Good evening, citizens of course with everyone who is here in present.

Thank you for joining us today for our public work session here on February 9th.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge our city staff who's here with us.

Thank you all for being here and the citizens joining us here in the work session.

Also want to acknowledge Mr.

Stephen Carter, City Manager, you know, city attorney, Mr.

Terry Challenger, and of course it's white.

Of course.

Oh.

And also, Mr.

Edwards.

My eyes didn't see you.

I got it.

Thank you for joining us.

Mr.

Evans.

Thank you for reminding me, Mr.

White.

You're welcome.

Would you please call the law?

Yes, sir, Ms.

Brian.

Mr.

Hugo.

Mr.

Moody.

Here, Ms.

Thomas.

Here.

Mr.

Telley.

Here.

Mayor Claudia.

Here.

Thank you.

Mr.

Carter.

Thank you, Mayor.

We only have one item on the agenda this evening and that is a review of an unsolicited, unsolicited proposal for a new city hall and fucking garage.

Alright.

Tonight's presentation is just informational.

There's no requirement or ask of any decision to be made this evening.

This is just information so that you uh and our citizens be aware of what this process is.

Uh what we're doing, why are they hope to make sure I uh explain tonight is what this is and what it is not.

Um this is a statutory process, so we we have rules about how this goes along.

And what I would be explaining is what those rules are, where we are in the process, and what is the expectation in the coming weeks.

I want to be very clear that this is uh is an evaluation exercise really what we're doing today.

Uh so this is not uh is not uh a foregone conclusion that anything will happen.

Is that this council of the city, the leadership of the city uh remain in full control of the whole process?

So we will, as we walk through this, you're seeing their decision points all along the way where you get to this determined yay and nay remove or we don't move.

So there's no uh forcing you into something or again, no full-working about how anything will proceed.

All right.

What exactly is APPEA?

Uh PPE stands for the public private education and infrastructure act.

This is a Virginia statue that uh allows local governments to consider alternate delivery methods for public facilities.

It does not eliminate public control, and it does not bypass the transparency required for such an endeavor.

What it does is allow the city to test for the public private partnership using a private sector team can deliver a facility faster with clearer costs, clear certainties, and with certain construction risk that gets shifted away from taxpayers for a while.

One of the most important things to realize is that the PPEA, the way the statue is built, it provides options at every stage.

So if at any point the proposal no longer makes sense for the city of Portsmouth, the council can stop that process.

I want to make sure as we talk about this tonight that I point out the places where you're actually controlling this process.

A few entities from our area that has made this proposal.

Meaning we were not advertising, we were not engaged, we were not in any way searching for a partner, but somebody recognized the value in partnering with us and made an unsolicited proposal to us.

This team includes Ripley Hewalp as the lead developer, MEB as the general contractor, but also Clark Nexon as the architect and engineer.

All three of these have substantial experience enforcement and with other public private partnerships.

Tonight is not an endorsement of this team, it's simply an acknowledgement that they are qualified enough to work our evaluation.

So why was this team selected?

Again, they were not selected.

It was an unsolicited proposal.

That's the reason I stated it that way.

But they were not selected.

This is an unsolicited proposal.

And you'll see a little bit later.

One of the portions of the statute required that although we got it on solicited proposal, we made a vehicle available for anybody else that wanted to propose also to participate.

So what are we talking about?

We're talking about moving, not moving, actually rebuilding.

Yes.

Well, it's actually a rebuild.

We're not gonna do anything with the building here.

We're gonna leave the building as it stands and build a a substantially a new building and a new parking deck.

The proposal suggests city hall to be owned by the city, any and built on a property uh cut into the back side of the public library between King and Court Streets, what is or was uh the Court Street garage that is now just a surface parking lot.

So not very far from here.

We stay in uh the downtown area, which is a good thing for our local downtown businesses so that so that the occupants of this building continue to patronize those areas.

The vision includes three components: a city hall, a replacement garage, and then a public plaza.

That's the way it is proposed today.

This is a conceptual site plan.

It is absolutely not a final layout.

No final design decisions have been made, and the council will have an opportunity to see the final uh not just the proposed version of this as we move forward.

