Good morning and welcome to the economic development and the arts subcommittee meeting on this Tuesday, October 14th, 2025.

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

And then I will turn to our city attorney, David Benton, to explain public comment.

Morning, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

During citizen comment, members of the public may address subcommittee for up to three minutes on issues of interest or concern to them.

Citizen Comment session is limited to 30 minutes.

The Arizona Open Meeting Law permits the city, the subcommittee to listen to the comments but prohibits members from discussing or acting on matters presented with regards to agenda items.

Members of the public committee speak up to two minutes on and comment on agenda items to be discussed.

Comments may be must be related to the agenda item and action being considered.

General comments go beyond that go beyond the scope must be made during citizen comment.

Subcommittee and staff cannot discuss or comment on matters related to pending investigations, claims, or litigation.

Additionally, any member of the public who appears before subcommittee in their capacity as lobbyists must be required to disclose that fact uh during the comment period.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you so much, sir.

Next we will allow our interpreter to induce introduce herself, Elsie Duarte.

Madam Chair O'Brien, my name is El C Duarte, and I will be providing Spanish interpretation during today's economic development and arts subcommittee session.

I will now take a moment to address our Spanish speaking audience.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Elsie.

Second.

I have a motion and a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously.

For our second agenda item, art and private development.

We will invite Mitch Manchaka from Arts and Culture, our Arts and Culture Director, Carrie Brown, the Deputy Arts and Culture Director, and Josh Badner, our planning and development director.

Thank you so much for joining us all today to talk about this very important topic.

Well, good morning, Chair O'Brien and members of the subcommittee.

I'm Mitch Manchaka, Arts and Culture Director, and I am joined by colleagues Carrie Brown, Deputy Arts and Culture Director, Josh Bednerick, Planning and Development Director, and we're here to discuss art and private development.

The arts inspire and bring joy to residents.

They beautify public spaces, strengthen community pride, help students success, create solutions for civic issues, and bolster the economy.

For municipal arts agencies like the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, public art is funded by public funds created through a public process and four public spaces.

The Phoenix Public Art Program was created through an ordinance that allocates 1% of the city's annual capital improvement CIP budget to public art projects.

The Phoenix Public Art Collection comprises over 250 outdoor site specific pieces, like this piece, Shadow Play that's on Roosevelt Road that adds shade, solar power, and also art that was done by the Streets Transportation Project to add to the pedestrian experience on Roosevelt Row.

Public art often serves as an iconic landmark that defines the character of urban spaces.

It can also enhance the aesthetic appeal of public spaces, significantly increase property values, making it more attractive to buyers and investors.

This piece known as a path to water on Sixth Street and Butler, which was done through the Water Services Department.

During the community engagement and fabrication process, we saw neighbors clean up their yards and paint their homes to welcome the new public artwork.

They also create vibrant environments that attract businesses to establish an aesthetically pleasing location, thereby boosting local economies.

Art and private development or AIPD is another opportunity to invest in public art where developers allocate a percentage of their project's construction cost to original site specific public art.

The art becomes an accessible public amenity, enhancing urban landscapes, creating a sense of place and benefiting both the surrounding community and again the local economy.

The image here is a large scale mural on the side of the Majestic Theater in Tempe as part of the City of Tempe's art and private development program.

Art and private development goes beyond murals.

Artwork can also include sculptures, integrated architectural elements, landscape designs, and again digital new media, just like our CIP program.

The piece shown here is an integrated lighting installation of stainless steel lotus flower that provides shade and a visual focus as it hangs over the center courtyard of the Medallion Building Project in Los Angeles.

This is part of the LA Department of Cultural Affairs Art and Private Development Program.

At night, the sculpture changes color and intensifies as people walk below it.

So how does art and private development or AIPD work in most cities?

In most cities, public art has a requirement.

Many cities have an ordinance that mandates private developers to fund and install public art on their properties.

Developers contribute a certain percentage of their project's valuation or construction costs towards the art.

The art commission is often site-specific, meaning it's created for and integrated with that development project.

And then there's an approval process, and usually the municipal arts program or another municipal agency reviews and approves the art plan, often in stages from the initial design to the final installation.

And then there are things called in lieu fees.

Developers have the option in some ordinances to pay a fee instead of installing art on site, and these funds can be used to support either the city putting public art in that private development or other initiatives.

But again, art is integrated into private development, can take a wide variety of forms.

This is our Park Central Mall project by plaza companies.

And you can see that they've done sculpture, architectural design, and have been a really great partner.

But I'm going to turn it over to Carrie Brown to discuss the AIPD programs in a couple of valley cities and other larger cities in other states.

Thank you, Mitch, and good morning, Chair O'Brien and members of the subcommittee.

I will share a few key findings from art and private development programs, as Mitch said here locally, as well as a couple of our peer cities.

So first, the City of Scottsdale establish an art and private development ordinance in 1985.

It applies to plan block developments in downtown Scottsdale only and allows developers to either commission an original work of art that must be publicly accessible or contribute fees to the downtown cultural trust fund.

The budgets are based on 1% of building valuation.

The program is managed by Scottsdale Arts, a nonprofit city contractor who may be hired by the developer to manage the public art projects.

The Scottsdale Public Art Board, which is part of Scottsdale Arts, is the approving body.

Like many AIPD programs, Scottsdale specifically states that wayfinding signage, logos, mass-produced artwork, reproductions, and design elements are not that are not created by artists are not allowed under the ordinance.

In Tempe, the AIPD program is managed by the City of Tempe Arts and Culture Department.

Their ordinance established in 1991, applies to developments over 50,000 square feet in any part of the city.

Budgets are calculated per square foot, currently at 58 cents per square foot, which is updated on an annual basis.

The ordinance allows for developers to commission an original work of art or contribute funds to the TEMPE Municipal Arts Fund.

The department will attempt to use these funds at or near the development site, but has the flexibility to use the funds in other parts of the city for public art or cultural activities.

The public art projects are managed by developers, usually through art consultants, but approved by the AIPD committee, which is made up of city staff.

The Philadelphia Housing Department Development Corporation manages an AIPD ordinance that applies citywide to any developments over 100,000.

Established in 1959, the ordinance allows for developers to commission an original work of art or contribute fees to the fund for art and civic engagement.

However, if the development budget is over 1 million dollars, then the developer must require, then the developer is required to commission a permanent public artwork at the site.

The program is managed by the housing development staff as well as the public art commission, which is made up of local art and design professionals, and it is funded with 5% of the in-luum fees that are collected.

The program also states, oops, sorry about that.

The program also states uh what is not acceptable under the ordinance, but does allow developers to petition to use the 1%, which is calculated from the total construction cost for architectural restoration if they are working on a historic property.

The City of San Diego Cultural Affairs Department established their art and private development ordinance in 2004.

It applies citywide to developments over $5 million.

Like with the other programs, San Diego's ordinance allows for the developer to commission original work of art or contribute fees to the public art fund.

However, this program allows for one more option to maintain a portion of the premises as an open as open and accessible for cultural use.

Like in TEMPE, the department has a flexibility to use the in lieu of fees in other parts of the city if a project at the development site is not feasible.

Fees are based on the total building valuation and can be refunded to the developer if not used within five years.

So the city of Phoenix does not have an art and private development ordinance.

However, there are some incentives for developers to incorporate public art into their projects, and I will turn it over to Josh to talk more about that.

Thank you, Carrie.

Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, the downtown Phoenix Code, which was adopted in 2010, has longstanding incentives for art installations as a means of earning density bonuses or height bonuses.

