City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our July 20th, 2026 council meeting. We will start by invocation with Pastor Scott Johnson of Soulful Harvest Ministries. Please rise.

Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, with all humility, I stand here. standing here being so grateful for this day, Lord. And I ask that you bless this council, that you bless everyone that's in this room, bless their families, bless us in our careers, bless us in every way, Lord. And I ask that If we get off track, God, that you breathe on us and help us to get back in line with what you want us to do. I lift up our city, the city of Cape Girardeau, because I know that you have said that we are to be the hub for change. Let us not be separated because of our religious and political beliefs, but let us be on one accord to do what you are calling for us to do. I lift up a special prayer on today, Lord. Bless our first responders in every way, Lord. They deal with things and they see things that we can't even imagine and they have to take it home and they have to stop at the door to go in and be the husbands and the wives and the people that they need to be for their families. Bless all of us. All of us in this room who deal with the public, we deal with the criticism, we deal with all of those who say what we should do and pointing fingers, but they have to realize that none of us are perfect, God. All of that belongs to you and we are so grateful. Bless us all, Lord. Bless us to be on one accord because you said that if your people be on one accord, what they could do is unimaginable. Let us get on one accord with one another, Lord. Let us love and not judge one Let us encourage and not discourage one another because we need one another and we all need you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Before we get into study session, I want to welcome a guest who has followed me last week and met with Dr. Haskins and Mayor Pro Tem Thomas and I, and this is Sunny Childress, class of 26 graduate from Notre Dame High School, student body president. Her mother and father, Jim and Maria Childress, her grandmother and grandfather, Reg and Kathy Swan, And she'll be going off to Mizzou. So she was doing some shadowing this last week to see what all we do and how that works. So Sunny, thank you for being here and giving us the time. It's really not that exciting, though, is it, though, after she got to see how sausage was made Thursday. So anyway, we will get into our study session with the mall discussion. Lucas, you will be speaking, I'm assuming. All right.

