Downtown Development Board - Regular Meeting

This time I'll call the order of the 07/07/2025 meeting of the City of Clearwater Downtown Development Board. This time we'll move to item 2.1 on the agenda, approve the minutes of the 06/02/2025 CRA meeting.

Move to approve the minutes. Second.

Me. Go back. That's the June 2 Downtown Development Board meeting. Motion and second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. At this time, we move to item 3.1 on the agenda.

Adopt the millage rate of 0.97 for the twenty twenty five twenty twenty six six fiscal year and set public hearing dates for proposed millage and budget on 09/03/2025 and at 05:15PM and 09/17/2025 at 05:15PM.

Good afternoon. Jesus Nino for the record, executive director for the CRA department. In accordance with the state of Florida statewide trees and millage or trim requirements, taxing authorities, they must hold public hearings on the proposed millage rate and tentative budget within sixty five days of certification of tax taxable values. These requirements are prescribed in chapter 200 of the Florida statutes. Staff is recommending a proposed millage rate of 0.97 mills for fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, which is also the current millage rate and has been the current millage rate for years now.

Additionally, to comply with the requirements and meet the Florida Department of Revenue's trim schedule, which mandates hearings be held between September 3 and 09/18/2025, staff recommends scheduling two public hearings 09/03/2025 at 05:15PM and 09/17/2025 at 05:15PM. These hearings are to adopt the fiscal year millage rate and budget, which will be held here in the council chambers chambers for the public. The staff will be working very closely with the city's budget department and the Florida Department of Revenue to remain compliant and assure that requirements for our advertisements are being met. At this time, staff is open for questions.

Is there anyone here from the public today that desires to speak to agenda item 3.1? And seeing none, is there any board discussion? If not, is there a motion?

Move to approve item 3.1. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. You. Agenda item 3.2.

Approve a high impact grant funding request from judges car and truck shows to produce Wheels on the Water, a one day car, truck, and jeep show in Downtown Clearwater in an amount not to exceed $22,200 and authorize the appropriate officials to execute the same.

Good afternoon. Vicki Shire, CR division manager. Today's staff is bringing forward a high impact grant funding request from judges car and shows to support their proposed event, Wheels on the Water. This one day truck and Jeep show is scheduled for Saturday, 09/20/2025 from 11AM to 5PM along the former block of Cleveland Street and in Cochran Park. Judge's Car and Truck Show has over fifteen years of experience hosting successful events through Florida and Georgia.

They are well recognized for reducing community focused programming, having raised more than 45,000 for non for profit organizations in the past year alone. Their team has also helped manage events including Dunning Wines, the Blues, Dunning Mardi Gras, and have served as judges for their antique automobile automobile club of America. Their recent Hearts for Homes for Veterans car show registered over 300 vehicles. Wheels on the Water will include a judge truck and Jeep competition, vendor booth, live music performances, and DJs. Also interactive activities and games for families.

Attendance is anticipated between two and three thousand throughout the day. The event is designed to activate public spaces, increase foot traffic to local businesses, and provide engaging experience for both residents and visitors. The total estimated budget for Wheels on the Water is $29,820 Of this amount, the applicant will contribute $7,620 and they're requesting 22,200 in funding support from the downtown development board. Through vehicle registration, sponsorships, and vendor fees, the applicant anticipates receiving an additional $6,000 in third party contribution. Estimated city fees for the event are projected to be $4,750 according to Park and Recreation.

This proposal meets all requirements outlined in section three of the DW request grant policy for high impact funding. Looking ahead, the applicant intends to establish reoccurring car shows in Downtown Clearwater, building this into a multi event series with unique unique themes and expanded partnerships with local businesses. This vision directly supports the DB DB strategic goals of fostering a downtown that is dynamic, inclusive, and economically vibrant. Staff recommends approval of this funding request and the amount not to exceed $22,200 for eligible direct cost and city fees. The applicant is present today and available to address any questions you may have.

Does anyone here from the public desire to speak to agenda item 3.2? Hearing none, are there any questions from the board? Council member Cotton.

Yes, thank you, sir. I look forward to car shows coming to our downtown. I think this will be a great event, especially for, initial one. And then hopefully grow from that and do, subsequent ones. It does look though going through the budget that roughly 35% is going to be taxpayer funded through the DDB, of your budget.

Correct.

So I'm sure you've seen the theme here from this Board is that we're trying to work to a way of being more sustainable, which hopefully, with the event and continuing, more cars come in, those types of things, and we'll start to see that number go down, right? You guys will be more profitable, Get more foot track traffic to our downtown. So really, it's just a statement. The second thing that I saw was your insurance, and I do see it's listed DDB. Is that you all providing or procuring the your own insurance?