And it also is an alternative to meeting some of the standards.

This is the Evans Churchfield substation that went through a design review process as an alternative to some of the standards.

Art was seen as a community benefit in exchange for some of the relief that the project was ultimately given for things like windows and doors.

The new hotel on Adams is another recent example of art being used, an alternative to the downtown code's frontage standards.

Specifically, the the project needed some relief on how it was going to interface with Central Avenue.

Uh, work was done with the developer to come up with some artistic elements and the frontage to meet the downtown code standards.

And ultimately, thanks to your leadership, the mayor and council uh approved an update to the downtown code in 2024 that made makes it a little easier to incorporate art.

Previously, uh art for bonus required the uh approval of the uh arts commission.

Now that can be done uh administratively by staff, and we've allowed art to be used in frontage elements without the approval of DRC to meet some of the frontage requirements.

Looking forward to continuing to see those uh particular provisions uh utilized by the development community moving forward.

I'll turn it back now to Mitch.

So arts and culture plays a vital role in shaping our community and surroundings.

Collaborations between artists and developers can enhance the aesthetic value and functionality of urban spaces.

And with that, we are happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much for the wonderful presentation.

We do have two speakers on this item, so I'd like to go to them first.

Our first speaker is Katrina Kayler.

Good morning, Vice Mayor O'Brien.

Members of the committee, thank you for your time and attention to this important subject.

Um, I'm here um representing two efforts.

I'm going to let the next speaker speak in more depth to Phoenix Community Alliance's efforts to focus on art and private development.

As Mr.

Josh Benrick just mentioned, um, the chapter 12 of the downtown code was updated thanks to the efforts of the Arts Culture Public Life Committee that I am honored to chair of Phoenix Community Alliance.

Um, December 2024 was the first time the use of the word art was used in the downtown code to this degree, and we are very happy with that victory, and as Josh mentioned, we look forward to the implementation of this.

Much like many other um sectors and matters that come to the city, downtown Phoenix is often a leader, and when it comes to arts and culture, uh downtown Phoenix has demonstrated its leadership.

Uh, with my hat as president and CEO of Art Link Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit organization founded by artists in 1989.

Um, we believe it's the time to for the rest of the city to uh follow this demonstration of arts and culture and creativity and benefit from that effort.

With thanks to Councilwoman Pastor, um we've partnered on many projects in the past.

We look forward to partnering with all of you as this moves forward, and there is a path forward for this.

Um I really uh strongly urge the city to look at this as an ordinance as you investigate this.

I know you'll be listening to many members of the community, uh, but you have natural partners in this.

Um, Art Link is one, of course, uh, but the artists of the community are here.

The talent is here to partner on this effort, and we can beautify the city together.

This risk is low.

The return on investment is very high.

Uh, we are in competition with many other cities, not only across the valley, but across the nation.

People have choices about where to live, no matter what sector they engage in in terms of their employment, but they want to live in a city that is creative, thoughtful, and beautiful.

Thank you.

Thank you for your important testimony.

And then we next have Patrick McDaniel.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm speaking my role as advocacy director for Phoenix Community Alliance, an organization that focuses on downtown.

Um we really, as an organization, we really see art as a way to plant a seed, a way to attract people to downtown, a way to make downtown as an organiz as a place where people would like to live.

Art and private development as our city continues to change and grow and evolve downtown, art and private development, those those assets can be what attracts people to downtown, what makes people want to live in a certain part of an area, what brings economic growth, development, vibrancy to downtown.

Art is such a tool to allow for people to gather to connect as we have more and more of an urban setting in downtown.

It's important that we provide those tools.

I really hope that the city continues to explore opportunities to work with developers, innovative opportunities to work with developers, to provide for art and develop art and private development in downtown.

This is what will continue to bring people to downtown.

This is what will bring residents, this is what will bring businesses.

This is such an important step in our continued economic development, evolution, and growth as an urban core of downtown.

So please let's work together to find innovative ways to enhance, to incentivize to enhance art and private development, as this is the path forward for a lot of our evolving um commercial areas and residential areas in downtown.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you so much, um, Patrick, for coming and sharing that testimony.

Um I had asked for this item to come, and our downtown is beautiful and has art and could have more.

I'm not saying there's there's too much, but one of my frustrations um from being in the northwest part of the valley is that the only places we can have art is where something is done with city dollars and we use one percent, which means it might be at a water facility, and not that that's not a great place, but it's not a place where we see a lot of people hang out.

And so um my desire to have you all here today was to look at what our options are.

Um, it's important to have art everywhere in our city uh as we are bringing in more businesses and more people, and we want to continue to do that.

Um, art creates culture and culture creates community, and that should be throughout our city, and we can't have any of that without the arts.

So um turn to my colleagues, Councilwoman Stark.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was planning director back in 2010 when we decided to dip our toes into looking at art in the private sector, and I'm very excited to see that it's really moved forward in what we did in 2024.

I agree with you.

We've done quite remarkable work uh as a city.

I will tell you one of the pictures that you showed was a piece of artwork in Sunny Slope.

When that went up, that neighborhood changed.

They really started sprucing up the area.

There's a sense of pride.

So I I think it's important that we do talk to the private sector and look at a citywide ordinance.

So I would support that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Thank uh the art and culture community uh for really looking at spaces where this can happen.

Uh I quite frankly think it can happen all over the city.

Um if we need to put an ordinance, I guess we need to put an ordinance.

Um my point is is that uh when I entered office, uh, because my my father was truly uh had a love for art along with music and culture.

Um my mom did too, but he was the one who made us uh do many things uh in that space.

And when I look at art, first of all, it's subjective.

Second of all, um, it can happen anywhere, as you can see in the midtown area, uh as you watched during um a process of brick walls being painted, uh, especially in the historic area.

It was a back and forth, but it was embraced.

Uh I also said that was subjective art, and art is art.

Depends on who's looking at it and who's who's doing it.

Um, when I entered office, because I saw many other cities in downtown.

I personally as a council member pushed uh private sector, private developers into really looking at their landscape of what art would look like.

Um architecturally to look at that because I said in District 4, I just don't want boxes coming up and it just being brown and a shade of white, uh, or what would that look like and how would you make it look fit in within the midtown and work with the communities and neighbors?

Um as I leave office, I'm going to archive all the projects that have placed artwork throughout their uh buildings and uh murals and even architecture-wise, um, so that I can leave that behind for uh future council to really embrace the fact of arts and cultures is what makes a vibrant city live and breathe.

And I feel like um private development, if any uh can engage in a way where they can look at a city like that and do that.

The other pieces I think if anything that needs to happen is really maintenance of the artwork.

Um probably really need to push within our space uh more dollars for the maintenance of the artwork that is current in order for us to maintain it and keep it as vibrant as it was when it was built.

Um and I don't know if we add that in the ordinance or or what or how we go about doing it, but that's the space I think uh we need to move forward in is really in the maintenance.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Pastor, Councilman Robinson.

Thank you, madam chair.

You know, I want to start by um repeating a couple things that have already been said, an exceptional presentation, and really appreciate the opportunity to understand more completely about what when a lot of us already know this, but what art what the arts truly mean to our community?

Um I have the same concerns that my um council fellow council members have voiced with regard to it going citywide.

I mean, it is that's truly a wonderful idea.

We're fortunate in district six.

We have the Shema Art Center that works on some of these things.

Clearly, we could be doing more, the botanical gardens.

We have those types of locations.

But I am in definitely in favor of pushing it outward um through other parts of the city so that everyone can enjoy and we see the benefits like um councilwoman Stark mentioned.

