.

The developer is able to go to the lender and say we've obtained this pledge from the city of Evansville to pledge the taxes that we would otherwise pay.

Um they're able to get a loan based upon that stream of income.

So basically, you know, whenever they put together a project like this, they have to show their debt, you know, what the taxes will be, operation expense like that.

Well, what the this allows them to take out a bigger loan, which is all it really is, because they don't have the tax burden that they would normally have.

So if for some reason the developer doesn't pay their taxes, or because of the assessed value, it doesn't generate the taxes that they expect.

That's all the developers' problem to deal with.

That's between them and their lender, they have to make up that payment.

It's not a city obligation.

It's just it's a mechanism that allows them to take advantage of the pledge of that TIFF increment.

Okay, great, thank you.

And the revenue from the project will satisfy the debt.

Is that correct?

It is planned to, yeah.

Okay.

So that's why I think that any shortfall making those payments, that would be over the developer to figure out.

Excellent.

And shortfalls could happen if the developer doesn't build the project that they that they intended to build at the beginning and it's you know doesn't valuate at that high, so then their property taxes aren't that high.

So then, you know, the so it's kind of like goes in a circle, they pay their taxes, but the taxes go back to pay the bonds.

So it's all on them to build what they said they were gonna build to so they can pay the taxes on that assessed valuation to pay the bond payment as anticipated.

Okay, thank you.

Nick, I just had a question.

So EREP has a management agreement with the Southwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, uh, which um has a subgrant agreement for ready dollars uh with this project.

I personally wasn't involved anyway and don't benefit financially from it.

I just wanted to make sure that it's okay that I participate.

Yeah, that's a good disclosure.

Uh but in unless you specifically receive financial benefit, Indiana law doesn't look at that as a conflict.

Thank you.

Thanks for for disclosing that, Patrick.

That's sort of one of those better safe than sorry kind of thing.

So as these things come up with future projects, feel free to disclose.

I will 99% of the time say yeah, you don't need to worry about that, but it's a good idea to bring it up.

All right, thank you.

Uh Colby, I did notice I can't remember from uh uh when this project came through the the RDA.

Is there an affordable component to this?

So it's listed as affordable in the the project description, but I think it's more workforce, it's the probably the 50 all the way up to like 80 and above percent AMI, so um not exactly affordable in terms of like a low-income housing tax credit project or below fifty percent AMI, but yeah, yep.

It's not a luxury project, correct?

It's also not luxury either correct okay any other questions, comments?

Move on to um other business, actually yeah yes so the process is you close the say we'll we'll close there's no one here we'll close the public hearing and then you have to request for motions uh to approve the report in the resolution gotcha okay so since there is no uh other comments or questions from the public we will move to close this report and can I get a motion to approve yeah I appreciate the adaptive reuse and and reinvestment by by this project and would move to approve uh item 3a the report and item 3b uh do I have to read the resolution number okay uh move to approve uh item three a the report and item three b resolution twenty six e DC zero two second all right motion uh granted all in favor aye all opposed all right so approved so moving on to other business no other business today but we do have a couple coming up right we're gonna have or at least one have we done over public funding oh never mind okay so there are no other uh no other business um motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn second second all right thank you all have a great day