Why do we choose this site?

It's central, uh city owned.

It is again in the downtown area, still uh a way to support our local uh businesses, and it is again a site that the the city already owns the the property to this is a concept of what a uh a proposed city hall and parking garage would look like.

It is again in the downtown area, still uh and a way to support our local uh businesses, and it is again a site that the the city already owns the the property to this is a concept of what a uh a proposed city hall and parking garage would look like the vision right now is the area between the two buildings is an extension of the quarter that runs down right in front of the uh children's museum.

This is another view of that same facility.

So, what's the benefit of doing this?

Well, one of the biggest benefits is the is one of the long-term processes that we have talked about, and that is opening up or unlocking our waterfront.

We already have a Crawford Bay, a proposal, or not a proposal, a process that we're going through to kind of reinventorate that area.

This is another area.

Think about what's happening around us right now.

We have a vacant building on one side that's been vacant for a few years now.

We have another vacant building that's in the process of being vemoed.

So if we remain here, or we're we're sitting between two vacant buildings, which makes trying to develop that area not really feasible because you have an occupied structure right in the middle of all of it.

This site represents some of the most valuable real estate that the city has today, and it could allow our future councils to consider development options that could expand our tax base, improve our public access, and even strengthen tourism in this area.

Again, no decision about this site is what I'm asking you to make a decision on tonight.

This is just information so that you have that as a tool as we move forward and you get an opportunity to make some other decisions.

Is that the waterfront development will not pay for the new city hall?

Think of it this way.

Before we can develop the land that the city hall currently sits on, we have to be able to vacate the land that current city hall sits on.

In order to vacate the land that the current city hall sits on, we have to already have a new city hall to move into.

So the actual uh current city hall and the waterfront property would not be the mechanism we use as financing the funding for the new city hall.

However, because one of the options that we have is, and we'll talk a little bit about this, a couple different financing options.

Either way, if we can get new development here, that would absolutely help in the long-term financing of a new city hall.

But I want to make absolutely sure that I mentioned to you that as it stands today, that the anything that's gonna happen here is not considered in how we're moving that process forward.

One of the questions that always comes up is why not renovate.

Well, renovation is an alternative, but we've outgrown the building that we're in.

When we moved into this building, there was a lot less people that we have in the building than there is today.

Our current city hall has many documented deficiencies relating to our security, our accessibility, the space configurations for our offices and our personnel, most importantly, our lifecycle systems, such as our HVACs, our elevators.

It's becoming more and more of an issue.

I'm finding out, or I'm discovering, I say it that way.

More and more each day of some of the deficiencies that need to be addressed in this building because of deferred maintenance that didn't take place when it should have taken place.

So there are systems that are breaking that we have to fix immediately because this is a public building, so it has to be open, so we we don't have the luxury now of deferred some of those things that break to some time later.

So when something breaks, we have to immediately, even though those things aren't really budgeted right now, we have to immediately take consideration and get those items repaired so that the building remains open and available to the public.

Now one of the things I do want to mention before I move on is whether we pursue a new facility or not, those issues I'm talking about don't go away.

We still have to deal with those issues.

What you see as those concepts may or may not actually end up being the actual construction that's done.

That will be determined during that interim agreement period.

This what we have tonight, although I will talk about a price, it's not a guaranteed price as of yet.

The interim agreement work is designed to get to the point where we know exactly what that price will be.

I don't have enough information about what the actual structure will turn out to be, and we still have several meetings with our financial advisors and our uh finance teams to determine what the actual financing will look like and what we will be willing to bring back to you as a consideration of the debt.

This is not a commitment tonight to move city hall.

This is again strictly informational so that you and the public know what's happening as we try to be as transparent through this process as we could possibly can.

Although we talked about what this waterfront can look like, we're not asking you to make a decision on that tonight.

So this is an opportunity to evaluate further an unsolicited proposal.

It is not a commitment to do anything.

So where are we in the process?

We were required once we got the proposal to evaluate proposals, let the team know whether or not we accepted the proposal.

We've done that.

We were required to advertise to the general public and any other potential submitters that we have a proposal.

This is a window that's open for anybody else that want to make a proposal to bring us those proposals, and we will evaluate all those proposals equally.

