City Council - workshop

Thank you Mayor Pro Tem and members of council. Tonight for consent you have two items. Item B1 is the sign shop capital project ordinance approval. This was a fiscal year 25-26 budget item for a sign shop at City Works. It required more of a detailed plan for permitting, which took a little bit of time, which means we were not able to complete this project before the June 30 fiscal year end. And so this capital project ordinance allows the available funds to be available past June 30. So that's item B one staff does recommend this capital project ordinance be approved for the sign shop project. And I don't be too is budget amendment number 21. Also related to the sign shop. And this budget amendment moves available funds from streets budget to capital project ordinance that I recently discussed and I don't be one. Those are the two items for consent.

Are there any questions for staff?

So just to confirm, those two items were allocated but not expended in the current fiscal year, and we're just moving them forward to next year? Correct. Yes, sir. Thanks.

No questions, but we should probably have some discussions before we move to set the agenda, because I think there's going to be some amendments to the agenda, the regular agenda.

Yes, yes. So if there are no other discussions on the consent agenda, we can go into that. Okay, so we've got some guests from UNCC who are here to talk about a proposal for us related to some grants.

That's correct. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem, I'd request that we add an additional item to the regular agenda and the description is FRACRISI grant authorization request that the City of Belmont take the lead for the UNCC So we have staff that can present it, and then we also have representatives from UNCC here to kind of go over the process and to answer any questions.

Okay. So I would suggest we do that first, because they are here, and we're actually waiting for some other people to arrive, so that'll actually work out. And then, was there anything else we need to?

We need to move the C2. I guess that would become C4. If we can move that one to the end.

Okay, so do.

Right.

and if we're still waiting on someone for the signs I suppose we could do the parking lot leases too yeah okay

Daniel for item c1 he's on the way but yeah I think that's probably a safe bet so if we could do just to confirm the UNCC discussion first with the grant application c1 parking lot leases to move to c2 gateway signs to move to c3 and the stow property discussion to move to c4

All right, so basically we're moving everything.

Yes. Okay, so is there a motion to set the agenda as described? So moved. Second. All right, all those in favor?

Aye.

Passes unanimously. All right. So we'll go ahead and kick things off with the UNCC.

Well, we need to approve. I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Oh, that's right. All right. Second. Second. Okay. All those in favor?

Aye.

All right. Now we'll move on to our UNCC guests.

Good evening.

So the Belmont Trolley has a partnership with Charlotte School of Engineering and they have found a grant that would be suitable for that program. I think you'll remember, I think it might have been a year, maybe two years ago, something similar happened. They applied for a grant, but they could not be the applicant. So the city needed to be the applicant, so that's the same situation. So we were the applicant before. They were not successful on that one, but they found another one. So they want to do that again. So they are here tonight. Dr. Shen is here to answer any questions and talk about it. And so that's basically the process. We would be the applicant for the Belmont Trolley in Charlotte. Do you have any questions for them? They're here if you'd like to speak with them.

Just for the record, I think you can probably answer this just based on what was in the packet that we were presented earlier today. There is a match, but my understanding is that we would not be financially responsible for the match. UNC Charlotte would be responsible for any financial or in-kind commitment for the match. Is that correct? Charlotte would be, yes. And as I understand it, they're even going to, part of the grant is funding for the administration of the grant so that it would not take staff time to administer the grant. Is that also correct? Or is that something they might need to address?

That is correct. They funded $300,000 of the federal award is reserved for the city of Belmont to do the grant administration. Very good.

Any other questions? And I take it you need a motion from us on this?

Yes, to proceed as per our grant policy before we apply that council need to approve moving forward. Okay. Make a motion to approve.

Second.

Okay, and second. All those in favor? Passes unanimously. All right, next item is the parking lot leases.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. The parking lot leases, we had a discussion during the June 1st City Council regular meeting where I presented the parking lot leases for Frady Field, Crescent Park, Eb Gant Park, and the Imperial Mill Street parking lot. While there was a discussion that took place, you all directed the city manager and the city attorney to negotiate three items. The first item was a longer lease term. The second item was the lease agreement section 16 default section D as it relates to the cross default with the suggestion let each one of those stand on its own, each agreement to stand on its own. And the final item was the lease agreement section 2 term as it relates to section 17 termination. City Attorney Wilson, he did reach out to Belmont Land and Investment Company, and the company agreed to make certain changes. They decided that they would have both leases be a three-year lease with automatic one-year renewals for Gantt Parking Lot. The Freddie Field, the initial lease term was already a three-year lease, and so there was no change to that. So they both match for the three-year lease periods. Section 16D default, you can see in your council agenda item that They did make some strikethroughs that states that lease C fails to comply with any of the agreement requirement any other lease between the lease or lease C has been removed. And so the cross default language there has been resolved given that we don't have to worry about what we're doing with our other leases if we default. Section two, in the lease, there was no change recommended by the company. It's still the same as it was initially presented. And then in section 17, the termination, they did add language that you see in bold that states, for example, at any time during any renewal term. And so You also have on your desk, I laid out all the edits to both agreements that include Councilman Heffron's initial edits plus these three new edits. And so they have complied with our request regarding the items and then just the summation of the lease for the Dwight Freddie Field, the initial agreement, the three-year lease with automatic one-year renewals. We did budget for the amount of $70,954 in that lease. The revised lease agreement talks about those three particular items. For Gantt Parking Lot, it's now a three-year lease and, well, it was a It states a one-year lease with one-year annuals. It's now a three-year lease with one-year annuals. We did budget that full amount next year in the operating budget, and the revised agreement also has those three items that were included. So I will turn it back over to you, Mayor Pro Tem, to see if there's any further questions regarding the items.