Yes. We do procure our own event insurance. We operate, over 30 different car shows per year. So we do want to make these clear order shows, these downtown clear order shows, one of our showcase or two of our showcase hopefully next year as well in March doing a spring event, event. So we do have an insurance company that we work with.

Okay. I just want it seemed a little low with the but I don't know what type

of umbrella it all here. From our agent. Okay. But we will have a more exact number, obviously, once we confirm that

confirm everything with her. Nope. I just wanted to, you know, get that out there. I hope that this event takes off and brings some good foot traffic to our downtown.

Yes. Definitely. Thank you.

Okay. Councilwoman. Vice mayor, Yeah. Have

you had discussions or involvement with the brick and mortar merchants on Cleveland Street?

Not as of yet. We've reached out to Clear Sky and one other restaurant as well, but we do want to have merchant involvement. All of our other events, whether it be car shows or festivals that we've worked with, have had some element of community involvement, whether that's working with nonprofits like Vicki mentioned or working with downtown members to activate and promote their business. So we will be doing that. We would like to see the restaurants and businesses have space in our vendor zone, which is located on the map, at no no additional cost to them.

We are also utilizing one block of Cleveland Street. So that is going to be a unique element because we're going to be driving people to the park and also to downtown. So it's going to flow both ways. But yes, we definitely want to have merchant activation for this event. And we'll also be giving away things to all of our registered attendees, whether it be goody bags or sponsor goodies and things like that. So we want to have something from the vendors or from the merchants, excuse me, to give away to drive traffic, not just on the day of, but planting a seed for them to come back. So

As you mentioned, I actually I have here as a one of my comments that I do appreciate the fact that the cars are going up the hill into Cleveland Street, so it connects downtown with the park. So that's a strategy that I like a lot.

Oh, good. Thank you. And we did a walk through with the city department, Parks and Rec, and everyone, so it was really informative. As we continue to expand, we'd love to utilize more of downtown, but that's just what we're starting with. As you and you could also see like with our marketing promotion, obviously those numbers are a little bit higher, but this is a first time event. We do want to make it a showcase event of ours, know, a tentpole event so to speak. So we do want to make sure that we start off on the right foot, so that way it has good word-of-mouth for moving forward.

Council member Cotton? Excuse me. My needle. Yeah.

I'll take it.

That's the mustache, dude.

Exactly. No mustache. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Mr. Judge, for being in here. I think a car show down there that's successful in this size, including, like the council woman said, not just the park, but up four and five hundred block. I think it's a I think it's important. I look forward to hoping we'll have success with it. I do have a couple questions for you, and I thank the council member for bringing it up. A $30,000 event and asking this board to pretty much fund the majority of it of over $22,000, is is a big ask, depending on weather and things that go wrong. You help me understand how you get to an estimation of two to 3,000 people? What are we doing to get there?

That is based off of previous events. We have car shows that range for registered vehicles from about 75 up to over 300 vehicles. Since this is a first time show, but just based on our reaching out and sort of informal polling of our attendees for our other shows, we do see this as being a well attended show. We sort of lowered the expectations just a little bit on the registered vehicles. Because we are having family activities vendors, we'll have children's activities that's listed in the entertainment section.

That includes things like face painting, balloon people, you know, activities for families. And we'll be doing a large outreach program to bring not only just car show attendees, but people who are looking to visit the park and visit downtown. That will help bring more guests here than just car show registration. So if we have 100 car shows, it's not or 100 car show registrations, it's not just going to be 100 car show registrations that are in the park. We're also working again with the merchants down town.

We really are big promoters of cross promotion, so that is something that we will definitely be doing. We're going to be promoting the event through our print promotions and also social media and online. We have an online presence reaching over 6,000 people in our monthly newsletter. We also partner with Florida Car Shows, Motoring Magazine, several different car show listing websites to help get the word out there in addition to paid advertising that we'll be doing as well.

Perfect. Thank you. And again, I'm not

And we are contributing I'm sorry to interrupt. We are contributing about 46%, about 13,000, so with everything added together.

Got you.

And we understand that you are helping us. But like I said, moving forward, hopefully, that ask won't be as high.

Thank you. And my my questions along the line aren't to scrutinize you or to because I hope we have a successful event. This is a this is a partnership with the city and with the DDB that you're asking for, and we want nothing more than your success. Thank you for answering these questions. 4,200 on event day for staff and personnel. Can you help me understand what seems a little high?

That was yes. That is including, our staff because we do our event company staff. But then we were also hiring some additional staff. Because originally, you can see this event map here. It it did list some additional zones like a VIP zone and those types of things. That number may be tweaked because we this is our first year. We don't wanna expand too much and bite off more than we can chew and have it not be successful. So that number may be tweaked a little bit there. But a lot of that just included the additional stat that we thought we might need. It was an estimation.