You see the benefits of putting art in a neighborhood when the whole neighborhood starts to transform itself.

People take pride in where they live, and arts is an exceptional way of doing it.

So thank you for the presentation.

It was great.

Thank you for your help throughout this past year with all things considered the albedal home up on the side of Calback Mountain.

And we were able to make a um make a home for it at Shema Art Center, but that was because of the arts and culture and the historic preservation community and everyone else.

So it's it's is definitely something that brings people together.

So thank you for the presentation.

It was exceptional.

And Madam Chair, thank you for the time.

Thank you, Councilman Robinson.

And so I would love for city staff to pursue bringing options about what an ordinance might look after having stakeholder meetings with our art community as well as our development community, so that we can further explore to have not only art all over the city, but I think that Councilwoman Pastor brings up a good point.

How do we look at at maintenance as well for art once it is installed and we have it because it's important to take good care of it?

So if we could um if you all would pursue that and come back to us, um, I guess my magic question is going to be when do you think you could come back to us?

When would be a realistic opportunity?

Um, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, probably in the springtime we could come back with some initial discussions with the development committee and uh arts and culture community.

So definitely in the the springtime we can.

Okay, we'll put that on the calendar for some time in the spring.

And um, I'm I'm going to ask for forgiveness if this is not correct.

But is this your last meeting with us?

This will be my last economic development and the arts subcommittee.

Okay, so this is your last economic development and the arts meeting, Mitch.

Thank you for your many years of service to the city of Phoenix, and we um wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you all for the presentation.

I was just gonna say, are you sure you want to leave?

Just see this could be exciting.

I think we've crossed the bridge.

The cat is ready, and uh, we're going to Ohio.

We still have your number though.

Yes, you just don't forget that.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Congratulations, Mitch.

Uh, that's an accomplishment.

And not only that, you're gonna get paid what did we say, double.

Congratulations, have a great time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Wonderful.

Okay, and for our next item, we have Smart City Phoenix Initiative update.

And for this, we have Office of Innovation Director Michael Hammett and Information Technology Director Steen Hambrick joining us today.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

It is a pleasure to be here to provide an update on the development of the city's first smart cities roadmap.

The Office of Innovation and Information Technology Services began consulting with International Data Corporation to develop the city's first smart cities roadmap.

IDC is a leader in advancing smart cities technologies, strategic use of data, and also system design changes across municipalities around the world.

IDC is helping the city develop this plan as a foundational plan to really direct our efforts into the future, but also in today, what needs to be done today.

What is really critical about this is that we will connect this plan to approved plans and initiatives and priorities of the council and our city leadership so that all of this works together.

So those plans would be Plan Phoenix, Vision Zero, Transportation 2050, Climate Action, HEAT, and our ITS uh technology plan as well, among many others.

So, what is a smart city?

Well, you can get different answers depending on who you ask.

But for the city, we're looking at a smart city as putting people first.

It really is looking at our residents and engaging with our residents for the future of our city.

It elevates the use of data, technology, and system design, and uses things like sensor technology, a lot of this technology behind the scenes so that we can have a more vibrant city.

It streamlines processes internally and saves time and money and ultimately helps enhance the quality of life for our residents and those we serve.

When we began working with IDC, we wanted to really meet with our departments.

We surveyed departments, staff, leadership, and also met one-on-one to really dig into our departments and understand what is happening, what are our successes, what is working well right now, and then what are the opportunities, the big ideas for the future, and what are some of the barriers to that?

So we wanted to really get an understanding of that.

So we determined that there were about 130 plus ideas and projects, initiatives in various stages across our city.

So those would be things like passive detection technology for bicyclists and cyclists and pedestrians and the great work that streets transportation is doing in the way of vision zero and enhancements for community, the park phoenix tool that was developed by our convention center to help people come to downtown to park quickly, efficiently, and then go play and work and do all the great things that you want to do in downtown.

Cool pavement program with our street transportation department.

That is smart because it's in collaboration with Arizona State University, working with scientists to really validate what is working and to pivot and change along the way.

And we are leading in that realm.

Our smart Phoenix platform in planning and development to really help engage the development community, put development in the hands of not only our business leaders, but our residents, and that will continue to evolve and set a foundation that the department can grow from and potentially have opportunities outside of planning and development for that technology.

Remote water monitoring and leak detection.

Right here on the screen, you see our smart chilled water system.

Danielle Vermir from the city manager's office is gathering a little bit of water from that.

Each of those is a smart because they have smart meter technology on them.

And beside that, you see a graph that shows a red bar.

That red bar alerted us to a small leak at the unit outside of City Hall.

We were able to be alerted from a dashboard, take quick action, work with public works team, and get that corrected.

And before it became a real problem, it was a very small leak, so it's working in that regard.

We also, up in the left-hand corner is the ARIN, that is the automated road analyzer.

That is a data-driven technology, literatively and figuratively.

It passes through our streets of the city and is able to assess the pavement conditions so that the streets department knows where to take action where there's most need for that.

We had a Smart Cities event in 2025.

Aaron came out and people loved it.

This was cities and towns across our region that came out to Venture Cafe for that.

And up in the left-hand corner is our Ike Digital Kiosk.

This is Street Transportation Department.

They are embedding these in downtown.

There are six six of them currently.

These are smart digital kiosks, and they're really a foundation.

Again, when you install it, it's what is working today, but what can it mean to us in the future?

There'll be an additional number that'll be added to about 20 that will be installed.

These are ADA forward thinking.

They they really started with accessibility on these, and they've been willing to work with the city to enhance it along the way.

And it has language translation technology for the most spoken languages in our city, and also mobility, low vision, hearing, all of that is embedded in here.

And it allows the city to provide updates on what is happening in our city and some things that are important to our community.

CANDO is an AI wastewater monitoring system.

You see a little chart in the top right, and that is our water services department.

This is one example of the AI technologies that water is using to ensure that our systems are functioning properly.

We have 540 square miles of service for our water services department, 7,000 miles of pipes.

So AI is helping water services actually assess the functionality of these pipes.

And that is really, again, that is the future, but it's happening today.

And CANDA is an example of it's really a simple technology that has AI that alerts the water department if anything unusual is going into our water waste stream.

So those are really great, and water services really jumped in to pilot and then advance that.

In situ is our 3D augmented reality.

You see that in the bottom.

This puts future developments in the palm of the hands of our residents.

You scan a QR code, and residents can see future developments before they happen.

We're using this to showcase affordable housing communities in the city, and now our geobond funded programs, and it's really exciting to see that uh before it it actually takes place.

We talked about foundational aspects of this plan, accessibility thanks to our accessibility work group that uh councilwoman Stark led for the for the city.

We've embedded accessibility in this plan, and we're already advancing hearing loop technology that will take place here in our council chambers.

That's coming very soon.

And uh we actually tested it here.

It happened first in aviation, and we're elevating it here in our council chambers.

And then ILA is a translation platform that is really it's mobile and it's almost like a tablet that allows city staff to communicate with our residents.

It has over 200 languages on it, so there are so many languages that we would not have people to staff.

Um library was the first to jump on board, they have 12 units.

They've had more than 300 interactions now with residents, and municipal court has recently come on board with with purchasing a few of these, and now um homeless solutions will be will be testing this as well.

So we're really excited about that.

And advancing our uses.

Excuse me, one second, Councilman Pastor has a question.

What was it called?

I'm sorry, I missed the the ILA.

Is that the one the picture on the bottom?

That is no, the bottom one is in situ.