Okay. Good evening, Council. Thank you for your time this evening. My name is Lucas Haley, and I'm one of the co-owners and a project manager on the West Park Mall project. I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. I ALSO WANT TO THANK THE COUNCIL FOR ITS ORIGINAL SUPPORT OF THIS PROJECT. YOU KNOW, THERE WAS A TIME WHERE THINGS WERE PRETTY BLEAK AT THE PROPERTY. YOU GUYS TOOK A CHANCE I THINK QUITE HONESTLY ON THE ORIGINAL IDEA OF THIS PROJECT. AND WE'RE HERE TODAY TO TALK ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE THEN AND WHAT OUR NEXT FEW STEPS ARE. So I will try to keep this fairly brief, but a few important things that I want to note. What are we asking for? What's already been delivered? And then what is the impact of a yes or no vote on our ask? So the main ask is that the remaining $5 million of the mall incentive funds be released to be put into the project for construction costs. There's no new, the easiest way that I could summarize this is there's no new money and there's no new process in our ask. So the money has already been received through the bond offering. It is quite literally sitting in an account with the bond offering trustee. And there's no new money being requested at all. We are changing one paragraph in the original 40 page development agreement to allow the remaining bucket of funds to be used on the property. It can't be used for anything else under the restrictions in the very first development agreement. And by law, it can only be used on this project. We're asking the city council to remove the final hurdle and allow the money to be released. Where were we on day one? Things were pretty bleak. So as you can see, the numbers were astonishing back at the time the original redevelopment plan was approved. So sales tax was declining double digits year over year, property tax, the assessments and valuations of the property had fallen over 50% in less than 10 years prior to the original development agreement. And then obviously as part of that, we had a blight designation on the property. due to its physical state vacancy issues and just the general condition. The transition has been dramatic since the redevelopment agreement was passed and since the city took a chance on us and on this project. Original project size, $107 million. To date, we are $40 million through that process. So $40 million has been put into the property in less than two years. The original bond offering happened in October of 2024. So we're, whatever that is, 21 months in now, $40 million invested. And what do we have to show for that? We have, sorry, here we go. Out of the total bond offering that was available, which was $21.7 million, 16.7 of that has already been put into the project. So the $5 million that we're asking to be released is already part of the original bond offering and has been sitting in an account with the bond trustee since October of 24th. So the money's already been allocated and approved by bond investors, not by the city. And I think it's important to note that this is not money that came out of the city budget and was set aside in a bank account almost two years ago. This is money that bond investors paid into the project because they believed in what we were trying to do. So $40 million investment, we've renovated approximately 140,000 square feet at the property so far, and that's had some pretty dramatic impacts. So we have 10 new national tenants on the property eight of those are brand new uh to the mall and to cape and so you know i think most of you probably know this list but sierra pet smart carter's maurice's ulta beauty uh ross and then we have barnes noble and old navy have both re-upped their leases for 10-year periods based on the activity on the rest of the property all of these tenants have signed 10-year leases and given that we have them locked in for 10-year leases, we're not taking the bondholders' money and our own money and committing that to a very short-term project. These are very long-term leases with multiple options even after the 10-year period. I think one of the most dramatic things that even surprised me a little bit when I looked back at the numbers The day we closed on the property in 2021, the occupancy was at 62%, right? Meaning 38% of the property was vacant. We have two tenants coming in this fall and counting their occupancy will be at 91%. So by late this year, we're expecting to have 9% of the space unleashed, but 91% occupied, which is nearly a 30% change in the last couple years. Here's what the property used to look like. Maybe a little difficult to see where you're at. And we had a literal quote in the local newspaper that the mall was a drab monolithic concrete structure. I actually agree with them. You know, at the time it was pretty ugly, and you can see that here. No signage, nothing going on, the parking lot's empty. It just really was not a positive story going on. but we've seen a pretty dramatic shift now. I'm sure most of you have been by the property. It's almost unrecognizable. Most days of the week, particularly on the weekends, the parking lot is very full. So we have the whole lineup of new retailers And this has just really spurred a lot of positivity, a lot of growth, and a lot of interest in the property from other tenants and from the existing tenants on the inside. Again, the most noticeable thing is the parking lot. Dozens and dozens and dozens of cars. ON ANY GIVEN DAY, PARTICULARLY ON THE WEEKENDS, WE NOTICED ON BLACK FRIDAY AND OVER THE HOLIDAYS THIS PAST YEAR, BEFORE A COUPLE STORES HAD EVEN OPENED, JUST WITH THE EXISTING THAT WAS IN PLACE, THEIR PARKING LOT WAS PACKED. WE HAD PEOPLE PARKING AROUND THE SIDES OF THE BUILDING, WHICH HADN'T HAPPENED IN PROBABLY A DECADE ON A REGULAR BASIS. What have the results been of all this? You know, it's great to look at a shiny new building and believe that, hey, you know, we got rid of the concrete wall that was there, and now we have something that's really attractive. But what have the actual results been? just in the redevelopment area. So this would be the east wing of the mall. So starting at Marisa's and going out to Sierra. That area alone will generate $24 million in sales this year. That is up from $2 million in sales in 2024. So the math on that is pretty easy. That's more than 10 times that the sales in that area of the mall have grown in less than 24 months. So absolutely dramatic, even on the numbers, in addition to just the visual appearance of the property. We've had multiple of our new tenants rank in the top five for their companies nationwide in either store opening sales or continuing sales. And so a lot of those things are confidential. So the names of exactly who is who and where they are, we can't release. But we can certainly tell you that That has built a lot of momentum for other tenants to come to the property and has proven one of the things that we set out initially and said through the original redevelopment process, which is we think the whole pie can grow. We don't think we're just taking from other businesses in the community. We think the entire pie can grow. And that's certainly been borne out by the numbers. This project, quite frankly, has also spurred a lot of new development across Cape. Since the city believed in the project and the bond offering happened, there's been a lot of construction going on outside of our project. And so there have been several new Drury projects. The Sears building obviously is a very recent development, but you've seen several new food franchises come in, hotels being built. AND JUST OVERALL A LOT OF CONSTRUCTION GROWTH AND ACTIVITY THAT WAS NOT HAPPENING IN CAPE BEFORE WE KICKED OFF ON THIS PROJECT. CONTINUING ON WITH RESULTS, WE THINK THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN HIGHLY SUPPORTIVE OF THIS PROJECT AND HOW DO WE KNOW THAT? WE'RE GETTING HUNDREDS OF COMMENTS. on local news stories, anytime, you know, KFES or newspaper posts the story about the project and we get overwhelmingly positive comments and people excited about what's happened. And, you know, just the physical aspect, you would drive by on the weekend, the parking lot's packed. I mean, it's just pretty easy to see the level of support that the community has given to this. And we also think being able to advertise that a $40 million investment has been made in your local mall, which was a blighted property prior to that, is quite a strong marketing tool for the city itself to be able to show that to other national tenants that are interested, regardless of whether they come to our property or not. Where are we at now? We have three national tenant stores currently under construction and build out. And we have two of those that we can't announce the names yet. One will be opening in October, so pretty quickly. And then the other will be opening in the first quarter of next year. Then on top of that, we have an additional tenant that we're in active lease negotiations for. they would fill in the spot immediately to the right side of the mall entrance if you're facing the mall. So we already have a tenant going in on the left side, and you can see the construction there. The right side would be pulled out with a new facade to look at the exact same. So those are in progress. Overall, we have 64 tenants operating at the property. So that's 64 separate businesses on site on that property every day. These numbers I think are what maybe surprised me the most out of anything. So we went through with our tenants and put together a list of all of the employees on site for all of the tenants on a daily basis. We have 491 employees on site, 613 employees if you count seasonal hires. These are huge numbers. And we have, like I said, two more tenants coming. They're not included in these numbers. So we think by the first quarter of next year, we'll add another 40 jobs on top of the existing 491, not counting any seasonal, those are full-time employees. Where does that put us? If you take all of the tenants at the mall collectively, So not any single tenant, but you take all of them together, that 491 jobs number, that makes us the sixth largest employer in the county. Jackson Public School District, 479 employees. So as a property, we're larger than the entire Jackson School District. And you can see the next largest is Cape School District. If you take out hospitals and schools, only Proctor and Gamble is larger. Now, granted, 1,100 employees, they are substantially larger. But the point remains that this particular property having 64 tenants and having this many employees drives a major impact for the community. The new tenants coming in are hiring new people. That money is being reinvested in our community from their wages, from the sales tax spending, from the property tax growth and the impact for other construction projects around town. What's next? I mentioned we have three stores under construction right now. After those are completed and stabilized, our plan is to shift to cosmetic upgrades on the main mall entrance and on the interior. Obviously, those are still in need of help. We've been focused on the exterior and getting those tenants in and stabilized, but that is the next phase of the project. along with out parcel construction. We're still looking to develop the out parcels on the property and have multiple tenants who are interested, tenants and purchasers who are interested in those out parcels. I mentioned we have two tenants I can't announce yet. I think that we will have permission to announce them within the next few months. Okay. What's the impact of what we're asking for? So just as a reminder, we're asking for the final $5 million of the bond proceeds to be released, to be put into the property. It can only be used for construction on site. I want to be very clear. This is not as though you vote yes to approve this and we receive a check for $5 million that we then get to go do whatever we want to with. We have to prove to the city satisfaction that we have incurred construction expenses on site in order to have access to that money. So the process hasn't changed at all from the other $16.7 million that's already been put into the property. We submit invoices. Lisa Mills reviews those thoroughly. We normally have a couple exchanges back and forth on revisions. And then once we have final approval, they go to the bond trustee and the check is paid to reimburse based on those invoices. So the money has to be spent on the property first. So voting yes will allow us to continue work on the three national tenants that were under construction now. We'll also allow funds to keep us on track for the fourth new national tenant that we're working with that are still in lease negotiations on. And this continues and completes the original bond offering and redevelopment agreement that was approved by the city in 2024. What does a no vote mean? Part of the incentives, the whole idea behind the need for the incentives is that some of the construction is not economically feasible without an incentives component. So national retailers know what amount of rent they can pay And that is all they will pay. They will not cut you a charity check in order to come to Cape and set up their business, right? It has to make economic sense for that company, for the retailer. Also has to make economic sense to actually construct the property. with construction costs and rent being in entirely different stratospheres, something has to bridge that gap. That gap has been bridged by the incentives agreement, by the redevelopment agreement that the city's already approved. And so without that, quite literally, this development cannot happen and cannot continue. So I'm not exaggerating when I say if, we are not able to access the remaining money, then our construction progress will stop almost immediately on the three tenants that are under construction. And then the fourth tenant, we won't be able to continue active negotiations with because there won't be any funds available to do that. What happens to the $5 million? IT CAN ONLY BE USED FOR THIS PROPERTY. IT CAN'T BE REALLOCATED BY THE CITY TO ANY OTHER PROPERTY. THAT'S BECAUSE OF THE BOND HOLDERS THAT INVESTED IN THIS, NOT BECAUSE OF OUR TERMS. SO THAT MONEY STAYS IN THE BOND TRUSTEES ACCOUNT AND WILL EVENTUALLY BE RETURNED TO THE BOND INVESTORS IF IT'S NOT SPENT ON THE PROPERTY. So the impact or the, you know, practically speaking, what happens there is bond investors have said almost two years ago, hey, we want to put $5 million to work in Cape Girardeau because we believe in this project. And we're going to come back two years later and say, actually, we're good. I don't think we need your money anymore. You can have it back. I don't think that's a result that any of us want. And I'm not trying to give hyperbole to that. That is the true result of what would happen with a no vote on this. Again, our ask is, allow us to keep doing what we've been doing. Let's finish what we've started here. You believed in us on day one. We think we have shown the results and taken that trust and worked hard with it to get to where we are. We are very close to the finish line on phase one of the redevelopment, and we're asking for your continued support for the remaining $5 million to be released to us. No new money, no new process. That's all I have, thank you. And open for any questions. So, so.