We've done that.

What we're asking now is to schedule a public hearing because one of the rules says before we can enter into an interim agreement, we have to have a public hearing, allow the public to voice their opinions about what we're doing, and then wait at least 30 days after that before we can actually make it enter into that interim agreement.

That's where we are now.

We're at the point where we're willing.

I'm asking to be able to schedule that public hearing.

The date that we have set for that is March the 10th.

And at that public hearing, allow the public to voice whatever opinions they have about this, then you make a decision whether or not you are willing to allow us to move forward with pursuing that interim agreement.

And again, the interim agreement, that's why this maybe the next interim agreement is where the piece that I I call it two things.

One is our homework procession.

That's where we go away working with the developers to kind of come up with some real numbers.

Because we've looked at the design, we've kind of figured out what we need in there, how it needs to be structured.

They go away and they're create what's called a 35% designer on.

Meaning they work on the design of that building up to the point where they can accurately determine what the cost is going to be.

This is what the real numbers are now.

This is how we're going to finance this.

This is the dates, this is the timeline, this is everything that you that we can figure out about how to build this building.

Are you willing to move forward?

So even after this, there's still another checkpoint that you guys will have an opportunity to scrutinize, ask every question that you can think of, and get comfortable that we're moving in the right direction.

Again, the voice of our community matters.

We've defined exit points.

Each gate requires our council to authorize moving forward.

This protects the city from being locked into something that we really don't want to be locked into because we again there's several exit ramps on this road.

The interim agreement will get you a third 35% architectural design and a hundred percent engineering design.

We'll do our due diligence around what's required, what we want to have there, we'll do all the legwork to kind of figure out what the uh financial verifications are for work going to propose to you as a financial vehicle.

We consider that piece a low risk for our council or lower risk for our city because at that point we get all that information back.

You still have to make a decision.

Yes, this is something we want to do, or no, this is not something that we want to do.

If that is something that we want to do, we'll start working on what's called a comprehensive agreement.

That is going to be the final phase of that.

That's where we actually put the uh the pen to paper that says, yes, we want to build a city hall, and we've agreed on what's going to look like, we're agreed on where it is, we're agreed on what the finance is going to be, we've agreed on what the cost is going to be.

We're ready to move forward.

So again, even after we do the interim agreement, there's still another step that we have to come back to, explain to you guys all the work homework that we did about the interim on the interim agreement, or that resulted from the interim agreement, I'd say, and then there's that that final checkpoint that says, yes, we're ready or no, we're not.

Financing.

You'll see in the proposal, the there's a proposal to suggest a not-for-profit financing model where tax exempt bonds are issued by third party and the city leases the facility.

I want to make sure that you realize that this is a option, it's not the only option.

It does not count as general obligation bond debt, but as far as our rating agencies are concerned, it's still debt.

Alright, so that it helps, but it doesn't alleviate debt.

Okay, because if you enter into uh what we would call a long-term lease based on the proposed option, our reading agencies are still going to look at us as carrying that debt.

But again, we don't have to go with the model that's proposed.

One of the parts of that due diligence process is working with our financial advisors, working with our financial teams to understand what is the most efficient uh cost effective vehicle for our city.

The current order of magnitude is that all of these things that we're talking about now is conceptual until we get to that 35% design, and then we start validating pricing.

The number that we have up here, the 86 million, uh does not include the uh financing vehicle piece of this.

Uh so the total number is more like 93.

That is a big number.

But it's a big, but it's gonna be a big number whether we do it one way or the other.

It's gonna cost somewhere in that neighborhood to build a modern facility with the size of a garage that's necessary.

Now, that may not actually be the number we end up with because again, that due diligence piece has not taken place.

This is just a rough estimate of what we think is going to be based on what we know about pricing today.

Again, everything that we're looking at is a range, but not a commitment.

The reason I keep saying that is because I think that's really important for our council and for our citizens to know.

We're talking about a lot of things here, but none of it is a commitment at this point.

The only commitment that we're making at this point is whether or not we want to pursue evaluating this further.

Alright, so we're asking uh for the March 10th public hearing.

