Welcome everyone to our Mesa City Council study session for May 18th, 2026.

Councilmember Adams is participating by Zoom.

Otherwise, all other council members are present.

As usual, Council item was to review the agenda for tonight's council meeting.

I know we went over this agenda previously, but are there any other additional questions or thoughts?

Mr.

Adams, I'll defer to you to if you mayor, thank you.

Uh no, I do not have any items that I would like to discuss at this time.

Okay.

So on uh mayor.

Yes.

On item 11AB.

This is in one or the other, correct?

There is an update to that.

Okay.

Uh I'll take it.

Uh Mayor and Council and Vice Mayor.

Uh the that the idea originally was to introduce both, but the applicant uh just I think it was late Thursday, uh, requested um and agreed to have 11B withdrawn, and so they'll move forward with only 11A, which is the staff recommendation, which is the lower density product that's also um proposal that's also consistent with uh sub-area plan.

Okay, and then since we're gonna do 11A, that sounds fine.

Um the application of House Bill 2721 in the middle of housing.

Do we have a final answer on on that and how that would apply to this case in the future?

So we we looked at that, Vice Mayor, and it was a really good question you brought up last Thursday.

And and our our view of this is in that that that that piece of legislation, they wouldn't be able to switch to middle housing without having to come back.

Um practically we would they would not be able to uh make that switch without having to come back and going back through council and uh and having it as a rezoning.

It would be because it and they'd be changing the density.

Okay, so thank you.

That's it.

Mr.

Adams, since we're on that agenda item, did you want to weigh in on 11A?

27.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Um, yes, I think that uh we're moving forward in the best way that we can to both accommodate the request and uphold and uh uh maintain the spirit of the sub area plan, which has been in place for quite a while.

I know that it was just a small uh adjustment that was made, but we certainly appreciate the applicant understanding how important our sub area plans are and uh uh that they agreed to uh to modify to accommodate that very good, thank you.

Council, anything else on the agenda.

All right, let's go home.

I know items not on the consent agenda is item 12A, and that's the Mesa Town Center Improvement District.

I know we're gonna have a presentation at the study session, so we can reserve comments till then if that's okay with council.

Yep.

All right.

With that said, we'll end uh item one and go move over to or item one and go over to item two, a presentation discussion on downtown Mesa Association services accomplishments and future plans.

Jimmy and Jeff evening, Mayor and Council Jeff McVay, manager of urban transformation.

With me today is Jimmy Chiraccio, and I'm on first time officially in front of this body, introducing Jimmy as the executive director and uh president of the downtown Mesa Association.

Last time Jimmy was here presenting on on uh to you, it was as a project manager in the Office of Urban Transformation.

So we welcome Jimmy in his new role as executive director of DMA.

Um having that three years, I'll just say the three years working in the Office of Urban Transformation has been a great benefit to the formation and really the building of the partnership between DMA and the city, having somebody that understands how the city works from the inside, and as well as having a great deal of uh experience running downtown business improvement districts has been a real benefit to us.

I know it's only been a few short months, but uh we're putting Jimmy up in front of you to present the annual um annual um statement of work and then also looking forward into next year and and budget for next year.

So with that, I'm just gonna hand over to Jimmy and I'll be ready to answer questions at the end.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thanks, Jeff.

Um, mayor and council members, thank you for having me here today to uh go through all this with you.

I appreciate the time.

Um uh as Jeff mentioned, I came in in October with the transition of leadership at DMA um with the goal of specifically as we headed into the holidays and all the events of trying to keep momentum going so we didn't lose track with anything.

Um so we wanted to really focus on events and keeping our clean team active so downtown's looking great and hopping with people.

So um, as you mentioned, we're gonna start off with the uh accomplishments of the last year.

Um before we get into that, I just want to give a quick background on DMA, uh, mostly as a reminder for y'all.

Um DMA was formed uh by the commercial property owners in 1985, uh, with the uh the idea that they were going to uh use the assessment district to fund enhanced services such as cleaning, marketing, and event act and activations for the downtown area uh to help revitalize it.

Um they formed a 501c6 organization, which is downtown Mesa Association uh to manage that.

DMA also uh has a uh uh 501c3 arm, which is Ultimate Imaginations Incorporated.

Uh that's the one we use basically to uh fundraise for our events to solicit sponsorships and get money in to keep those events going.

Uh if you're looking at the district, it's one square mile uh around the downtown of the downtown, uh bordered by university to Broadway, Mesa Drive to Country Club.