I will not be handling this part. I will let Mayor Pro Tem.

Go ahead. So we all understand why you're here, why you're asking for the money, but why do you need to ask for the money? I think you need a better explanation of why this $5 million is still sitting in a bond trustee to let people understand why it's there and why haven't you been able to access it before now.

So when the redevelopment agreement was initially negotiated, we had, quite frankly, a lot of tenants that we didn't know when they were coming and several tenants that we were still early in negotiations for. it's extremely difficult to build out a development and a construction budget if you're not sure who the tenants are and you're not sure exactly when they're coming, right? So the nature of that process was we were early. And as a part of the bond offering, we had to have a budget, a construction budget. So we did the best that we could in good faith based on the numbers we had at the time. We had a portion of the money that we couldn't allocate to any particular cost because we didn't have the bids and we didn't have the estimates for those because we didn't have the tenants in place yet. So a lot of that money, um, or all of it, uh, was put into a set. What I, I refer to these as buckets of money. Uh, so this was put into the TDD fund, uh, or bucket as I call it. So transportation development district. um that money has you know the five million that's left uh in order to be used on the rest of the property we have to amend the development agreement to allow that as it currently sits the five million dollars is restricted to only be used for uh exterior improvements so no vertical building at all so it would be parking lots landscaping lighting uh you know roadways things like that so $5 million, we couldn't possibly spend $5 million on that category of things. We're now to the point where we have the tenants and we have the budget and we know exactly how to allocate that money still on the property, still for construction expenses, but it won't be limited to just the parking lots and landscaping.

HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU SPENT ON THOSE PROJECTS, THE LANDSCAPE AND EXTERIOR AND STUFF LIKE THAT?

TODAY, IT'S PROXIMATELY $500,000. OKAY. SO, I MEAN, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT TEN TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT'S STILL SITTING THERE. NOW, WE HAVE SOME MINOR PROJECTS LEFT TO DO. WE'RE REDOING SOME OF THE PAVING ALONG THE FRONT OF THE MALL. Eventually, we will redo all of the sidewalks and concrete area on the main entry. Once construction is done on both sides of the main facade, we'll go in and redo those as well. Some money will be used for that, but I can promise you it's not going to be $5 million. Thank you.

GO AHEAD. SO THANKS FOR COMING IN, LUCAS, AND PRESENTING THIS TO US. I'VE ONLY BEEN ON THE COUNCIL A COUPLE OF YEARS, BUT ONE THING HAS BEEN BEATEN, DRUMMED INTO ME IS THAT YOU CAN'T TAKE FROM PETER TO PAY PAUL AS FAR AS BUCKETS OF MONEY. YOU SAID YOURSELF, BUCKETS. AND I UNDERSTAND IT'S THE BONDHOLDERS THAT HAVE THIS MONEY. I guess my biggest question is you stated if they don't get the money, this all development stops. And that's kind of, I mean, we're only two years into the development. Did you anticipate it stopping after two years with the new vendors or was this something that wasn't anticipated and you were maybe being a little bit aggressive with the TDD money instead of putting that, making it 2 million and putting that into the internal to begin with. my concern also is after this is done that you will have because we're in the midwest you know how some of the roads are around here and the erosion and maintenance issues is it not possible if we didn't vote positively on this that that money use is used in the future for maintenance and beautification of your exterior

Sure. So I'll back up. Yeah. Yeah.

That's probably three questions in one.