Once we have that, we're gonna ask for the council to make a decision on whether or not we want to enter into a negotiation period for creating an interim agreement.

There will not be an interim agreement available at the time that we make the decision to pursue this.

This is just a decision to pursue it.

Then we will start working on what the actual interim agreement will be, and then we'll bring that back to you so that you can approve the interim agreement.

Remember, the March 10th meeting, the law says we cannot enter into any kind of agreement at least until 30 days have passed after that meeting.

So that's when we'll we'll go away and we'll work on what that interim agreement is going to look like, so that when we come back, uh I optimistically would be 30 days, but I think it'll be more like 90 to 120 days to come back to you and say, okay, this is the agreement, or do you think it's okay?

And we'll explain all the pieces of it so that you'll be well aware.

Now, during that time, what I will ask you is every question that you've got about anything that's concerning this ask.

That is actually the time to do it while we're going through that process.

We'll get you every answer, we'll respond to you in writing it every every time so that you have a record of what the process is, the questions that's been asked, and what those responses are.

But again, at that point, yes means we're gonna move on and try to work out this interim agreement and get some more details about what the new city hold will actually look like or no.

And if you say no, the process is we move back and we continue doing what we're doing today.

Alright, so absolutely we need to build our future together.

I'm hoping that uh the views of this, our city council, those in the audience, uh those are part of our community that have a stake in the same whatever needs to be said will come out and join me on March 10th in our city council chamber.

We will have that public hearing.

All right.

One of the final things I want to talk to you about is the risk in a trade-off.

So the risk is that we're in to a long-term payment option, uh, obligation rather.

Now, regardless of which financial model we enter into, there's going to be a long-term payment that's going to be required.

So we're we're trying to wait which one is best, but either one is going to end up with a long-term obligation.

What we don't know is what the interest rate and capital market exposure is going to be at that time.

I will tell you, and you guys know from experience.

Whatever it costs today, if we delay that two years is going to cost more, it won't cost less.

You can get the exact same thing, it's going to cost you more.

So it is important that we kind of go ahead and move through this.

Construction costs was is going to escalate, and until we can get a price guarantee, then we're at the mercy of the market.

Some of the trade-offs is that we can get faster delivery versus our traditional procurement processes.

Um we have flexibility today that we may not have as we enter into some of these long-term contracts.

A new facility will benefit us, our staff, our citizens, very much more than uh trying to renovate the facility that we're in.

I think that is a a losing battle that I'm fighting every day.

Don't forget about the potential warfront value that we're recruiting by having all three of these facilities along this waterfront of that land anyway, available for redevelopment.

I think that's going to be a game changer in the future, of course.

We are always trying to make sure we mitigate as many risk as possible.

So the interim agreement with the fine exit points is one of those ways that we mitigate this by having an opportunity to know what this is going to look like in our future, but still not being committed to something that's long-term until we're ready to be committed to something that's long-term.

We're absolutely doing comprehensive financing review.

That means every every option available we'll look at and collectively with our advisors and our teams, we'll bring back to you the one that we think is the best one, and the reason why we think it's the best.

One of the benefits of this is those required public hearings so that the public can weigh in and have a voice in what is happening with this whole process.

And again, we're going to be as transparent as we possibly can to make sure that everybody's aware of what we're doing, when we're doing it, and why we're doing it.

There is a small video that uh that I've made about this whole process that I'll share with you guys later.

That if we decide to move forward, uh, I'll put on our website so that and it kind of goes to and explain what a PPA is, what it is that we're doing, why we're doing it, where we're gonna do it, it gives some explanations of all of these things so that those that weren't in attendance tonight uh or didn't get a chance to uh hear what this presentation was all about, they get a convinced version of that so that everybody has a level playing field for what it is that's going on.

That's it.

So I anticipated that there would be some conversation and questions about this.

So I stand ready to try and be responsive to everything that you ask.

Ready, Ms.

Deadman.

Is that a yes?

I'll defer it.

Okay.

Vice Mayor Moody, so you have page uh 10 in your presentation uh the manager and uh excellent presentation.

Uh did have a question on the competitive window.

Can you expound on the you got the word close there?

What does close mean in that context?

