Speak.

You can state your name and you have five minutes.

You good?

Good.

Okay.

Seeing no other members who wish to speak, I'll close public input.

We'll now move on to the approval of the January 12th 2025 meeting minutes.

There's that typo, Bridget.

At least it's early.

Are there any corrections?

Would someone like to make a motion?

Oh, you go.

Motion approved the minutes.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

That passes.

Okay.

Moving on to regular business.

The first agenda item is overview of the City of Lafayette's arts and cultural resources department and programming downtown.

Now hand it over to executive director Keating.

Hi, everyone.

I'm really excited to welcome Rachel Hanson, who is our director of ACRD.

Since so much of our identity and the vibrancy of our downtown is related to arts and culture and the work that ACRD does, I thought it'd be great to invite Rachel just to spend time with us to go over her department, her cultural assets here, her programming, and really use this time just to have a casual conversation with her.

And that included funding public art.

It included helping fund elements of R Night Out.

And so while there's not an ask tonight, this is more just an informational session to see where there are opportunities for partnerships in the future, and just to understand the ins and outs of everything from R Night Out to R on the street.

This is a casual conversation, so feel free to jump in and ask questions throughout it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Great.

All right.

And um we have some time with this, you know.

Um, think about like 45 minutes to an hour.

So um we can spend as much time as we need to.

Um, but I I blocked out some time, so we can just dig into it.

So I'm gonna hand it over to Rachel.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for inviting me to introduce introduce myself and my department to all of you.

I know many of you or most of you through various other partnerships and from around town, but I wanted to share the work that we do.

My name is Rachel Hanson, and I am the Arts and Cultural Resources Director.

I've worked for the city for over 10 years, and I have served as director since June of 2022.

And I would like to introduce my department.

We are so much more than just Art Night Out, which is sort of our big public face.

Um I want to share our dedication to partnerships and placemaking and tell you what we're doing in 2026 and where we're headed in the future.

Our goals come from our five-year strategic plan and mesh nicely with many of the council goals and the old town tomorrow action plan.

Some of our goals can be achieved without funds.

Um they're achieved through staff and the work that we do in and around the community.

Others require support and resources.

Our work focuses on bringing art activities and events to the whole community, elevating equity and representation in art and culture, reducing barriers to grants and programs, and developing partnerships to enhance connections.

We have our vintage style neon light, which I think might have been funded by Laura many many years ago.

We are located on the north end of the old town core, and we have the collective houses our staff offices and provides cultural offerings to the community.

We host seven major exhibits and with coordinating events throughout the year, including programming, film screenings, business of arts workshops, art openings, poetry readings, artist talks, art workshops, and other cultural offerings.

We have seven people on our staff, three full-time and four part-time.

And our staff also serves as liaisons for the Cultural Arts Board and the Public Art Committee.

We're on a growth trajectory, which is great.

So we do lots of fun things, including the art on the walls, but lots of other opportunities to connect and create and experience lots of great things.

As you know, it's the street fair in Old Town.

There are five events.

But it's hard to gauge without doing some geofencing around that event, which we haven't done at this point.

It's pretty cost prohibitive.

We're not aiming to grow the size, not we're not aiming to grow the footprint or the attendance.

We feel that this event is a good size both physically and through attendance for our community.

We want to serve the people who live here as well as our neighbors, but growing it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Art Night Out started in 2009 and continues to thrive.

Each season we bring between 20,000 and 25,000 to Old Town to experience art, culture, and music in kind of Lafayette style, which features on Colorado music, musicians, not nationally traveling acts, local artists who are vendors.

We want to have a nice mix of locals and neighbors from adjacent communities.

We also feature local cider and beer and some of our local partners who provide opportunities for additional engagement.

We strive to provide accessible entertainment and cultural experiences.

We have lots of free elements, three different stages at Art Night Out, a pop-up cultural performance at each event, free face painting, free balloons, a headliner band, lots of street performers, and a range of food trucks and lots of art vendors.

So last year was a lot of fun.

We did have one rain out weather issue, but we also managed to survive that.

We also got to test out our emergency action.

We did, and our emergency action plan works.

We you know, we we put our evacuation plan into action, and it was um you know, showed us that we had a good plan in place.

We had worked with our public safety folks and um volunteers, and um it was good.

It was sad that we had to evacuate and cancel, but it it did um did its job for sure.

Um we also value art as placemaking.

Our sculpture program enhances the city's sense of place and meets the Old Town Tomorrow Action Plan key area of public space and place keeping as well as creativity and culture.

The public art pathways program is a program that the public art committee began a couple of years ago, and the fun and that funds art that elevates representation in art or places art in neighborhoods which are under resourced.

The program has provided um sculpture to many areas in town.

Last year's location was at Lamont Dows Park, which I know is just slightly outside of your district, but this sculpture in the picture was placed at Lamont Does Park.

Um in the past, we it has also placed um murals and sculptures within the old town or the DDA district.

Um we have 61 sculptures and murals in our permanent collection and 20 sculptures annually on our rotating sculpture and rotating program.

Isn't that the mural and the um yeah, yes, this one?

So this is one of my favorite murals in town.

It was funded by the public art committee um public art pathways program and by Laura in 2024.

And we held the celebration for the completion of this mural in the spring of 2025 with a performance of Las Dalias, um all female Mariachi band, which is pictured.

You can also see Armando Silva in the middle of this photo wearing the orange beanie hat, and you can see Councillor Barnes here on the right-hand side who celebrated with us.

This um our maid and our mayor on the on the left hand side.

Um this piece puts a large vibrant vibrant vibrant mural depicting two children reading a book.

Um, the mural is a perfect example of the work the public art pathways program does to elevate representation of a BIPOC artist, um, the subject matter, um, and puts art squarely in Old Town.

And I love the vibrant colors, the themes, and the scale of this mural.

And it's a very well-known artist in the state of Colorado, Armando Silva.

Yeah, Laura contributed 25,000 to this, and I think what was the other amount of 25?

It was um, yeah, it was a match, yeah.

Yeah, and um, it's it's just a reminder that like while it may just be it seems like paint and an artist time, it's really important to compensate those artists for what they're actually worth, and like this is their their job and livelihood, and so um it was great that Laura was able to partner on this, and it's totally changed this intersection where the gas station is and really just kind of connects all of Old Towns, just different placemaking opportunities.

So this was a really cool project.

It also created a great partnership with the business owner of um Senior Gomez, so it allowed us to engage with um the business and business, and the staff there were enthusiastic about having this placed on the side of the building.

Um it faces kind of art night out and peach festival and other businesses in town, even though it's on the back of their building.

I love it.

And it has books, it has a book, which is great.

Here's a small sample of the art on the street collection from this year.

Art on the street puts sculpture outside on public display for one year.

The it's a rotating art program.

There are currently 21 pieces on display, most of them in the DDA Old Town Core and Simpson Harrison area with two pieces of the arts hub each April.

The sculptures, the old sculptures are picked up by the artists, and 20 new ones, 20 or 21 new ones are installed.

We had 21 this year because the dragon was installed on the lot where the future city centers will go.

Um, and so we had an extra spot.

Um but the art on the street adds some flavor to Old Town.

It also, because it's a temporary art program, it keeps things fresh and vibrant.

When we first started, we had eight pieces.

And Rachel's going to talk to this later, but we're looking to add more locations for just rotating art.

So while we have a lot, there's still plenty of opportunities to add more locations.

Yeah.

So over the past few years, Lura did fund the purchase of three different sculptures that added to the city's permanent collection.

Hero's Journey is permanently installed in front of Kaleidoscope on Simpson Street.

Trinity is installed between OnSpa's and Ghost Box Pizza on Public Road.

And Nature and Balance is on Public Road near Ephran's restaurant.

Do you know that moves?

Yes, I do know that moves.

You can rock it back and forth, and the wings will flap.

It also will rotate left to right.

I know.

It is so cool because the articulation of the wings really make it look like you don't need to touch it.

The wind will make it move.

The wind can make it move too.

It is kind of an interesting piece because it depicts kind of this skeleton vulture flying, but it is so cool.

It's bronze.

It's really neat.

So there's a you know a varieties variety of styles of art and you know, different types of sculpture.

The hero's journey is great because you can stand inside of it and make it appear that you're gonna make it roll.

Um, and that's a great piece in that Simpson corridor area.

So, yes, nature and balance does move on its own.

On its own.

How do you how do you guys decide like which pieces are are really acquired?

So the public art committee will look at their funds about this time of year, and they will see what they have left based on the grants that they've awarded as well as the cost of installation and maintaining uh the permanent collection.

Um they'll look at the kind of the price list of the current art on the street sculptures, and they will make a recommendation about what they want to purchase.

In the past, they then the public art coordinator, Stacey Bernstein, has reached out to Bridget and said here are some pieces that are within a certain budget.

Um, are there locations that seem to make sense for Lura and for adding to the permanent collection in Old Town?

So in the next um couple of years, we would look at if we would want to add something on the 700 block of public roads.

So we have a couple opportunities with the streetscape program.

We actually put in some of the infrastructure into the cement that will allow for ground installation.

So it's putting in some strapping, metal strapping into the concrete of the sidewalk so you can weld sculptures to the ground.