Yeah. Yeah. So there was, uh, there was a lot of negotiation when the original redevelopment agreement, uh, was, was signed and approved, um, and negotiation before that, and then negotiation even afterwards through the bond offering. All of that has gone through Mark Grimm, who is the outside counsel for the city, works with Gilmore and Bell in St. Louis. This is almost all he does. I mean, he works with cities all over the state. And so, like I mentioned, we didn't have the budget that was fully fleshed out at that point in time, but we had sales projections from tenants to support a larger bond offering than we could actually show in the construction budget. So the remaining money we put in the TDD bucket in order to satisfy the split between the different buckets of incentives. So we have a TIF, a CID, and a TDD. So three different tranches of money. So the money was allocated to the TDD The conversation nearly immediately at that time was, we'll put it here for now. We can come back and amend this later once we have the full budget worked out and we can show exactly where you guys are gonna spend the money. And so that goes back as far as October of 24. through you know change of emails and phone calls and communications with mark um and other people at the city that hey we we know we're never going to use all of this for tdd for strictly uh you know tdd purposes of parking lot and landscaping that that money is going to have to be reallocated at some point And so I wouldn't say this was anticipated from day one, I think is the way that we certainly think about it. And I think Mark Grimm would characterize it the same way. As far as your second question of, you know, anticipating maintenance needs and things like that, absolutely. Will there be maintenance on the parking lot and the landscaping? Yes, there will be. We think that once the development is done and fully stabilized, that those things will be fairly minimal from a cost perspective going forward. You know, I mentioned all of the parking lot work we've done to date was $500,000, and that involved resurfacing 20 acres probably out of the parking lot. So I think maintenance obligations just on road areas would be something we would absorb through our operating expense for the mall operations is what I would expect.

Last, and it's, so the spaces that you need this money for, are they not complete? And these are just wants from the new vendors? Or if we didn't get the money, are those spaces still inhabitable by other vendors not wanting these particular things that they want? An outside entrance? Sure. you know, no inside interest, just an outside interest. My question is, is the mall complete if you say you don't get this money, it's done, we stop work? Are the spaces ready to be leased by someone not wanting additional work?

I would say no. So two of the spaces are quite literally under construction as we all three of them are under construction as we speak. Two of them are not to the point where they could be used at all for for retail space. The third is usable, but it's so large. This this is a the what was supposed to be the Michaels box along the east wing. That space is 16,500 square feet. NO LOCAL TENANTS WILL TAKE A SPACE OF THAT SIZE. IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A NATIONAL TENANT FOR THAT SIZE AND THAT PROMINENCE. LIKE I MENTIONED EARLIER, THE NATIONAL TENANTS HAVE SOME NEGOTIATING ROOM but not a lot once you have them interested in cape based on our population and our and our demographics income levels once you have them interested you still have to you know meet them more than in the middle and pay for a lot of the build-out cost so their investment in the store and the property matches up with what they think they can make in sales Now we've done really well with a lot of tenants and some of them have exceeded, several have exceeded their own internal expectations for what their sales were going to be here. that does not result in a huge increase in rents for the next couple of tenants that come along or a very different set of terms for those other national tenants. They have a playbook and they pretty much stick by it once they've started. So, you know, they try to treat all their stores nationwide in a very similar fashion. And you can understand why. I mean, they're essentially franchises. And so that puts them in a position of saying, Here's where we think the sales are going to be. Here are the terms that we're willing to offer to come to Cape. Here are a few things we'll negotiate on, but it's not a, you don't have carte blanche with these national tenants just because we've had success with the handful that we have. If that answers your question.

So I'm fairly new to the council. So I missed all the fun of the first go around and just to confirm whenever, so you're suggesting that whenever everything was coming through, that it was essentially implied that that second bucket, the $5 million bucket, it was essentially agreed upon that That's where it's going. And then you'd come up here and we just have to agree upon the second time. Who was, and was there any reason why it was deemed to be mostly parking lot and non?

So that's by state law. So the TDD bucket says that TDD expenses can only be used for those categories of things. Right.

And so it wasn't the city and it wasn't your development. It was a state thing that had to be there. And this is just a formality per se.

Well, a couple of different parts to that. So the percentage of the money that was put in the TDD allocation was based on our negotiations with the city. Right. So there's that layer with the amount that ended up there. On top of that, there are rules for how TDD money can be used. Those rules, the scope of those was intentionally limited in our redevelopment agreement. State law allows a broader use than what is allowed under our redevelopment agreement. And that was based on our negotiations with the city to say, once you're ready to use this money for everything that's allowable by state law, you can come back and ask. And that was a conversation, you know, I mean, from September and October of 24.

Go ahead. I guess I do have a few, a couple questions. You're asking for the release of funds So say the council vote to release those funds. So that means to tell me you extremely under budget, that the funds that already been allocated, that the council approved, not myself, how much money will you need? Is it beyond 5 million? What is that dollar amount you will need to complete the project? So if you're telling us, if you don't get this money, you can't complete it. What is the dollar amount you need to complete that project? Yeah, not just the $5 million. You can't tell me it's just $5 million.

It must be more. Yeah, so we'll need all of the five, and then the one remaining national tenant that we're still in lease negotiations with, that will likely take additional money that will be our own investment for that. How much is that? We're probably looking at another $2 million for that tenant. So, you

So, and the second question is that, so you've, first of all, I'm still going to say no. So nothing about this is right. And you were extremely under budget, supposedly, and you asked the question for more funds that was allocated for beautification outside in the park. So that means you was $4,500,000 under budget for you to necessarily need that amount for the outside, supposedly. Is that correct? Because you said we only spent $500,000 on a parking lot. He's like $4 million left in the bank for that, for more than the bond. So that means when you all planned accordingly to say you're that much under budget and then you're short extremely in a couple of years and need more money to move in another area, that seems like poor financial planning. AND I BELIEVE YOU'VE ALREADY ASKED THE CITY FOR ENOUGH FUNDS USING TAXPAYER DOLLARS AND YOU COME BACK TO ADJUST IT TO FIT YOUR NEED THAT I DON'T STILL DON'T THINK IS RIGHT AND THE AUDACITY Y'ALL CONTINUE TO COME BACK AND ASK THE CITY TO USE THE FUNDS WHEN YOU YOU ALREADY SHARE you outperforming, that means you're making money. You're a private investor, you're making money, you outperforming, then you have the funds to do what you need to do and to threaten the city, you can't finish for $5 million? That's not right. So that's where I stand. I still say no. And I don't appreciate you all coming back to ASCA here. That's where I stand on that.