Close mean we've already done that process.

There was a requirement to have an extended period of time where we advertise this, allow anybody else that wants to get in on it to get in on it.

We've passed that time, that timeline is closed.

So at this point, the opportunity to submit another bid for us to look at is closed.

And that includes uh the uh uh unsolicited bid yes, yes, sir.

Okay, just wanted to clarify that's a statutory requirement that we do that as a statutory time that's placed on it, and we followed it exactly.

Thanks.

Okay, councilwoman times got the floor.

Thank you.

Uh for that question that closed period so when before we receive this unsolicited bid, yes, ma'am.

We advertised okay.

So that's my question.

Then how did how did anyone else know that we were moving forward with this process and that they did have a chance to bid, or did we have to wait for an unsolicited proposal to be received first to even start this process, and then therefore we're only giving 45 days.

Can you explain that piece just a bit?

I'll try.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I think I'm hearing you ask is how did this process even start?

Is that yeah, because it sounds like it started with an unsolicited bid proposal?

It did, yes, ma'am.

Where if we never got the unsolicited proposal, how then would we have started this process?

Let me ask it that way.

There's a couple ways.

Okay.

All right, because we recognize we need a city hall.

Yes.

If we didn't get an unsolicited proposal, at some point we would have to put a proposal out for people to actually give us a bid for building a city hall.

Have we helped me?

I my legal counseling.

Uh the other thing I wanted to add is thank you.

There are guidelines that the city put together back in 2010 that established it for solicited and unsolicited uh proposals.

So there was already a mechanism out there for that to assess.

And one of the people that's listed on here had already done work for the city previously in terms of city programming.

So they were very aware of the uh deficiencies of the city.

So they were in a position to know about that, so they they solicited a proposal that they thought would be beneficial for the city to do.

Okay.

Um so they were in the no about this to be able to do an unsolicited proposal.

Okay, can I follow up on that, sir?

Absolutely.

Thank you, Mr.

Challenger.

So they were in the no to be able to do this unsolicited proposal.

So one of my concerns, I I like the idea of the PPEA.

I just you know did a little research on it before this meeting, but um I am concerned that within this 45-day advertisement period that we might have limited our search in sort of in terms of who was in the no and who could have possibly been in this process because it sounds like if we go through to the interim agreement, and you said if we go go yay or nay, then we stop whatever we're doing.

Does that bring us back to then putting a proposal?

Okay, I just want to thank you.

That but um kind of closes the loop there.

Um I had another question, but I'll pause for a second and move on to the next council person.

Councilman Hugo, sir, and then Vice Mayor Moody then well actually councilman Dustin didn't vice remote call.

So uh Mr.

Carter, uh you started by saying that we need to replace the existing city hall for a host of reasons.

Um and slide 15 refers to programming studies in 2019 and updated in 2025.

Yes, I assume that those studies uh have created a list of requirements for us to use to uh begin the discussions with the with the the uh submitter of this unsolicited proposal.

I can't say for sure, but I would like to assume that that was the basis for their proposal.

They got that uh study that we had done that said these are the requirements based on personnel services functions, uh how the building needs to be laid out, and that is the thing that they use to make their first uh shot at what they think it should look like for us.

Can you make that study available to us?

Absolutely.

Okay, absolutely.

Um, and um presumably uh we've had an assessment done of the building.

Do we have a price tag associated with that assessment for let's just say for the one person in the city that insists we shouldn't be going down this path that we should be overhauling the building that we have?

Do we have any idea what it would cost to overhaul the building that we have and acknowledging that as you said, this building isn't big enough to house everybody?

So you know, we could solve that by building uh you know overhauling this building and building a smaller building as an annex, let's say.

Do we have some some price tag to to go do that?

We will because that's part of that due diligence work that we will bring back to you, so that you have a definite name and not taking a definite number for while we're proposing a brand new building versus uh a renovation of an open.

Okay.

And uh early in the brief, uh you mentioned that the city owns the building.

Isn't it true though that during the first 30 years the builder owns the building and we're leasing the building and we don't really own the building until the end of the 30-year lease?

Yes, if I say we own the building during that period, I did make a mistake because that would be a lease unless we finance it ourselves.