That is our 3D augmented reality.

Isla is more like a it's almost like an iPad, and they stand together in it in like a an A frame, and you're able to communicate in languages, and it can actually hear the language and respond to it in that language as well.

Got it.

Thanks.

Is that ILA or ILA.

Okay.

Thank you.

And we can provide more information, but it's a really great tool, and we're just really excited about that.

I think that would be awesome to have more information about that as well as and what we're using to help folks who struggle to hear.

I know that at my community meetings, I don't always have the technology, and I have some residents who attend and struggle to hear what's being said, even as much as we try to make that.

So that also would be helpful if you'd share that with my office.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We do that, Madam Chair, Council members.

Advanced use of data is foundational for any smart city's work, and it's on the front end, but also what is coming out of the smart cities technologies as well.

Our city managers performance dashboard is really a model across the nation and around the world in terms of how you can show the health and and uh functionality of the city across departments.

We have 31 departments, 170 key performance indicators, and it's really the umbrella of all things related to performance management and data as far as moving moving the needle on our priorities.

We now have geobond funds up there as well on the on the dashboard, and we recently did an enhancement for functionality for individuals, accessibility related with mobility, low vision uh challenges.

So that is always evolving.

And our open data portal that has it's very robust, it has more than a hundred data sets across city departments, and a lot of that feeds up into the city managers dashboard as well.

So that is really a significant uh enhancement that our information technology service is uh has been expanding.

Our What Work City certification, we're very proud of this.

Only three cities in the world have platinum level certification.

We've been on this journey since 2017, and actually, it was our first roadmap that led to the installation of our open data portal.

So it's not just assessing us, it's guiding us into the future across alternative emergency response programs as well as um procurement and data management and uh performance as well.

So we um we're very uh pleased to have that.

And uh we're going to we're now two years into our assessment, and we will be moving into another evaluation coming up within the next uh 12 to 18 months.

And now I will pass it off to my colleague, Steen Hombrick, Information Technology Services Directors.

Thank you, Michael.

Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

As Michael um uh stated, data is foundational to a smart city, and and nowadays you can't really talk about data without talking about artificial intelligence or AI.

By effectively leveraging AI with city data, AI will empower the city of Phoenix as a smart city.

Um, sorry, sorry, thanks.

Um ways we will empower our smart city through AI include a number of different examples.

Uh the first one is city engagement.

Uh improving and simplifying resident access to city information and services is going to be a key component of AI or uh a way that AI will benefit the city.

Um that can include virtual assistance in in our public-facing websites, being able to provide to gain access to information and services very quickly and in a simplified way rather than very uh um mechanical ways that you you might see in in some of our websites today.

Um optimizing or streamlining city business uh operations is another way, and and what I mean by uh optimizing or streamlining is uh AI can help simplify some of the processes that we have today for city business or or for an urban uh uh organization.

Uh AI can help us get from point A to point B in a much simplified way, getting services or getting um products or capabilities to the end user in a in a more expedited way.

Performing predictive maintenance or health on city facilities, equipment, and systems is another example, and and Michael actually uh named a couple uh in our water department with water leak detection or wastewater monitoring.

Those are ways where technology such as AI can identify things before issues actually bring disruption to our services so that we can transition to a maintenance activity without disrupting services to our city.

Another uh example, and this is something that we're actually providing to the entire city right now, is uh providing AI tools so that data-driven decision making can occur.

Um recently uh the city rolled out co-pilot chat to all city employees, and uh we've also rolled out or made available copilot M365 or co-pilot pro to power users within the city that do a lot of analytics or writing and things like that.

So this will be a way to help us again make decisions with much more information at our our fingertips.

To do all of this, AI governance is is critical.

Uh, to effectively and properly use AI, it's important that we make decisions on what tools to use and how to use them and what data is going to be used from a risk reward perspective.

And what I mean by that is there's a a lot of value and a lot of benefit to using the AI tools, but we want to make sure that they're being used properly, and that data, especially our residence data and city data, is protected and that it doesn't go outside of the the confines of what it's intended.

AR-165, administrator regulation, AR-165 is the city's uh administrative regulation that's specifically uh geared towards the use of artificial intelligence within the city.

That's what establishes the governance framework, the AI governance framework for the city, and it's a two-tier process.

It has an executive steering committee that's led by an assistant city manager, and there's a number of of um department heads across the city that participate in that decision making process for new tools that are being proposed for city use.

Below that level is a subcommittee that's a more technical level committee that is used for evaluating privacy implications, security, and actual technical perspectives of any tool that we're using.

Subcommittee brings things forward to the uh to the decision-making body with recommendations.

And and then and from that perspective, we can evaluate things from a risk perspective.

Moving to AI tools today, uh, through this governance process, which has been in place for over a year and a half now, the the city has either approved or is in the process of reviewing and submitting for approval later this month, about 18 tools uh already through this AR or through this governance process.

And as this governance process becomes more solidified and refined, we we see that the you are uh submissions throughout the city will become even more reoccurring over time.

A few of the tools that we've actually approved today again we we mentioned Co-Pilot Copilot Pro.

We also have used another element of Copilot Copilot Studio, which we um our aviation department and ITS is using to actually create virtual assistance for our public-facing websites.

We're also using um or we have available an AI assistant in WebEx so that as meetings are taking place in WebEx that note taking uh can occur and um and summarization of the meeting so that can assist uh at the conclusion of the meeting in in recalling what was said and what action items may have been taken.

Moving into the future, advanced AI usage is something that we we see happening more and more as well.

We see that as again we mentioned um a lot of the tools that we've approved today are are essentially extensions of existing tools that we we've used within the city.

We see adopting AI to actually zero in on business processes across the city.

We uh I mentioned virtual assistance in in skyharbor.com and phoenix.gov, but we also see in um planning development, for example, is is evaluating artificial intelligence as a means to to accelerate the permitting approval process for businesses and residents moving forward.

Uh we also have um an RFP on the street right now for enterprise asset management, and from a predictive maintenance perspective, this will likely be uh an element of whatever solution comes out of that that process.

Sorry, will you say again what that RFP was for?

I missed one of the words.

Enterprise asset management.

It's really geared towards facilities, facility asset management, and uh, for example, aviation and managing Sky Harbor International Airport.

All of those buildings, runways, things like that are considered assets from water department pipes are considered assets, things like that.

And so this will give us an ability to manage based on when should life cycle uh replacements occur for facilities or or components within an asset.

Okay, shifting gears.

So um Michael had mentioned uh 130 plus uh initiatives that are either in the pipeline or underway.

That's a lot of a lot of initiatives that are smart city related.

Those are being managed right now at department level.

We are rolling out a tool that's already being used by ITS for portfolio management.

We are going to create a portfolio for smart city initiatives, and so we'll be able to tag initiatives across the city, regardless of what department, and we'll be able to track them from a holistic perspective uh within this one tool.

So we'll be able to see how initiatives from from one department may affect or relate to other uh initiatives across other departments from a timing perspective, a resource capacity perspective, um, and things of that nature.

Uh and last thing I just want to say that you know we're we're not doing this alone.

Uh from a smart city perspective, uh we uh IT or City Phoenix, uh, we participate in an organization called the Connective.

It's a 501c3 organization.

It's a regional smart or a smart region um uh collaboration that involves a lot of um municipalities across the the Phoenix area that gives us an opportunity to talk smart cities uh initiatives, capabilities, opportunities, and to share information between municipalities and and industry.

Uh one of the things that this particular um uh organization does is it it sponsors something called the connective.