Um so we have kind of placeholders where we could add additional locations either for a art on loan, part of art and on the street, or a permanent piece in the 700 uh streetscape program and also the Pucket Park area.

Yeah, and Laura in the past couple years have allocated $15,000 each year to work with ACRD, and that's how we purchase some of those pieces in that mural.

Um, and so it's a collaboration of Laura knew that like we're not they were not the experts of art, but we have a partnership, and so let us be the funding partner, and you got you all make a recommendation.

And I think I have a copy of the so there's I mean the all the sculptures are on the city website, but we also have a map, and and you know, you can kind of take a look and look at the prices and see what kind of falls into the budget that um you know might be available as well as what the funds that the public art committee has.

Um it's been a nice way the public art committee has used the art in the street to be able to purchase a number of pieces in addition to these three over the years to grow Lafayette's collection, and we do have one of the biggest collections in I think the biggest collection in Boulder County.

Um it really adds to kind of the flavor of Lafayette.

So there also is another opportunity.

Um you may remember there was a phone booth installation that was up on the front porch front porch area by the um Chase parking lot, and that phone booth was uh part of a Boulder County Public Health project, um, and it was sort of a public service announcement, so you could pick it up and listen to listen to COVID stories.

Um that was the intention of it.

Um, it was removed.

Um it got called a good one.

Um, and so there's there is now kind of a vacant spot where we could do an installation as well.

So that's an opportunity for placement in the future if the right piece kind of makes itself known.

So I you know, I think that would be um a nice place for a permanent piece too.

Any other sculpture thoughts?

No, yeah.

Um how far away is the furthest one from the collective?

Uh the arts hub is the furthest location for an art on loan piece, and for a permanent sculpture piece, we have a couple of pieces installed at Wanaka Lake, and we have uh piece at the golf course.

Um the permanent collection is sort of uh spread throughout Lafayette.

The concentration is in the old town area, but the um the goal is to make sure that art touches all parts of Lafayette.

So, like I mentioned that we um installed Donatella at the Lamont Does Park.

There's also a sculpture installed in front of the Lafayette Public Library, and there's one at Ophelia Marimontes Park.

There's an art installation at Romero Park.

Um, so those are all part of the permanent public art collection.

Yeah.

Any other I just think it's um it's such a remarkable commitment, you know, collection and commitment, and and I'm not surprised to hear it's the largest in the county because I think obviously I think and and know that Lafayette businesses and um communities stand out in so many ways.

But if you're a first-time visitor to Lafayette before you discover how great the restaurants and coffee shops and bookstores and galleries are, the art is what you see, and it just pops.

It's just different than any other town around here.

I think it's really you know, kudos to you and your team, but also to the to the city going back.

It's just such an amazingly commitment.

Um and so that so you get that vibrant and diverse and eclectic as soon as you drive down Pumpkin.

It's really neat.

And the art and the street sculptures in terms of selection process for the initial 20 that are part of the art on loan program, that is guided by the public art committee.

So they review the art that's submitted.

It's a nationwide call for art, so each year they may have a hundred, 120 pieces submitted to the program who want to be part of the art on loan program, and they come from all over the country.

We have artists from the East Coast and you know, the Southwest and West Coast and Oregon and Utah and all over our program was modeled after the programs in Grand Junction and Loveland who have programs that are much longer longevity-wise than ours.

Um, but I think we are equally as successful at this point.

Um, and so it's exciting.

We have lots of people interested in participating as artists.

So they will select the work in November, and then our public art coordinator works on securing contracts with each of those artists who are selected.

Um then when a piece is acquired as part of the permanent collection, then it gets folded into our maintenance plan.

So that's another big investment.

It's a big contract with a public art maintenance company that will come and make sure that all of the pieces are in good shape.

So bronzes have to be waxed every uh two to three years, so they apply a special wax and and reinforce any colored patinas that they have, and then they have to use the torch and um seal that wax with flame, which is really interesting.

It's fun to watch.

Um, and then other pieces need various amounts of maintenance.

Um, so we have a pretty significant contract with a company that um did a um a couple years ago did an assessment of every piece that we own, made recommendations and put them on a plan.

So some pieces are touched every other year, some pieces are touched every third year, um, just to make sure that they're in good shape and they don't get run down.

But you have much trouble with vandalism.

Um no, we do not have much trouble with vandalism.

Public art um historically, even murals um really don't um get vandalized very often.

Um all of the murals, especially it, you know, the ones that we contract, like the Armando Silva Silva mural I showed, um, and even all of the alley art amazing murals that are throughout Old Town.

Um, they are recommended to put on a special coating so they can be cleaned should they be vandalized.

Um, but we don't have you know tagging or anything on those.

There may be other places, um, but we don't um in my time with the city and working with the public art program since it began.

Um, we've had one we've had two pieces that have had physical damage.

Um from intentional manipulation, and so over that number of time and hundreds of sculptures, that's uh pretty low.

Yeah, it is really amazing.

Um, we did have a piece in the roundabout that um the artwork itself wasn't struck, but there was a car that ran into the landscaping around the base, and we're working with um our restoration team to um do the letters that went around the base of that roundabout.

Um, and so that was a car accident that hit that's a good question.

I think um one other thing about the sculpture program, and we can move on to the next part is um you know, thinking about how we might want to um look at where art is placed within our district, like there's no pieces on baseline in our district, and while that is not necessarily the most safe for pedestrians or cyclists, like there could still be opportunities to have placemaking on baseline.

Um, there's also not many pieces um farther south on South Public, and there are some pieces on Harrison and Simpson, but just thinking about like how do we get people to move throughout our district, and is this a way for placemaking or wayfinding?

Um so just something to think about in general of like this is a great opportunity in the future to help influence where certain pieces go or how we activate certain spaces.

Yeah, I think that's great.

I think that's a great way to you know work with you all.

Do you have business owners that request art from the we do sometimes, yeah?

And um, sometimes if it, you know, if a piece is going to be um purchased, uh Stacy will work with um kind of our area and reach out to locations that make sense.

So, like the little cowboy who sits in front of um the apothecary, he's small, and so he would have to have a place where we could put a pedestal so he could be at eye level, and so finding a place for him is a lot different than finding a place for the dragon, for instance, where he needs a lot of space and you can't touch him, and because he's sharp and risk management gets upset, and um but yeah, we're in front of the East Simpson and kids can play together.

Yeah, I think that would be okay.

Yes, he would take up the whole patio.

Um, but I think that yeah, I think that there have been business owners who've requested or said, you know, it'd be great to have something near us.

So I think that's how we have a location that is uh on the public road side of um what is there right now?

Pita grill um by the bus bench.

So there's a location for art on the street down in that block is at the 800 block of public road, and that was I think kind of some dialogue around spreading art all the way down or getting you know getting art down towards the south end.

I'm guessing that maybe this hasn't been a question because most of like public is businesses or public land.

Um but I'm curious, like your comment about baseline made me think like the more walkable part of baseline is all like homeowners.

Um for the most part, like the other side is businesses, but the you know, the sidewalk isn't as in good of shape.

So I'm curious if you've ever worked with homeowners for like land to display public art, or if that would be something new.

So we have worked with um property owners.

We worked with the Durancio family to um put a location in the back of the house in, which is across from your business, and that when that was placed, they it wasn't a business, I think it was a rental.

I'm not sure.

Do you remember?

Do you know?

I feel like I've only been around where it was the house in.

Okay, so um, we did work with him, and we have a property use agreement, and so we work with our city attorney around that.

In terms of just homeowners, I think we would be less likely to do that.

We have had people reach out to us and say, you know, we would really like your mural program.

We would like you to come and paint a mural on my garage, and and that's not really a service that we provide.

Um, but there is a great grassroots group called the Alley Art Amazing, and they will work with homeowners and they will kind of help you find an artist and help you figure out if you can get funds and and that type of thing.

So probably less likely to be on private residential property.

Yeah, I was seeing more like the sculpture program, less like right, additions to someone's um, but I hear you on that and uh on the uh not a service provided.

Yeah, we did have someone want we had a a sweet little piece um where the um cowboy sits today that was like this little bronze of a man gardening, and someone said, I would love that in my garden.

Can you can after it can after it's there, can it move to my garden?

And we thought if you buy it, we can so you know the artists would be thrilled.

Yeah, the artist would be thrilled.

They they declined.

Um bronzes are expensive, but it's uh it's an opportunity for people to learn about art, learn about how art is a business.

Um artists don't make work for exposure, they make work as their livelihood.

They um they work hard and it really enhances a space, and there certainly are sculptures that are very reasonable and affordable, as well as some that are quite expensive.

So I'll move on.

Um, in addition to the collective, the arts and cultural resources department manages the Starkey building.

This building sits on Festival Plaza, as you know, in the heart of Old Town.

The city purchased the building from the Chamber of Commerce after several years of shared usage.

Um, and that was really recently actually.

Um, the renovation was complete in June of 2025 with Lura support.

Lura grants funded the hazardous materials testing, ADA compliance elements, and energy efficient windows and doors.

