This meeting was a combined Business Meeting and Workshop held on July 10, 2024. The Business Meeting approved routine items, including minutes and a special ordinance. The Workshop focused on a comprehensive update on the Downtown Hotel and Conference Center project, with detailed presentations from city staff, the developer (Plumondon Hospitality Partners), and the Randall family (owners of adjacent properties). The board discussed financing, public benefits, and next steps, while members of the public and state officials offered testimony. The board reached consensus to move forward with key agreements, though some aldermen requested further financial clarity.
Several individuals and organizations expressed strong support for the hotel and conference center project. Key speakers and their positions included:
Good afternoon and welcome to the Mayor and Board of Alderman Business Meeting and Workshop for the 10th of July. We begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Underground Liberty and Justice. We have minutes to approve June 5th, 2024 workshop. So moved. Motion by Alderman Shackerbert, second by Alderman McZemC, all those in favor. That is 4-0. With Alderman McShane not present, we do expect him to join us shortly. June 12th, 2024 minutes. So moved. Motion by Alderman Shackleberg, second by Alderman McZemCek. All those in favor. That is 4-0. Thank you very much. We have one business, one agenda under our business meeting today. Items on the business meeting are considered routine by the mayor and board of alderman heard at the workshop pursuant to the rules of procedure. Approved by one motion without separate discussion of each item, unless any person present request an item be removed from the agenda. An item that is removed will be considered separately, either at the end of the business meeting or at a regular public meeting. If you would like any of the items below considered separately, please say so when I announce the category. The category special ordinances. So moved. Motion by Alderman Shackleberg, second by Otterman McZemc. All those in favor, that is 4-0. That's the number we need. Thank you very much. Today we are here to provide an update to the Board of Alderman and the community on the status of our downtown hotel and conference center project. This is going to be a fairly comprehensive conversation this morning about where we are in a number of different areas and looking to gain consensus from the Board of Aldermen on some next steps in this process. By way of uh introduction for those who may never have heard of this project before, uh, which seems difficult to believe, but there are folks who are new to our community and may not be aware of where we are. Some of this will seem repetitive to some of you who have been around for a little while. We don't want to dwell on the repetitive nature of that, but it is important for us to place aspects of this project into a broader context. And so we have for a number of years seen this project as a transformative opportunity in downtown Frederick. It has the support of the city, the county, the state, our economic development partners, the broader business community, uh, and it identifies and is an attempt to fill a long-identified need, which is full service lodging with uh scalable meeting and event space in downtown Frederick that can also look at broader economic development, revitalization, and equity opportunities across the community. This project has been identified in our 2020 city comprehensive plan. It is identified within the adopted strategic plan of the City of Frederick, and for as long as there has been a Carroll Creek Master Plan, the idea of a hotel along the creek has been part of the vision of the redevelopment of downtown Frederick. There is no full service hotel anywhere presently in Frederick County. And with the exception of the soon-to-be-opened 67-room boutique visitation academy hotel, there is no large-scale overnight lodging available in the downtown of Frederick. So this is a strategic opportunity and has been for a number of years. It is and has been approved in the city's capital improvements program for a number of years, uh, allocating the city, the county, and now some state funding that has been uh identified for the project. The location of the parcel is central to downtown Frederick and provides a great gateway opportunity to redevelopment opportunities that are now approaching on the east side of the City of Frederick. It's within a stone's throw of our downtown transit center, which is an opportunity for us to invest in the kind of transit-oriented development that smart and sustainable growth principles require us to do. It is also conveniently located to downtown parking, retail, restaurants, and the city's theater district. A full service hotel and conference center will be a crown jewel opportunity, the largest single investment made in downtown Frederick since the investment of the flood control project that was done begun more than 40 years ago. So our project partners are in the room. Many of them are with us, and we could not be where we are right now without the support of those partners really from day one. And it includes previous work by the Board of Alderman, by Frederick County, our state partners, which we are grateful to have received that support. We appreciate what you have been able to do, our hotel partners and a relatively uh new introduction, which you'll get an opportunity to hear a little bit more about the role that uh Randall Capp and the Randall family is playing as we move this project towards uh completion. And so there are some specific asks we're hoping to get out of uh this meeting today. We certainly want to answer as many questions as the board may have. We hope that the presentation today will address some of those questions which we have already heard, uh, but perhaps uh answer questions that you may have been considering.