26. Madam clerk or Ms. Secretary will you please call the roll? Everyone as I call
roll if you could just please confirm your attendance. Chip Collins. Present. Andy
Bowman. Here. Tasha Battle. Absent. Hardy Dorsey. Present. Joe Housman. Here. Sonny Park.
Here. Ed O'Connor. Absent. We have a quorum. Great. I need a motion to approve
the meeting agenda, which is in front of you.
Moved. I have a second. Second. Moved by Mr. Park,
seconded by Mr. Housman to approve the meeting agenda on favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion
passes. I need a motion to approve the meeting minutes from last meeting. Are those in front of
Yes.
So moved.
I have a second.
All right.
Moved by Mr. Dorsey.
Seconded by Mr. Hausman for approval of the meeting.
Meeting minutes all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion passes.
We'll now move to the next agenda item.
New business.
We have the introduction of a new staff member apparently.
Yes, we do.
We'd like to introduce you to Mary Adkins.
Mary joined us in January after three, three and a half years with the Georgia
State Senate as a policy writer in economic development and regulated
industries, attended law school at the University of Kentucky and has been a
great addition to our team and doing great work for us. And so you will see
Mary's face around frequently. We've sort of splitting duties to some degree.
We've got so much real estate work that we're doing in the city right now
that I spend a lot of my time on real estate initiatives and Mary is spending
her time on corporate recruitment and retention and servicing our business
community of close to 6,000 businesses strong here in the city. So, welcome, Mary.
Welcome, Mary. Glad to have you. Chip, I would also like to, of course, Jim Woodward,
our council is here with us from Pope and Flynn. We all know Jim and I
I would like to introduce Patrick Cason and Brett Bowden from Woodfield Development.
They're going to be joining us today and they attended also our City Council meeting last
Tuesday and we'll be talking about their project today on the North River Shopping Center site.
Welcome, gentlemen.
We're glad you're here.
We look forward to hearing more about your project.
Before we get to that, we have to elect our development authority officers for 2026.
This is the first meeting we've had in 2026, so we have to do that.
I have served as chair.
Mr. Bowman has served as vice chair.
I believe we're both willing to serve again, but I opened it up for nominations.
Let's vote for vice chair first.
I have a nomination for vice chair.
Nominate Andy Baumann. Okay, I don't have a second of that nomination. We've got a nomination from Mr.
Houseman, seconded by Mr. Dorsey for Andy Baumann as vice chair. Are there any other nominations?
All in favor of Andy Baumann as vice chair, say aye. Opposed? All right, Andy, congratulations.
Thank you. Now we need to nominate a chair for 2026. Is there a nomination? Yes, a current
chair. Okay. And a second of that. Second. All right. Mr. Dorsey nominates some character
named Chip Collins. Houseman seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right.
For the record, I don't think there was any other mayors.
I will remain. Oh, yeah, I didn't ask for any of a self-serving or were there any other
nominations? No. Okay. All right. Well, I'm sure Mr.
Bellman is happy to serve as vice chair and thank you for reallecting me to this position.
Okay. Now we get to the meat of the meeting. And let's see. Well, first, before we
Before we get to the real meat, I asked Chris to remind us of, since we haven't had a meeting
in so long, to remind us of our mission statement.
You will recall, I think we all know that we're authorized by a Statstorey authority
from the state, but within that authority, we also, a few years ago, worked hard and
developed a mission statement so that we have something to internally guide us.
I mean, our first question is always, do we have the statutory authority to take whatever
measure we're doing?
But then second, the mission statement should be sort of our guide as to, you know, whether
we want to vote in favor of something or not.
So I'll just read it.
The primary mission of our authority is to support city sponsored projects, redevelopment
initiatives, economic development goals, educational institutions, and other nonprofit
organizations within the city that's already accomplished it accomplishes this
by providing taxable and tax exempt bond financing opportunities and other
incentives pursuant to the Georgia Development Authority's law of where
everybody's seen that mission statement but it's always good to reread it and
remind ourselves especially since we're about to hear something in real
time of what we're here for. Is there a discussion about I don't think it's
It's an action item, but is there any discussion, is everybody pleased with the way the mission
statement currently reads anything that jumps out to anyone that might need changing?
