Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Representative.

When board member Maggie Lewis arrives, we'll have a course for voting, but we can take reports and other things at this point.

So I'd like to call the board of Cabinet Improvement Board of Durham County meeting to order.

First item on the agenda will be the report from Visit Indy.

And I'll note that we were to have a report on kind of their goal setting and a preview of how that works.

However, Leonard Boose has to leave to catch a flight.

So we will do that in March.

February, he'll be out for spring break travel with his family.

So thank you, Madam President.

And Madam Lewis present is the President Lewis now again, too.

So that's a great noise and stuff.

We had a very good November, all things considered.

You have to remember that this is not a Taylor Swift year, and if you factor that out, it's actually the best November we've ever had, both downtown and for the county.

But when you factor in the Taylor Swift effect, we were down 31 or 29.6% of revenue downtown and 27.3% revenue for Marion County.

We actually sold more rooms in downtown Indy in November of 25 than we did in 24.

And again, it was really about the rate that those first couple of nights that Taylor Swift performed that drove the entire month of November last year.

Year to date, the numbers are actually quite good.

We're ahead of last year's pace downtown.

We sold 1.4% more rooms in downtown in 2025 than we did in 24, which I think is remarkable considering all the special events of 20 uh 24.

Marion County is down slightly 1.2% in demand, and average daily rate is down in both cases.

And in large part, if you if you factor out literally a couple of nights of Taylor Swift, it's pretty even uh year over year for the for the revenue.

So all in all, I think CIB is gonna see with the lag that Tim deals with pretty comparable numbers uh at the end of the year in terms of hotel revenue for uh what goes to the CIB, which is I again better than I think we all anticipated.

Okay.

Uh when you slide down farther into the deck, um for 11 months I've told you we were behind our goal pace, uh, and we ended the year at 108% of goal.

And there's a fine line between making goal at 108% and not making gold.

We booked one group called the Fellowship of Catholic University students.

They're a unicorn because they meet December 30th to January 3rd.

We'll have them December 30th, 2027 to January 3rd, 28th, and the same days 28 into early 29.

That was 66,560 room nights.

We booked them late in the year.

If you don't book them, we end the year at age 6395 below goal.

You book them, you're at 108% of goal.

And that's kind of how every year ends up working.

We we look if we get one or two big boys uh uh uh in in the bookings, then you can make it and and or exceed it if you don't, you can come up short or even woefully short.

So on the lead side, uh this is what I was giving the comfort about the future.

Um and I'll get into the details about how consumption benchmarks work and how we use those to set gold, et cetera, at the March meeting is as um uh President Marcy said.

Uh but we booked nearly four million lead room nights this year, 3.98 million.

President Lewis.

Oh wait.

Um we booked nearly three point, or we generated nearly three point nine eight million room nights.

That's 130% of the goal for lead room nights.

I mean the pipeline is very robust.

In a lot of ways, that gives us the ability to put in better business because we can we can prioritize rather than just take what's what what got thrown at us, uh what we won into certain days.

And so uh all in all, really good.

Uh right now in the building, I'm sure uh Monique will mention this.

Um we have the Archery Trade Association.

One of the things about archery trade is they're a bit of a unicorn as well.

You don't generally get groups of six, seven thousand people the first ten days of January.

We've had them as an annual traditionally.

Uh there have been years like the CFP year in 2022, and then some years where the way MLK falls and how it affects Jam Fest, so we can't have them, but about eight out of every 10 years we get to have them in this first 10 days of January, and it's pretty amazing.

So I spoke to the young man at the elevator in his family.

They're in his old bow, and I said, are you any good?

He says, yeah.

I mean it couldn't have been, but maybe 12 years old or something.

Oh, really?

I said, well, I see you in the Olympics someday.

He goes, Hope.

Okay.

Uh last night I was leaving, I was leaving the building maybe 6:30-ish, and uh there are two guys carrying, I have a video of it, I'm gonna send it to Andy.

Um they have these targets, uh the bow hunters, and you know, it's like a wild boar and a whatever, and like they're hauling them over their shoulders, and I'm like only during this show in this building.

Are you ever gonna see that?

Hopefully.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when IBW comes here, we'll have live wars over ours.

Yeah, I did want to know to do with them, but who knows?

I didn't want to know that to the management.

January meeting that we do have a great year ahead of us.

We've got, of course, final four uh with sports corp um in uh early April.

We have got the ASAE show, the American Society of Association Executives, which the CIB has been a great uh supporter of, where we'll get about 6,000 people, about a third of whom will be C level executives of associations.

It's the Super Bowl of association meetings, so we're super excited about that.

And um, and then of course the Signia will open late in the year along with the basics expansion, and um you all heard the news the other day about the Ritz Carlton, and uh that already has gotten us some vocals from some groups who didn't think we had enough of the uh high-end hotel rooms who are now saying, Hey, let's talk again.