But the $5 million, was an already approved incentive funds from the bond trustee account, correct? So the money was intended to be used for this project.

Yes, it can only be.

And it can only be used for this project. So you're not asking for new money, correct?

That's right.

This money is there. And my understanding is, I don't know if you know, but that in other states, This is routinely done, what you're asking for. This is not a big lift. This is not something unusual, correct?

I would characterize it as not an unusual request. A lot of times what we're asking for now would be part of the original development agreement. So I mentioned earlier with Councilman Schaaf's question that there is a set of categories that TDD money can be used by state law. And then there is a limited set, which is smaller in scope that the city approved on the original redevelopment agreement for us to use. And so it's not as though we're asking the city to do something that's in violation of state law. I mean, I would never do that. So the idea is allow us to use this money for the full purposes that state law allows it to be and to be put into the property. because really, otherwise, it goes back to the bondholders, which, you know, to me would be a catastrophic result for CAPE. And I think, quite frankly, would probably have ramifications on future bond offerings. You know, if investors get a report that says, hey, your money's coming back to you, we're not going to continue to build out the project that you chose to invest in, I have to think that that will have ramifications for other projects.

Um, first of all, I wanted to thank you for putting this together. Um, I guess we will be getting a copy of these slides. Is that, uh, yeah, sure.

I can provide that to the council. Yeah.

No, I appreciate that. No, I, but I appreciate, um, objectively putting numbers around something that subjectively or anecdotally we all, or at least my household knows, because when my college daughters come home, you know, it used to be the target and downtown trips. And then now they're wanting to go to the mall. I mean, so I guess, uh, Maybe I shouldn't give you compliments on that. Apologies. Yes. Yes. Some apologies. Yes. But no, it is remarkable. And I know you talk about on the weekends, the pictures, but just the week, I mean, to drive by their daily, the weekly parking lot picture is just night and day from what it was. It's at levels on the weekends where it would be on Black Friday in decades before. Yeah. And that's pretty remarkable. One, when you just look at it as a retail development, but also with how prominent of a destination retail development that has been to our community and our economy for so long. So to talk about 12 times the amount of sales in the newly developed areas, that is remarkable. But also when you talk about the trend line of where it was going at that 2 million was headed down. So not only is it now at 24 million, but it's headed up. So who knows that that outlook is a whole different story when you weave that. So I appreciate you putting the numbers and not to mention the jobs, et cetera. Um, I'm going to try to surmise what I heard from you and please correct me, um, or agree with me however you need to. Um, What I kind of heard from this was that it is, well, obviously, it's money that's already been approved to give to you. It's $5 million to give to you. We arbitrarily, as part of our individual development agreement, put restrictions on it. And you're asking like, hey, can we just have this align with state law and allow it to be used for the rest of the project? Otherwise, so basically our decision would be, do we want $5 million to be spent in CAPE or do we want to just give it back? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I, and, I'm going to be careful how I say this because I'm not trying to characterize it as a threat, but it's a very binary decision, in our opinion at least.

Well, what I heard from it, and sorry to interrupt, but what I heard was that, you know, yeah, we could save this money and bank it and use it for, you know, when we need an overlayment on the pavement or we need to do some striping or whatever, and that could chip away at this dollar. But what I heard from these numbers is, was that demand by our community or economy was kind of unexpected. And there's a wave that is bigger than what we thought. And now let's ride the wave out. And the best use of this funds would be in the immediate to get all of those tenants there to ride all of their momentum together Instead of banking it to use years down the road for the less fun stuff of the striping and overlayment, let's get those tenants in, let's get those sales tax even going, or the sales numbers going even further, get the revenue coming into the city more, get that then snowballs to all the other developments that you outlined that have gone up in the last two years since you've been doing this project. That is the snowball for our economy, not... just the fact that we have five million dollars we want to we want to prevent you from using that it's let's just capitalize on this while we can it's more of a cash flow let's put that in now and then all of those other it's not to say you won't improve the exterior that's going to be used with your operating funds because let's get them in let's get

the the sales flowing and let them all ride up the each other's momentum is that kind of what we're it's more of a timing issue at this point you know we're we're 20 21 months um into the project and we've signed 10 leases that's one on 60 days every 60 days on average um and they've they've come in lumps uh we have a couple more ready to go and so the momentum I probably couldn't be any stronger from the tenant demand perspective. And so has that changed our timeline and changed our budget from what we knew on day one in August to October of 24? Absolutely it has. But we think it's changed it for the positive. It's pulled some of that demand forward, accelerated it and put us in a position now where we need that money in order to be able to continue these tenant build outs and finish out the project to get those tenants open for business. And our expectation is their sales results will be just as good as the other tenants have been so far. And we'll have a huge support from customers in the city and in the area, in the full region coming to the property.

Thank you. And the other thing that I wanted to clarify was if we say no to this $5 million, we're not saving the taxpayers any dollars. That's right. We as citizens of Cape, that money is reimbursed to you as a 1% on top of anybody who just chooses to shop at your establishment. Right, right. So we're not saving Joe Q, citizen of Cape. any taxpayers. It's not like we're going to get a big tax rebate on our property taxes or anything. This is basically us, a yes, a no vote would be saying we don't want to spend $5 million of approved money in Cape for the uses that you've already been using your approved money for.