Yeah, we worked hard on it, and I think this pretty much covers everything.
All right, with that, let's move to the next agenda item.
And that is a review of the tax abatement proposal for Woodfield Development in North
River Apartments.
And Chris Burnett, I believe, is going to make that presentation.
Okay.
And I'll acknowledge for the record that Tasha Paddle has just entered the meeting and
we can record her as present.
Welcome.
So we are going to talk today about a project in terms of fulfilling the mission of our
body here, the Development Authority, and how that correlates to initiative of
the city.
and this is sort of the epitome of one of those projects. The North River
redevelopment, which is in North Sandy Springs. We're going to start out with a
little history lesson. Andy will remember this, but going back as far as I
believe it was 2016-2017, City Council appointed a North End task force to
evaluate ways to stimulate growth in the North End of the city, which had
been a number of years without any new projects done. That was followed later on
by an engagement with a group called TSW, architectural and engineering firm,
design firm that focused on four shopping centers in the north end of the
city that are fairly old and were large enough sized pieces of land that
could be ripe for redevelopment. So TS study did a study of those four
properties including some concept designs for potential site work and let's look at North River
in particular. So this is the property roughly, well not quite because some of it's been demoed,
but this was the property at the time of the study. This was an image that was in TSW's report.
This is a total of 13 acres of land to get your bearings. This is Roswell Road,
Dunwoody Place comes in right here and just north of this site is the river. So this
This is very close to the most northern point on Rosalind Road in terms of being in the
city of Sandy Springs.
I'm sure you've driven by this center plenty of times.
It's currently anchored by a dollar general store.
Sumat's restaurant, for those of you who might know that, has also been in there
for a number of years.
So let's look at the next.
So with this piece of land, basically a rectangular piece of land, these were
the ideas presented in TSW's study that was done in 2021. It calls for a variety of mixed
uses, food hall with restaurants, multi-family, retail stores, basically anchored around a
public park in the center of the property. Also some townhomes, some live work units.
were all part of this concept drawing that they did.
I don't think we'll see this, but this was the idea of the park
and some of the buildings surrounding at this park
fronting Roswell Road.
So fast forward to concepts of group random.
What we looked at was in 2021.
In 2026, February of this year,
we met with Mayor and Council on our retreat.
And these were some concept drawings
that were shared with them.
So let's look at the next slide.
First of all, this was a tactic you all may remember this site. This was the
original site design once Woodfield got engaged in this project. The original
fault was that multifamily would be on this portion of the property. This would
be the southern section of the property. Orthale townhome units would be on the
northern part and this was basically leaving the old retail that's there
And it's been there for decades, including a dollar general store, which was in this
center part of retail.
And Patrick, it was 23,000 square feet, roughly, of retail that would have remained under this
original plan.
And it was like this in large part because the belief was that the retailers were there,
that were there were going to stay for perpetuity.
And to make a broader project work, he really had to take down all of the retail, meaning
you had to buy out all of the leases that were there.
And so it was believed that that was going to be very difficult and expensive to do,
so this was the first concept drawing.
Next slide will show what Matthew Amsbach, our city senior planner, conceived if we
We could dream big enough to say, okay, if we could scrape the whole site, meaning the
tenants that are there left, what could be done in place of the old retail that was originally
drawn on?
Incorporating the city park that had been designed in the TSW study in 2021.
Doing retail, some jewel box restaurants here, some retail here as well.
So that was Matthew's concept.