Any further questions or discussions or...

I would just note, I'm happy to see that also section four of the ABGANT lease was also amended to reflect that it's now a three-year lease and the market escalation for the second and third year, because I had a thought occurred to me as you were presenting that, oh, we made that change, then we need to make the corresponding change to section four, but it's already there. Great. That's good. They did add that in.

Yes, sir. Thank you for pointing that out.

I have a question about Gantt. So this actually came up during the tourism meeting the other day about the potential of using the soccer fields down there for more non-City of Belmont type events where we basically rent out the fields and that kind of thing. Because my, I guess, I don't know if hesitation is the right word. on the lease, but basically it seems like this particular parking lot is largely used during our soccer seasons. I'm assuming mostly on the weekends. So it's a very sort of like it's not like the other parking lot downtown, which is basically being used more regularly. This is a parking lot that's got more seasonal usage so if we're going to pay more for it if it were possible to offset some of that by utilizing some of the revenue potential I guess of the soccer fields down there that would be something I would definitely be interested in exploring

Yeah, I think Miles, I think this is what I brought up to you last week that, and maybe it's something for Parks and Advisory to consider and our director, Parks Director.

Just know that it's more than just weekend. They play soccer during the week too down there. Okay. And it's spring and fall. So it's not just one season. The only time you're not going to get a lot is the winter. Okay.

Yeah, I think that when this was brought up that we're pointing out some other examples around like the greater Charlotte area, Matthews, and some other places that have a lot more field inventory for stuff that we have. And maybe they don't have the scheduling conflicts maybe that we might have due to some of that limited field inventory. I was intrigued by the idea of trying to maybe identify some potential revenue sources to help offset some of this leased income, but we've just gotten through spending a tremendous amount of time and money and resources on getting our fields and facilities up to really exceptional grade, but maybe just something to consider.

Right, we'll consider it. I think you're talking about probably tournaments or something like that to offset some of the revenue or expenditures that we'd have to have to pay for the parking lot. Similar to what we did for the City Rec, you know, we have like volleyball tournaments and basketball tournaments over there. And we looked at the fee schedule and budgeted appropriately based on our staff time and if we had availability and had certain dates set where there could be a tournament that takes place. So I'll definitely talk to staff about Ebgant Park to see if we could do the same there.

We're about to embark on flag football, correct? Are we doing flag football at Ebb Gantt? I think that's a good idea.

major FBS colleges are looking to get additional revenue from their stadiums by having different events, whether it's the Savannah Bananas or concerts or whatever. So I see no harm in us doing that. I think that's a good idea as long as it's thoughtful. We don't want to have anything like disco demolition night that will leave like a crater in the field or something.

I've had somebody doing that on their own at one point.

So, but yeah, I think that's fine. That's a good idea.

We'll take that into account and circle back with y'all.

I had a, on the Brady field, I guess more of a strategic question around, I guess it doesn't make a ton of sense to me to rent a park I think that the prior arrangement made sense because they were basically, it was a below market kind of situation, so we didn't really need to buy it. We weren't really paying a whole lot for it. Now that we're being asked to pay more of a market rate type rate on it, it seems like it's maybe worth having a conversation about whether... this sort of structure makes sense for that part.

I agree.

Because like it's to me the only way this kind of makes sense is if within like the next five years or something we're anticipating that they give it to us presumably through some sort of development process. But if we don't think that's going to happen. I'd rather kind of start the ball moving on figuring out what we need to do to acquire it. Because like, otherwise, we're just paying rent on a piece of property that we'll just end up eventually buying anyway.

Take it one step further, because I agree with you. The baseball field, we are we are about to open up the lower field at Reed. So it's kind of a one-for-one swap if you think of it like that. Like that baseball field at Frady, we lose that. If we were to lose that for some whatever reason, we're gaining the lower field at Reed. So we're essentially paying for a pickup basketball court and a set of swings. I kind of agree with you that we need to really look at if this is even – is the juices worth the squeeze on us.

So you're saying in terms of baseball softball fields, once we lower read opens up, we'll actually have excess inventory based on our field needs for baseball and softball, because we weren't using lower lower reads been out of commission for Yeah, for years.

And now that's about to come back online, right? So all the t ball and coach pitch and stuff that happens that Frady that that could happen at the lower field or read?

Yeah,

I'll reserve comment and see what happens. Just proceed at your own risk with freight, regardless of whether it's the field or the basketball court. I think the ultimate desire should be to acquire it rather than anything else regardless of whether the current situation makes sense or not with this lease structure. We've gone down this road before and I think the ultimate goal should be to preserve the park in city hands. you know, ends up. But I mean, that's, that's a story for another day.

If I'm directed to approach Belmont Land Investment, I have no idea where they want to sell the park or whatever. So if I'm directed by council to go that path, I mean, we can have a conversation with them. The intent of the conversation tonight was to enter into a lease.