Uh that's happened in the last 48 hours, so that's pretty amazing to have all the things that are happening like that in 2026.

I think it's gonna be a great year.

Thank you.

Any questions for Leonard?

Okay, thank you.

Um, we'll go back to our regular agenda, which is the first item on the agenda, and we do have members remote, I believe.

We have David, but I thought we had Bruce as well, but Bruce is on Dave Corbett is uh is Mick on?

I guess okay, just so we'll have to do both call vote.

Yeah.

Okay.

Bruce and Nick were both on at some point.

Okay, the chair and entertain a motion to approve the minutes from our December meeting.

So second, all those in favor, call the role.

Uh Marcy.

Yes, David Arkle?

Hi.

Uh Gene.

Hi.

Maggie.

Hi.

Jim.

Hi.

Dave C.

Aye.

Uh, is Bruce still on?

Yes.

All right.

Bruce.

Hi.

Mick.

Hi.

All right.

It's Bob's not on, right?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Um, the next item on the agenda is just an update, sort of a report from the downtown Indy Alliance.

We're pleased to have Taylor Shaker, president of the Alliance here today.

As many of you will recall, uh, a few months ago, we approved making um a payment or a contribution, if you will, to the downtown economic enhancement district, EED.

And Jim Dora, our member here, serves on that board, and we appreciate that.

And so Taylor's going to let us know how things are going.

Uh, as you remember up back to the EED payment.

Um, it's like a payment in lieu of taxes that is used throughout the country for these types of organizations elsewhere in Indiana.

And so we're part of downtown, we're getting the benefits of the economic enhancement district through more policing and so forth.

So, anyway, that's what what our role is there.

Taylor, thank you so much, uh Jerome for having me, and thank you all so much for letting me get this update today.

I've already apologized to Jim between serving on our downtown Indy Alliance board and serving on the EED board.

There's probably nothing new in this presentation that you haven't already heard.

So I told them I'd have to make up the time for him at another at a later point.

Uh you all are familiar with the work that we do, but just by way of um a little bit of explanation.

A couple of years ago, we went through a strategic planning process to really refine who we are and what we do.

Our vision is for downtown Indianapolis to be the vibrant, welcoming and fun part of Indiana's cultural and economic life.

We take seriously the role we play not just as an economic engine for central Indiana, but really as that heart of the state.

And our role as Downtown Indy Alliance is to serve as the trusted champion, convener, and steward of a dynamic downtown.

That allows us to focus, we are focused on five core areas.

Um, one of which obviously intersects directly with the operational work of the EED, but our work spans several other categories.

Um, that's marketing and communications of downtown.

That's the public space experience.

So when someone steps into downtown, regardless of how they got here or why they are here, what does it look like?

What is that active management mean?

We are so lucky to have so many arts and cultural institutions that call downtown home, continuing to uplift those, continuing to reinforce the ways that they both drive economic impact but also drive the vibrancy of our community, and then additional capacity and resources.

We'll get to some examples of this, but we know that the work we do isn't enough, that we consistently need to ensure that we're driving uh additional additional resources into the downtown area, and we're really focused on that.

One of the questions I get most often that this group probably is more familiar with, but I always feel the need to offer this this disclaimer.

Our focus is on the downtown experience.

So when someone steps foot in downtown and marketing to that central Indiana audience, if you think about Monument Circle 50 miles out, that's our focus area.

While Visit Indy does an incredible job of marketing to that audience that ultimately could be a heads in beds audience, we're thinking about the people who call this community home every day.

For so many of you, you've probably heard me talk about this so endlessly that it's hard to imagine that the EED has only been in existence for about six months, but it has.

That was so important because we knew those federal funds would run out mid year, and we didn't want there to be a gap in services.

We heard so consistently that property owners had gotten used to seeing the clean team, the safety ambassadors, that additional investment of resources, and we didn't want a six-month drop-off before we were able to ramp up.

So that transition occurred in July and really occurred pretty smoothly.

At the same time, we also launched a public portal, a public data dashboard that allows us to better communicate to ratepayers and to downtown stakeholders what it is they're paying for and what those services look like.

From the outset, our priority has really been about communication, about access to services, about ensuring that people paying in know what it is that they're getting.

And you can go ahead and yep.

We held a public forum, so this year we actually went through that uh expenditures cycle twice because of the way the timing fell.

So uh ratepayers in September got an updated projection for what the impact of the EED will be on their property tax bill this coming year.

And as part of that, we held a public meeting somewhere, not in a tower with free parking and an accessible um meeting space in the name of trying to have as broad of an audience as possible to say, here's what we're trying to accomplish, how can we do better?

And so much of that has driven uh the outcomes and priorities that we'll fund in 26, and we'll get to that in a second.

One of the other ways that we've done uh really tried to prioritize two-way communication is with something we call our C-Say app.

You don't have to take a picture of this.

I've got it really big on the last slide at the very end.