The um rest of the cost of the renovation was came from ARPA funds that the city had received in 2020, and the purpose of the renovation was to improve the building aesthetically as well as the usage of the building.

Over the past eight months, we've been able to use the building for board meetings, department retreats, staff potlocks, public sustainability workshops, planning department listening sessions, and volunteer appreciation events for the public, and we'll be launching software in March that allows the public to rent the Starkey building for their own uses.

The Starkey renovation meets the council strategic outcome of quality community amenities and the DDA key area of land use and character and public space and placekeeping.

Starkey is really beautiful inside.

There we have tables that uh flip up and move out of the way, so you could you know do yoga in there, or um we've done um ornament making workshop for volunteers.

We've had um some public open meetings with sustainability and the planning department, um, a fire uh preparedness workshop that sustainability did with the fire department.

So we've had some really neat events and opportunities.

I did a two-day leadership in the arts workshop last summer that was great.

Um so there are a lot of great opportunities and ads to kind of the list of possible rental facilities in Lafayette.

Where's the occupancy?

It's like 50.

It's not very big.

That's like standing walking for a sit-down um meeting.

Um, this was set up for I think 24 sit-down like conference tables, and I've done workshops with like 25 or so.

Do you have a sense of what the rental fees are gonna be for the public?

I do.

I don't have them off the top of my head, but um, they're comparable to what the um fees are for the library facilities and the recreation and local regional areas.

So we did kind of an analysis of municipal facilities.

So uh Erie and Louisville and Superior all have rental buildings through their you know, city government, so it's along those lines.

It's a big deal now that we're able to activate and like program the space, particularly because it's like at the heart of Festival Plaza, and it's was used for storage for a lot of years, and so now being able to like engage with the community and have workshops, or if the DDA wanted to do something there, we could program it.

So this was a big thing.

Are you gonna like is it gonna be pretty open to like the public in terms of what they're looking to do, or are you trying to kind of define what happens there?

So there are some um guidelines about what can be done there.

Um right now we're not allowing people to pull a liquor license for events there.

So right now the policy says no liquor or alcohol in the building.

Um we you know, someone could we've had people reach out, they want to rent it for a baby shower, and that seems like a perfectly appropriate use when people wanted to reach out and do a board meeting there or a workshop.

Um, so the rental is tiered, so it's for uh private events for um nonprofit has a a tier nonprofit or government use, and then for uh business purposes.

So if you rent it and you're charging a fee to teach something, and it's a slightly different rate.

I recommend no glitter.

That is actually like number 10 on our list of things, no glitter ever.

Um, sorry to anyone who wants their eight-year-old's birthday party there, but no glitter ever is on the list.

Yeah.

We were doing birthday friends.

I'm sure the so I got it.

Yeah, no glitter.

Yeah, it just um, but the floors are easy to clean.

We have um uh you know, counter space, so you could put out snacks.

It's not like a catering kitchen or anything, it's just um, but it's I think it's pretty versatile and functional, and it's ADA compliant, which is really exciting, and we invested to make sure that the bathroom and the drinking fountain and the sink and the counters are ADA compliant and the ramp to the front, and I have a picture of those.

Um, one of the things that we use it for is picnic on the plaza.

We do 12 uh lunchtime concerts in the summer from May through August.

We had over a thousand people show up to those concerts in 2025, and they're there are delightful porch concerts on the front porch of the Starkey building, and people sit on the lawn under the big trees, and it's really beautiful.

Um, we have the See and Respond Art and Poetry Contest is another ACRD project at the library, and we also curate uh three city gallery spaces, two at the library and one at the senior center.

Um, but back to the Starkey building.

Here are some pictures of some of the events that we held last summer.

Um we had very successful porch concerts at the Starkey building.

We also hosted Pride on the Plaza, and the Lafayette Library partners with us to hold story time once a week on the lawn, which is great with all the kiddos and the splash pad.

It's a lot of fun.

That activation of Festival Plaza really brings people down to the central business district, and then they stay and shop and eat and enjoy all the other shops and wander around pick up treats from places and you know, pick up their lunch and go hang out.

So it's been really great to see it activated so quickly after the renovation.

It's also the kind of home base for Art Night Out, which makes it really useful because it's right there.

Another arts and culture building which falls in the DDA area is the Arapahoe Center Theater at 300 East Simpson.

This is historic church was built in 1890, and it's a great example of adaptive redo reuse.

In fact, most of its life it's been had adaptive reuse.

It has served as a theater since the late 1980s, but it's also been a church, a hospital for the Spanish flu, a morgue, and even served as the Lafayette Library for a number of years.

In 2022, we developed the conceptual plans for an addition and rehabilitation of the building.

So we did that concurrently with the Starkey conceptual plans.

And this year we're working with an architect EUA to create the plans and construction documents for an 800 square foot addition and interior rehabilitation.

And the work on this project really ties in with a lot of your key areas as well: land use and character, connectivity and infrastructure, and public space and placekeeping.

Currently, the theater company of Lafayette is the single tenant, and they do great work.

They program about seven plays a year.

They show lots of world premiere plays and new playwrights, which is really exciting.

But we know that there's potential to do a lot more at this facility.

And it's gonna be it's what?

It's gonna be it does.

So in 2019, um we did some work on the building.

It has a new shake shingle roof, and it also had reinforcements done to the foundation at that time.

So both of those things were done, you know, seven years ago.

So still looks good.

Yeah, yeah, it's great.

It's on the National Historic Registry, the state registry, and the city.

So just like um the Starkey building, we have a lot of requests for use of the theater building, and there's a potential to expand use for residents, private parties, local partners.

Um, in past years, um, before COVID, we had poetry readings, performances, and a band even shot their music video in the church space and the theater space.

I think there are a lot of opportunities for great programs and use in this space while improving it as a theater as well.

So I wanted to share some of the features with you.

Um working with the theater company of Lafayette.

We've decided that the best um theater setup is a modular flexible setup in the theater folks at Madge from the theater company is really excited about having a different way to set it up.

Um it will be a modular theater space.

Um, we'll have energy efficient windows and doors and flexible seating.

Um we'll have an 800 square foot addition to the south side of the building, so that's at the bottom of the diagram.

There will be two ADA restrooms and a ticket concession area.

The rehabilitated theater space in the historic portion of the building will preserve the historic wood interior that has beautiful wood paneling, historic stained glass, um, and there will be new back of house bathrooms, dressing rooms, and storage.

There'll be an up-to-date projection system, film screen and sound system, and new theater lights, and we should be able to see 80 to 90 people.

It's a timing one.

Um we are working with the architect to do construction documents, and then we need to look at funding opportunities.

So by six to eight months to get the documents ready, so before the end of this year, we'll have a better understanding of the cost of the project.

Um we did an early estimating through the conceptual design process, it was about 1.5 million dollars, but that was before the cost of goods went up quite a bit, and so we would look at probably two million dollars.

Probably not before the Sunday.

And uh I have thoughts about that too, yeah.

Um of the exciting parts of this project is the um site upgrades as an added bonus.

The um conceptual plan featured a functional outdoor space with landscaping seating and and some informal performance areas and an accessible um entrance, which would be on the south side of the building.

So um the proposed building edition is on the right side of that diagram, and the new landscaping is behind that.

It will also maintain the four parking spots that are off the alley.

This will create an inviting new beautiful green space to the Harrison Simpson hub, right in that business district.

Is it they're the closest public art is the heroes wheel?

Heroes Journey, and then there are there's a piece also at the senior center, which is on the same block as the theater.

Okay.

Yep.

Would there be a reason to add some topics?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yep.

That's all I wanted to so potential users.

We're really excited.

Obviously, theater company of Lafayette does great work, and they would be a potential user, but we also have the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival, um, MODIS Theater.

We've worked with San Susi Dance Film Festival in the past, um, Opera on Tap, local organizations, nonprofits, theater, dance, music, um, other city department programming, um, members of the community, and the big question is the Sundance Film Festival.

Um we are really excited they're coming to Boulder County, and I think it creates a lot of opportunities.

So we believe and that renovating this building gives us a lot of opportunities to attract and partner a lot more organizations than we're currently able to partner with.

Um, these are just a few of the possibilities, but I think Sundance is a really strong possibility.

Um they will be in Boulder in 2027 and be they will use multiple venues for all variety of events.

They're going to have large film showings, places like Mackey and the and the other movie theaters in town, but they're also going to have small film screenings, talks, meetings, receptions, and gatherings, and Lafayette has the potential to be really involved in that.

Yeah, there's a regional coalition right now that's just working with Visit Boulder and Sundance to figure out like how do we I mean not everyone's gonna want to stay in Boulder the whole time, right?

And also can't, right?

And so how do we um bring people here to do things here and then maybe bust into Boulder or transportation?

So there's a big just like regional planning group right now, and I know that Boulder's first goal is how does it work in City Boulder the first year, and then they want to really think about how do we move outside to other communities, like what does Netherland want to offer?

What does Lions want to offer?

What is Lafayette want to offer?

And so it's something it's I mean, this is perfect timing to be doing this renovation for Arapahoe, and think about like what what do we want to be known for in that Sundance week, and how do we want to show up for that?

And I don't know what that looks like, right?