And I would Yeah, yeah. let's see what I would see well I we might have another proposal soon I don't know what and whether that would involve the park or not I don't know that's speculation but you know maybe that solves it but for now I think we need to proceed with this three-year lease and then presumably sometime the next three years it might sort itself out Is there an early termination fee?

There's not a termination fee.

Is there for early termination? No. I don't know if there's a termination. It's for a three-year term.

but that only follows the initial term. I mean, in other words, the termination clause, section 17, only applies after the initial term. Yeah, I think it only speaks to 30 days. Because the first term is a 30-year term.

Well, no, the first term you can terminate 90 days, or excuse me, at least 30 days prior to the renewal date. And then once you're in any renewal term, you can terminate it on... 90 days notice at any point during the renewal term so you're saying you could not terminate the initial term before two years and nine months I'm sure I suppose we could just stop two years 90 days prior to 30 days on the first time oh it's 30 on the first time

and the first term is three years.

Well, because I mean, as I understood it, and probably what was driving the negotiations was they thought, and we had probably given them reason to think, that we wanted a longer term situation as opposed to the current lease, which allows termination on, I think, 90 days notice. end of story. And so I think the reason for that we wanted a longer term was the reason why it's structured that way. However, depending on what might later happen, you know, this itself is an amendment to the original lease, I'm sure if It came to it as part of additional proposals for the surrounding land or whatever that we could negotiate another amendment to the lease should there be a desire to terminate prior to the expiration of the three-year term.

Well, I guess my hang-up on it is it's difficult to justify any significant investment in that park. with it kind of constantly having its ax hanging over it, where we've got control of it for three years, but then after that, who knows? Because like, you know, to Charlie's point, if we decided, and we don't need a baseball field there anymore, maybe we want to build a soccer field, or even if, because we haven't done the lights there yet, right? No. I mean, that's a six-figure investment, right? for the field lights, even what it would want to keep the field, but we want to, you know, upgrade it and, you know, replace the lights that need to be fixed and that kind of thing. Like, it's hard to put any sort of significant investment in that part when we don't own it. Yeah.

Right. But if we don't sign this lease agreement, now, they can say you don't have a park. They own the property. We don't have a lease. They're looking to move into a lease so that we can continue to do what we do at the park. It's their property. I mean, I understand where you're going, but right now, this is the option. Sign the lease. We haven't negotiated. Even if they're interested in selling it to us. And so it's either sign the lease or have the potential of... the public not being able to access property.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I one point of clarification in the interim, until we get to that point of negotiating what the future of that property is with the landowner, my recollection is it's not a market rate that we're paying, it's actually below market. Based on what you may think of the appraisals, the way that they read it, it was a significantly discounted to the market rate.

They discounted it to begin with, and then we negotiated a further discount. So I think we're as far as we can go as far as negotiation of the the rate, right?

Yeah, it's like, I mean, I agree with miles it.

I share your sentiment about long term, but, well, I mean, there's that, but I mean, the flip side of it, too, is like, nobody else is gonna lease this property. So I mean, they could kick us out, which they have every right to not denying that. But the reality is nobody else is gonna lease that property, but us.

Right, but they could kick us out and say we're going to build on that property, which would probably still involve coming through us.

Yeah, it likely would. I mean, I think it is one of the things that kind of requires everybody to play nice with each other. I don't know, it's just such a weird situation with the way that

I mean, from that standpoint, you could say the landowner is already, you know, conceding what they, again, who's, who are the other potential tenants that would and could lease that property. But their position, I'm sure would be what we're already conceding, you know, a substantial discount to what the market lease rate should be.

Yeah.

And we still have the out vis-a-vis an amendment, you know, that if we decide on a different direction in the future, you know, that we could entertain negotiation with them at that point.

I mean, do we have any interest in trying to buy it?

I think that's the real question. I think we need to figure out do we want to buy this because to your point, we can't do anything to that field. until we own it like putting money into the lights and scoreboard and bathrooms makes no sense to do it while we're renting yeah when's the current lease up so june 30th we've been on a month to month since like december right

They wanted the lease agreement to be effective back in April, and I worked with, Parks and I worked with Beaumont Land to say, hey, give us until July 1st so that we can budget for this next fiscal year. So that's what the company's expecting on July 1st, enter into an agreement at that point. The three items that we were directed to go to them at the last meeting, the three items have been resolved. And now we're coming up with like, go down a different path. I don't know how the company may take that. I have no idea. It's just something new at this point. So we've kind of checked the boxes that we as staff thought you know, we should do at that point. I mean, up. Yeah, I'll take direction from you all. However, y'all. I'm just stating like, what could occur? Yeah, we go to the past.

They also kind of started this, like, yeah, we had something that sort of worked, and they decided they wanted more money, which it's their property, every right to do that.

Well, but to Miles' point, I mean, given the timing constraints and the fact that we went back to them with a list of requests and modifications already, I think if this were going to be an issue, then we should have raised it then. Yeah. Not. on the last available date that we have before the renewal, the expected renewal. And I don't disagree with your point. I'm just saying, you know, based on where we are tonight and the expectation that this lease agreement is either going to be signed or not.