We've uh the city of Phoenix has participated in this uh or the last couple years.

The next one will likely be in the March time frame.

I'm not sure exactly what the date is, but uh again, it's something where it brings uh municipalities from across across the region into a one place to showcase smart city initiatives that that they want to they want to highlight, and this is uh a um a um an initiative or a um an offering for residents to come in as well as uh city city um participation to evaluate what other folks are doing.

Um and with that, I will turn it over to Michael.

Thank you so much, Steam.

And Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, at the beginning we talked about community residents, and really we we embedded this entire process, and we're we're still developing this roadmap, but we wanted to make sure resident voices were throughout the whole process from the beginning throughout and to the end, and to not end even at the end of this development.

One thing that we did issue was a community survey, and thanks to the members of the subcommittee, uh, we've had really great response.

So thank you, thank you for sending that out and really elevating this community survey.

We've had more than 520 responses to date, and very quick, very rapid.

It's still open.

And what we're learning is the majority of people see smart cities as really important to our future and important to today, and areas that they're really interested in are related to climate and livability within our city, and also we were really pleased to see 17% identified accessibility as important to them and important to moving forward.

We also did library outreach, and we wanted to go into each council district and and meet with folks and provide that opportunity to do one-on-one interaction.

And we had some really good response.

Obviously, you're not getting hundreds of people, but you're getting more than a dozen that come out to each event.

They're able to answer our survey, which they've done, but they also get to test and really feel some of our products, like the augmented reality project, and uh help us identify future places for such as our smart chilled water units.

So it's been really great to see, and we have a couple more throughout the end of the year that we're finishing up.

We also did the Innovate Phoenix Challenge event May 15th of this year, and this will be that was our fifth Innovate Phoenix Challenge where we bring community businesses, moms, students, teachers, startups together to help the city solve priorities that we're that mayor and council is looking to address.

We had 150 people turn out for this, and this particular one in May was to look at advancing smart cities in our region, and we kept it open in terms of whether it be technology, system design or use of data, but we helped them focus in on public spaces, accessibility, and active transportation.

So we're assessing some of what came out of that.

It's helping inform our roadmap, but we also want to look and see are there ideas we can move forward as well.

And again, we like to say that you know, a smart city doesn't have to look like a Tom Cruise futuristic movie, um, though we love those, it can blend seamlessly in the background and still have that forward-facing environment that we all love.

And so that was really a lot of what came out of this this event with our community.

So, to wrap this up, we are really excited about this.

We're excited and thankful for your your feedback along the way and looking forward to more feedback as we develop the final iteration of the roadmap presented to council, and we're also working to advance our smart cities working group, and this has been in place for about 18 months, and we're continually adding new departments leadership, as well as especially with some of the transitions to make sure the right folks are there at the table.

This is going to help us coordinate across city departments.

This roadmap will not get in the way, it will help lift up what is happening and coordinate that.

And as Steen said, with our outside partners and internal uh partners as well.

We've been really fortunate over the course of the last two years to have many finalists in the IDC North America Smart Cities Awards.

We had a winner in 2023 and a winner in 2025.

We're we'll be moving forward with the 2026 uh efforts to uh to really highlight what is happening in the city, and we're really really excited to continue this this conversation and to to receive your direction.

Councilwoman Stark.

Thank you.

This is a great presentation.

Actually, I've asked for a presentation similar to this at TIP.

Um, but just focusing in more on infrastructure.

For example, in Prescott Valley, they just recently installed smart meters for every household in the city.

And I'm curious as to when that's going to happen in Phoenix.

Now I realize we're a lot bigger and it's going to be a lot more expensive to do that.

But I I want to zero in on some things that we can do to improve um uh our uh service to residents and businesses within the city.

So this is a very exciting presentation.

Can't wait to see what the various infrastructure departments come up to complement this great presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilman Robinson.

Thank you, madam chair.

You know, along the lines of Smart City, and Steen, I may have mentioned this to you already.

Um this past year, we had an inordinate number of fire rescues by the fire department on Piestawa Peak, um, Kelmback Mountain, South Mountain, North Mountain, all over the place.

And there are times when, you know, obviously it takes a great deal of fire resources to go out there, even after we tell people you shouldn't when it's hot and everything else.

Uh I was curious as to whether or not it is possible.

And Councilwoman Stark just said sometimes it's expensive, so I'm just more curious if it's possible to, and if I'm using the right word, geocode an area.

Let's say I pull into the parking lot at Piesto Wat Peak, it's 110 degrees outside.

Is it possible to have something in place where my phone would go off and warn me that it is 110 degrees outside, that you should not be out on the mountains, or what you know, it would have to be an area adjacent to each one of those hiking venues.

Is something like that possible?

Would it fall within the smart city venue?

Because you would look at the amount of resources we're spending on the fire side, and we've been very fortunate the firefighters haven't been hurt yet.

That's not always gonna be in our favor, and I'd like to make sure we're doing as much as we possibly can to ensure to reduce those risk of for the firefighters, but you know, I want to see something.

Is that possible?

Does it make sense or is it too much Jason Moore and stuff?

I don't know.

Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, Councilman Robinson.

I I think it's a very interesting question, and it's one that uh we've had some conversations about um in within my organization.

I I think that there's probably using that specific example, there are probably some privacy issues related to that in terms of communicating with people that may not want to be communicated with.

But I I think that there are alternatives or other technologies and smart city technologies that could address your specific concern, but maybe not specifically in the way that you're you're talking about.

So it so, with that being said, um ITS was actually evaluating your your your question already, and uh my intent is to come back to you, and I can come back to this this subcommittee if you would like to actually uh give you more information in terms of alternatives that may be less um uh impacting from a privacy perspective.

I'm sorry, thank you very much.

I appreciate it because, like I said, you know, there was a few weeks ago, I think we had four rescues at the same time.

So you look at the amount of firefighters that are out of service to you know to help people who should have known better.

And I think we just need we have a responsibility to do what we can to warn people from getting into trouble, and if they do get in trouble, we want to do the best we can at hoping that you know our firefighters aren't in as much danger because they put themselves in that position.

So thank you very much.

It's a great presentation.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, madam chair, for the time.

Excellent question, Councilman Robinson.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Yes, um, um I'm happy to see that Smart City is moving ahead.

Uh I believe I want to say Ray Dovellina, and that's a name way back.

Uh right, Brianna.

Uh we start had this smart city conversation a while back, and really going back to I'm um I'm glad to hear Councilwoman Stark is wanting to bring it to tip because the smart city piece that we analyzed and looked like looked at, was really a built around infrastructure.

And in order to be a smart city, we have to have the infrastructure into play.

And the dialogue was we were putting up new um lighting and new signals as to how then would we incorporate a smart city idea into those that infrastructure because it has to be a uh what I'll call a canopy.

Uh some people call it a network.

Um those pieces need to be completely into play to really trigger uh how we are gonna move in a smart city.

We even at one point, Brianna, you might remember, but uh talked about because we were talking about uh conservation and electricity and lighting, and how the conservation of downtown would then be at a certain point uh when people someone was driving at night, the light would go really super bright at a certain point, and then it would dim to a certain point for safety reasons to have it at a certain place, but we would then be conserving energy uh throughout because throughout the city because we were talking about how do we do these multiple pieces in order to save money for the city.

Um the question I have, and that's I'm just giving background and and and uh history to this.

The question I have is AI.

How do we know that the AI and I don't think we we know this?

How we prevent AI from AI blocking us.

Um I am still very much I think AI is important, that's the way of the future.