There's so many different opportunities, especially with our different cultural institutions here that um it will be a really interesting conversation to see how we want to show up.

So I know um Bridget and Isabella have gone to some of the initial Sundance meetings, and we are also in touch with folks from the Boulder Film Commission who are part of the bid for Sundance, and Mark Moffat has attended meetings also discussing those things.

So we are um staying informed and working with Boulder Arts and Culture and the Boulder Chamber um to make sure that we can be part of that.

They put together a Sundance directory and we listed the things that we had, um, and I shared that with a number of people to be able to list their their services as well.

So I think there's a lot of possibilities.

Did Lafayette um history museum is on there?

Or is that do they have something already in mind or no?

Just that we do partner with them on programs and are looking to do some film screenings, documentary um work with them, or potentially be able to host talks with them at one of our facilities.

Is there still money in the Laura budget earmarked for this?

For Arapaho Center, yeah.

Um, no.

Okay, yeah.

That never ended up.

We we did help with some of the initial testing, but no future dollars.

Okay, yeah.

So we did the environmental testing, hazardous materials testing for Starkey and Arapaho at the same time, and that was Lura supported.

Okay, got it.

So placemaking and making a shift here.

Placemaking and partnerships are key tenants of the ACRD strategic plan and are also embedded into the old Town Tomorrow Action Plan as well.

I know because I read it.

And I wanted to share this graphic around placemaking, which I attended a or watched a webinar, participated in a webinar from Creative Placemaking Communities a number of years ago, and this really stuck with me.

But our work around placemaking has been informed in part by this graphic and this the webinar that I the learnings I had from that webinar, and they can define creative placemaking as shown.

But you all know that creative placemaking bolsters economic opportunity, and I think that's really important for all of us.

Also community belonging and quality of life.

And the bottom line is that we need to be more artful in the way we think about community and move from saying, oh, someone should do that to we should do that, or I can do that, or I will do that.

And I appreciate the work that the DDA has done and Laura before you and the work that my department is doing to work towards all of these shared goals because I think that we share all of these things.

Our success has been because of the partnerships and collaborations that we have.

We in Arts and Culture have so many great relationships with community partners and in no particular order or size relevance.

This is a partial list of partners that we work with in our department throughout the year.

We pride ourselves on these connections that we have with other departments, and this doesn't list every other department in the city that we work with, but also the organizations and agencies that are in and around Lafayette and adjacent to us.

We work hard to facilitate connections between others, so Lafayette is filled with strong, vibrant, and willing partners.

Much of the work that we do focuses on this area.

We strive to support community character through enhancing historic and cultural heritage and arts and culture.

This map also overlays schools, parks, restaurants, art studios, craft breweries, music venues, children's museum, and coffee shops.

With the completion of the Starkey building and future rehabilitation of the Arapaho Center, we connect the dots and complete a web of pedestrian friendly arts, culture, and culture facilities, which serve all those living and coming to Lafayette, which is kind of fun to see how many things you can walk to and plan a day out in Lafayette.

And our 2026 priorities.

Not including staffing or capital improvements was about uh 436,221 dollars.

We received 26,000 from SCFD and 14,000 from Arts Lafayette, which is a local nonprofit.

In the past, previous times Laura supported Art Night Out with a 10,000 grant and public art with a $15,000 grant.

In 2026 and 27, we seek to maintain or grow our funding so we can make a bigger impact on the community.

And I think one of the challenges that we're facing is that the cost of goods and services, as we all know, has gone up and continues to go up.

And our budgets have stayed relatively flat in the city, and we have similar sales tax and property tax coming in to the general fund in the city.

So department budgets aren't budging much.

And so what we have to do is become creative and seek other ways of funding things like funding that renovation and addition.

And I would guess it's not going to just come from the you know, our general fund, it's gonna come from other sources.

So we're gonna have to develop relationships and seek grants from History Colorado and other sources to be able to fund those bigger projects.

Beyond some of our wish list or things that we're thinking about, putting a water fountain on Festival Plaza, which would help be a it would be an amenity for all people walking around Old Town, but also great for Art Night Out or the Peach Festival or the Farmers Market.

Electrification plugs on public road for food trucks to plug in so we can get rid of nasty, smelly, noisy generators that food trucks carry in the back of their trucks, resurfacing the parking lot behind the Starkey building to improve the accessibility and drainage, adding wayfinding signage throughout Old Town.

With the Arapo Center, we're looking at how we can partner with members of the Arapaho Nation.

How we can make sure signage is appropriate and acknowledges the use of the Arapo name art with intention.

So whether we put art outside in the on Simpson Street side or in the new entrance on the south side, and then how we approach program development for that space.

So maintaining levels of service, but continuing to provide meaningful opportunities for the community.

So these are the things that I'm looking at in the next two to three to five, seven to ten years.

And then the possibilities.

Both possibilities meet the Old Town Tomorrow Action Plan of Call-Ops with work with the arts and culture.

And we will explore creative districting through the Call Yourself Creative program.

So I would work with Bridget to look at this program, which is a free kind of do-it-yourself step-by-step program to see if creative districting aligns with our needs in Lafayette.

And this is a designation that a number of downtowns in Colorado have that have a large art scene as they become a Colorado Creative District and provides a lot of opportunities for grant funding and trainings and just more exposure of creative district.

And so that was something that was identified in our old town plan to look at.

And so we'll put that on the work plan to partner and just see if this is something that we want to stand up.

Yeah.

And it may not be a fit, but it certainly could be.

We have go ahead.

Oh no, I well, I thought Carbondale, I think it is the just the way the city embraces that whole idea of creative district.

Like the wayfinding points to it.

And I don't know, has anyone ever been to Meow Wolf?

Oh.

Santa Fe, right?

So here's Santa Fe Vegas.

Well, all the others are from that one.

Yes.

And they stretch artistically through space and town.

Because the other places are based on the story that starts there.

And I feel like our creative district is, yes, they did it well.

I think they did it well in Carbonale, but I think our entire city is big enough to imagine having the entire is that a thing that a creative district can be what's the bounds on that?

There is there, well, we'll find out when we explore this program.

But I have a colleague in Longmont who is with the Create Longmont Creates.

So Longmont Creates is their creative district.

And so it is there along their old town area.

And so we're having conversations about what that looks like for them and how they implement it and what the benefits are.

And I think that we'll gain some knowledge through our relationships with other creative districts as well as taking a look at this program.

I think that it's more of kind of like how the DDA has boundaries.

Um any um downtowns put their creative district under like partnership umbrellas, and so like DDAs end up having a strong partnership and like managing what those programs are.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there are creative districts in Longmont and like Brecken Ridge and Carbondale and Steamboat Springs and you know, all over Buena Vista, all over Colorado, a lot of rural areas, a lot of mountain towns, and um Boulder has one.

The NOBO area is a creative district, there's a yeah, last year.

So I I have um folks I work with on a regular basis there as well.

So it's an exciting opportunity to see if it's something that will fit for us, and that's the end.

Yeah, thanks, Rachel, for coming.

I mean, I think so much of our identity in our downtown is related to work that Rachel and her team does, and um, I want it just to be able to have the space for all of us to learn and ask questions, and happy to turn it over to Joanna if there's any more questions that we want to ask Rachel or um I think that there's definitely opportunities for us to partner with ACRD in the future, like we're not the experts in this, but especially in our action plan, it talked about partnerships and standing up different things, and so um we have a great resource here and partner, and you know, there's plenty of opportunities in the future.

Did anyone have additional questions for Rachel or comments?

Rachel, I just want to point out a seat.

I saw one bullet on there about electric food trucks and putting up infrastructure for that, but in the meantime, we'll talk about this offline.

But you may or may not be aware that the state of Colorado has a program for converting gas generated food trucks to electric with generators and batteries and so might be an opportunity in a room to have some events that are logical and really kind of see what that looks like.

Yeah, so we um we learned about that program from our sustainability coordinator Lizzie, and we sent that information out to all the food trucks that we've worked with in the past.

Um, some of them are going to look into that and see if they can get some grants for electrification through electric generators.

I think we did have at least one truck who did that last year.

Um at this point, it it's not really feasible to require it based on the number of food trucks that we need for art night out, but it is something that eventually could be possible.

Um, and then some communities have outlets in their areas where they have festivals and and so trucks just plug in and so that is another option around that too.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great program, and I hope they do take advantage of that.

I saw there was wayfinding on there, and that's something that we've discussed a lot.

I don't know if you guys have talked about that, but it would be great to collaborate when we get to that point.

Yeah, yeah.

We um have budgeted this year to do an RFP to get a consultant on board to rethink wayfinding in our entire district and really reimagining wayfinding as like art and light and paint, and like how do you bring people throughout the district, not with just like keep going this way.

Um so I think that that will be a great opportunity to partner with like a lot of different organizations and departments about thinking how do we reimagine moving throughout Way or whole towns?

Okay, yeah.

Were you starting to say something, Ty?

Or that's on the electrical stuff.

Are you looking to put do more permanent infrastructure?

We have looked at that.

We've talked with um Lizzie Sorz Bocan, yeah.

Why I pulled her old name out.

Um, and we've also talked with um some of the engineers and planning to see what it would take to put in better outlets.