Is there anything prohibiting us from, I mean, we could approve the lease, but then run two tracks and also talk to them about acquiring it.

Yes, like I said, if I'm directed to do that, that's the next step I'll take. I mean, I could live with that.

I mean, that's fine. I'll point out that we are now discussing acquiring for presumably for money, as to which they will rely on this appraisal that we've been sort of tangentially discussing, but we'd be discussing acquiring for money, a property that they would have donated to us.

Had we approved their apartment.

Well, I'm just saying, you know, some people, you know, my colleague, who will be joining us soon likes to talk about use of taxpayer money, taxpayers might perhaps point that out that we'd be paying a significant amount of money for a park that we could have had for no money. You know, I understand it wasn't just, you know, offered, you know, that was a four corners, but I'm just I just want to point it out for the record.

Yeah, it would have been contingent upon approving a massive apartment complex, for the record.

I'll make a motion to approve the amended leases as presented. I'll second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right, passes three, one. Do we need to provide direction if we're interested on why I kind of proposed as a second track? Yes, I appreciate that. I would also, can I make a motion if I'm leaving the meeting?

Yes, I think you can.

Okay, I'll make a motion to direct staff to begin negotiations with the property owner for acquiring the property. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Passes 4-0. Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. Next item is the gateway signs. So who's leading this one?

I can lead this one as well. Yes. Thank you, Mayor Pertema. Members of council, as the write-up states that it was brought to my attention that there's interest in a joint project between the TDA and the city council. to install gateway signs at various locations as you enter Belmont. Councilman Rundfeld and the TDA chair, Daniel Vander Lee, had a conversation about what that would look like regarding the next steps and a process. And before we got too far along regarding what a design may be or the exact locations or anything like that, we thought that we would bring that to your attention to see if there's any interest in council to partner with the TDA and potentially joint fund it, even though there's no funding for next fiscal year, we could walk through a process next year with a designer and come up with a design that would be applicable to, I guess, both bodies for approval, and then find the locations, make presentations in anticipation of funding, not in 26, 27, potentially in 27, 28, because we think it'd probably take a few months to get through the entire process. And so we do have Daniel, yes, Daniel is here, who can speak on the TDA's behalf if he'd like to, or Councilman Rundfeldt could fill in any blanks that I've left out along the way to see if there's interest in council to move a gateway project. planning director, Tiffany did send me some information stating that it is supported in the comprehensive land use plan for gateway signage that you know, to continue to utilize the city's 2020 Belmont brand guide book and any successive document to doc to design implement wayfinding signage throughout the city. So it is supported in the comp plan to go through a process like this. And so I'll turn it over to you Mayor Pro Tem to walk through the discussion.

Do you have something you'd like to... Come on up, man. Yeah. Here's a good order.

That's right.

I didn't know we had traffic around here.

We just solved that.

Yeah, so we would love to help beautify the city I think from a tourism perspective, you know entering our city and having a great welcome is important the county Definitely believes it as well that you come in. There's already some county signage at our entrances down by drift and you know, they've done other various places so we would love to partner with the city to be able to explore that and maybe add some and I think at all the main entrances, all the main arteries to the city. And then also make sure that if this works, we're part of a long-term conversation with the 74 renovation, as you all have input with the DOT on that and what that signage looks like and how we can... support that to be a nice grand entrance. We already have some signage on Wilkinson where the CVS is. So maybe seeing if we could plus that up, add some new ones. And we don't have the resources to explore doing anything like that on our own. Obviously rights away and DOT rules and regs and all that. So we'd love the city to help us explore it if you guys are on board. And then, you know, we would be interested in helping fund the product, the project, essentially. And, you know, as part of that, we would obviously like input as to aesthetics and locations and things like that. But I think it would be a joint effort.

Daniel, for those who may not be aware, can you just kind of give a refresher on sort of the mission of the Tourism Development Authority, how we derive our revenues, where we are financially, and kind of

you know can support our position for wanting to maybe partner with the city on something this scale yeah yeah so and i thank you guys for having me again i was here a couple weeks ago so i'll just reiterate for the the record that our funds have to be used for tourism related activities it's completely under the discretion of the board and not of the city where those funds are spent so they can't be spent on things like you know parks as i think you were just talking about

We're not parking lots. We should talk about parking lots.

Traffic first, then parking lots second. We've got to be able to get them here. It's a state law that dictates it, and then a former council created the local law that governs it, but as part of that law, We do have the ability to expand on capital projects, which this would be, which I know sometimes that's regulated, so we can spend on capital projects. And our mission is to drive tourism for the city of Belmont in sort of a pretty broad definition. And we believe in this project, you define the city and our entrances and kind of representing Belmont outwardly fits that mission. So that's the main thing. A very condensed version is that during COVID, there was not a massive need to outwardly market tourism in the city because nobody could do anything. And so during that time, there was a fund balance increase. And so the tourism fund does have funds that are available right now for a capital expenditure or some other expenditure. And so we'd like to draw down those funds because we don't believe we're meant to hold on to them or be affected or anything. So this looks like a great use where we could partner with the city to maybe deploy those funds.

So this is all pretty nascent. I mean, you don't have any idea exactly how many.