But where are all the safety pieces and security pieces that go into AI?

Um I tested out the AI um non-emergency number, and was on the non-emergency number going kind of like in a loop for a little bit, and after a while, I just hung up because I got frustrated.

So when we implement AI, I really want it to be kind of tested before it's rolled out to the public or anywhere else.

Um, so that it's simple, it's easy, and um we don't get the pushback that we would get from our community.

Those are just some suggestions.

Um I think it's excellent that we become a smart city, we're the fifth largest city, and we need to move and become grow up and become the fifth largest city and demonstrate that uh we're up to technology and the space to uh do the things that we do as a city.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Pastor.

Um I thank you for the presentation.

And you had a slide in there that talked about the the the basically project management of technology in the city.

Um I I'd love to learn more about that and maybe a briefing, but but I tell you I want to explain that that is really important to me because when I talk to our police department and we have our real-time operations center, and I find out that cameras we use in a different department that really aren't that old don't work with the real-time operations center, or that our streets had, and I know streets is working on it, and there's a lot of streets and a lot of intersections and lights, right?

But but that that also cannot be coordinated.

So it the integration coordination and then making sure that we're using products that align across departments because it is what's best for the city, not because our uh certain department has been siloed, is is super important to me for the efficiency and effectiveness of our residents.

So I appreciate that we have that now.

I'd like I said I'd love to learn more so we can make sure we're we're moving in that positive forward direction for all of our citizens.

Thank you for the presentation.

Very much appreciate it.

Very many exciting things going on and continue look forward to continuing to make those uh forward leaps in technology and innovation.

Thank you, madam chair, members of the subcommittee.

Thank you.

All right, our item four um is the Phoenix Hermosio trade office results and updated, and so for this item, we invite um our economic act develop or sorry, our community and economic development acting director, Eric Johnson.

We have deputy community and economic development director Nathan Wright, as well as economic development program manager Juan Batres.

Thank you for joining us.

Good morning, Matt.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

Uh it's our pleasure today to give you an update on our Phoenix Hermacial Trade Office.

As you may recall, about three years ago, we'd entered into a five-year contract to provide services for that trade office and uh business development services for the city.

Um with that, we're excited to tell you about uh some of the successes and activities that we've done over the last couple of years, especially last year.

With that, I'm gonna hand it off to Juan Buttress to provide you more detail.

Good morning, madam chair and subcommittee members.

Um Mexico continues to be uh Arizona's main trading partner with about 20.6 billion dollars in trade, and just to put things into perspective to make a comparison, uh China is number two with 7.1 billion dollars, and Canada is a number three with 5.5 billion dollars.

Uh but what is exactly that we are uh selling to Mexico?

At the top of our list is copper ore and concentrates, minerals for the most part, electronics and aircrafts, and that accounts for about nine billion dollars in exports.

And what is exactly that we buy from Mexico?

At the top of the list, we have produce.

We have a computer electronics and electrical equipment.

I have to say that those electronics that I mentioned that we export and engine parts, they come back to us in the form of final goods or sometimes uh uh uh partially finished uh goods, and uh those products typically go back and forth, you know, across the border four or five times in order to be completed.

Uh imports account for about uh uh 11 uh.6 billion dollars.

And uh as you can see, Mexico and uh in Arizona, we are a co-productive area and we depend from each other.

Our office in Mexico is represented by Mr.

Antonio Proto and Ana Maria Araque, who uh both of them uh have more than 20 years of experience in international trade.

Um what the office uh does in Mexico, uh, number one, we promote trade.

We work with Phoenix companies that are looking to develop business in um in Mexico and Mexican companies that are trying to develop business in the city of Phoenix.

We uh foster business to business relations.

Uh we support and uh uh create uh um the space as I call uh trade missions and uh and events that we support for sure uh in order for businesses to interact with each other and network.

We attract foreign direct investment.

Uh we work with companies that are looking to physically locate their operations in the city of Phoenix, and we showcase investment opportunities uh for commercial real estate, including uh industrial and uh retail.

The Phoenix Hermosillo office receives all kinds of inquiries and works with the different uh types of businesses.

However, we proactively and strategically work with certain states in and the regions in Mexico in relation to sectors and industries of interest.

Some of these uh sectors of interest relate to legacy industries such as aerospace and defense, electronics, pharma, and medical devices.

But we also need to focus on what are the emerging industries, and in this case, uh we work as an example without a motive that didn't exist in the city of Phoenix before the state of Arizona, companies such as Lucid, right?

And uh we also uh um try to work with industries that are key for to support our ecosystem, such as the chemicals industry, the rare minerals industry, and the consumables to support as an example the semiconductor industry.

Um since the uh rededication of our office in Mexico, uh we have assisted a diversity of businesses in fiscal year 2021, we assisted uh 62 companies in fiscal year 22-23, 166, and in fiscal year 23, 24, 294.

This is this brought us to a total of 24 companies incorporating their businesses in the state of Arizona, and seven companies locating physically their operations in Phoenix.

And Madam Chair and subcommittee members, it is my pleasure to introduce today uh the results of fiscal year 24-25.

Um we assisted 290 companies uh last year.

We two companies incorporated in the state of Arizona and two companies located in Phoenix.

I know this is uh four companies less than uh the previous fiscal year, but we were extremely extremely busy.

We received an average of two companies every month to look at our market, companies that are looking to locate their operations or invest in real estate in the city of Phoenix.

We led um 10 prospective trips, and we hosted five business delegations, most of the time, those are led by uh uh economic development dignitaries.

But uh, as we move forward, this is a very important slide.

As we move forward, it is important uh to really understand what is our current landscape and and really bottom line understanding what our strengths and uh um uh weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are at this point.

I have to say that uh we have a very experienced team at this point.

Uh we have uh three staff members in Mexico that, as I said, possess more than 20 years of experience and leading uh uh trade activity between Mexico and uh and Phoenix.

Uh thanks to you, we have a clear vision as for what our objectives should be.

The connectivity that we have, our airport is a major asset and really uh working with uh with those areas that I previously mentioned.

Um formal relations that we have developed, we have signed four memorandums of understanding for economic development collaboration with the state of Baja California, um uh Nuevo Leon, Monterrey, and the city of Hermosillo.

But our weaknesses, very important.

Uh we uh we're going through some economic uncertainty currently, current immigration challenges.

Uh, many corporations right now, uh they're limited as for the number of visas that they can that they can uh um generate.

It is important also to say that uh USMCA will be reviewed this year in 2026, and that that puts us in risk.

The opportunities uh that we observe, optimistically looking at the future, um, relate to Mexico preparing for a second wave of near shoring, uh, which in our case strengthens our uh uh a transborder and co-productive ecosystem with more tiers, uh tier threes and tier fours.

Um it isn't the law of economics that these companies will seek alternative markets to seek lower operating costs, which in this case will make our tier ones and tier twos companies more competitive in Phoenix.

Our upcoming threats in the next quadrant relate more to more strict tariffs and on specific products, um, a radical change in the review of the USMCA, as I mentioned, and uh that can also um have uh significant impact.

Um, although our trade office does not provide any services directly linked to tourism, in 2024, the economic impact on the state of Arizona for Mexican visitors uh was estimated at 2.5 billion dollars, supporting approximately 30,000 jobs.

That is in risk.

Moving forward, we uh would like to continue with our partners, uh working with our partners, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the Arizona Commerce Authority, Arizona State University, and working on our supply uh Mexico supply chain mapping for specific industries.

We are using the semiconductor industry as a lab or as a guinea pig.