So if you want to take out your camera, save it for the end.

We have a variety of these uh pieces of signage around the downtown area.

It's also in every single, every single property owner got uh a link to it within their mailer in September, and have continued to try to prioritize that communication throughout.

The CSAC is an out-of-the-box solution.

Other downtown organizations across the country use it as well.

It's reskin for downtown Indianapolis and specific to the services that we offer, and it allows our teams to immediately respond to needs.

When someone says, hey, there's something real sketchy on the ground out here, it needs to be power washed, or this trash can is overflowing, or we're consistently having public safety issues in this corridor.

I think there's someone who might need some additional support.

It's not a 9-1-1 issue, but I think it makes sense for the outreach workers to make some connections.

All of those services, someone can directly log in there, it goes to our team, and we can dispatch someone in a pretty quick turnaround to be able to address those needs really easily.

As part, and we'll get to it in a broader sense here in a second, but one of the things that we started two years ago in partnership with the IU Business Research Center was a perception survey of users of downtown.

This year, because of the rollout of the EED, we really intentionally segmented out people who were paying that rate on their property tax bill or paying that fee as part of their property tax bill.

And what we saw across the board was that property owners were consistently overindexing in terms of perceived progress, in terms of consistently seeing the downtown support teams.

We gave photos saying green shirts, red shirts, orange shirts.

Are you seeing these crews?

Are you seeing them in action?

Um, and how is that impacting your perceptions of cleanliness downtown, your perceptions of safety downtown, and how downtown is comparing to other pure cities, all of which saw really positive results in this first year of PEP.

Yeah.

What does overindexing mean?

As we think about the other audiences that we surveyed, and truly it was intentionally broad.

We wanted it to be users of downtown of all sorts, that included, and we'll get to it in a little bit, that included uh truly a range of demographics.

We were really pleased that consistently property owners had more positive perceptions than really any other demographic.

As we think about that perception survey, a couple of other highlights that came out of that.

We do it every year in the summertime.

So we launched it the last week in June and ran it all the way through the beginning of August, and then every year we sort of debut those results as part of our state of downtown in the fall.

Perceptions of safety and cleanliness improved overall.

Candidly, that was a something we were really interested to see how that would turn out, knowing that there had been some challenges over that July month, and that was when the survey was out and available for people to take.

We saw an emotional connection downtown rose sharply, especially among non-Caucasian respondents, men and younger adults.

Uh we talked a lot about this internally, and while I I have to assume that there are probably a variety of reasons for it, one of the things that stood out to me is the kind of parallel between the Pacers Finals run and the survey being out in the field, right?

You see photos, you see videos of that moment in time, and it's largely those three demographics that you're seeing in those photos, getting to enjoy downtown, people are logging on to their social media, seeing their friends and peers enjoying downtown in that way.

I can't help but think that there's probably some connection there.

Comparative quality perception improves slightly, and where we continue to see the biggest deterioration, is among older and out of county groups, signaling a potential outreach gap.

We'll get to what we're thinking about doing in 26 for that at the end.

As I mentioned, increased resources for downtown continues to be a real priority.

Uh, things that we can't necessarily do with the EED funds, trying to get creative other ways to make that investment.

So these this you may recognize as a mural on the canal, worked with the arts council and the city of Indianapolis to bring in the original artists to restore those, knowing that they're sort of past their life cycle as they currently exist.

That was the before, this is the after.

One more.

This was the before.

You can see the graffiti all over it.

This is the after.

We talked a lot as we were going through our strategic planning process that it's not enough for areas to be clean.

It's not just about trash not being there, it's about the areas feeling cared for, and that's really what investments like this are about.

We've also uh, in partnership with the Arts Council, secured a $50,000 cultural districts grant that was an initiative of the City of Indianapolis and the City County Council to support Swiss style programming throughout the wholesale district outside of the final four.

You're gonna hear a lot of conversation about what that programming looks like during the final four, and that's great.

Division one, division two, division three, NIT, final four is going to be an incredible opportunity to shine a spotlight on our city.

But again, consistently what we're hearing is for employees on a Tuesday morning, what is their experience feel like?

And part of what these funds are intended to do is really elevate that experience outside of that.

Additionally, we launched an online giving platform.

I think one of the questions, even when I was here last that came up was uh, okay, so I'm not the CIB, I don't own a bunch of property downtown, but I also don't pay into the fee as the fee is structured.

How can I contribute?

How are we asking people to contribute outside of those channels?

So one of the things we did is launch this really simple platform that allows people to designate their gift into one of selected funds, including those EED operations.

Um it sounds like a very simple thing, except because so much of our organization is in membership focus, it's really not a tool we've ever had at our disposal.

And so we're really thrilled to be able to have that available to a broader downtown audience wanting to invest in this type of work.

Lastly, uh, you may have noticed this at the very beginning, may have noticed my lovely pin.