Have you looked at the cost of like four art night out, like the temporary, like the larger generators that don't make a lot of noise where you could run power for the trucks?

I think Mark was working on looking into what we could bring in.

There are some bigger like power centers you can bring in, and it's just figuring out if we could roll that into the Arc Night Out budget or not, or find funding for that.

Yeah, just bring out the big generator called one side of the street where you offer power, they just run a lot.

Yeah, and I think then it's a conversation too.

If that works, something like that works at Art Night Out.

Can I also work at the Peach Festival and the farmers market?

So we reduce the impact of the noise and you know, generator pollution.

I mean, ultimately, like it would be great, especially as the DDA gets a larger fund balance and we're able to do larger capital projects to think about how do we make our downtown more sustainable with permanent infrastructure for these things.

Um that is like a wish list from that is definitely something to work towards, but especially since these are staples in our community.

Um, how do we just like support them?

So that's you don't have to worry about the generator, they're just plugging in when they get there.

Great.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Thanks for inviting me.

Thanks for the time.

Yeah.

I know that was long.

Thank you so much, Rachel.

Thank you.

Nice to see all of you.

You too.

Okay, moving along.

The second agenda item is Old Town Lafayette Marking Campaign Request for Proposals Process Timeline.

Great.

Okay.

Um our marketing committee have been doing some work and we're really excited that the RFP is now live.

And so I wanted to just report out about the RFP and the timeline and just answer any questions since we did have a committee that we stood up with Faith and Janae to get this out on the street.

So I'm gonna just give an overview of the purpose, the scope of work, timeline, the proposal requirements, selection criteria, and just answer any questions.

So just a brief report out.

Um so as you all know, back in October, we decided that we wanted to build off of the work that Cone has been doing since 2021, but re-imagine how that is set up by trying to work with an individual contractor or um uh that has subconsultants or can do it by themselves or even a small firm.

And so right now Cone's doing all of our management of our strategic plan with marketing.

They manage our Instagram and Facebook, our website with blog posts, events, um, works of small businesses, and then also our newsletter.

Um, and so the the big thing that we changed with this is really wanting to have an emphasis of how does someone or a bunch of individuals have a regular in-person presence.

That was the big thing that we got from those conversations was um we need someone that can actually engage and help um stand up collaborations and storytelling um and not just do that behind the screen, but actually build relationships with boots on the ground, and so that is a theme that we had throughout the RFP.

Yeah, um, so the scope of work um and the full scope of work is in the RFP that's in your packet, but I just wanted to kind of highlight what we put in here, and so business engagement and community outreach.

So, again, having that regular visible presence, um, refreshing our uh refreshing our strategic plan for marketing, um, making sure that we have constant uh in uh content for Instagram and Facebook, and when something pops up, they they know about it and they're able to post about it.

Um manage our website, there's a lot of back of house that happens with that, um, but also write blogs, create graphics, we have a uh directory and the calendar, um, do some digital advertising, someone posts on um our accounts that they're responding back with public relations, um, and then just making sure that we are thinking about um lessons learned and uh metrics yearly and updating that and then also just regular account management.

And so essentially taking everything that Cone did, but if we want to kind of restructure this into let's try to find some that is more locally based that we can build a relationship and they can be boots on the ground.

And so we released the RFP on January 29th, which was great.

Um, it's on BidNet.

We also um I remind me of that website's name.

Andrew Hudson's job list.

It's on there too.

Um Andrew Hudson's job list.

It's a big job list in Denver.

And what's great is a lot of people have seen it and have reached out, and so um we have a deadline of February 18th for um questions so uh respondents can ask questions and then we'll compile all of them and answer them, and they'll get posted on February 23rd, and then submissions will be on March 2nd.

So it's about a month for respondents to put together proposals.

Um Faith, Janae, and I, and probably a member of our city's communication team will review all of those proposals and score them and shortlist them.

Um, and I'll share the criteria in a moment, and then we'll do interviews, and we had to do an addendum already because uh I scheduled the interviews during BBSD spring break.

And since I have a toddler, that wasn't registering for me.

Um so well, I know that there's different spring breaks also in neighboring jurisdictions with JEFCO.

And so we'll just see what happens and making sure that we can be available.

And then the idea is that we're bringing forward a recommended consultant for the board to meet and vote on at the April meeting, which will give us April, May to transition everything from Cone to that respondent.

So we'll have a good cushion.

But I think that you know, with a professional contractor, we can get it done.

So the proposal requirements all listed within the RFP, but I think the narrative will be helpful to really understand their approach to business engagement and relationship building, and then methods for maintaining a local presence and in-person availability.

I think if someone says we're gonna fly in once a month versus I live in Lafayette are gonna be scored differently, right?

Um having a staffing and subconsultant plan, project schedule fee, and then relevant past projects, making sure that this is something that they're familiar with with the scope and just the business engagement.

They say they're gonna fly and they're already already overpriced.

Yeah.

Yes, that was a question of is that included in the fee.

I'm like, okay, well, we'll answer that one.

Uh so the selection criteria um we'll have um a rubric and score each of them of understanding the project and proposed approach, ability and experience to execute local place-based campaigns, project team, management capacity, and then fee proposal and cost-effectiveness.

And so we did list 100,000 as an anticipated budget, but welcomed individuals topose uh alternative fee schedules, and so we're saying this is what we think it is, but tell us if we're missing something.

Um so next steps, uh, we are proposing we're getting those questions and they'll be posted on BidNet.

And so there's a link in the RP.

And so if you know someone, just make sure that they keep their eyes on BidNet.

Um, and I've already reached out to four local individuals who have shared it in the past that they're interested in putting their hat in the ring and they're looking at it.

So I think that we're gonna get a good mix of people, and I'm really excited about it.

Um, so I know that there's been a lot of build-up to this, but it's happening.

And uh I'm excited to see what we get, and I think um that April meeting will be really exciting.

So happy to answer any questions.

Does Cone know that this transition is coming and are they prepared to work with whoever we select?

So they they know the transition is coming, and they also are meeting internally about thinking about is there a way that they could restructure or partner someone else to maybe even put their hat in the ring.

Um, so since we do have a relationship with them, I wanted to, I gave it to them and said, Hey, these are the big things that we're interested in, and so if this seems like a good fit, um we definitely welcome you to respond.

So we'll see.

Thank you for working on that.

Yeah, yeah, definitely thanks to Faith and Janae.

And Janae does this as a for her full-time job, so it was helpful to have her look through everything.

Okay, cool.

Moving right along.

Moving right along, next agenda item.

Um, okay, so this is I wanted to report out on the 200 North Public Road requests for proposals, and then also see whether if the DDA wants to participate on the review committee.

This is the old Chase Bank building that the city purchased, and so since it's in our downtown and it's a very um high profile piece of property that um the city's selling in partnership with Lura.

I wanted to just kind of walk through this and answer any questions since it's a little complicated if you're not in it.

Um just uh and just answer questions and see if you all want to participate in the review committee.

Um 200 North Public Road is the um old vacant uh Chase Bank building, and then just south of there is 108 North Public Road, which is has served for public parking.

Um, I think the thing that people don't realize is that was those two parcels were both owned by Chase and Laura uh lease parking each year from Chase Bank.

Um Laura has actually tried to purchase this in the past, and Chase um wasn't interested.

And when um the Chase Bank relocated to nine mile, Laura approached them again and said, Hey, we would like to purchase the parking lot since it's a core piece of infrastructure, and they declined and said we're gonna sell both these properties together.

So Laura approached the city and saying we need to purchase this strategic piece of property, um losing 35 spaces would be detrimental to our downtown.

Um and we think that there's an opportunity to um buy both and sell off the Chase Bank building to make sure that there isn't long vacancy and to um lean towards maybe having uh a business go in there locally or um even having sales tax generating use.

So there's a lot of opportunities with this, and being able to actually own 108 North Public Road.

If you've noticed, we've never done pop-ups there, it's never been programmed.

That's because of insurance with Chase, so you can only use it for parking, and which is why it's never been used for something else.

And so being able to own a big piece of property um in the our downtown is huge just for different programming opportunities.

So the Chase Bank building is actually very large, it's about 8,000 square feet, first floor and back basement combined, so it's about 4,000 on each floor.

Is it the lumber is in the back side of the parking?

Yeah, diagonal.

Yeah, yeah.

So you can see right here.

Yep.

And that's where they also have the angle.

Yeah.

Um and the uh amazing mural that's there is faces the parking lot.

Yeah.

Um, and so what's interesting about this building is it's square, has two vaults in it.

Um, it has a very large basement, um, which is huge.

Um, there is a drive-through there, but drive-throughs aren't allowed in Old Town, so we wouldn't necessarily be looking to have another drive-through use.

But being able to think of this as adapted reuse, you could create um, you can move parking to where the drive-throughs are, you can activate it with a patio.

Um, there's this is actually a very interesting building to think about activating it.

Um, and then with 108 North Public Road, like I said, you can use this for the farmers market if there were opportunities to doing different pop-ups or incubators, a taste of Lafayette or a makers market.

This could be a prime location for that.

Um, and aligns with our downtown vision plan and our action plan.