And uh we would like to work with and explore the opportunities of creating a soft landing for Mexican companies.

I have to say that many of the locates that I previously mentioned, this company sometimes they bring one or two employees, that's how they start, uh small capital investments, but for over time, these uh uh uh jobs and and capital investments they uh uh grow.

Um also uh we would like to work from a business retention and expansion perspective.

We would like to work with our existing companies in introducing a supply chain sourcing service that can also that they can also take advantage of.

With that said, thank you very much, and I will turn it to um our assistant.

Semicon West one led uh several delegations and presentations uh for several cities and regions of Mexico.

And as a reminder, as Eric mentioned, this is we're beginning our third year of a five-year contract.

So this was just for information.

That concludes our presentation.

We happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from the committee members?

I my only question when you have an opportunity just to send it out to us.

Um, it would be great to know what the financial impact or where we're at on those companies that we did help incorporate and locate here over the years.

Um I know that we're we're fighting some um battles that aren't exactly ours that we started.

And so uh we're swimming upstream for sure, but I would love to know the impact that we are having, and and congratulations on the successes.

This is exciting work, and I'm so glad to hear this.

Thank you for the presentation today.

I have one question.

Councilwoman Pastor.

When you say soft landing, what does that mean?

Soft landing uh uh refers to as companies that didn't have any presence uh in um in Phoenix.

Uh sometimes there are companies that through a representative or distributor, they have presence in the United States.

Sometimes companies, even though they're existing companies, they don't have a way to uh land in the United States or develop services for the first time.

So creating a concept, picture picturing it more like a co-working space, or um, or tribal or an incubator or acceleration program that can help companies and really making mitigating that process to land that operations and continue growing with our within our ecosystem.

Okay, let me see if I have this correctly.

So when we're recruiting, we're recruiting companies to expand into Arizona and to Phoenix in particular.

And when we're we're we're doing that, we're asking them to come and invest into Phoenix and find an area where they can invest in, or where a restaurant or or distributing, I'll say Mescal, um, only because I know that from Rosillo.

And um we're asking them, but we want to be able to assist and help.

If I don't know if it's financials or if they don't have a space, or if it's offering um assistance with workers.

That's where I'm trying to figure that out.

Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, it's all of the above.

It's they're they're dipping their toes in our market, and this is a very cost-effective way for them to do that and allow them to get a feel for the market and see if it's gonna be good for them, and then sign a bigger lease somewhere else and take more space now.

Okay, so I can understand that, and I can understand that because I'm trying to think of the restaurant's name.

But the restaurant that we placed on um, or that was placed on Van Buren and First Street, I would say, yeah, First Street.

Um, that was a tough market for them.

I mean, they had great, they had a great uh a beer, Mexican beer, they had a uh a great story, but that corner is a rough corner.

And so I I think for them, if we had those soft landings and really kind of looked at the demographics or the way the market was set up in that space, we could have probably helped and position them in a different environment within Phoenix.

Because that's how I'm interpreting this, the conversation we're having, and uh that's why I'm I'm I'm I'm thinking of them.

Sure.

The uh ideally we would like to work with uh companies from day one, helping them in the planning process, helping them and really creating uh uh very good market analysis and in understanding traffic counts and pretty much identifying the ideal location for them.

But sometimes we miss uh some of those stages, some of those stages, and we try to, as I say, uh evangelize the companies and work with companies and convincing them to please uh let us guiding them through the whole process and the whole you know uh uh all the services that we provide because that's one of them, in fact.

We have a robust as for uh hospitality industry, we have a robust team on the retail side that can really help companies in understanding from um from traffic counts, as I said, and demographic information to really understand what where you know would be the ideal location for a for a business to set uh uh operations, but sometimes we miss this opportunity this stages in the process.

So I want what I would like to encourage and say is that I think when we go to uh another country to recruit a company to come to Phoenix, that we provide and assist with tools that are needed in order to make them successful because what we want is success, and the other piece was is success stories then to go back to Ern Mosillo and say, come invest in Phoenix, the market is there in order to expand.

And I think it's important to be able to have those tools.

I'll use tools, you guys use tools all the time.

Uh uh tools to make a win-win for everybody, and be able then to disseminate demonstrate our investment in this piece as a success and then what it's needed in order to operate in with two seamlessly with two different countries.

Madam Chair, um, members of the subcommittee and councilwoman Pastor, that's an excellent point, and we can always do a better job of getting our tools out there.

And we do have tools, we just don't always catch catch them when they're coming in, but we will do our best to improve that communication.

Thank you, Councilwoman Pastor.

Thank you for this presentation and and congratulations on your success and look forward to continued success in this market.

Item five is a community and economic development update on the disposition of some city-owned property.

We will continue to have the acting economic community and economic development director, Eric Johnson.

And we have now joined him, Zandon Keating, the deputy community and economic development director.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

Again, this morning we're here to provide an update on our various solicitations and processes regarding uh city owned property.

Uh over the past uh year and a half.

Council has given us the direction to look at a variety of properties throughout the city uh for various disposition steps, and we're here to do today to give you a quick update on those different uh locations.

With that, I'm gonna hand it off to Xana Keaton.

Thank you, Mr.

Johnson.

Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee.

We're gonna um start the list today with a couple of uh dispositions that are currently in process, just to give you a little status update of where they're at.

The first one is the Four Corners properties, 24th Street and Broadway.

Um we've worked with councilwoman uh Hodge Washington over the last couple of years to really figure out what exactly the community wanted here and uh and craft a request for offers in this particular case for this site.

Um that offer deadline was September 15th.

We've done a number of RFPs in the past that have resulted in zero responses, and we're happy to say that this process now has resulted in four offers for the site.

So staff is currently evaluating those offers and and hope to bring something forward to the subcommittee in the in the near future.

Um the next one is the region Regency Garage Um site.

There was an RFP released for this site in July.

There's a proposal deadline of October 28th.

The solicitation transparency policy is of course in effect for this site, so we cannot say anything further about this process other than it's currently ongoing.

Um now on to kind of the up and uh the the next phase and and what are those next ones that we're currently working on.

First one is at 19th Avenue in Dunlap, a little over 10 acre uh site.

Um this was most recently the end of line uh park and ride for uh for our system until the most recent expansion or extension uh northwest extension that is uh to Metro Center, um, which uh rendered this just uh another park and ride.

Um it's owned by the public uh transit department.

There is a retail building on the site, which has a number of occupants as well.

The transit department continues to work with those uh with those tenants as the as we figure out what the future holds for the site.

Um, it is included within the housing phoenix plan.

Um we we recently rezoned the property under councilwoman uh stark's guidance uh and with her uh assistance working with the community to the walkable urban code.

Um the intent of that really was to allow for those uses that the community is is really looking for um for the site as we work towards uh developing an RFP for the site.

Uh we will continue to work with uh with the councilwoman and the community to craft that RFP to make sure that we're including what the what uh you know what's really needed for the particular site.

Um the next site is 19th Avenue in Montebello, um another just over 10 acres um uh site.

This was the original uh end of line in Phoenix for the light rail um system.

Of course, it has been expanded several times since then, so it's kind of in the middle now of uh of our system.

Um and it's it's quite a bit underutilized as a park and ride site, um, owned by the public transit department.

Uh there is a rezoning case currently underway.

Uh we're working with the community and and the councilwoman's office on uh that particular process.

Uh also uh uh that one is intended again to go to walkable urban code really to bring again those uses that the community is looking for uh for the site to allow for that you know the type of development that we want to see along light rail.