We uh worked on a really year-long brand evolution process.

If Chris Gall were here, I would remind him that when I first started three years ago at Downtown Indy, he gave me a one-sheeter that was a rebrand that was done in the early 2000s of all of the cultural organizations.

Our logo was the only one that had not changed all from that period of time.

Everyone else, including the convention center and CIB had evolved in that period of time, and it felt like as we were having conversations with our board, with our members, with community groups, that it just felt outdated and not really representative of who we are and what we do.

So were you keep clicking for me?

It began with our full team doing a deep dive looking at our brand as well as peer organizations across the country and Indianapolis brands.

We worked with our board, specifically the IDMI board and key civic partners to really gather feedback, understand how downtown Indy could be most effective as a tool for all of them, what we needed the brand to represent, and ended up with this.

You may notice that the little logo on the side spells I N D Y.

They're also sort of little people icons, the tagline for our organization historically on our business cards.

We've always had it say we're the people behind the place.

And I think one of the things that has really come out of this brand discussion is that it's not about us.

Like it's wonderful that we do the work and we care passionately about the work, but what makes downtown special is the people.

What at the end of the day, what downtown needs to thrive is the people that come into downtown, and that's why we ended up with the tagline People make the place.

As we look ahead to 2026, I think we're really focused on moving from a refine and maintain standpoint to a grow and evolve.

So much of the last three years has been about having the proof of concept for the EED of figuring out what it looked like to operationalize those dollars, and our question as we have been planning for the next year is truly how can we do more?

What's next?

This is our very messy planning board that we have in our office space.

We do it as kind of a team building quarterly check-in of what things are what things we're looking ahead on, and our question that we're asking ourselves is what's next.

A few areas of focus.

Again, downtown experience for the final four is incredibly important.

We know that that's a national spotlight.

We want to be able to support our partners at the art at the Sports Corp at Visit Indy, all of our venues in ensuring that it is a wonderful moment in time.

We also are continuing to focus on that day-to-day experience.

That includes refreshing signature events, the evolution of our EED operations, and a push to incorporating beautification, wayfinding, and gateway strategies.

I think a great example.

Sometimes when we say beautification, it can be really easy to go, like, I don't know, it is that our murals.

Yes, sorry.

Landscaping beds, fair.

I can't tell you how often buildings and hotels and property owners are really frustrated with overgrown or things that don't look like the areas cared for.

How do we incorporate that into the work of our cleaning team to be able to have a more unified and cohesive feeling downtown?

Evolution of member services to address business needs and DAA expertise.

Again, we want to ensure that downtown Indy members are getting the most out of their investment in downtown, and where and identifying where stakeholder coalitions are aligned and around the most pressing issues facing downtown.

Our four sort of key audiences for that are residents.

Family experiences, as we've been having conversations, downtown, whether it's over the holidays or year-round, continues to be where Central Indiana, we see this in our perception survey results, where Central Indiana and really Indiana statewide thinks of going for their family experiences.

They talk about the zoo, they talk about the Symphony, they talk about those family traditions that you can only have here in downtown Indianapolis.

And so, what does it look like for us to better market and provide a higher quality experience for those families?

Workers, because downtown at the end of the day also wouldn't be the same without those, and suburban event goers.

A few tactics and initiatives, these are specifically focused on the EED and the biggest changes within those budget within that budget going into year two.

It includes a 30,000 increase in homeless outreach programming that builds on a partnership that we already have with HVAC that had largely been funded by the Lily Endowment, and those funds have since expired.

We want to continue that partnership.

It's taking veterans that are in those phase two phase one work program and allowing them to be in a workplace.

Having a supervisor, learning soft skills, being able to collaborate with our clean team employees to really jumpstart their experience within HBAF.

It has, I would tell you candidly that it is not always the same level of consistency and professionalism overarchingly that we get with our paid contracts and workers.

By the same token, we've hired people that have come out of that program into long-term roles because when someone loves it, when someone loves being able to get back to their community, when someone gets that bug for continuing to contribute to downtown after they've gone through that program, it's a wonderful collaboration on the other side.

Increasing our IMPD homeless unit staffing in order to support a more integrated outreach approach with our team at Horizon House.

This increase is really reflective of both the CSA app data that I mentioned earlier.

That has been the biggest increase in where we were seeing feedback and entries into the app, as well as our perception survey data.

Increased number of prize and house-based outreach specialists.

Something about the outreach specialists and the safety ambassadors, so much of the initial staffing and programming had really been focused on that nine to five audience.

And what we're consistently hearing is nights and weekends matter just as much.

And whether that's because around those big events, it is easy for I think things to feel really good.

It's the random Tuesday night coming, going into a pacers game, walking around downtown where we need that additional support, and we want to be able to provide that.

The other thing that's just worth mentioning is that this expenditure projection also maintains funding levels for 2027 Q1 and Q2.