Yeah, if we finance it ourselves, but then we would hold the building.

Okay.

And what what about the land that the building is gonna sit on?

Does that I mean it suggests I think in the in the proposal that we hand the land over to the people that are gonna build, right?

And so they own the land as well as the building for that first 30 years.

Well, they will own the land.

We're still on the land, they're on the building.

But uh as part of that process, you know, that is again a option, but it's not the only option.

So we will kind of look at all of those things, whether or not we will how much of this how much the risk we want to uh control versus how much we want to pass on.

So that would be part of our due diligence.

Okay, and then um back to slide 10.

So this is the beginning of a timeline.

Yes, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that's got to happen to the right of interim agreement.

Yes, uh, including uh us understanding about how long each of those things is gonna take.

So uh evaluation due diligence, uh design, pricing, risk, all of those things have to happen after interim agreement before we go to a final agreement.

Yes.

So there's questions that we're gonna need to answer in each one of those phases.

Yes.

It would be very helpful, assuming that we decide to go down this path to lay out that entire timeline with what's gotta happen, what's gotta happen, what are the questions that we need to get answered before we're ready to move on to the next step, and then to also see where the off ramps are, because as you said, if we're gonna be in control, there are times when we've already turned it over to the developer to go do some work for us, but then when the homework comes back to us, then it's our opportunity to say, yeah, keep going, or no, now we've seen enough.

So laying out a timeline beyond interim agreement that addresses the rest of this to get us to a final agreement, and roughly how much time should we be setting aside to do each of those things so we get a sense are we talking about going to a final agreement by the end of this calendar year or the end of next calendar year?

So you know, my sense of time is faster than probably your sense of time.

I I I doubt it, but both of my faster than reality.

Well, mine's definitely faster than reality using just the discussion we had at the link charred the other night.

Uh you know, it's like wow, 2030 seems like forever from now.

So uh getting some sense of what's a reasonable amount of time so that we know what are the deadlines that we need to be working toward to ask for the reviews and get the homework done.

Okay, absolutely.

We'll build the rest of that timeline out for you.

Uh some of it's statutory, but uh most of it is just based on how quickly can we get to a court where the developers pay us or satisfied to the next bottle.

Well, and answering the questions that need to be answered in each one of those steps along the way.

Okay, thanks.

Sure.

Councilman Dodson, sir, you have the floor then price member.

Yeah, I've got a few comments and a few questions.

So it's sad that deferred maintenance has put us into this position.

I'm hoping that we're planning to work around that um philosophy.

But as I see this development, we have more than one option.

One is to want us to say take this one, or we can I we we also want to say, well, can this parcel be proposed developed at the same time uh as that one?

Um that we're able, yeah.

The only work we felt this one is to get out of it.

Agreed.

But that could be part of an overall proposal for this parcel too.

So I'm not saying this let's do it.

I'm saying that philosophically, or as an engineer, we always outline the options and that those some other options remain to us that we'll we need to make sure that we've eliminated those options and or at least considered them and talked them through.

Okay.

One of those options is that we wait for a proposal to develop this whole parcel with this move included in that proposal uh to help with the finances that would come along.

What can happen if at Solport this bill work or we decide not to go with it?

And we actually do the process ourselves if we choose to build that into the process, we can.

But that's not an option that's before us right now.

That's before us right now.

But I'd like for us to keep that in mind as as we're going through some of this process.

Also, the 86 million uh that is currently estimated on.

Does that include the cost of move moving the current or new equipment and personnel into the building too?

Is it this attorney key?

So there would be an additional cost on top of the 86 million.

Furniture fixtures, those kind of things are not included in that price.

Can we get as we move along?

Can we, as Mr.

Hugo has proposed, get some more of that detail?

It's my goal to bring you a full cost, not a partial cost.

So you know the full cost of everything does not happen.

Um thank you.

That's what I had.

That's simplified.

Mr.

Manager, you you mentioned that uh our financial advisors will be looking at the uh different options.

Yes, sir.

Uh what what other uh advisors are we gonna have looking at this other than staff city council?

We'll have uh some uh contracted engineers that's that's working with us on it.