We showed that to Mayor and Council in February and talked about if they would empower
staff to move forward working with Insignia, the current landowner, and with
Woodfield to determine can we get to a bigger vision than just leaving the old
retail place. Next slide please. So let's look at what has transpired since the
retreat in February of this year. This is probably one of the, if not the
most recent, certainly a current design. What you see shaded here is now
This contemplates the whole site being scraped. So all of the tenants moving out
Everything coming down the whole 13 acres being scraped. This would be a city park
This is shaded in sort of pinkish or mob. These are new retail buildings or restaurants
These are the now the apartments so they stretch more into a little more of an L-shaped building
these are still the town homes as was originally contemplated. So this is
basically the center of sight this is an existing curb cut already on Roswell
Road in there. So very much you know similar to what was designed back in
2021 by TSW. Let's look at another image of that. You can see here the green
space playground areas here. This is an outdoor pavilion with public
restaurants, a jewel box restaurant here, additional retail and restaurant
space there. These are the apartments with their swimming pool and common
areas in the center and then these are the for sale town home units on the
north end of the property. And the park itself would be the piece we looked at
here is about 0.71 acres of land area but when you take into
consideration the right of way which will also be heavily streetscaped it
It ends up being close to about one acre in total.
All right, next slide will show us
what the development would look like under this scenario.
Woodfield, WF would be the site developer.
They would build and own the apartment units.
There will be separate builders
for the construction of the town homes and the retail.
The tenant leases will need to terminate.
All tenant leases will need to terminate.
And the overall 13 acre site would be totally scraped
prepped for new construction including the park project. So what would be
Our proposed is Woodfield building 336 traditional stack-flight multifamily units. There were before
sale product here. These simple townhomes, 85 units. We're not ready to talk about who
the builder is yet. They've asked that we keep that quiet while they're continuing to work
through a few issues. But it is, we know who it is, and it's definitely a builder who
can deliver. They absolutely have the financial capacity and history to build the units
if they proceed. Restaurants in retail space about 10,000 square feet of retail. I mentioned
the outdoor covered pavilion and some bathroom space that would be built kind of overlooking
the park area. As I mentioned the 0.71 acre park that would be built and funded by Woodfield
and then deeded to the city after completion of the park. And Woodfield would also include
70 public parking spaces there would be basically an inter-party agreement so the
public parking would be available for patrons to the retail stores patrons to
the park as well and we would have once the city took ownership of the park
once it was deeded and conveyed to us and the city would manage and program
the park from that point going forward so it would be our park would feel
would build it and then deed it to us. Next slide will show us the estimated
budget. It's about a six and a half million dollar project that includes
hard cost of 3.9 million which there are budgeted items for playground
equipment. It's also full architectural and signage and anything related to
actually building the park. We've also estimated about 2.1 million in land
value for that portion of the park, the land that would be deeded to the
city post completion. And finally we've prorated the 70 public parking spaces
because you'll park what about four spaces per thousand so you're gonna need
about 40 parking spaces just to comfortably park the retail which would
leave roughly between 25 and 30 spaces that would be more public in nature
for park events. So while the parking is a good bit more expensive for 70
spaces we said about 35% of the parking spaces would be some sort of
earmark as available for park and public usage related to the city park. So we
allocated $525,000 for that component. To incentivize Woodfield, compensate them
for this project, which is to build the cost, I'm sorry, to build the park at
their expense, buy the land at their expense, and then donate it to the
city post completion. We're proposing really two different incentive
makes this one is our traditional 10-year tax abatement. It would be only
apartments only, would not include the retail, and cannot include the
residential. Those are not eligible. The for sale
residential are not eligible for abatements. The value of that on a net
present value discounted basis is about 2.5 million dollars.
City Council voted last Tuesday to also approve a waiver
or a credit for what we call impact fees, which is about $4,400 per apartment unit.
That total is about $1,525 in credit towards recreation impact fee waivers plus building
permit fee waivers that are valued at about another $250,000.
So when you put the total package together, it's on a net present value basis.
It's about $4.3 million against a $6.5 million project.
In real dollars, it's probably about $5.3 to $5.5 million in undiscounted dollars, but
we discount it because those tax savings occur over a 10-year period.
So they have to earn those out over the decade term of five months.
The estimated net positive impact to the city, and this is net of the waiver of
permitting and impact fees, is about $6.7 million.
dollars. And the reason for that is right now this property is over a 10-year
term if nothing were done on this site the city's portion of the taxes would be
about 182,000 over a 10-year term. So that's not per year that's over the
full duration of 10 years. Under this with the value of what will be on the
site it's about a 200 million dollar total anticipated to praise value for
the assets to be built on the site, the city's portion of the tax is over the next 10 years.