Last year's or uh yeah, last year's uh funding is what is funding Q1 and Q2 of this year.

That is how it will cycle throughout the life of the district.

And we committed uh when the district was initially being contemplated by the governor's office and the General Assembly that some funds each year would go to support the low barrier shelter, even though that is not yet up and running, and the city is in the process of building that and putting that together.

We wanted to stay true to that as we were thinking about these dollars.

There is tactical reserve that also is saving some funds for the future low barrier shelter to ensure that that continues to work.

Annie's speeding up his little finger because he'd like for me to be done, and I swear I think I've only got two slides left.

Um, a few other things for our organization as a whole.

These are things that are not funded by the EED, but they're also really focused on increasing passive and weekday programming, utilizing co-op-based marketing and engagement strategies.

For the last three years, we've done something called Winter Wonderland, where a variety of the venues downtown have come together to create a marketing pool that has really helped to amplify downtown as a holiday destination throughout the holiday season.

We want to take our lessons learned and some of the really wonderful outcomes from that campaign and try to use it in other ways.

Um, investment in a website redesign.

I don't know the last time you've been on the downtown indie website.

It's clear that it could be it needs some work, and in order to be the best tool it can be for our partners at Visit Indy, for businesses, for all of our downtown stakeholders, we need to put some time into how that can be the best tool it can be, and that's one of our priorities for 26.

And then reimagining our event and programming schedule.

I would be remiss if I didn't quickly run through our three big signature events.

All of these are very public-facing.

First being Fourth Fest presented by UA440.

That is the evolution of the fireworks for so long being shot off of the region's tower and people being able to watch them from wherever.

We love the fact that there's more residential around there, but that meant the fireworks could no longer be shot off of there.

So when they moved right off of Meridian, the Fourth Fest is a brainchild of so many.

I'm giving Andy a dirty look, it was him mostly who's yelling at me.

Uh, of so many that really felt like there was an opportunity with conventions on either side with so many of the dynamics happening in Indianapolis to take that as an opportunity and not a challenge, and fourth best is that.

Circle of lights, you all are familiar with that, and we couldn't do it without IBEW 481.

And then Spark on the Circle, our summertime uh activation there again.

Our I think for all of these, our priority is okay in a post pandemic world, what is the next iteration of these events look like?

How can we make them even better?

I promise this.

This is the CSA app.

If you do not have it on your phone and are in downtown, and you're in downtown right now, so you should have it on your phone.

Uh like I said, it is a super easy-to-use app.

You'll choose downtown Indy as the community partner, and you can communicate directly with our teams for those downtown service needs.

When they're not ours, we also communicate really closely with IMPD, even passing along to DPW, and if it's not necessarily in a wheelhouse, and then my contact information is on the bottom.

Feel free to reach out anytime.

I'm more based.

I don't think she took a breath.

Somebody gave us some water, please.

You need to share your energy with all of us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for all your work.

Any questions for Taylor?

Okay.

You've got our number.

Caller.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um, back to our normal agenda.

Uh, next item would be the CIB monthly financial report.

Good morning.

Uh November 2025.

Um, finished with revenues net of expenses of a negative 64 million dollars.

That's about 53 million dollars less than budget.

Uh the main reason um there was the variance, uh main reason for the variance is a 71 million dollar grant that we made for the hotel construction, and then that is offset by three items.

Capital outlays is under budget by four million dollars, debt services under budget by 11 million dollars, and then total revenues is over budget by three.

And I'll get into more detail on those.

Um as we look at tax revenues, it totaled $14.3 million dollars, um, which is about a million dollars more than the average month, um, as well as more than the budget.

Uh largest favorable variance there is in um hotel motel and the PSDA lines.

Um looking at the year to date for tax revenues, um, it is $14 million or $11% over budget, um, and also $7 million over last year.

So doing pretty good there.

Operating revenues were at six and about six and a half million dollars, um, which again is about a million dollars over the average, and about one and a half million dollars over the budget.

And that's about 32% as well.

Um, the largest variance there is in labor reimbursement line.

Um in November we hosted FFA and also the National Catholic Youth, um, which drove that labor reimbursement line.

Um for the year-to-date operating revenues, they're doing pretty well as well.

Um they're over budget by $13 million or about 27%.

Uh switching to the expense side, uh, personal services, it's under budget by about 400,000 dollars or 17%.

They're the largest variances in the part-time or temporary wages.

We're just not spending as much there as we anticipated.

Uh character two or supplies um category is about $32,000 under budget for the month of November.

Um character three, other services is $72 million over budget, and that is due to the grant that we gave for the hotel construction.

Um, and that is the $70 million that we approved in back in February plus the interest that accumulated in the restricted fund.

Um we talked about last briefly about last month.

Um as far as the budget's concerned, we had budgeted the 70 million in um capital outlay, um, but it actually we determined that uh it needed to come out as a grant, which is in other services.

