Good evening.

It is six o'clock, and I would like to call the this workshop to order.

Um, and we will begin um with uh councilman Grant leading us in the pledge.

Please stand as you are able.

And I'm basically individual, justice for all.

You please call roll.

Councilwoman Adams, Councilman DeBarde Laban.

Here.

Count Vice Migrant, if you go here.

Councilman Grant.

Here.

Councilwoman Hillsley.

Councilman Honeycub, Councilman Lloyd, Councilwoman Parker, Councilman Thomas.

Five of nine are in attendance.

So as we all know, as council members, we've expressed a great interest in what goes on with corridor redevelopment, pilots, tiffs, the process that we use that happens before things get to us.

So tonight I'm pleased that we have Rebecca Jane Justice and Ben Bentley who work on those things for the city of Knoxville here to talk to us and we will they have a presentation after the part about process.

We'll take open it up for questions, then they'll move on to a next session section.

So we'll kind of stop in the middle so we don't have to remember all our questions till the very end.

And at the end of their presentation, then we will open it up for discussion and other questions we have about development along the corridors, barriers, things that we think might be interested to do, and just let this be a conversation as we all work to make things better in Knoxville.

So I think we have the presentation up, and so uh Miss Justice, are you starting us?

Yes.

All right.

Are we ready?

Start.

Yes.

I don't know if you wanted me to sing the national anthem next.

No, ma'am, we don't do that.

That sounds good.

It's better for all concerned.

Well, we appreciate you all inviting us tonight to talk about redevelopment and public finance tools.

Uh we talk a lot about this, specifically over the last few years where we've had so much growth and interest and investment in Knoxville, so how we can be strategic and collaborative in creative ways.

It's great to talk about not only what is possible but what the process is.

Um over the course of the next few moments.

Uh we have organized our information into just talking about why economic development incentives are important, where they're appropriate and focused.

We'll share with you an overview of the process and not only talk about the process but show you where we direct people to find out about the process and what resources are available on our city web pages.

And then we'll dive into what tools are available as public-private partnerships, what's in our toolbox, and then we'll move on to show you some case studies and talk about a little more specifically how those tools have come to life in a few specific projects and just talk about the mechanics of a few projects for some case studies, and then we'll wrap up by sharing how these projects have delivered and what the benefits and the investment opportunity has brought to Knoxville with these partnerships.

So I'm gonna jump back and forth between the slides and the the web because I think that it's important to show you all how we direct people to these resources.

So this is the urban design and development city web page, and I know we're about to change all of our web resources, but um that this information will still be there.

Um so if you jump to a live web page, um you're right here, and you have you can easily get there by typing urban design in the search for anything box.

And up at the top, we've got public-private partnership opportunities, which will share with you those tools and resources, and gets really detailed into the key development priorities and all the exhibits and forms, but also we share our viewer, which I'll go through in just a minute too.

So what's really important to us when we have initial conversations with folks on our process is really just an initial conversation, getting to know the investment and development team, but also allowing that team to get to know Knoxville and what's important.

So it's almost like a business development opportunity to really understand what everyone has as their priorities as they bring an investment to Knoxville.

So in the about five years ago, we created what we refer to as the key development priorities, and you all have heard us bring these to the table specifically in projects that come to council for approval for public private partnerships, and they highlight different categories about project type, project location, project characteristics, how the projects integrate with public amenities and transportation.

So those key development priorities have become really important to those conversations that we have with developers, and I might have to flip through each slide deck to get back, but we can do that.

So just a few highlights out of each of these categories.

We absolutely emphasize that the expansion of our housing supply is important when people are investing in residential projects.

We always ask that they consider incorporating 10 to 20% workforce housing into their multifamily projects.

Also along primary transit corridors and areas that are served by our Knox Area Transit System CAT.

So we also really place a great emphasis on historic preservation and adaptive reuse, really encouraging people also to explore architecturally distinctive and innovative design tactics and incorporating environmentally friendly and sustainable engineering characteristics like lead certifications, etc.

So we talk really big picture, but we also talk into the details when we're guiding people to share with them what's important to Knoxville as we grow.

So this really is an opportunity for us to say, um, what do all those key development priorities really mean when you start to look at a map of Knoxville?

Because whether you're from this area or not from this area, it is really great to start to say, I'm gonna flip a few of these on as I talk about how this map works.

So when we say an area of focus is a redevelopment area, we have digitized those redevelopment areas.

You can zoom in and out to see exactly what parcels are included in these redevelopment areas.

We also show where our existing and past public-private partnerships have been, and each of those will link to some context about each of those projects, and again, I mentioned aligning projects along transit routes.

So you can see all of these layers start popping into place.

There's all our transit routes in green, and again, city investments and infrastructure, so existing sidewalks are there in purple.

So you can really start to see how this is a visual interpretation of the key development priorities that were listed on the previous slide.

I'm gonna turn it over to Ben now.

So after we have that initial conversation with people, get to know them, we introduce some of our resources and priorities, we start to talk about process.