We have the again we talked about the financial advisor.

But those will all be those will be the only two outside entities that will be involved.

So all the decision making will be within this body and staff segments.

Yes.

With those two advisors along the side that we talked about.

What other also what what other uh non-solicited proposals has the city entered into that you're aware of?

We haven't entered to any that I'm aware of.

We had one for a similar city or home that I'm I'm aware of that did not make it to the finish line.

But I'm not aware of that that was referenced, I think, by uh Mr.

Challenger in uh 2010.

That and that went through some of the process and it it it got to the uh making the decision council uh makes it that's the only one that I'm aware of.

And if somebody knows something different, I'd be having to research it, of course.

Perhaps the courthouse uh recall that could have been or as I know that was not what uh you might might look into that.

And that's not a bad thing.

That obviously I think that turned out uh very well.

Okay, I think it would absolutely councilwoman.

Um I don't have any specific questions at this point, Mr.

Marr, but I I will just comment that it I'm glad to see the transparency in this process.

I'm glad that you're keeping us well informed of this is very preliminary, and there will be opportunities along the way for the public to be involved and for us to prepare questions for you.

Um it's it's definitely an exciting part of being a part of this council, and I agree with the idea of us continuing that waterfront development with phase one and phase two and and making this space something that we can all benefit from.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Tilly.

Thank you.

Council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I wanted to see if uh my other council members had we're gonna they brought up some of the things that I did want to follow up on just in preparation for our March 10th meeting.

Uh Mr.

Carter, one of my questions um also surround uh our you know, our independent independent financial advisors and what other kind of independent third-party cost um, I guess advisors will have on our side to verify the costs that come in and throughout that process if we enter into this agreement.

That's something that's important, I think, that we consider in terms of cost transparency in this whole process.

Um and then my other question, uh Victor Moody kind of hit on this question of what what other I guess independent advisors will be involved, um, being that it sounds like a lot of negotiation is gonna happen if with the PPEA.

Will we have uh Mr.

Challenger representing us legally, or do we need like a special lawyer, legal advisor that's really uh are you familiar with these negotiations?

Mr.

Challenger, I just wanted to know is that something we would consider in this whole process as well.

At this point, um we're we're pretty comfortable where we are right now.

Um obviously to the extent that we need uh assistance class uh another perspective we will bring it on.

We have the ability to bring on councils uh whenever we need it.

So uh we we'll we we will definitely um keep that in mind, but as of right now, at the stage that we all right now we've come to what we want.

Thank you, Mr.

Championship.

And they've been a partners from the very beginning.

Okay, also thank you.

Council Hughes, just one more question, Mr.

Carter.

Who's the project manager that's gonna oversee this project?

Ultimately is me.

Uh but one of the things we're I'm looking at hiring is a program manager uh that can help walk through this process with us, Mr.

Set of Ottawa.

So yeah, so kind of coming back to uh where the vice mayor and councilwoman Thomas were going.

I mean, we don't we don't do this every day.

We collectively, your team and our team, and so having somebody sitting on top of it that can figure out well, wait a minute, now we're getting into shallow water.

We maybe need to bring somebody in to give us some independent advice that's got more experience doing this than our team, but the only way we're probably gonna figure out that we're steaming into shallow waters, have somebody on the bridge saying we're steaming into shallow water, so and you got a day job, so my job too.

And this isn't it.

I just said you might want to do this as a name.

Yeah, we put uh yes, we we intend to have uh some additional eyes on the engineering side to let us know what it looked like if the structures we found with what all those engineering pieces are.

I have another group that's looking at all the financing pieces, make sure the whole two things work well together.

And like Mr.

Challenger said if we need some legal advice to uh young what we already have, uh we have the ability to bring that all to I think we're prepared for this.

So um sorry, one more question.

Um is it unusual that we didn't get an additional bid, or is that kind of part of the course, or were you expecting an additional bid?

We had some people sniffing around us, okay.

Um, but I think some of the groups that were they couldn't make the financing work for uh so I think that's where uh some of those decided not to bid because um had a couple groups that uh want to do a state hall and somebody else do uh the garage or vice versa, but uh this is all a group that uh had a comprehensive question.