Even netting out the abated piece is approximately $2 million.
So it's about a 10-fold increase over the next 10 years of what we would currently
receive if nothing were done on the site.
Next slide will show us the spreadsheet.
We ran our own spreadsheet as well.
We're actually both very close.
this is Ryan tax services which would field use and their calculations we
have an in-house model they were very very close you'll see because of the way
our tax abatement burns down you running this can you recording there's no way
to make it bigger larger yeah this is probably a little tough I mean I'm not
2020 let's see if we could blow that if you can't well so you know the way
the tax abatement works is you start out once the project is completed and it's
reached its basis, then in your taxes are sort of at full value at that point.
Then in your first year, there's a 50% reduction in property taxes. In year two,
it goes to 45%. In year three, it goes to 40%, and etc. It declines by 5% a
year, burning to zero at the end of the 10th year. So it's going to be
front-enloaded, obviously your greatest tax savings is going to be in your first
full year. That's a $551,000 tax savings and you can see it stepping down
each year because of the burn-off of the percentage. We ran into a net 7% net
present value discount, about $2,530ish to $2,550ish on the net present value,
again about 3.3 millionish if you don't do any discount and that's over
with a 10 year charge.
Any questions on that before we move on?
So great to see that brighten up that notice in.
Have you all done any estimate
at the traffic count before and after the project?
Sonny, I'm honestly, Chris,
and I don't know if we did any evaluation.
Roswell Rowe's got some pretty hefty traffic counts
already, certainly this will add more population density,
No doubt about it, but I don't know you all were not required to do traffic study in this site
But sunny, I think given the size of Roswell Road, you know, it's four lanes right there with center-turn lanes
If you're requiring about a traffic impact, I really think it's it's going to be relatively minimal because you've got such a large road already there
Well, I'll go ahead
I was going to ask if
for the apartments and the townhomes. Are you thinking that it'll be residents
that are already here maybe relocating or is that to bring in new residents into
the city? So I think it will likely be a combination of the two.
The town, well
let's jump ahead then and then we may be able to talk a little further. Before we
move before we move through. I've got two just two questions and then we can you
know kind of break it up a little bit.
Two things when I was looking at the
PowerPoint before I came here, two things popped out. First the construction
costs of the park $3.9 million for a less than an acre park seems really
high. Where did that number come from? Are we in that number? So our parks and
Director Brent Walker has been working with Woodfield's architectural team on the
park design. One of the things you've got some site challenges, you know, this
falls off pretty sharply from Roswell Road to you can have a series of
retaining walls. They will be fairly sizable areas of playground space. We
use probably the best materials available for building playgrounds. It's
the rubber-sympathic material that you use, safer for kids if they fall.
I
equipment play equipment within the playgrounds. Heavy landscaping so but
those numbers have been provided by Woodfields GC and you guys want to
speak to this you're welcome to. I think Brent has felt like they are
reflective of what it would cost us if we were going to build it as a city.
And then the next question you had the net positive impact of the city at
6.7 million dollars but you said that includes the park which you valued at
6. something so is it fair to say most of the net impact value in the first ten
years comes from that park not cash into the city? It is Chip yeah we talked
about the benefits to the city from a tax perspective were about 10 about 2
million dollars over the next 10 years and the cost of our waivers on the
front-end or million 775. So a high percentage. The good news is, is that the
increase in tax value and the revenue the city will receive, only slightly, but
does exceed the value of the fees given up today. So, but it really is in the cost
of having the park. And I don't think the addition of a new park is anything
to sniff that. I mean I think it's a great thing. So, but I just wanted to
I'm sure everybody was clear on that.
And you had something?
Yeah, so I appreciate Sonny's question on traffic.
But would it also be fair to say that this is a less intense
use than 100% retail, which it could otherwise?
I mean, if this had been fully renovated retail,
more of a hundred and something thousand square feet,
which I'm just in round, it was somewhere between 100
and 200,000 square feet if I had to guess.