We do, we could have, it's very nascent. We didn't want to do anything too hard until we came to you. So if you think of all the main arteries, and I forget exactly how many we came up with. About six. About six, maybe. So you think, you know, drift. Lower Armstrong, maybe somewhere near the Abbey. Wilkinson both ways. Wilkinson's interesting because of the bridge project. It would probably hold off here until you guys and the DOT figure out that because we would I'd love to do like a giant thing over the bridge, right? Like something really impactful in there because that's kind of the main. What we've found on the tourism side is a lot of people come to us from the airport. A lot of our coffee shops are people that have a little bit of time from the airport. That's all 74 traffic, so that's a really big greeter. Obviously, the vehicle counts and all that. I would exclude that one. And then we do already have the sign on Wilkinson.

Talked about one in North Belmont by the Abbey.

Yeah, North Belmont by the Abbey, down south by Drift, lower Armstrong.

Armstrong Ford coming from New Hope.

Yeah, sorry.

Is the idea to make it look like the one that's out front of CVS?

no not necessarily so um and i've learned all sorts of fun things but uh the proximity to the road dictates whether it has to be a breakaway sign or not so that too close to the road has to be a breakaway and d.o.t mandates all that so the car hits it and you have to use different materials as well so i think in my ideal scenario it is farther from the road so we can have a more robust sign that lasts longer. But I would love a brick structure to match our brick downtown. That one that exists is brick, so it may be a similar, but we don't have any concepts yet fully baked.

And just to kind of get some really, really ballpark estimate, I mean, of the six or so sign locations we've identified, I think just very preliminary estimates we've gotten per sign was like

We don't really know yet until we have the full design. We talked to Sign Connection regarding like how much would the design cost us? And so they're saying it would probably be $3,700, $3,800, but we could hire them and they would kind of help guide the process on the materials, where they would be located, if it's in the right of way like Daniel says or outside the right of way. So we've already kind of touched base with sign connection to see if that would be a possibility, knowing that if we move down the path, and even TDA, I thought Mike could fund that.

Yeah, we talked about what the Yeah, what the next step is like, it's we wanted to kind of get the council viewpoint.

Even the part about you know, where the signs are located, would be contingent upon if we have to go out and acquire property, if we own property, or whether we need to get easements for any properties where the signs can be located. So I think that that process will take a little bit of time. I think the initial step would be to kind of go through the process with both groups. We actually talked about how maybe that would work as well, given that we have the TDA board and we have city council members, if we could even create some kind of committee to kind of walk through it together, not all council members, maybe you could assign a couple council members to a committee and then the TDA to do the same along with staff, and then we walk through it presenting along the way throughout next year. That's kind of what we initially the three of us kind of talked about. But like I say, we didn't want to go ahead and design the process and start talking to everybody else and and hiring folks without you know, trying to get your buy in first. And then I think Daniels will do the same with the TDA board, if y'all have not done that.

Yeah, we've talked about our boards in support of it. So we're, we're behind the project. So at this point, you know, the city is behind it, then, you know, like I said, we, we can't do things like figure out easements and right. Yeah.

One other potential, though, that we've talked about, and this is not, we can't presume that they would participate, but the county, in some instances, on initiatives like this will help to some extent.

They Yep. And so they did in Mount Holly. Yeah. And so there is precedent for them to do that. So we would engage them as we go along.

They have their own tourism development groups.

Six sites that you guys identified, do you think you would have to buy property?

I don't think we've gotten that granular yet with it. We haven't got that far. Yeah, there's I think we just wanted to kind of explore the idea with council and make sure that you know that there was support for it and if there is then we can certainly take it to the next step or two.

Yeah, and there's the Gadsden County sign, like I said, that drips.

It's always bothered me that there's not a Belmont sign right beside it. I don't know why.

Well, we need all of our transient guests from South Carolina to know which municipality they're driving through.

Who's paying for all those roads?

You got the Statue of Liberty, so we might as well.

Does it still say thanks on the back of it? I mean, it's very nascent, but I'm certainly not opposed to it. I think it's fine. Yeah. Yeah.

Or do you need a formal? Sure.

If y'all like to vote, that'd be great. Yeah.

Do we need? I see there's mention of a committee in here.

Are we looking to kind of figure out what that looks like now? Or we... You guys are on the... Yeah, because I mean, two of us are on both boards. Just use that committee to...

So would that be direction to establish a committee for design purposes?

We could do that if y'all like to take that motion, yeah. Establish the committee to go through the process next year. Okay. So we're thinking two council members?

Do we need to get as specific as like how many committee members and how many council members on the committee?

No, let me think through that to bring that back. I don't know how many folks from the TDA would want to be on the committee either.

so just going through our our rebrand process that we did the smaller the committee the better yeah and the idea is that we would bring everything to you when the stages mattered so let a really small committee go through and bring back two or three designs and make a recommendation and then let the full boards vote on it from there but you know ideally it would be one or two from council, one or two from our board, and then staff.

So maybe the two of you want to figure that out and then bring back a proposal with maybe even who's on the committee. We could just get it all done at one time. We could do that.

Do you need that in the form of a motion, Miles, or just direction?

