Good evening, citizens of Portsmouth, invited guests, all in attendance, our city staff who is here present with us.

Also want to welcome those who are joining us online or any other way to view this work session today.

I want to recognize our city staff, our city manager, Mr.

Carter, our city attorney, Miss Lavonda Graham Williams, and our city clerk, Miss Deborah White.

Also want to acknowledge my colleagues on council.

Um have a couple items on the agenda that we will present this evening.

Um, but just before I do that, I'm gonna ask Miss Michelle Bradstock to stand.

She is our new behavioral health director.

She come to us from uh Chesapeake, and uh she's actually a native of Portsmouth.

So welcome home and thank you for joining our team.

Thank you.

Now for the presentations this evening, we have a couple of presentations uh from uh some outside firms that are here to talk to us.

The first one is uh a main street city council resolution request.

Uh that's gonna be brought to us by the Portsmouth Partnership.

Ms.

Michelle Wynne is going to be uh the presenter for this evening.

So, Michelle, if you don't mind, please come forward.

Can y'all hear me?

Okay, good evening.

Thank you all for having me.

And I've also got uh Liz Pascalini who also works for the partnership up here with me.

Um and I think this is gonna do the slides right.

Okay, perfect.

Um again, appreciate y'all having me um having us here present um tonight our um old town district revitalization plan and part of the um mobilizing main street initiative.

So just to give you a little history.

Um I know some of you don't know some of the history about how this all started.

Um, but in August uh 2024, um a group of restaurant owners, business owners, part of the Civic League, um, some city departments and different representatives throughout Old Town got together and started meeting to talk about Old Town, um the need to get people back into Old Town to help re um revitalize some of the foot traffic and some of the um energy that used to be back in old town.

Try again.

Okay, are you just flipping it now?

Okay, all right, perfect.

Um, and then again, I'm gonna apologize a little bit.

So this is in a PowerPoint presentation, which y'all needed.

This is actually a flip book, so I'm happy to send y'all the link because it's got some live links to it, and it also looks a little nicer.

So, anyway, I apologize for the way it looks, um, because it is a flip book and it was not meant to be in a PowerPoint presentation.

Oh, I think it's working now.

Okay, and then just some of the strategic partners that are involved in this.

Um, we've got the old town civic league, we've got um, like I said, a couple of um city agents, city department heads with us.

Um we have the Portsmouth Partnership, we've got the Civic League, and we also have um a combination of businesses throughout the old town district that are part of this initiative.

Um, and we're looking at this um for the district to define um as somebody in our board called it the golden tea.

So we've got the waterfront that's being developed that is a huge opportunity for the city.

We've got the innovation district that's also happening um from the 700 blocks um through like Effingham and down to MLK, and then we've got the high street corridor.

So when you look at the golden T piece, you look at that waterfront and high street coming down to the innovation district, and just the opportunity that's there to revitalize this corridor.

So we've got infrastructure and money we know going into the innovation district with the rides grant coming and all of the or the raise grant coming and all the pieces to that.

Um, we know that the waterfront is now starting to be developed, and so looking at that in-between space and the importance of it, and also all the assets that are there in this old town community.

Um, again, you know, up on the slide, but you we've got um historic homes, we've got commercial buildings, we've got pavilions, we've got um museums and just all kinds of amenities in this area to attract businesses to attract people, and so again, highlighting all of that and making sure that there's connectivity from the water all the way through.

We feel that that's really important and uh in part of this process and understanding all the assets that we have and that all the draws that we have for people.

If you'll flip that side and again, let's see if I can do it.

Oh no, it's kind of working.

Um it was kind of backwards, but if you can see you've got the waterfront there and then the old town district, and then you go back, and then that connects to the innovation district.

And again, it's hard because this is supposed to be together and not um separated.

Um, and then the other piece that we were um also identifying in these meetings are just brand presence.

So I know the city is going through some brand awareness and some um redefining of the brands, and so we also wanted to bring to the attention that old town really is a destination on its own and should have a brand awareness awareness too.

One of the reasons that we think that is because when people think of old town, they think of safety, they think of historic, um, it resonates with it resonates with our residents and it resonates with visitors.

So we want to capture that, you know, elaborate on that, and you know, really help the conversation move forward and be positive.

Um, when people talk about cities, they identify Virginia Beach, they identify Norfolk, they don't necessarily identify Portsmouth as the city like that when they're when you're looking to travel.

So really capture that brand and that old town piece.

Um, the other thing that we were looking at too is just a multi-generational appeal, right?

Like, you know, again, we want to attract younger groups to come to visit, um, also knowing to lean into the historic piece that we have, and so we've got a mixture of residents downtown, and so we want to make sure that we're we're really bringing amenities to help everybody that lives downtown, and then also to bring people into downtown.

And then the other piece that was also identified is why now, like why is the time now.

Um, and one of the important things is the fact that we've got Rivers Casino that's bringing in you know hundreds of people into Portsmouth.