Yeah, I don't recall.
I mean, you had the bowling alley, you had all that other stuff there that a residential,
which is going to be an 85% residential use or more, is actually a lower intensity of
use than a retail with lots of curb cuts, a vibrant retail with groceries and all that
other thing.
I have to say that wouldn't be one is an inferior, but I think there's less intense
traffic use as a result of the substantial residential component as opposed to
fully a retail deal here. I mean I'm hoping that, I mean we're hoping that
people don't, people can drive to the park but we're hoping that people in
this area are walking to the park and walking to the retail. I mean that's
sort of the hope. Well certainly the residents, the apartment residents,
but this to be very clear is a public park. This is not just for those
residents. That's correct. It's fully public. One of the things I know that we've talked about
with Brent and his team in Rec and Park is programming the park and you know we'll be doing what's
Kristen a night market because that's sort of testing the waters on events but you know the
key to not just having a place to go but for place making is our team the Parks and Rec team
needs to evaluate how to utilize this park to really attract the community
here, not just the residents that are living in development. The people that
are, you know, all the residents, there's a lot of people that live in the
North End. How do we get them into this park? Because right now, if they're
going to a park, they may be going down to Morgan Falls, but in terms of
having a place right there in the North End, this will sort of become
the signature park I think. What can you do on 0.7 acres? What kind of activities could the city
have? So that's a great question. I unfortunately don't know the size of the green. Kristen,
you might. So one of the things that we looked at with Woodfield was programming that park,
as Chris said. So first of all, there will be, we're looking at sort of like two contiguous
playgrounds there. So that in and of itself is a big activity and then you have a smaller
green space that will be adjacent to the retail there so folks can have their kids out playing
while they're waiting or while they're eating or whatever that looks like but we've also looked at
what this can look like if we want to do something like a market or a festival there.
Something smaller it's not huge but it's enough space to do something like we're doing in the
north end with that night market we can move that there once we own this space
so that we have the we will have the room there to program that sort of thing as well.
But we want, I mean, and I think Chip's question is the right one, a question.
We actually, as the economic development authority, we want to place into consideration the conditions
to support the retail and restaurants that are going in there, right?
Like, I mean, I know that I go over to the perimeter area on the Dunwoody side.
They literally took away some parking lot and put in a little center green around
those superacus there and jennies and a couple of those restaurants and they're playing cornhole
so it attracts people to the businesses that are going in there and that's what I saw as the value
here was this is a way to support successful business in the north end. Certainly a component
and you do see it in downtown Alpharetta when that was developed and Park was put with
dual box restaurants around it, same as the case in downtown Woodstock, the
Ashford Lane, which is where the Super League is now. Right, that green space with
cornhole there. So it's being done in other places successfully and this
would certainly help to engage and probably better promote the success
of the restaurants that go in because it is especially being downgrade a bit
from Roswell Road, it's still a busy road, but because you're below grades, I think it's
going to feel safer.
It's going to feel a little more renewed.
It is below street level before the parking lot.
Who's going to pay?
Who's going to pay for the maintenance of the park on going?
The city.
The city will pay for the maintenance.
No cost sharing with the common area in terms of the retail that their customers
are going to be waiting in this park, which is...
Fine, but the city is undertaking. We'll have the D to this space.
Correct.
Any more questions on what has covered so far? Sorry.
Okay, keep going.
Let's go to the next slide.
All right, so we're going to touch on sort of the job and financial calculations for this project.
In years one through three, an estimate of approximately 700 construction jobs on the project.
But that's really related, I think, to apartments only, right?
The townhomes will have a different set of contractors because that will be a different
development group.
Upon completion of the apartments, Woodpeel would expect to employ about seven to ten
people there.
And then this is a rough estimate on the restaurants in retail, 25 to 35 additional
jobs there.
So you're talking about conceivably between 40 and 50 jobs that would be their long
term after construction is completed. Total project value expected at about 200 million
at completion. Over the next 10 years the city's property tax collections as I mentioned
are expected to exceed two million dollars and that's net of the tax abatement we're
considering today. Upon completion the city would be deeded to park with Woodfield
about 6.5 million in and that would include title to the land that we would take our ship off.