And it so it may be preliminary to ask this, so if it is we'll just move on, but our our parking needs downtown indicate that we do need garage.

Yes, yes, more than that.

Yes.

Very much so.

I know that we've talked about it here and there, so and then at different points leading all the way into the link.

So this is we do this is more than just parking for staff.

Right, yeah, for the entire country.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

One of the things I want to want to just keep us in mind about this whole PPE process.

You know, it is a process.

And and and all of us, I would encourage all of us as council members to really start to educate ourselves about the process.

When we go to things like NLC and other meetings, they usually have a whole group there that deals with PP EA across the country.

And that's a good opportunity to really hear real life stories.

Um I do know that other localities here in Hampton Roads have used the PPEA process to build city halls, to do that kind of work.

And the thing we have to keep in mind, you know, our budget is limited.

Uh certainly uh just to let everybody know in the history of the city of Portsmouth, in all of the things that we have done, we have never defaulted on a loan.

That's a good record.

And our fund balance is strong.

Um our financial advisors gave us a good report.

But I want to let everybody know that it's something that we really need to consider because here's the deal.

And I'll just give an example.

How long have we waited to do this middle school?

And the challenge we run into is as a city, we may not have the bandwidth financially to take from our accounts and extend where we already are in terms of uh you know our threshold of what we can borrow.

These kind of vehicles make sense, and that's why we're really looking at it.

And by the way, everybody can't pull this off.

So when you get an unsolicited bid, we didn't go out looking for it, but these this is what they do.

This is their business.

So having them come to the table to really give us some real options, and yes, this is not gonna be rubber stamped, we're gonna go through a full vetting process, and as Mr.

Carter said, the bucks gonna stop with him and us.

And we will have some options to move out.

But when I look at this and having been all over the country and listen to how these things work, it'll take us another 30 years before we move city hall.

We wait to be able to afford to do it that way.

And you know, right now we've got a building that our citizens can't get into that's difficult for our employees to get into.

I mean, just the other day we had a water rain break down in the parking garage.

Yes.

Those are things that are not going to be resolved.

And I get the fact that the maintenance won't done, but at the end of the day, we are where we are.

Correct.

But we have to be responsible as leaders to put things in place for our citizens and for our city.

And so I see this as a positive.

I think that as we go through the process, we will learn more.

And I'm looking forward to the continued re-engagement, but I think this is a good start.

And by the way, I think we did have a Mr.

Woody can correct me if I'm wrong.

Wasn't the Renaissance a kind of public-private partnership?

It was.

I don't think it fell under the PPA, but I don't think that existed in that kind of correctly.

But that was a public-private partnership.

Right.

So so we have experience in the city of working in that capacity.

So I I just would encourage everybody, I know the language is new.

Um, get involved, learn about it, and ultimately I think uh we will come to the best decision as a group and as a city.

Well, I ask you guys to do is if you have any questions about this, please ask.

We will do whatever research is necessary to get your response to whatever you ask.

And I will uh like a normally do provide you some talking points about this whole process, where we're going with this, uh why it's important.

I will I'll give you uh the right information.

And Mr.

Carter, could you do that?

I know there are a number of cities suffer for them, but I know I think did their city hall through a PPEA.

I'm not a hundred, but I think they did.

Could you get some beta on the localities that have used this program to either enhance their city or do something that was was beneficial in our city?

Absolutely.

I think that would be helpful because then we could talk to local folks.

Okay.

Uh before I take my seat, uh we do have some members of the development team that's here to let me introduce themselves to uh the citizens know who to rock's at if you guys want to introduce yourself to James McKee with her label company.

Dan, he will represent the company.

Justin Ballard MB, Trip Smith M E B.

And Eric Kepler, your M E B.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

There are no further inquiries.

That means my presentation to you.

So at this time I would ask the Vice Mayor Willie, please do the closed session motion.

I moved to go into a closed meeting code section two point two dash three seven eleven A seven for the purpose of consultation of legal counsel pertaining to actual probable litigation versus consultation of the meeting with adversely negotiating or litigated posture of the public body specifically regarding the city of Portugal versus one restaurant route at all.

This meeting is a little bit more.