And um during this whole process, um, we actually always imagined that this would be activated at one point.

This is the original renderings from the front porch project with which Laura funded.

And the idea was having those openings would be a great way to be able to grab some food and hang out in the Adirondack's chairs, and because this is next door farmers market, having this is just a huge huge win.

Um, yeah.

Could the drive-up at the bank be used as a walk-up like to serve food, like the ice cream place that should be in theory?

You can do walk-ups, you just can't do the drug.

You can have a car, walk through it.

We don't need a car, jump jump on a bill.

Look who you're talking to.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm first, just y'all need to wait.

Yeah.

Um, and so I did want to highlight um the public benefit piece.

So it's actually really rare for the city to purchase a piece of property like this.

Um, and one of the reasons why it happened was because Laura approached the city and said we need to acquire this for a public purpose.

So municipalities and urban renewal authorities are authorized to acquire property for public purposes like transportation, housing, utilities, economic development.

And in this case, it's economic development through the public parking.

And that's why Laura, even though they were winding down, really took the lead, they had the fund balance and wanted to make this happen before they completely sunset.

Um, and that's why there's they're they're mentioned in this a bunch.

Um, as far as how this happened, um, both properties together were 2.6 million.

Um, so um Laura reimbursed the city last year, a million dollars for the parking lot.

Um, and this is already part of the public parking lot program, this piece, and so it will continue to be maintained through the DDA through that program.

Um, and so that just includes snow removal and light maintenance striping.

Is the city still the owner of it?

Yes, okay.

Yeah.

What is the reimbursement?

For the 1 million?

Yeah, the Laura's real.

So since there's two pieces of property and we want to split them off, Laura assigned a million dollars to it so we could discount the Chase Bank building by a million dollars.

So you're looking for 1.6 for the Chase.

Yes.

And so um the city and Laura are working with a broker to prepare a request for proposals to sell it at 1.6 with the goal of or having a preference, right?

Of a local business or businesses or a local developer to activate it preferably with the sales tax generating use.

We will accept all proposals.

Um, but that we're working right now diligently on getting that together.

We have a broker on board, and so um the idea is that we release that RP late February, but probably March, and you keep that open through May, and I'll go through that in another slide.

And it's specifically for sale, like for sale.

Okay.

Yep.

One of the ways that we were able to do this was say that the city could front the money, but they need to be made whole.

And so they're not at this point interested in being a long-term landlord.

They're they took that funds out of the general fund, and so they're they're looking to help with this, but um like to be made whole.

But we wanted to like keep it as low as possible so we could actually maybe have a small business be able to own it rather than like a really large.

Yeah.

Or um also someone who just wants to hold it for investment for a long period of time.

Yeah, I'm just thinking because it's gonna need some re stuff done to it.

Yeah.

Um the idea is that June.

Well, I'll just go through this next slide.

Um so we have a draft, and behind the scenes, we've actually been working with um a firm called Economic and Planning Systems to look at the feasibility of this project, both of if someone were to just um rent the top floor or activate the top floor if someone were to do both the top and bottom, if someone were to do top and bottom in addition, and if someone were to do scrape and rebuild and see the financial viability, and it all works.

Um, there are some proposals that will probably need assistance through our vacant to vibrant um permit fee program, maybe even dig.

There might be some small businesses that come to um get financial assistance, but in general, we feel like listing it at 1.6 will there will be some interest.

Um, so we'll we are gonna do this in a two-step process.

And this is something that we learned when Laura sold two other pieces of property that uh it was hard for individuals since this is unique to do an RFP, it's hard for individuals to invest in a lot of time and money to put together an RFP.

They they don't know if we're actually interested.

And so we're doing a phase one March through April on a rolling basis where we say give us your concept, your narrative, your idea, and the subcommittee will give you a thumbs up of we want to advance you to phase two where you actually build out a full proposal with a business plan and a performa.

That way we're really not wasting anyone's time and we're getting proposals that we are actually interested in.

So that will um those phase two proposals will be due in May, and then um the subcommittee will review proposals, do interviews, and we'll actually do a level of community outreach through the city's Lafayette Listens page in early summer, so June and July.

And the idea is that um that subcommittee is either bringing multiple proposals saying we feel good about these three proposals, or there was only one proposal that we felt good about to council in July, and then the idea is that we are getting under contract, and depending on what the scope is, we could close in the fall, or if it they want to wait until they get a certain entitlement, it could um go into 2027.

But the idea is that we're trying to um really hit the market and see what we get um see what the response is and try to sell this this year.

Yes.

Did you say I thought I heard you say there might be an interested buyer who would hold it as an investment?

Um as like in a hyper.

Well, we're trying to not have to have that.

Right, in a hypothetical, the reason why we have this preference for a local business or businesses or developer is to activate it rather than someone who just wants to hold it for a long-term investment.

I just wanted to make sure like the forest.

Yes, that's a great example.

Yeah, um, oh yeah.

We'll get there, but once you've gone through this process and choose a buyer and close, what how do you enforce their use for their fall through what they're submitted?

So the this will probably um have an economic development agreement attached to it.

And depending on what sort of package is put there, there might be a promissory note in a data trust that essentially says, like, you know, we're we're giving you this discount or um this package in return, you're gonna do X, Y, and Z for a certain amount of years.

We'll likely also have a first writer refusal.

So if they were to ever um sell it, the city would have the opportunity to purchase again.

Now, you know, it's we don't want to necessarily have a deed restriction on it because that really hinders individuals from being able to get a conventual mortgage.

Because it's probably going to, I mean, obviously, you want it to generate with that side generates revenue, and you're gonna have to do some redesign.

Would it qualify for for TIFF funding?

Would that something that's nothing that we could um participate in is and that's a larger discussion, um, especially since uh we are going to start generating TIP if we want to um be able to offer rebates.

Now I would want to make sure I have like a couple workshops with you all to explain how that works and the mechanism and um how to implement those, but it is a tool that we have.

I don't think that just helps activate what I was talking about, yeah.

Because once you attach that to it, you've got a little more control.

Totally activation and timetables and all that good stuff.

Yeah.

Now it's a huge opportunity, especially since this is kind of like right there in the middle of our town, right?

Um, and being able just to connect the dots as far as making sure that we're both going south on South Public, but north on North Public.

Um be big.

So um, as part of this with Laura and the city partnering, um, I've been authorized as the other executive director um to lead this RFP process, and Laura's had experience of doing two others, so we we have some really good lessons learned about how this works.

Um, and that the review committee will review the proposals and also make a recommendation to city council, but city council has that final approval since they are they'll be doing an ordinance to dispose of a piece of property.

And so the review committee um right now we're looking to have two members of Laura.

We're inviting two members of the DDA if you all want to participate, and then one or two members of a city department.

Um, and again, the idea is that um we're also engaging with the community to get feedback.

So this isn't just necessarily a vacuum of a small group, but we're having transparent process where we're making sure that different proposals resonate with the community.

Oh, what is that process?

So we've done it through our engagement platform called Lafayette Listens, and it's really great because they have a different uh different modules where you can get surveys and feedback.

We've used it on a number of projects, um, and we did it when we uh got under contract for 760 West Baseline.

Um, we were able to get some feedback from the community and hear what do you like, what are your concerns?

Is there something that we're missing?

Um and so it's just a great way to get dialogue and um cast a wide net of responses.

So um my direction needed um is whether the DDA would like to participate in this review committee, and then my second bullet here is um understanding that you all have different um uh you all represent different constituents, right?

But you also have different engagement within this community, and I've already seen some different people who are interested in it, and I want to make sure that there's no potential conflict of interest, and at the same time looking at what y'all's um just uh capacity is in general on your other subcommittees, and so I wanted to just throw this out there, um, and I'm happy to go through all of these, but I would like y'all to consider um appointing Tom and Joanna to be on this review committee, and it's uh if we need to have a large discussion, I'm happy to do that.

But I I don't want to have any perceived conflicts of interest, and so um this might just be a a good way to I haven't identified any for you two yet.

Yeah, so we just get to like tell them yes, you get to take that.

Now you all could say, you know what, we don't actually want to really want to participate.

The order of the bullet points, but I wanted to make it easy for you guys if you needed a nudging.

So I have some proposed motion language, and I blank names there.

So if we want if someone else was really interested, we could talk about it.

I 100% support that, but are you guys both good with that?

Okay, that's fine.

That's my take.

Yeah.

What about you?

Yeah, I'm good with that.

I was told not to volunteer for anything else tonight.

There was also the capacity caveats here, right?

Yeah.

That was I was given firm instructions before I left the house.

Just to be quick, yeah.

Yeah, and I know that Janae is gonna be reviewing a bunch of marketing proposals, so she'll she'll have a lot to do.

And Faith can't sit on it because she also sits on Laura.

Um, so three people turn into a meeting.

Yeah.

So it do we have a motion then?

Uh move to appoint DDA director, Joanna Kagan, and Tom, I don't remember your last name.

Hardy to participate on the 200 North Public Road Review Committee.

Do second?

I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed.

Okay, the motion passes.

Great.

Thank you for letting me make that.

Okay, we have one more item for regular business, and then I have some staff updates.