So the summary is net of the million 775 and city fee waivers projected net positive impact to the city,
mostly chipped through the park itself, and the value is about 6.7 million dollars.
And finally, and very importantly, first major development project in the north end of the decade.
And we believe that this could be catalytic to the redevelopment of the water.
It is at the gateway, really, as you come down from Roswell across the river.
It's going to be the first major project you see as you come into the north end of Sandy Springs.
And this has been a target asset for us for a number of years.
We've been through sort of starts and stops at times with a previous owner.
and now with Woodfield coming in the future looks extremely bright but we've
got someone's got to be the first kid in the pool as I use the analogy somebody's
got to get it started in the North End and they have stepped up and we're
working together to make that happen so we do believe this will be a catalyst
for more projects to come in the North End and then finally final slide we'll
look at, going back to what we read earlier in the mission statement, your
charge as development authority members to support the city-sponsored
development projects through taxable and tax-exempt bond financing, which we're
discussing today, and that is deemed, projects that are deemed to be in the
public good of the citizens the same experience. We believe that the
construction of the park, its conveyance to the city upon completion
and the catalytic impact that this project should have in the North and the
city are the epitome of public good. While it will unquestionably be enjoyed by
the residents of the North River project, we think it will be enjoyed by a lot
more than just that. This could become, should become a gathering point for
many of the residents of North River. So finally, as our recommendation that we,
to Chip's point, we believe the transaction is legally meets the
statutory requirements of the Development Authority and its mission in
intent and we recommend the request of debate that's on the table today.
Now
we'll open it for more Q&A. All right does anybody have any additional
questions? We'll get a motion and we'll have a discussion on the motion I think
that's how we're supposed to do it but you can certainly ask questions if
you want to gather. If you want to do Robert's Rules we'll do a motion in a
second, then we can open the forward question. Yeah, but we can ask questions now and then
we can have discussions. With regards to the builder, you said that they have the capacity
to do this. Did they go out to bid? You said somebody has the capacity. Did you have a
bid process to see who would be eligible and was there other potential capacity people
that could actually do the same work?
So the city is not driving this process at all in terms of the construction of
the apartments, the retail for the town homes. So it really is, it's a public
private partnership but we're relying a lot more on the private, meaning that
Woodfield, which has secured their debt and equity for the apartment piece of
this, they're gonna do the site work on the overall 13 acres. I don't think
you all will pull utilities to the town home sites with you, but you'll
basically get it. You'll get it scraped and then whoever the builder ultimately
is will come in and they'll pull the utilities to the 85 count home sites
will be there. But Woodfield has assured us that they've secured their financing
capacity to close on the land in October. The goal would be to close the
abatement simultaneous with their land closing. Demo has actually already
begun on some portion of the retail and the demo would be completed on the
overall site when the last of the tenants moves out we expect by November
end of November November and so all of the retail would then come down after
that and site work would begin they would then do construction of the
apartments I guess you all had the retail site here right while you're
building the park you get it pad ready but they will not build the retail
Those will likely be built by another retail specialist.
So they have, they've demonstrated to us they have the capacity and then if I mentioned
the home builder name, people would go, yeah, they're the real deal.
Public company with very deep name.
Thanks.
Questions.
And I suppose gentlemen from Whitfield might be able to answer a field of question if
if anybody had one specific to them.
If not, then requests of some sort.
Anybody would like to make one.
And then we'll have a discussion.
And then we'll put it.
I think it is a good opportunity for city
to brighten up that North End
and not give my motion to approve.
Okay, and before that, our attorney wants to say something.
And regardless of what you want to say,
one thing I want you to weigh in on is that first threshold question of is this something that is
within our statutory authority? It is, yes. So, and this is something similar to what this
developer has done in the past. There's a lot of ways, similar to the Tremel Crow project
that we met on last year and approved. A similar project is economic development in nature and
we're doing a very similar tax incentive that we've done for several other deals,
whether it's apartment homes or other type of projects in the city in the past. So,
Is there anything else you wanted to add?