No, I think we're good for the next steps on it without a motion. I think that we can... we can work through the process and bring it back to you all. When we have I guess full council going on at that point, see how it's kind of framed up and how maybe the timeline works for us. Moving through so we can bring that back at maybe a workshop in the very near future. Yeah, that's a great idea. Thanks, Daniel.

Great idea. Yeah, thanks. If there's any others, let us know.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. So last item is the Stowe property discussion. Miles, do you have this?

That's going to be Kevin. I'd like this conversation.

Good evening. Maybe you could talk slowly. Alex can get here in time.

Do we need to take a bathroom break or something? We can do that. I mean, he's about 10 minutes out, he said.

Let's take a bathroom break. Okay. I'll call a five-minute bathroom break.

A motion to adjourn for five minutes. Okay. Second.

All those in favor? All right.

Thanks, Kevin. I'm by the seat of our pants tonight. Well, I think it would be easier if we're all here. Yeah. Yeah.

Instead of coming in and out.

Instead of trying to back-brief him.

Did he say where he is?

He's about nine, ten minutes out.

Send the police out to clear the police escort. Yeah.

Well, I'm trying to. That was what I was doing. I was emailing my contact to see what time they need me. Because the presentation sometimes wouldn't be before 5 o'clock. It was before baseball. At the, for instance, Salem-Dash Stadium. Is that their name? Yeah. Is that their name?

What level of minor league ball is that?

I think it's high A. It's A. I think it's high A. There's been some sort of shuffling around between the Carolina League and the South Atlantic League.

High A is where you get to see a lot of good future pro prospects, man.

Well, I think, yeah, I think it's high. But, yeah, because, like, Greensboro's in that league now. They used to be in the South Atlantic League.

Oh.

Because, like, when they restructured a few years ago, they switched around. They got rid of a lot of minor league teams. They also switched around a bunch of teams to sort of make things make a little more sense. But they're all, like, a bunch of, like, Winston-Salem and Charlotte are both white-size buildings. I don't know if they are anymore.

Well, it's Kannapolis.

A cannonball. Oh, yeah, the cannonball.

Yes, Kevin's going to walk us through the Stowe property conversation.

The second one is going ahead and initiating a visioning process, and just doing that visioning process only, without plans for moving forward any past that. The third one is developing a comprehensive master plan for the community, which would incorporate number two already there, which would be initiating that visioning process, so that's part of that master plan. And that whole process would include public engagement, stakeholder interviews, conceptual design alternatives, market analysis, infrastructure considerations, so a lot of those things. It's a very comprehensive process that you would go through. the the next steps that we're looking for here from you is we're just looking for direction on next steps moving forward and then helping frame this conversation for tonight we want to know which of those options to pursue or if you have a fourth option and then any additional priorities that you may have that we would need to address and then following that discussion we'll be able to have some information to go back to the drawing board and get some recommended implementation steps for you. We can develop a schedule, try to develop a schedule as best we can and then let you know about the procurement process for any consultants that may be necessary to move through the process. So that's here just to kind of kick it off for you all and we're here just to listen and get direction at the end.

Okay, I'm sure there's gonna be discussion about this, so who'd like to go first?

I can kick it off. Okay. Jumping right in. I think we need to do option three. I think there's a couple of things that come to mind for me, particularly as we just take a step back and look at to see what we have, right? So one of the things is we've all kind of, I think is very clear from what I've seen on social media and others is like, there's not too many opportunities that a city has in order to literally expand or double their downtown, right? Now, obviously how we get there, in my opinion, I think like what Kevin kind of teed up there is you probably need some professional consultants or something like that to collectively bring something together, one, to get community feedback, but two, to align to the overall council's vision on what could be approved. Because it's our property, right? And the key thing and the cool thing about this is with it being the city's property is we get to set the expectations of what would be quote unquote allowable or approved versus what would not be approved. I also think time is of the essence because this was a pretty expensive acquisition to the city, or to the taxpayers, and in my head space is let's do it right, but let's also potentially get our return on investment for the taxpayers because you can leverage that to not do tax increases, you can do that to get additional infrastructure and stuff like that, that could be paid through for the developers. So I think it's a win win. And then you replenish that general fund for other investments in capital and needs in in the community is where my headspace goes, right. So that's just my two cents.

Well, I know we all want to be transparent through this process, because it is critically important for the city, perhaps a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity. And I know public engagement is gonna be a big thing. And that's the thing I like about option three too, is as part of that master plan, comprehensive master plan for the property, that it would include public engagement and stakeholder interviews along the way. So I do like that aspect of it as well.

And maybe a question for me, Because stakeholder interviews, like, absolutely, we need the community's guidance and the community's, like, input on this, because at the end of the day, it's their money, right? It's all of our money, the city's. But, like... People like Jonathan Taylor, right? I mean, people who I know who have reached out and stuff and have expressed interest who own big stakes of pieces of property that would literally bridge to the Stowe property, who are now the city's property, and Curtis Gaston. They need to be a part of the conversation at day one in my head, right? Because there's nothing that the city can do without leveraging, in my mind, key property owners around the area. Additionally, is it two or one additional lot? Behind Robert's house. There's two lots on Woodrow. Additionally, I would propose to the council that we approach Mr. Stowell about the acquisition of the additional two lots immediately behind his house.