So election of officers.

It's 2026, so we have to revisit our annual election for chair and vice chair.

So as you all know, Joanna's been serving as chair and Faith has been serving as vice chair, and they're totally eligible to continue if they so wish.

And so similar to last year, this is how it goes.

One of you is gonna say, I would like to nominate so and so for chair or vice chair, and then I'm going to ask them if they accept it, and then if they accept the nominee nomination, then I'm gonna call for future nominations.

If there's none, I'll close nominations.

And then I will ask, may I have a second motion to nominate so-and-so for position?

Any discussion, all those in favor.

So if you need some more help with this, I'm happy to do it.

But normally someone asks Joanna or Faith if they enjoy doing this.

Are you all interested in considering your roles?

Doing a great job.

I think we need to do it.

Don't have been a couple months, right?

I'm happy to continue.

Yeah, we're fine.

But I'm also super open if anybody else don't want to stay in the way of someone's vision.

Yeah.

I would officially like to nominate Joanna Kagan as the chair because she's done an amazing job.

What was that?

Second that nomination.

I'm not allowed to do that yet.

Oh, I uh accept that nomination.

Okay.

Thanks.

Uh is there any other nominations?

Great, I'm gonna close that.

Um may I have a second, are we already have a second?

Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Uh great.

Uh I'm gonna open it up for the vice chair now.

Wish I was the sufficient.

Um, I'd like to nominate Faith Rogers for the position of uh DDA vice chair.

I accept the nomination.

Are there any other nominations?

See now, I'm gonna close that.

May I have a second motion to nominate Faith for vice chair?

I second.

Uh any discussion.

All those in favor.

Great.

All right.

Congratulations.

Then the glitter done.

All right.

Uh all right, lovely.

Now we have um some more opportunity for me to talk with staff.

Um okay, so I'm gonna go over the agenda meeting look ahead.

Um, give you guys a fun update on the DDA outreach and strategy with some fun things to show.

Um, we have some committee updates and then the second Friday's partnership.

Um before I even dive into the here, I found out from our finance team last Friday that we officially generated TIFF last year.

Woohoo!

So we have 66,000 that we generated, which is awesome considering that we only generated it from February through December since we didn't approve our action plan, our plan of development until February.

So that's even missing a month.

Great.

Um, and so thinking about our trajectory and just different businesses that are coming online.

Um, I am positive, I'm not positive, but I'm hopeful that we will see an um continued growth.

And then um next year we'll be looking to probably get our first property tax tip.

So um, so some things that we're gonna um have coming up is we're gonna be doing a 2025 budget carry forward.

We didn't use all of our funds allocated for dig of last year, and so we're actually able to carry that forward and put it towards this pot of um 2026.

And since council approves our budget, I'll be coming to you with that what that looks like, and then um it will be part of the city's budget carry for process that happens in April.

Um we'll also have award announcements for the creativity and culture micro grant.

Um April, we're looking to have that uh marketing contract and then parking lot leases will be coming forward this spring.

So these are things that I know that are happening, and obviously things will pop up.

Um so DDA outreach strategy.

Um as part of our work plan, we had a number about governance and communication about how to get the word out there with the DDA, and it all started with the logo, and now it's like how do we actually share who we are and get the word out there.

And so I wanted to just share some updates of some kind of backup house infrastructure that we have and some of the work that we're doing.

Um so as if you've emailed me lately, you've seen that I now have the logo on my email signature, and I actually have a thing um on there that says scheduled time to meet with our uh scheduled time to meet on our DDA's booking page.

Um, and so I will if if you have not seen that, it's run through Microsoft, and if you click it, um you have options to do a meet and greet with me if you need to have 30-minute touch base call or um have a project meeting, which is a little bit longer of a time, and then it just pulls up um my available times on my calendar, and so this is a really great way of if someone wants to meet, and instead of being like, Are you free this time or this time or this time?

I can just send the link and they can schedule time and um already a lot of people have this link and have been sharing it, and people have been making um meeting requests with me.

Um, and so it's getting around, which is great.

Um and uh it is great, don't worry.

Oh my god.

I'll I would yes, it's great.

Um and so this is just a great way to be accessible to our downtown of if you meet a knee with me, I'm around.

Is this on the DDA, like the it does it live other places besides just your email signature?

It lives in my email signature because sometimes people reach out um thinking that I'm the person they need to talk to when really it's someone else.

And so I tend to once I build a relationship, I give it to someone, and if if um I know that we need to work together, I'll give it to them.

But on the other pages, um, it's just a regular, like let's have an email correspondence before we decide like this is the right thing.

I don't want someone to set up a meeting when they're waiting for a week, and then that's like, oh, you actually need to talk to someone from public works.

That makes sense.

Um I also have a city of Lafayette business card, and since I have the same phone number and email address, we are gonna print them double-sided because people still use business cards that have my title and a QR code to just bring you to the DDA's website.

So it will be a great opportunity.

If I meet someone, I can just give them the business card with QR code and it brings you to all the information you need about the DDA.

Do you have a hat with a leach logo on it?

Many hats.

Oh, we would probably be a bucket hat.

Oh so I'm really excited that our website is now officially live.

Um if you go to our old town website, visit Oldtown Lafayette.com.

We're also going to be switching the domain soon.

So if you go to that website or Oldtown Lafayette.com, it'll bring you both here.

You got Old Town Lafayette.com.

It's true.

Um, which is great.

There's a lot of history behind it.

I really want to know this.

Um and there's this cute little bubble here, and you click it and it takes you all to that page that I previewed last time.

So it's all done, it's live, it's super clean.

If you want to just hit grants and resources, it pops you down there.

And so this will be your one-stop shop.

If you hit um visit meeting agendas in minutes, this will take you to the city's website because that is just our repository for all of our um streaming.

But the idea is that everyone's just going to that other website, and this is the only this only has agendas and minutes to learn about meetings and everything else, also on that other website.

So we're trying to not make it confusing.

Um, so that's really exciting.

Um the other thing is uh we did a blog post about DIG and CCM.

Um, and so there was social media blast about it, and just trying to get the word out there that um we have programs and we want to work with you.

The other thing is we had a Lafayette listens website um for the election towards the DDA when we were doing outreach, and now that we are a DDA, um we rebranded that site to mirror a lot of the information on our regular or website.

But the great thing about this is if we ever want to do engagement with the community about a project that we're doing, think about like wayfinding.

Um, we can use the Lafayette Listens page to do that, and it's a really great tool, um, and it's all set up.

We have our action plan on here, fact sheets about what a DDA is, frequently asked questions.

Um, and again, a lot of this stuff is evergreen, so it's bringing it's redirecting you to that website for current information.

So it's exciting that this is refreshed too.

We also um shared uh the creativity and culture micro grant in the Lafayette Connections, which is attached to anyone that gets a water bill.

It's in English and in Spanish, it's right over here.

And we also shared our annual report so trying to just get the word out there about who we are and what we did this past year.

And this is a preview of the postcard that's ready to print that will go to every property in Old Town or our DDA district related to Dig.

And so getting the word out there about that program.

Um we've been sharing this a lot just with applicants that are coming to the city for a building permit, we're asking for economic development assistance, but um being able to uh share this with everyone is a great opportunity to try to just reach different individuals.

Um and on the back it also says uh have you heard about the new DVA?

Um and this is just gonna be a good opportunity to introduce ourselves.

Um I know that's particulars, but what and I don't know it's a facade.

Yeah.

What uh what happened?

Just when people are like yeah, this is what you can do.

I don't know.

There was a huge facade.

Um it's way better.

Yeah, renovation on this one.

There was I mean it's a siding change.

Like if you look at deciding in the top there, they changed it to that green or sighting instead of what the window siding shutters.

But okay, maybe I should put a little caption there about new, yeah.

Um, but the idea is that this is capital improvements, so interior and exterior, and just highlighting an example of that.

I think it'd be great with just a mini split of um and um yeah, so a lot of really I mean a lot of the stuff isn't like in your face when you're walking down the street, but they're just different infrastructure that we're building out, and um now our next steps is really let's continue to get the word out there.

Um and so I've been educating city staff, whether that's public works or planning or building or fire, um, anyone that kind of touches different customers within our downtown to be able to share our resources and saying, Hey, have you talked to Bridget about the DDA yet?

Um and we're getting a lot of really great referrals that way.

And so um anytime someone comes in for a building permit or plan development, we'll have standard comment language that goes into that of saying this is how you find out that formation about these grants or resources or just in general working with the DDA.

Um we're gonna mail that dig postcard um in the next couple weeks, and then um we are also gonna be planning our first networking event.

Uh Tom and Ty and I are gonna be meeting to um work out the logistics of that, but aiming to have that in late March.

Um I'm also gonna be sending out a survey to you guys about if you're really passionate about engaging with your your neighbors, um, and if you want to help with some of this this district engagement or even thinking about like block captains.

So I'm gonna just get a pulse from you all about um I plan to do this, but if you want to be part of it, um you can let me know.

Yeah, probably usually at the shop, so like send something up where people know they can come by.

Yeah, you know, for sure.

Chat about it with that would be cool.

And then um, yeah, now I'm gonna just start walking around.