I think the argument could be made that if you vote no, you're actually voting against taxpayers because this money is going to be used to put into the property to finish out these tenants who will then have employees who will then have additional sales and property taxes that will be generated over time to help supplement the city's budget. So, you know, I think that line of reasoning is pretty clear that that money just goes back to the bondholders we push pause and ultimately both the property and the city and the citizens would lose out on that scenario yeah and i guess that goes to what as i've been chewing on this and thinking about it and i appreciate

everything that you guys have been doing and investing and choosing to invest in our community, just like the other developments and the other development agreements we have, you know, right across the street with Sears Grand, very similar agreement, very, you know, and all the other, the TIFs that we've, you know, it's spurring that development. There are those other development groups very similarly to this. And you guys took off a big chunk with this. And I guess I just, I look at my role up here at being on council to represent CAPE and do what's best for CAPE. YOU KNOW, INDEPENDENT OF ANY OTHER INTEREST OR SPECIAL INTEREST OR SMALL SEGMENT OR GROUP, IT'S WHAT'S BEST FOR CAPE. AND I JUST CHALLENGE ANYBODY TO THINK WHAT A NO VOTE, WHAT BENEFIT IS THAT BRINGING CAPE, A NO VOTE? THAT'S MY QUESTION. ANYWAY, NOT FOR YOU, YOU DON'T HAVE TO ANSWER THAT. THAT'S MORE FOR US TO CONSIDER. BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. I DON'T KNOW, DOES ANYBODY ELSE HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS? Thank you, Lucas, for your time.

All right.

Tag, I'm back. Mr. Pooley, we have our derelict commercial vacant building discussion on proposed ordinance. I will mention that this is not on tonight's agenda. IS THAT CORRECT? IS THAT ALL RIGHT? NO, IT'S NOT. NOBODY STOPPED ME. NOBODY SAID, OH, THAT'S RIGHT.

So as you remember, last council meeting, we first visited this. I gave a very small presentation regarding the vacant commercial buildings. This is going to be some more photographs. Talk about this a little more in depth. At your stations, you actually have a draft of an ordinance I provided you all. That is one of the legal drafts that we created earlier this week for you to consider and help me to draft. Now, as we move forward, I had several questions regarding the buildings, if this is gonna be a vacant building or a derelict building. So that's why we rephrase it just a little bit. So it's a derelict and vacant commercial buildings. So it has to meet certain criteria to move forward where it actually gets registered, if there's fines, how we redevelop it. So that's why I wanted to address you again to say it's not one of the new builds. Like we have a brand new build out on North Kings Highway. Mid-America Hotels have got a fourplex out there. Brand new. They're working on leases right now, but it is vacant. It has its COO. There are no code violations, so that particular building would not fall under this. It is not derelict. It has no violations. They're actively seeking tenants. This ordinance is looking at derelict buildings that are vacant and that are commercial. So I hope everybody likes some of the photos we picked today. I had a lot of help from Ms. Nicolette on the presentation and photos. So why are we here? This ordinance encourages maintenance and reinvestment in vacant commercial buildings. It protects public health, safety, and welfare. It reduces the long-term code violations that we currently have in some of our buildings right now. We have some vacant buildings that have code violations for several years. This should improve the appearance of the commercial corridors, not just downtown, but up Broadway, William, and out west also. We have vacant buildings downtown, on Broadway, and even out west. provide a fair and consistent process for property owners themselves. It's not we're picking on one property owner. This is something fair for everybody throughout the whole city. When does the ordinance apply? First, it's got to meet the criteria. It has to be a commercial building, which is defined in the ordinance. Two, it has to be vacant for more than six months or longer. it's going to have to have one or more housing code violations to meet the criteria. So if it's just vacant and it's brand new, it's not going to meet this. We're not going to be looking at those. Residential structures are excluded from this ordinance. Now the housing code violations, they include building code violations, fire code, health code, property maintenance codes, nuisance ordinance, and other applicable city ordinances. The vacant structure has to have some of these, one or multiple, for it to apply. Two, the registration process. The building officials investigates it. Property is determined to qualify. Property owner receives a written notice. Notice identifies property violations, registration, and fee, which is attached. Two, property owners shall have 30 days correct the violation. May request an inspection. May request reconsideration. Registration fee may be waived if violations are corrected. Now we can work with the owners of these buildings and move forward. Appeal process. Prosecutors have put appeal process in there. Property owners may appeal the registration. They may reconsider the And the appeals are heard through the Cape Municipal Court. We want to keep it local. That way we know what's going on in town and that way we can track all these. Registration fee, $200 every six months. Late fee, $50 per month. Fees begin after reconsideration period expires or appeal is completed. Now, the fields are not paid. This is where we put a little more teeth in some of it. Collection through the courts. property liens, late fees, denial of city permits and licensing. That hits a lot of your business license. That hits your other permitting if you're building other aspects in the city. Foreclosure after one year of the delinquency. Release of liens when sold to an unrelated buyer. This ordinance does not register unoccupied buildings. If it's occupied, We're not going to place it on there. That means it's going to be revitalized and it's being kept up to code. Registration or residential structures. We're not looking at residential, commercial only. Apply to vacant buildings without code violations. There has to be violations of this building. If you have a building a tenant just moved out of, you're trying to get a tenant to move in, we're not looking at that. That building is up to code and it replaces existing code enforcement. Benefits, better maintained commercial properties, increased investment in the community, improved public safety, stronger neighborhoods, economic redevelopment, which is very big in the city of Cape right now. Consistent enforcement. We don't want to pick on anybody. We want it consistent through the whole town. Now, I'm going to briefly speak on this. This is something that's coming down. This is House Bill 3231. It's been signed by the governor. It's going to come into effect August 28th. This is, oh, I'm sorry. I'm a little ahead of myself. These are comparable cities that actually have a similar program. Columbia, Springfield, Jeff City, and Kansas City. They've been successful there. We want to have an accessible program here also. All right. Proposed timeline. Council study sessions. Council review. Public hearing if required. Council adoption. staff education and program implement. It's gonna take up to six months because it's gonna take our inspectors, our permitting people to go out, look at buildings to make sure they're vacant and make sure. So we have to determine when they're vacant and if they've been vacant six months, if commercial and there's violations. Recommendation, staff recommends adoption of the vacant commercial building registration ordinance. It improves our commercial corridors. It encourages property maintenance, promoting redevelopment, project public safety, and provides a fair and consistent enforcement process. This is going to help the city of Cape and its citizens to move forward with some of our vacant buildings in our downtown corridor and also Broadway and throughout the city. All right. I alluded to this, House Bill 3231. It's a new bill signed by the governor. It's gonna be effective August 26th. It talks about public safety, but it's mainly a redevelopment for your downtown and innovation districts. That's what it's for. It's another incentive tool that developers can use to move forward with some of these downtowns, some of these vacant buildings. Yes, the vacant program is gonna have some penalties, but as this moves forward, we can work with DED when they have the framework for this. That way, if we do have summonses we do put on the registration they can always look at this new incentive package through this house bill to move it forward so we want to work with these developers we want to work with the owners to get these buildings with occupants and get them out of disrepair so that's what our main goal is is get these buildings occupied get them up to code make it look a little more vibrant in your downtown your corridors and out west so that's what the ordinance is for but this is just a little part of the 3231 We're working on it now. I've contacted Mark Grimm regarding some of the incentives, how we have to do this. This is where we're going to require council action. It's not going to happen overnight. DED is working on it now. It may be a six-month to a year process. But Dr. Haskin and our teams are working on this diligently to help out investors, help out the downtown and other things as we move forward. We will keep you abreast of this House bill as it goes forward and the framework of what we can do so we can present it to you all.