We own the two. We already own them. No, no, no, the ones we don't own. Oh, the ones we don't own, yep. The Stowell property, his parcel is like one parcel now, you're saying? Is it just one? That's what I was asking about. Yeah, the Stowell property is just one parcel there.

not the whole property, but the I think we've all had the opportunity to walk it now. The flat area.

Is that something that option three could potentially cover is if there's like a slice of another property that we need to acquire?

Yes, that would be through that planning process because it's everything's on the table. That's the big that visioning process that you go through.

And we have sort of a call list already developed for a consultant who would potentially partner with on a process like that? Would that be sort of a whole new RFQ?

Probably a new thing. The ones we have are either focused either architecture or engineering. So I think this is full service. I think that staff would go back and really just needs to

through this process question because the one thing I was thinking and there's probably a reason why this wasn't proposed or you know laid out so you can tell me why it won't work but are we not in the process with a center city small area plan of working through that and would this not be in the center city? So is that something that maybe could be added to the scope of what we're already, I guess in the, we haven't officially approved that yet, but we've selected someone. Is that right and it's coming to us in a future meeting? Is that something that could be added to the scope of those efforts as opposed to given somewhere a completely new RFQ?

tiffany can tell me if i'm wrong out of this but i think that you're looking at different levels of detail for what we're looking for this versus what the playing department's doing which is looking at a little bit higher up they're not going to get into detail of what you want to see on a specific property concept conceptually what you want to see in there and how it relates to the other areas where This, I think the visioning maybe might need to be more specific of exactly what does it need to be. Yeah. So that would be a more tailored approach. I'm sure it could be incorporated, but I think it would definitely need to be incorporated.

The only thing I was gonna add is if you guys were looking to do community engagement, right, to understand, it's absolutely something that the two efforts of the two teams could partner up with, so that we're not asking the same questions in the same general area twice, right, for efficiency.

That's a good point.

Even though you have two people concurrently targeting working on both the big picture and this specific site.

But I agree with my colleagues that, you know, community engagement is going to be important, but I do like the idea of it being done under the auspices of a professional consultant who would be able to, one, guide the discussion, and then, two, take what engagement is elicited from the community and work it into something that's feasible and that can be done.

But it sounds like almost out of necessity, those parties that we would engage with would have to be independent of each other. One's providing more of a granular, more detailed

Correct me if I'm wrong, Tiffany, but I think you can get the public feedback and extension of that through this process, right? Because you're going to be doing it anyways. Because this parcel's in scope.

it isn't the level of detail is going to be the question right and so understanding that will help us so we are still in the final stages of negotiating what that final scope will look like for the identified or preferred or staff preferred consultant so we are looking for your feedback tonight to understand how to finalize that scope and ultimately that may impact the number right the pricing of whatever comes before you The firm that is being recommended for Center City Small Area Plan absolutely has the capability. The question is, do you want them to spread their focus on the big picture and this site, or do you wanna diversify that into two consultants and then just partner up on the community engagement and feedback?

I think you do that. You gotta do it in two parallel paths. Right. Because I think the workload alone on this, like you need a team dedicated to it to get to the level of granularity that we'll need. as opposed to not saying that the other plan's not gonna be granular, it will, right? But in other ways of more geared to developers coming in that already existingly own property, whereas we as the city own this property and what do we collectively as a body with the community's feedback wanna do with it, right?

And maybe as you think through the process to address both needs, the overall downtown comprehensive plan, and then I guess this would be kind of a small area plan for the Stowe property, you know, that the overarching theme with them is, and I think you guys tell me if I'm wrong, I think we've got pretty much unanimous support. We want to make sure that we're keeping with Belmont's, you know, quaint historic, charming downtown theme. And I would also add that we also want to be mindful of our existing business owners. And I know you guys know this, but we want to, you know, be complimentary to what they're already offering there. And certainly, there's a lot of potential here to enhance what's going on downtown for sure. But I think to do that, you know, in hand with our existing business owners, and there'll be stakeholders, I'm sure there'll be participating in some of these processes and discussions. But I think we just want to make sure that whoever we're aligning with, whether it's one entity or two for these two initiatives, that there's that alignment.

Well, that's how we've done all the other things, too, is understanding where there's no stop and start and how they work best together.

Yeah. yeah I think with Tiffany's their plan you'll end up with things like how much open space do we need where with this plan you might end up with the zoning when you're finished exactly the zoning that could be dispatched to developers so I think you end up with two different results in the end I did talk to the mayor about this and for what it's worth he indicated that his preference was also option number three

For my part, as far as the community engagement aspect of this goes, I think an important part of that is going to be feasibility. Because what I don't want to have happen is people kind of, I've already kind of seen some of this happen where people have ideas about what they want to do with the property. Some of them just won't work for various reasons. So I think that it would be important to kind of make sure that Whoever is in that room guiding that conversation is cognizant of that. I don't want people getting ahead of themselves and thinking that we're going to be able to do X when financially or logistically or whatever, you can't do X. You have to do Y or Z or N or whatever. Because I think that there are a lot of good ideas out there, but I think it's got to ultimately be something that we can what I guess what I would expect from this is something we can take and do something with at the end of the day.