So the motion, if you do want to move forward with the tax incentive, what we have in front
of you today is a bond resolution, which is your official action to approve all the taxes
in the documents.
What that includes is a document called the Memorand of Understanding, which is the
agreement that covers the tax incentive, but also the other incentives for providing
for this project.
Also, the parameters of the project, their capital investment goal plus the city park,
definition of city park, plus they'll provide and maintain bathroom facilities and parking
through the park as well.
I'll be that part of there.
And so we'll be doing separate agreements for the park and those parts and facilities
and bathrooms can actually close.
But also it attaches the tax agreement that goes before the board of tax accessors
which is required for every Fulton County tax incentive deal, that form document as well.
We're presenting that to the Board of Tax Accessors, like we do for other tax incentive deals,
plus all the tax incentive documents, which is that lease agreement,
where the development authority takes title to the apartment homes and leases it to the bond
for titles for tax payment deals. Leases it to determine the tax incentive, which would be
construction period plus 10 years, and then all the rest of the tax incentive documents,
which is Bond Structured Documents, called Fresno Ventures Bond Purchase Agreement,
all relate solely to the tax incentive, not regarding financing, you know, obligations
to the city or development authority to find this project. Everything else is on the company
to build, finance, and do it on their own. And I think that's important for everybody
to know because we haven't done that many of these. And I'm sure we all have to sort of
remind ourselves of how it all works. And it's that big, big set of documents that Jim does.
But at the end of the day, it's just a pass-through mechanism through which a city through an authority
can do these tax payments because the city can't just do it directly.
And so the authority, you tell me if I'm saying anything wrong, the authority will
take title to this property, but everything's a pass-through, either the city nor the
authority nor anybody sitting in this room has any risk or exposure.
the risk and exposure remains with the owners and farmers but Jim if for
purposes of a motion can you boil down what you just said to one sentence we
would be moving to approve the bottom resolution okay in connection with the
ad no we have an agenda item sufficient to I think so yeah move that
agenda item okay bottom resolution that's what we'll need all right so the
The motion and Mr. Park, I believe you were about to make one.
If you wanted to approve it, then the motion would be for approval of the bond resolution
as presented by Mr. Burnett and staff.
So do we have a motion?
So moved.
I'll second that due to the appropriate sign-offs that have already taken place.
Okay.
Second by Mr. Dorsey.
I'll open it up for discussion.
I would first like to take my Chairman's prerogative and just frame it a little bit.
First, we've already talked about a reminder of what we are and what we have the authority to do.
We're not a zoning board, so it's not up to us to debate whether or not this is the proper land use that has already been decided.
It's not up to us to debate whether this project fits the parameters in the city code.
that's up for city staff to do in the permitting process. Our job is to evaluate this project
in light of our statutory authority and our mission statement of which I think the three
that apply would be city sponsored project because the city is by granting and approving
the incentives that it can. They've already shown they've the city councils voted
signalling the city is in favor of this project. It's clearly a redevelopment
initiative. We're scraping and we're building something new and it fits our
economic development goal that we've talked about in this group a lot which
is we should be incentivizing development and redevelopment where
it's not happening as much. So do we need to incentivize development in
city springs or inside 25? Maybe not as much but the north end we've all
talked about is a great place for us as an authority to focus our efforts.
So with that, I'll open it up for anything else anybody else wants to say.
Typically we get a fee, so what is the fee for the Economic Development Authority?
You want to go through the fee?
One-eighth and one-percent of $110 million.
So we charge a one-eighth and one-percent fee, do it one time at closing to the Economic
Development Authority.
to receive. So that would be what? $100,000 or so?
$150,000. Okay. All right. Anybody else?
All right. We've got a motion on the table for approval of the bond resolution. It's been
seconded. All in favor say aye. Opposed? All right. The ayes have it. The motion passes.
We look forward to seeing some activity up there on the north end, gentlemen.
Mr. Chairman, I just, in fact, if you guys can head out if you'd like.
While they're here, I just want to say it's a real pleasure to work with them.
They're approved.