Um so I have a lot of relationships, obviously, with many businesses and property owners in Old Town, and a lot of my work just in the past six years when you being here has allowed me the to build those relationships, but it's also just reintroducing this new um entity and how we're different and how we want to engage.

And so um it will be a lot of reintroducing um our downtown.

Are you eyeing in the boots on the ground also the um some of the group gatherings, you know, like the the downtown the Lafayette Arts Administrators meets quarterly?

Yeah, I um you know I sit with that group in my wow role, and I feel like I get a lot of DDA flurry of excitement.

But I think it'd be great to have you come and present or the chamber or you know, those kind of pre-existing groups that's a great point.

Yeah, I wanna I want to present it all of them.

Um so if you think that there's a good thing that's happening that there's already a a group of individuals, I would love to come speak at like would love to come to Confluence, like uh we're doing a state of the city with chamber members that I'll be talking about, the DDA.

Um, so if you already know of a group, um you know, even going to some of our boards and commissions that engage and giving them a report out and update.

Um it's good just to get the word out consistently.

Yeah.

Does anybody on the board speak Spanish?

I speak Spanish.

You do?

Okay.

Is that a volunteering?

Sure.

Wow.

It would just be so great to have somebody who spoke Spanish if we're going around.

You don't speak Spanish.

I don't speak Spanish.

Um, my team member Isabella is fluent in Spanish.

Oh, right.

She's bilingual.

Okay.

Um, and we also have a dedicated contract with the Boulder Latino chamber with engagement with our businesses.

And so um, I love that we just volunteer Ian that he's been part of this cult.

Um, but we do have a lot of resources, and that's just part of the um the idea of like that's meet people where they are.

Like if there's already community connections and trusted leaders, work through those channels.

Um and so trying to um build relationships through that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And if I need Ian last minute, I I'll have this number.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, but this is exciting.

Like all started with the logo.

Now we're we're almost we're not grown up, but like we're in college.

I don't know.

Yeah.

You made a lot of progress, Bridget.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Short amount of time.

Yeah.

Uh this was this was fun to do.

So yeah.

Um, so dig January awards.

We awarded two for two eleven North Public Road, one for the business with Ty, and then one with the property owner.

Um, and so uh the there's a huge undertaking have happening over there with Remies.

And so we were able to help with the fire suppression, hood installation, and then uh the new kitchen duct and exhaust system.

Um so happy to see that they are one step closer to opening hopefully soon.

Um I also have two um uh applications that um I just received a revision, and so there's probably two that we're also gonna award this month, which is really exciting.

Um both projects are actually on baseline road.

Um, and so it's it's great that we're tracking all of these about where we're seeing different um activity and making sure that we are trying to equably um spread this program throughout the district.

And we'll have opportunity um to allocate additional funds if we want to.

Um we have an extra 50,000 dollars in our downtown development bucket, and so that might be a conversation that I have with you all.

Um if we if we allocate all those funds, if we want to put more funds into our dig program, especially now that we have additional tip.

Um a reminder that the creativity and culture microgrant is due on Valentine's Day.

Um, so get it before your plans.

And uh we have two applications already, and I know of a couple of other people who are planning to apply, so excited to um review those and award those um late February, early March.

And then uh as I mentioned, Ty and Tom and I uh are gonna be meeting on February 18th to talk about our first networking event.

They're on our planning committee.

Um, and I wanna, you know, and talking to individuals about how to make these useful and topics that people are interested in.

I'm thinking that maybe you know, we'll have us a brief presentation on each of these about something that's relevant to our downtown businesses, and then just have regular mingling and so some speaker ideas, and if you guys have other ideas, feel free to reach out to any of us.

Um, but you know, this first one's probably gonna be just an introduction to the DVA, but um other ones could be um having uh pace come to talk about just rebates that they offer.

Um the small business development center has a lot of really great workshops, and we're thinking about what's a good one relevant to our downtown to bring in to do, and then also workforce Boulder County.

Um we can also think about doing one with the Latino chamber, and so um I think that being able to piggyback on just these other resources could really make these useful networking events while also getting to know each other.

Yeah.

Do you guys have a date in mind yet?

Just late March.

Okay, yeah.

I would love to come.

So just like keep us in the loop about planning dates.

Yeah.

Because I do have a lot of like events and classes in March.

Yeah, we'll probably do it on a holiday.

Um I just yeah, I think it's like participate and help.

But that's great.

I'll maybe what we'll do is we'll give out some some options and just do a poll to see how many of our DVM members are available to participate.

Okay.

Um it'd be great if we could get a lot of you there.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, I'm realizing that some people are gonna only be available in the morning.

Some people are only gonna be available after work, some people are only gonna be available at lunch.

So each of them might be a different time frame.

Yeah.

Okay.

I I love the idea of doing um a speaker or a topic or a theme.

I think for the I mean, Bridge just described to us how nothing makes her happier than that calendar filled with meet and greets.

Yeah.

But uh, we can't assume that all small business, you know, for the introverts having a focus that you know that they're you know it's yeah, it gets you out and it gives you a even a topic of conversation when the presentation is done or something.

Do have we ever done like lunch and learns?

Um so like the Boulder the Boulder Small Business Development Center does workshops like that.

Um, and we have a dedicated contract with them.

Um where you know, we one of them that was really good was um lease negotiations for commercial lease negotiations.

Very like that might be a really good one to be like, hey, we're having uh a commercial broker that works with SBDC come in and like this is your opportunity to ask these questions and even doing surveys to our district and being like what topics do you feel like you need to do.

So that first I mean we'll talk about it in the meeting, but that's probably a good lead for that first meeting is just to kind of get an idea of what people like to see like instead of assuming we know get some feedback on what they want so we can plan some stuff out.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, the the idea of of these is to like make them useful and making sure that we're we're listening, yeah.

I think also like building the connections between the small business owners, yeah, yeah.

Collaboration.

Which help with that second Friday thing.

Yeah.

Um, which is a great segue.

Um last update is um we I think last time I shared that we're we're gonna try to launch this in the fall, right?

And so we were able to um negotiate a a price.

Um and so it is under ten thousand dollars, and that includes everything from logo creation to building the materials, everything.

Um it's combine.

It's not cone, it's um Gili Wolf.

Okay, who is uh artist at Kaleidoscope and she has a marketing, a local marketing firm.

Um so it would be great to also work with someone local who actually really knows a lot about the art scene in Lafayette too.

Um so that'll be uh a fun project, and now that we're gonna do it in the fall, we have more time to just take a take a breath and make sure that it launches successfully.

Yeah.

And is it it's through the winter?

It's gonna be the off time of our night out.

So October through April.

Who okay?

That is the challenge, the test.

What was that whoa?

What was that?

I mean, that's isn't that more events than art night out?

And the idea is not that we're reducing an art night out, but more like on the second Friday, there's different things to do in our downtown.

And so check out the web page and see what offerings the apothecary is doing, what what's on 13 doing and just get you get you out?

Yeah.

You can do multiple things if you want to.

Yes.

Okay, I'm gonna I'm good.

I got you ride your bike.

And those are all my updates.

Thanks for hanging in there.

Great.

Thank you.

Um we'll move on to new business and directors' reports.

Do any directors have any updates you wish to share?

Hope to feed you guys in March.

Yeah.

Oh, that's so exciting.

That's kind of update.

Yeah.

Fingers crossed.

Yeah.

I did meet with Caleb Dickinson, who is the mayor with him in Lewisville, about something called the Lola ride.

I've done that.

Okay.

So the idea behind this is that we promote both downtowns on a riding route.

And if we start in downtown Lewisville, we go up Main Street, cross over, you know, of course.

Um South Boulder Road, right along the railroad tracks, not on the tracks, along the side in the park in the driveway.

And then there's a path that gets you all the way under 42 behind the Balfour areas over to Heckla Lake.

There's a power line that treat trail that takes you down the carrier and then up to Wanaco Lake.

You come around Wanaca Lake to Emma, and they take Emma all the way in to Public Road.

And then the loop is to go down public road to Cole Creek and then back into Lewisville.

There's only a couple of places where it's a little dicey um on the Lafayette side and on Louisville side, they're working on they have a there's a plan to work out any of the things that might be a little intimidating for people on bikes, especially with families and whatnot.

But um should this plan move forward, it would be one of those collaborative pieces with Louisville to ensure that people know that there's an easy way to get to downtown Lawfield.

Yeah, uh people in Mafia would easily know that there's a loop, and then the only additional piece may be signage and wayfinding.

And that's this is that's way down the line, but that would be uh a way for people to regularly be able to do that.

That's exciting.

Yeah, they're really fun rides.

Yeah, and uh especially when you ride with a mass group of people, like it's easy to move people through those challenging intersections because cars normally like okay, I have to wait for 40 people to get through.

Um but yeah, that's it's a cool ride.

Launch a bike ride this brings launch a bike right?

Yeah like a big ride we have to do like yes on a regular basis and it could be third night third Friday has a lot of Fridays.

That's it.

That's great.

I love it.

Is there any other directors updates or new business?

Ignore that anything else great um dinner time.

It's dinner time the time is now seven fifty four and we are adjourned.

Thanks very much