As we work towards developing an RFP, we'll be working very closely with the uh with Councilwoman Pastor's office as well as the community to make sure that those those uses that are are needed by the community um are included in there.

Some of the things that we've thought about is is some sort of community space, you know, knowing that there's a Phoenix Public Library very close by, there could be some some opportunities to and you know really have something that uh could help to serve this you know the larger community in the in the future here.

Um the next site on the list is the Ed Pastor Transit Center.

Um this is at the northwest corner of Central and Broadway.

About a 3.5-acre site.

Um this was operated as a transit center for a number of years, but with the expansion of light rail down South Central, the the needs for the site have kind of changed, and and how the the transit um department uses sites like this has kind of changed a little bit.

And and so this is there's now an opportunity here for um you know redevelopment in the future.

Um one of the complications with this site is that there is a fee title ditch that goes through the middle of the site, and that needs to be abandoned by the federal government.

Uh, there is an application that is in with the federal government currently.

Um they're processing these slower and slower as as uh as you can imagine, and so uh we're kind of working through that process when we can't do an RFP for the site until um until that is complete, but looking forward to working with the council, city council and and the community at that time on drafting an RFP.

Um did want to give you an update.

Uh there was a an RFI request for information on this site looking at temporary activation.

Um the city did really receive one response to that, which staff is currently evaluating.

The next site is at the southeast corner of Central and Broadway.

Um little larger than the northwest corner, uh 3.76 acres.

This one is owned by the neighborhood services department.

They acquired it through uh Slum and Blight process several years ago.

This was included within the housing phoenix plan, um, and there is uh currently a rezoning underway.

It's actually on city council's agenda for tomorrow.

But we are very happy to report that we received a unanimous uh recommendation for approval from both the South Mountain Village Planning Committee and Planning Commission for that rezoning.

Um this was another one uh rezoning to uh walkable urban code for the site again to bring those uses that we could we really want to see along uh the transit system.

Um city council also did authorize previously authorized um release of this RFP in April of this year.

Um, and so now that we're we're nearing the end of the rezoning process, we'll begin writing that RFP and anticipating release of that in 2026.

The next two sites actually are 13th Street uh Washington and Jefferson.

Um the first one is owned by the neighborhood services department, approximately 3.7 uh 3.37 acres uh sites.

The next one is owned by the aviation department, uh almost the exact same size.

Um they're just uh just a few hundred feet away from each other.

Um both of these sites are pretty small, so we really anticipate the best use is probably for them to be combined with other properties in the area, but working with the community and uh the council office of the district of uh working towards a RFP on those sites as well.

Um, and then our final sites, or there's three sites here as well, is 7th Avenue and Washington.

Um, total it's about 4.63 acres.

Um portion of this site currently serves as our police headquarters, and they will be moving here very soon to uh uh right next door to to where we are here in 100 West Washington Street, um, leaving these sites uh all available for uh disposition.

Um we've do we've already done quite a bit of work on uh on this RFP.

Um we just recently completed a retail study, which is one of the things we thought was really important in setting this site up.

Um that retail study told us exactly what we kind of thought we were gonna hear that there is a a strong need for retail in this area.

Um there's a lack of um restaurants of a minute basic amenities for the for the community in the area, uh sort of your street level retail.

Um there's a there's a pretty severe lack of that in this particular area.

And then it also showed that the the broader area um has a has a real need for for larger scale retail as well.

Um so either of those could be really be supported on this site is is what what we saw through that study.

Um so excited very exciting results.

Councilwoman Stark has a question on this 7th Avenue in Washington.

Have you had a chance to uh have a conversation with both the county and the state?

I think they're probably more impacting.

They're uh obviously building in that area, and so hopefully we can get some input from them.

Chairman O'Brien, Councilwoman Sark.

Uh yes, we've we've actually talked to um both the Maricopa County and uh Arizona Department of Administration.

They're both very excited about this opportunity.

They own quite a bit of property in the area, especially the state owns a lot of property that they're looking at redevelopment in the area, and they see this as a potential catalyst uh for their redevelopment um efforts uh in in this particular area.

Um the other thing that we've done on this site is we did just recently earlier this year complete a rezoning process for it.

Uh there was uh it was a text amendment and a general plan amendment uh that increase the density and uh the height limits on the west side of 7th Avenue.

Um for whatever reason they sort of got left off of the the entitlements that were given east of uh 7th Avenue um and were left with uh a 30-foot height restriction, some um some restrictions just didn't make a lot of sense along Seventh Avenue.

Um and then the other thing with this is this the city council did authorize author uh release of this RFP back in April.

We've been working on developing that, but in the interim, uh the American Institute of Architects came to us with uh they wanted to do what they call an ideas competition, using this site as really the base.

Um the ideas competition is is uh it's a call for ideas from architects uh around the world.

Um they can be students or professionals, there's different categories looking for what are their best ideas with a piece of property.

And so they wanted to use this site as the base of that, which we think will give us some really good um ideas of what could come out of this site.

Uh we see and the community really sees this site as a um a gateway both to downtown to the core of downtown as well as to the Capitol Mall area, um, and want to see some iconic architecture that comes out of this idea and some you know iconic development that happens that can occur here.

And so we see this as a great opportunity for that.

Their timeline um has them um finishing that competition in January 2026.

So we would expect to release the RFP shortly thereafter upon the completion of that.

With that, we are happy to answer any questions.

Councilwoman Pastor.

I have a question.

And it's about the Ed Pastor Transit Center.

When that goes up for RFP, what happens to the naming?

Uh uh Chair uh O'Brien, committee members, uh Councilwoman Pastor.

We would be working with uh public transit to uh talk about what that process the proper process is.

Um I don't have the details uh on on hand right now of what those steps would be, but we would be working closely with public transit to identify what the proper process and procedure would be and get council to identify what to uh uh we'd be working with city council to identify what would be the proper next steps for for the um for the how to address the change of that station and uh what to do with the changing of the name.

So I guess what I'm asking is if that goes up for RFP, it's name Ed Pastor Transit Center.

Where would it be transferred to I I think Councilwoman, the short answer is we haven't spent a whole lot of time talking through this issue, so we would need to work closely with the public transit department and the mayor and council on um future plans on on how to proceed.

So we need to we need to take some time to to think through that.

Thank you.

John, based on the councilwoman's question, if you guys could do um some more research into that and then provide us an update, that would be great.

Of course, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Um, I just have quick on 7th Avenue in Washington, the American Institute of Architects contest.

Is that for all three parcels or madam chair?

Yes, it it's the way that they kind of look at it is it it could be architecture that could go anywhere, but they they use all three parcels as sort of the base and say, here's your kind of parameters.

Um so yes, it incorporates all three parcels, which could include you know some sort of connection between the parcels, um, or they could you know do it do something that's sort of a standalone.

But the expectation is that any proposal or any um ideas that come forward would need to incorporate all three parcels.

And were you were they given some kind of parameters based on what we know about that area and what it's approved for the for the contest, so we're not getting something out of sure yes that might not fit or or belong there.

Okay.

Just double checkings.

Um, and that's very exciting.

It's very exciting.

Um, the prospect of all of these I do appreciate the updates and and look forward to continued updates and getting those RFPs out there um to help move our city forward.

Um thank you both for being here and making that presentation.

That is all of our agendized items.

Do we have anybody?

No more, nobody called to public.

Um the items for future meetings are listed.

Are there any additional um I agenda requests for future meetings?

I see shaking heads.

So given that, I'm happy to adjourn the meeting.

Thank you.

One of the really interesting things with our food banks is