And I think that's a two prong approach, because it's really good point. But I think that's where the consultants come in, to try to, you know, gather all the data, see what makes sense, give options. But they're going to consolidate this in a manner of like, that's feasible, right. And then the idea is, is correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin, and counsel, but like, if that was to happen, like, the product of that is where you go to market, like which developer that specifies, or specializes in that area of expertise, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I mean, although we've got to be able to take this and like,

do something with it. Because my only concern is if you set guardrails up front, whereas like, I feel like this conversation is kind of going a little bit, then it seems like everything's predetermined to the outset of the outcome, which is not necessarily true, right? Right. So like, if you just open it up, let the consultants take that throw it on a wall, get it all kind of consolidated, then it becomes like a menu of selection for the council and maybe a second round of community feedback with more guardrails to determine what's feasible. Does that make sense?

And I think whoever selected has been through these processes can help us in the best practices as well.

It's just got to be thoughtful, which I know it will be, because this is a big opportunity for the city and a one-time shot.

I don't know if this is the appropriate time tonight, Kevin, but I think Daniel may still be here. You know, we kind of discussed a little bit in the TDA meetings even about, you know, how this vision comes together for that property. Certainly you can link this to a tourism-related initiative, right, in drawing people. to Belmont and providing attractions for our own residents. I think to that end, the TDA, and I don't want to speak for Daniel, and he's free to come up if you'd like him to, but they may also have an interest in participating in this process, perhaps even helping to fund the consultant at that level. That's something that the council would entertain.

Does the funding have to be specifically Like, how does that work for my funding? Because I've always known that the board to give funds to, like, the Moon on Main type of, like, an event that would be, like, a spectacle.

Well, so it would be a... Economic development. It would. It would be a capital, you know, improvement, capital project. We talked about this earlier before you got here about the gateway signs because that would be, you know, if Council approves it as it comes back to us with the committee we've discussed tonight forming, that would be a joint venture, if you will, between Council and the TDA because it is tied to tourism, but it's not, you know, funding a one-time event or, you know, ongoing operational expenses. It's funding a capital project. So I just throw that out there that if we wanted the TDA to perhaps help in some fashion to some extent with this process, then that.

And they would definitely be considered a stakeholder. As I mentioned, they would be the, you have the regular public input, but the stakeholder groups are very important. As you mentioned, the property owners, they're big stakeholders. The Main Street group, BBDA, they're a stakeholder. So they're going to be at the table. So that's where you're going to have a lot of these people. That's where they get their opportunities to provide that input. Monetary, that's great, too. Tourism. We'll bring something back to you again, that process, and you'll have a chance to see it again. I know it would be like a super theoretical theater.

But would it be possible to get like a schedule or a time like estimated high-level time frame of like key gates of like we do this, we do this, we do that. Because like what I don't want is like something like this because it's so big to become like an endless process to where we have an end date or at least a targeted end date and we target to move forward to that.

I like that.

We could typically, we put like RFPs, RFQs out. We know like the process for that to take place from city staff. And then we usually rely on like somebody who's gone through it before to say, hey, how long does the process take? Because we don't think it needs to take two years. This needs to be backed up to something more like a year or less of a process. And so I think that I'd rather wait until the firm is selected to kind of put the timeline together? Like me and Kevin, Kevin can put together like the process we plan to use.

And I mean, based on my review of some of the recent RFPs for the small area plans and whatnot, I believe in a lot of the P's that are produced, they will have they're a timeline we can assess based on who submits what we think is is our desired timeline what we think is the best realistic timeline yeah if we bring you know bring the firms in and you know question them on that the RFP process and one of them doesn't have the staff capacity it takes them two years and maybe that's one of the weighted criteria where it needs to be

you know manage quicker than that they need to have the scale right I mean they need to be able to have proven projects of similar scale and size to make them even like be able to contend right yeah this is the priority both from that aspect but I also think from the time aspect yeah I think that makes sense Do you need a vote from us as far as like select? It sounds like there's consensus on option three, but we can take a vote.

Yeah, it seems like if the consensus is option three, then we have direction on what we need to do work on option three, bring that process that we plan to go through back to you all to say, hey, here's how we as staff have looked at it.

I'll give us the How long do you think before it could come back to the council?

I think a month. What do you think next? We're workshop in July.

Yeah.

I don't think we're I don't think we can do it between now and the next meeting. But yeah, give us a month July workshop. Yeah, yeah.

And I think during that time to like, let's go ahead and determine the list. It sounds like we kind of collectively kind of know, but let's write down who are the key stakeholders, like who needs to be like, so there's no missteps, right? And then at what point do we need to insert them into the this this timeline, right? I would anticipate the property owners should probably be pretty, right after we maybe a part of selecting the consultants right at some whatever they work stream that that could be made possible because what we don't want to do ultimately is is also like do something completely different than what the property owners are anticipating then you've got two plans that completely because one cannot happen without the other in my mind right yeah i think they need to be they need to have a seat at the table

So I think we're good if you're good.

I'm good. Are you good, Tim? We're all good. All good.

Good job. All right.

Good time. All right. We're having a good time.

Good job, Kevin. You got alignment, 100% alignment up here. Thank you. Even the mayor gave a message to Mark on the alignment.

All right. So if there's nothing else, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye. All right. We are adjourned. I'm glad you came back in time to make a motion to adjourn, Alex.