So if you remember last month, we also uh approved to transfer funds from the capital outlet into the other services to cover that.

So a couple other items I wanted to point out.

Um, if you notice the legal services and architect lines both have a negative expense there, and that those are both due to we had been accruing some funds there.

We got the bills, we just over accrued, overexpensed.

Uh the bills came in less than what we anticipated, so that's why it's negative.

Um Indiana Sports Corp line, you'll see a million dollars there.

That is our support for sports corp for the whole year.

Normally they invoice us throughout the year as uh those come due, but uh for 2025 they didn't bill us until all at once, so um it kind of looks a little different.

Um capital outlay uh total 2.3 million dollars, which is $4 million or 63% less in budget.

Um of the larger dollar amounts that we spent in November was about a little over a million on the Weston Drive restoration, and then also about 480,000 on the 500 ballrooms, so those are the larger projects that we did in November.

Um debt service totaled 183,000, um, and that is showing a 11.6 million dollar um lesson budget.

The reason for that is it's just a timing difference.

Um we budgeted for the principal to be paid in November, which it normally is on November 30th, but um, since that was on the weekend, uh the trustee paid the principal on December 1st.

And so that we'll see the reverse of this in December.

So it's just a timing difference between November and December.

Um so for the whole for the year, bottom line, we're showing a negative 32 million dollars, which is right now we're sitting at 20 million dollars better than our budget, which was inevitable.

Negative 52 at this point.

So open to any questions.

Yeah, just to clarify that year end number does not include December yet.

Correct.

Well, we did have a really strong December, both with the big 10, the biggest big 10 uh championship we've ever had, and also the biggest PRI uh one of the biggest PRIs that we've ever had.

So really strong this time.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Yeah, oh sorry, silly question, but I think I already know the answer.

But on the visiting athlete tax line with college athletes now getting MIL money.

Does any of that fall into that, or is it just actual wages earned while we're playing versus ancillary money that they're getting?

It depends on how they're paid.

And this cop this conversation actually came up with IFA earlier this week.

Um football players get paid by the game because and they do that for this reason, so that they're paying income taxes in cities where they're playing away.

Um I think the NIAL deals are paid by the school at the school.

Um so I don't think they are paying to it.

I don't I don't know.

I wouldn't think so.

Yeah, yeah.

But uh they should be guys in here we just make but they do not pay by the game, they pay by the school semester.

Um usually they run from January to December.

Um it's not per game because you have our prohibition pay for play.

So that's why they're not right.

Right, and I'm not sure, I don't know about the NBA either.

Um, how they do it either.

I don't um I it was designed the the PSDA originally was designed to capture the football players.

NFL, you know, when we built Lucas Oil, that's that's for the PSCAs before the construction of Lucas oil.

Um specifically the sports PSDA that covers our venues.

So I mean it was it was meant for Lucilla SDM, but I don't know if if it to what extent um it it covers uh that's a probably good for a good question for Matt the next time he comes.

Yeah from the when the patients get their next report.

And I know that visiting athlete we are it's like two years in arrears when we're getting it because it's income and it takes a year to get a year and a half to get that, and then they sit on a year.

So I don't think we're getting NIL money if that isn't included in that yet, anyway.

So it's only been the next year anyway.

They hit the portal and moving on.

So yeah.

So those players, football players, uh they have to file taxes in multiple states.

Yep.

Huh.

Thanks, Mick.

Okay.

Anything else on the Finance Report?

All right, thank you.

Next item on the agenda would be the uh Indiana Convention Center report.

Thank you.

I'd like to give a quick recap of 2025, if I could.

Um, our convention center occupancy for the year was 51.5 percent.

Um 2024, which excuse me, we all know was a banana year for the city.

A really good year for us, uh, that occupancy was 52.5%.

So we were one percent lower in occupancy for uh 2025 versus 2024.

Uh 2019 is still our highest occupancy on record.

Uh that was 55.8%.

Our total uh convention center attendance for 2025 was 835, 731.

2024 attendance was 975,884, so that represents about 140,000 attendees less that came through the doors last year versus uh 2024.

But really, if you take the fan and um merch stores for like Taylor Swift and Swimming as well as WWE, uh, which were all in 24 and not in 2025, so it won offs, uh it really makes up that 140,000 uh person difference.

2019 again is our highest attendance on record, and that was a million and 23.

We had 27 dark days in 2025 versus 23 in 2024.

So we did have five additional dark days last year.

So overall, no records were broken, but a good solid year for us, especially coming off of uh 2024.

Um we're kicking off 2026, much like we do most years with Archery Trade Association, like Leonard mentioned.

Uh it's a half building-wide event, uh, they have been coming uh to the convention center for many, many years.

About 4,000 um anticipated to be here.

Um, this today is actually the third show day, we'll get them moved out on Sunday.

Just in general, uh, we're really fortunate.

The convention center is we have really robust January, which not a lot of cities and convention centers can say that because of the cold months.