Do you have any questions for me?

Questions or statements?

Yeah, I have a question, Trevor. So on the, is this going to be handled on a complaint basis or is inspection department, are they going to go out and actively look for these buildings or how is that going to come to their attention?

I can see a twofold. Right now we know what our vacant buildings are. We do. We are going to have to have a database of these vacant buildings. I can tell you most of the vacant buildings myself downtown, all up and down Broadway, we need to create a database of those buildings to show on this date they are active. I can see my permitting inspection team doing that from day one if the ordinance is passed. And as we move forward, we may not know of all of them, and that's where the complaint base comes in, where we have somebody downtown or out west or up the Broadway corridor or if Independence and Williams say, hey, you may have forgotten about this business. So we, I really like engagement with the community where they can call us, tell us, hey, did you forget about this one? No, we haven't, but thank you for your, thank you for allowing us what this is. So I think it's both.

uh question uh trevor yes sir so i have a i have a little trouble with the reconsideration element of this is the reconsideration is that meaning that you send them the notice and then they ask you to reconsider or you send them the notice and they fix some things and then they ask you to reconsider basically re-inspect that's what is that kind of synonymous re-inspect yes okay so

This may take a little bit longer, 30 days. As long as we've got a developer working with us saying, I've got this done, we can go out, re-inspect, reconsider, and move forward. Now, as you all know, we have a lot of owners that live out of town and out of state. And they won't contact us. So that's when we start getting into the fines. That's when we start getting into late fees. That's when we start getting into the liens. And at the worst, that's when we start going into the foreclosures. But the reconsiderization allows the municipal court and us to say, okay, they have building permits. They're taking care of the code. They're moving it forward. So that's what it's for, to re-inspect it that you're done. Okay, we're going to take you off the registry. And if you did it within the 30 days, we can and the municipal court or us can take the $200 fee away.

And your notices, they go on, they elaborate on future plans Penalties, judgments and so forth. So they get that first letter and they may have three or four different buildings and businesses. So they realize that this is this is ground zero. Now this is where this isn't being implemented and it has teeth of which to do so. Good job on this. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

I was just going to echo what he said. Thank you for spearheading all this work, all the work that everybody, I know it was a widespread effort on staff.

This is a whole team effort with all the teams involved. It's not one person. We've got amazing and permanent inspections, PIO, streets, engineering. We all were involved because these hit just not the building, but your infrastructure and other things. So the whole team of your development team has worked on this for several months.

Yeah, and it was much needed. It was an area of needs for sure. So thank you.

And to Trevor's point, we know we've got some derelict properties that are vacant, been vacant for numerous, numerous years, and we want to see those developed. We want to see those developed, and we want to make sure that they're safe in the community. I do believe with some of those, I do believe HB 3231 could be a huge benefit to the community. I've already talked to some developers in our community that I've kind of got them

going on this to see what properties that we have um in downtown and all around that might might benefit especially with this one being specifically for downtown so trevor thank you thank you council have to do zones and different things but as we move forward you'll be a cup of breast and move forward we've got amazing developers we have one downtown now doing three new three derelict buildings that they're bringing back as we speak

I appreciate your progressive efforts and all the work that you're doing.

Thank you, ma'am. Okay. Probably, would council like to see a public hearing and then a vote in the coming meetings?

I say move forward.

Move forward? Perfect. Trevor, as they say, you have your marching orders.

You got it. I'll take care of it, sir. Thank you again.

ALL RIGHT, WE HAVE NO PRESENTATIONS. WE WILL GET INTO COMMUNICATIONS AND REPORTS. COUNSEL? ANYBODY? Well, I'll go into mine if I guess. I mean, I'm used to you guys. Wow.

We're all wore out from talking.

I know. I'm like, guys, I mean, it's, we, I mean, yeah, right. We have the state of the community. Last week, I was proud to have Governor Kehoe in, and it was greatly attended. Good event. Thank you to the Cape Chamber for putting that on. I had the privilege of going to the commissioning of Mandy Shalast, the new president at Mercy Southeast last Monday, and welcome to our community, Mandy. On July 9th, Chief Glick and I attended a seminar and tour of all of the assets involved with the Real-Time Crime Center in O'Fallon, Missouri. It was the most I've seen Chief Glick smile since I've been mayor. Or before. Or before. But I would, I mean, he and I both agree, it just demonstrated that that's the technology that we need in Cape Girardeau. And I was happy to announce that at the State of the Community that We've started that planning process. We have started talking to our state and federal partners about some financing. There was one just didn't fit. We were a little small as far as a community, but Heath Robbins with Eric Schmidt's office is actively working on looking for some funds and grants. So thank you for that invite, Chief. And I was glad to see that technology. in action. The last, I wanted to send my condolences to retired Deputy Fire Chief Greg Heck and his family, Julie and their two boys. I had the privilege of going to the visitation on Friday afternoon. And I will tell you, I'm just, my first thing that I got to do whenever I got elected is I went to his retirement party. And to lose him so quick is sad. I want to tell you, I'm extremely proud of our fire department and the way they honored Greg and his family at the visitation and the funeral. And it was something to behold. And so I just want to send our condolences to their family. Other than that, you might see that that is not Greg Young. That is city prosecutor Cody Sample filling in tonight. So welcome, Cody. Don't butcher it tonight, please. And you got to be really fast and quiet, just like Greg, all right? All right. And Dr. Haskin, we'll let you do some agenda review, consent agenda review.