This has not been an always easily navigatable transaction.
You know, there's been some bumps along the road.
So, by Dave, Dave just been persistent and we've worked closely with them for a month now.
I just want to thank them publicly.
And ready for use.
Did it close?
Thank you guys.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you gentlemen.
Take care.
Good luck.
Let's see.
Now we've got other business open discussion and Q&A.
I believe Mr. Bowman did have a question about.
No, just Chris, can you update us on the project we approved last year?
Yeah, so obviously you can see it's wide open right now.
They've started wrapping the garage with the first layer of new apartments
and they're already framing the town homes on the western side of the site.
They're still targeting a 2027 delivery date.
That seems pretty optimistic. It may be Q4 of 27, but you know you think about that still 12 14 months out
Yeah, it's it's a big project
19,000 square feet of retail any announcements on the retail yet
None that they want to share publicly, but yes, there's some real strong interest in some tenants
I think we'd all be pleased to have come there's some good restaurants. Okay
One could potentially be a relocation
and then others would be new but so that's moving moving ahead well we're
funding that project on a percentage of completion basis in fact we got a draw
request again today so our inspector Dave Wells and his inspection team they
go out they look at the pay request make sure that the work they're getting
paid for the work that's already been done comes back it goes through so
Tony
And so we've got to pay requests by now. So we'll, by the time we fully fund the city's
investment, the parking garage should be finished. And of course we'll have 111 spaces that are
city-owned spaces that we will own. There is a buyout agreement, if I remember correctly,
Jim. They can buy us out of two times cost leave. That sound right?
I think they can buy us out if they so choose. I don't think they will. And the there's good
probability that they're going to use 12 Oaks parking as their parking service company as
well. That's who the city uses here at our facility. They do a good job for us. And
And Kristen, hopefully, you feel the same.
So they're in those negotiations now.
If they do use 12 Oaks, it will make it a little more seamless
since 12 Oaks is already doing our parking, probably
the same equipment and same revenue oversight
that would be done there as well.
OK.
Chris, how about the movie theater?
Parkside.
So Parkside met with Jamestown just two weeks ago and the the challenge with
that plan right now centers around the 80,000 square foot office building that
is built into that plan. You all may not remember the conceptual site plan but
it included a combination of apartments, townhomes, restaurants, retail, a park,
and an office building. And it all has to be built around the theater because the
theater has a long-term lease in the theater and has in their lease they have
parking space commitments. Obviously you've got to park theater for your
patrons. Well most of the potential development would go where the parking
spaces are now. The surface asphalt. It's a good
complimentary use to have an office building because the theater is
filling up at night as the office tenants are leaving. So shared parking
between an office building and the theater actually works really well. But
it's almost impossible today to get financing until you have at least 50%
of your office building pre-leased with credit worthy tenants. And that's a
very heavy lift in this market. I mean our rents generally in the downtown
office market are in the mid 20s, maybe high 20s of square foot in some
of our buildings, but to build a new building today, you need to have rents between $50
and $60 square foot to even get close.
And when you're in a market of rents in the $25 to $28 range, leasing a building at $50
or more square foot is hard to do.
So as a result, there are no leases yet for the office building, but once they're
able to get to a 50% lease pre-lease mark, I think you'll see that start to get
traction to move forward.
Great.
Does anybody else have any questions for Chris or any of the other staff that's here?
That knows all the stuff.
No?
Okay, well then we will, I'll get a motion to adjourn.
But before that, I want to make sure everybody knows we're having our first ever development
authority cocktail party downstairs in the city park.
Even though our $150,000 fee would buy a lot of booze,
We have learned that authority funds cannot be used for such nefarious activities.
So, and I have to say this law firm of burn form is happy to be sponsoring this today.
I encourage any of the staff and Jim, of course, to come join us.
And Mayor Paul will be meeting us there momentarily as well.
So please come down.
We'll have drinks and snacks in City Bar.
And we would have done this after our morning meeting, but that just didn't seem appropriate.
But now I do need a motion to adjourn.
All right, we've got a motion on favor, aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Passes.
Thank you everybody.
Great job.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.