So we're really lucky.

So after Archery Trade Association, uh, we're gonna go right into GMFest Super Nationals.

I've mentioned them before.

About 40,000 cheerleaders and guests will be here again for that.

We'll have a couple days, then we'll go right into Central Zone Invitational Voleball Tournament.

That's the first of the two that we host for Capital Sports, it's the smaller one, but still 25 to 30,000 athletes and guests will be here for that.

And then we're gonna end the year with another long-time uh annual circle of stars gymnastics, almost 30 years in counting that they've been coming here.

So they'll have uh several halls in the South Campus and then in the North Campus.

We'll have um a brand new piece of business, it's called Fence Tech.

Um just as you guessed, it is uh a convention for fencing gates and like security equipment.

Um expecting about 5,000 for that.

I'm really excited to have some new uh guests coming to the convention center.

Uh so recap, no dark days in January, no dark days in February, so the convention center is really active.

Um and then Leonard mentioned as well, March, end of March, beginning of April, it's final four.

So we're gonna all be gearing up for that in March.

Um so our first quarter looks really, really good in 2026.

Is I can co-sign what Leonard said it is gonna be an exciting year, so we're really happy.

Any questions?

Okay, thank you very much.

Next we have the LucasO Stadium report.

Taylor Builder is here for us.

Um Eric Mike Southball day.

Thank you.

Good morning, and happy near everybody.

Um, UK is a fact south, and I am still a player maker, but supporting it.

Very, very slowly.

Um since our last board meeting, uh, Alice has hosted PRI as well as two NFL games, one of which um was Monday Night Football, which we haven't hosted in in quite some time.

Um, so really exciting for us.

Um Colts versus Jabs concluded the year for us, and with that, we will start to see some of our voice of the band results, which will be very favorable this year.

And some early reporting um suggests in one of our key metrics, which is overall game face satisfaction, that will be in the um not only top quartile, but um the top five across all NFL teams, um, which that's a labor of love for sure.

So we put a lot of strategic planning and resources and effort behind that overall program, and it's something we're certainly very proud of, primarily because it's it's the work of all of our game day vendors at one time.

We're all kind of having um, you know, that one one team mentality and working towards one goal, and so we're really really excited to see um you know the the fruit of that labor kind of paying off.

So more to come on that and um some more specifics in terms of the different subcategories that that that um overall uh program kind of encompasses.

Before our next board meeting, we will have an America Pool and Spa show as well as two nights of Monster Dam.

We continue to do very, very robust planning for the men's final four.

So those are our monthly meetings, about three days or so.

Um so continuing efforts and in preparation for that event.

We're about three months out, which is crazy to think about, but um we're we're very prepared and very excited for that event.

And then on the entertainment front, as many of you saw yesterday, we announced Bruno Mars concert, so he will be joining us in September, which marks our fourth concert night of 2026.

So great great start, and we hope to potentially have a fifth concert to share with you by the next board meeting, so as that evolves and conversations kind of lended itself to more of a reality on Not Crum.

We'll be sure to share that at the next board meeting.

And then last but not least, so I think we're really pleased with how we finished 2025 and certainly um off to the right, off on the right foot for 2026.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I would just like to mention, and I know Taylor's particularly responsible for a lot of the work on the voice of the fan stuff along with Eric.

But um, that is a super important metric for the Colts.

Right, as they are enjoying the stadium, and they really care about the fan experience and what our stadium staff, which they don't control, mind you, remember, um, unlike the Pacers and Game Bridge, there's all Pacers staff.

This is all Taylor and Eric staff along and their contract vendors that they are leading on behalf of an NFL team and really competing at the highest level with other teams to make that key metric for the Colts really pop.

So well done and awesome.

On let's let's go.

We want five more concerts.

No pressure.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, the next item on the agenda is the update on current construction projects.

The current construction project is the um is Signia Hotel and Podium and Georgia Street.

So you'll see the final pieces of glass are being placed on the exterior, which is great.

That means we'd be entirely closed in.

One sort of hiccup, and as as the city continues to look at Georgia Street and try to uh reimagine it on the other blocks that are east of us, um it is a tremendous um carrier of utilities, as it turns out, and um with all those utility facilities.

We we've hit a snag.

We will be um we will provide to uh the NCAA everything that we need to provide to the NCAA for the final four.

That's gonna be the location of the tip-off tailgate, which will lead right into our fan fest um at this the south half of the uh convention center for so we'll be that Georgia Street block as well as the other two blocks, but that part will be uh highly activated and we'll be ready for that.

Um afterwards we may um need to close Georgia Street back and finish it as quickly as we can.

We just won't be able to get all the trees planted and all the granite, you know, papers and and everything down before the NCA gets gets here and they start to set up about a week beforehand.

So we'll have everything ready and um we're we're we're really um in close contact with them and making sure that they understand what the situation will be.