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Council, we added D7, D8, D9 for your review tonight. Simply, D7 is basically a request to execute an L&I agreement WITH RESTROOM LLC FOR SIGNS AND SIDEWALKS LOCATED AND ADJACENT TO 811 AND 813 BROADWAY. D-8, WE ARE READY TO ACCEPT THE IMPROVEMENTS AND AUTHORIZE FINAL PAYMENT TO NIP KELLY FOR THE LEXINGTON AVENUE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT. AND FINALLY D-9, WE ARE READY TO ACCEPT THE IMPROVEMENTS AND AUTHORIZE FINAL PAYMENT TO KCI CONSTRUCTION for the wastewater pump station mechanical bar screen project, which was very, very important to us. So thank you, Mayor.

All right. Thank you, Dr. Askin. And we will call the meeting to order and do a roll call.

Mr. Bliss?

Here.

Mr. Cantrell?

Here.

Mayor Gard?

Here.

Mr. Johnson?

Here.

Ms. Randall? Here. Mr. Schaaf? Here. Mr. Thomas?

Here. All right. Council, I would entertain a motion to adopt the agenda.

So moved. Second.

I have a first by Cantrell, a second by Randall. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Okay. We have no public hearings tonight, so I will turn the consent agenda over to Mr. Sample.

Thank you, Mayor. Bill number 26-56, an ordinance approving the record plat of brick and ivy second subdivision. Bill number 26-56, an ordinance approving the record plat of brick and ivy second subdivision. Bill number 26-57, an ordinance approving the record plat of CPC subdivision. Bill number 26-57, an ordinance approving the record plat of CPC subdivision. Bill number 26-58, an ordinance approving the record plat of Hope Lutheran Ministries. Bill number 26-58, an ordinance approving the record plat of Hope Lutheran Ministries. Bill number 26-59, an ordinance approving the record plat of Knight subdivision. Bill number 26-59, an ordinance approving the record plat of Knight subdivision. Bill number 26-60, an ordinance amending Chapter 15 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, regarding prohibited activities. Bill number 26-60, an ordinance amending Chapter 15 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, regarding prohibited activities. Bill number 26-61, a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a license and indemnity agreement with RestoreMe LLC for science and sidewalk cafes in the right-of-way adjacent to 811-813 Broadway in the City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

all right council you have the consent agenda before you so move second i have a first by bliss and a second by that johnson forgot your name yeah right thank you we have a first and a second all those in favor signify by stating aye aye Mr. Sample, please, I will mark D2, D5, and D7 as abstention to financial conflicts of interest for myself. All right, new ordinances tonight. We have bill number 26-62, an ordinance accepting permanent sanitary sewer easements for properties along South Kings Highway in the city of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. First reading, Mr. Pulley.

I'll give you a little history of this one. Back in the early 70s, 1970s, a new construction restaurant, Long John Silver's, built a private sewer line running to the north to connect the existing sewer main. Back in the 70s. Wow. As time progressed, other restaurants attacked, attached to this private sewer main and as time progressed then sewer main became not working very well so in 2026 several of the owners decided they want to upgrade their private sewer line to a sewer line that attached to the city that we would accept during their construction our inspectors went out there and inspected it went very well with the individuals that were constructing and worked very well with the owners of the restaurants that allowed us to do that. So we need the city to accept this ordinance so we can bring this easement into the city for this brand new sewer line.

All right. Is anyone here to speak in opposition or in favor of this ordinance? Mr. Randall, please tell us your full name and address.

Good evening. Norval Randall, 2825 Bloomfield Road, cottage number 421. That's the Lutheran home.

I know. Thank you, Norval.

So if I say something you don't understand, you'll understand why we live where we live. But I'm here to say thank you for your cooperation and for establishing an environment that helps your departments take a proactive can-do attitude and make things happen. I'VE EXPERIENCED THAT WITH THIS PROJECT AND ONE A COUPLE YEARS AGO WHEN STANLEY POLOVIC WAS STILL IN CHARGE OF PUBLIC WORKS. THAT WAS A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE. THIS HAS BEEN A VERY PLEASANT EXPERIENCE. HAD A LOT OF COOPERATION. IT WASN'T EASY, BUT IT WAS PLEASANT. THE SEWERS AREN'T PARTICULARLY SEXY THESE DAYS. BUT IT WENT WELL, AND THERE'S A COUPLE PEOPLE I WOULD LIKE TO RECOGNIZE THAT WERE VERY COOPERATIVE AND PATIENT WITH ME, AND CASEY BRUNKE. Brock Davis, and then Teresa Heffner has been particularly cooperative with me and putting up with me and being patient with me. But I just wanna thank you again for creating an environment that helps that frame of mind prosper in the city government. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Norval. Council, any discussion? I would entertain a motion.

So moved.

I got a first by Randall and a second by Thomas. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye.

Mr. Pulley, thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

All right, tonight we have no appointments. Other business, we have no one speaking tonight. Sonny Childress, I want to thank you for being here. Mr. Sample, thank you for filling in. With that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

First by Johnson and a second by Bliss, or Schaaf. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. Everybody have a great week.