And honestly, what they have planned is probably gonna end up being better for them without all the trees and without all the um the obstacles that get in the way of them their partners selling what they sell or marketing what they market.

Um wanted to tell you all that um sort of first.

Um yeah, and the rest of it is is really going well.

We'll be uh just thinking about it.

Um this time next year we'll be open.

And uh hopefully we'll all enjoy a cocktail and style.

Yeah.

Crazy.

So when you talk about the underground utilities, I suppose everybody understands.

I mean, there are utilities lines there that are a hundred years old.

Are a lot older that you just that are showing up on surveys because they only go back 50 years, and then you go back a little further, and you find, oh yeah, that Indiana Bell telephone literal cable is buried, you know, deeper or with migration of with water and everything underground, it's moved.

So that's what's and downtown.

It was just the hub for all of it, and with the railroads and everything.

So it's really clear to be a really challenging construction area.

So I see Tom kind of nodding a little bit back there.

Yeah.

It's it's it's all the concrete that they pour around it.

Yeah, they just don't care, right?

So um it's it's uh it's a it's a bear.

So anyway, we're we're moving forward though.

Yeah.

Okay, so the next item on the agenda are contracts, the stadium Wi-Fi effort.

Yeah, so um one of the first contracts I did when I started in 2019 was the Lucas Oil Wi-Fi contract.

Um this is a uh special procurement, a sole source supply contract from Extreme, who is our vendor and has been our vendor since the original installation of their facilities in 2019.

Um the existing equipment has worked well during its tenure, but is approaching its end of life.

Um the upgrade provides a fresh, a refresh of the of new equipment, including new wireless access points with wireless controllers and network switches.

When the original equipment was purchased, there was a clear vision for this eventual upgrade as Extreme provided free future proof equipment which has compatibility with newer models as they come online.

Um and newer models of their products.

So repurposing the old equipment reduces the cost and downtime so that the stadium can continue to host events.

So this is our plan in 2019 has worked and we're reaping the benefits of it because it's not as expensive as it was in 2019.

Total cost of this contract is um 5,204,783 10 cents, and we recommend approving the agreement with extreme.

So thank you.

Any questions or discussion?

Okay, please call the board.

Marcy David R.

Aye Jamie?

Aye, Maggie, Jim?

Aye.

Bruce.

Aye.

Dave.

Aye.

Mick.

Aye.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Uh next item on the agenda is disposal of obsolete equipment.

So moved.

Second.

Any questions or discussion?

All those in favor, say aye.

Oh, wait, yeah, we gotta get on.

Yeah, Marshall.

Marcy.

Yes.

Marcy.

Yes.

David.

Aye.

Jamie.

Aye.

Maggie.

Aye.

Jim.

Aye.

Bruce.

Dave.

Aye.

Mick.

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next item on the agenda for a vote.

It would be the claims.

And unless there's an objection, I'd like to take the both together for one vote.

Anything, Andy, to highlight.

No, I don't think so.

Okay.

Um, oh wait, I have I have to get to my summary pay, sorry.

Apologize.

Um, so the operating expense voucher is $6,538,653.57, which is basically a normal month.

Um, the confirming voucher is $5,813,660.84 cents again.

Pretty normal stuff with utilities and debt service and settlements and ongoing, ongoing construction projects.

So is there a second?

Second.

Any questions or discussion?

See none.

Please call the board.

Marcy.

Aye.

David.

Aye.

Jamie.

Aye.

Maggie.

Aye.

Jim.

Aye.

Bruce.

Aye.

Dave.

Aye.

Mick.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, one item under other business.

Um, council has reminded us that we needed many and provided this uh an annual written consent for the CIB's building facility corporation to ratify acts of the board and the executive director of the CIB over the past calendar year.

This is a routine type of written consent.

Um, and so that will be circulated to members of the board for signature today.

There's any questions, but it's that's really basically all it says.

So yeah, our hope is just to just append to that.

Our hope is to have um Rich Borseland from Calliers come in and sort of give an update either this month this coming month or this coming meeting or the meeting after to talk about um sort of the success stories and plans for the Pan Am Tower, which is really the the holding of the building facilities corp at this point.

Um so wanted to wanted to make sure that you guys are aware of of all that.

Happy to answer any questions in the interim if you have any, but um we're moving.

We're doing we're doing pretty well um with national commercial tower headwinds in our face, but um we have a really good strategy and colleagues have done an amazing thing, and we hope to show you that um next meeting with a meeting after.

Yeah, as we've shared before, we do have some leases during the final stages of negotiation, just putting turn sheets into the actual leases.

We can't reveal that.

Um but again, we're styling us to be a little different in the market.

We're not gonna be a national big tower that's owned by a bank or a big company.

Um we're developing a really unique product, and I think we're getting on success.

So it's a very encouraging time.

All right, any other business from anybody?

Um public comments?

Seeing none, we're adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.