And then I think if we're going to fine tune it a little bit, I I and $7,300 for entertainment seems I probably a little mean, stage rental, DJ, and live music?

That included the stage rental, that included the things like the face painting, the balloon, we just sort of had everything in there.

I bumped it in.

So we have the two we have the city stage, we have the two bands, we have the DJ, which is covering both the Cleveland Block and the Coachmen Park. So he'll have multiple speakers set up and be able to have music playing in between the music and during registration time as well.

Got you. I don't have any other questions for you. Think you could probably fine tune the budget a little more. Being as though it's a first year event, we're not really including our brick and mortar downtowns. While I wish you the most success, and I hope we can be a good partner with you, I think $22,000 for a one day event is probably a pretty big ask. Mhmm. I would probably be willing and the board can can give their own input, but I I think even 50% of helping you with the event at 15,000 is probably pretty large as well, but I think you could get me there to help you in this first year. Okay. But 22 just seems pretty large in looking at the budget. Mhmm. But I wish you and the group nothing but the most success.

Okay.

Additional? Councilmember Robert.

So I did a classic car show, I think, 2013, Downtown Clearwater. I went to the Tampa Bay Classic Car Association, and they have a coffee every Saturday. You can find out where they have it now. I'm not sure if it's the same place, but handed out flyers and we got a lot of cars. I mean, we filled up Cleveland Street, the whole four and five and six hundred block. So I would suggest maybe doing something like that. I mean, you're in the business. Yes. That's probably what you do.

We do. For each one of our shows, we distribute flyers, like physical flyers, and then we also have our newsletter as well. So we we go to not just the Cars and Coffee events, but we go to many of the other shows that operate in the area, and literally do hard copy flyers Yeah. Distribution.

I found that the only thing that really messes it up if it's rain schedule that day, people don't wanna bring their cars out in the rain.

And we do have a rain date as well, scheduled in for February for this event because that's always something safe to have, like you said. So yes.

Okay. Thanks. Any questions?

That's great. Follow-up on Councilman Menino's question. If or comment. If you don't get the full 22,000, are you still able to move forward?

We would have to just evaluate that and maybe, to use that word again, tweak things and maybe reduce some of the things that because right now, we're doing, you know, the trophies, the live music. We're doing a certain amount of trophies that will be over 100 trophies, but we would just have to adjust those numbers if we did not get the full amount. So because right now, everything on there was based on that plus our contribution. So

Okay. Well, I have two things. First one is, what the two council members to my left have said regarding, you know, we're not trying to count paper clips here. We're just trying to you know, with our experience and what we've seen already, success and and not very well attended events down there, kinda help you work through what expenses here may be, you know, wanted but not necessary, and to Councilmember Menito's point, the entertainment sticks out because two bands, I can understand having a DJ there, having music to help live in the event, but I can tell you from past events we've had down there in the last six to twelve months, the live bands do not draw people. They'll be drawn there to your event because of the cars.

Right.

And so I would question whether or not it's wise to spend money or a first time event on anything more than a DJ. It just it just the the live music does not draw people. You would know better, and I'm sure you could tell us your experience having some kind of music there, but I think that that's an area where I would scrutinize is the entertainment expense. Even if you cut it in half, I think that that still gives you plenty of opportunity to add to the event and to the character and the life and newness of the event. The second thing is on the vendors, are these food vendors or who are you bringing down?

You've got 20 listed.

No. Those will be vendors similar to the other markets that are downtown. We have many vendors that are also, like, car specific type of vendors selling things for, you know, car related products and and such.

It would

be a mixture of Yeah. I would be concerned that only $50 per booth if we are bringing in vendors for food that for that low booth rental price that would compete in some ways or I wouldn't say discourage people from going up Cleveland Street to enjoy, but that might give people a convenient reason not to walk up the next block to enjoy those.

Yes. I understand. And we keep that in mind as well because we do operate other shows in other downtowns, but also in areas that are malls. So we do keep that in mind. So we would try not to have anything that was conflicting.

Obviously, if there's a seafood restaurant, we're not going to have a clam baked car truck or a food truck right next door. You know, so we'll have vendors that would be like ICEE's, like Kona Ice or ice cream, you know, things like that that might not conflict or that hopefully would not conflict with anything in the downtown. And then like I said, offering the merchants, the restaurants, things like that space down in the park, they could either use that to sell or they could use that to promote and drive people to their restaurant that day. So and then thank you for that comment about the entertainment. That will be something that we do review.

Since the event is an all day event, and it is something that we're trying to draw on others not just for, like I said, car registrants, that was one of the aspects of having the live entertainment and music and those types of things, and things going on downtown on Cleveland Street. So that way it keeps people entertained, so to speak, because we do want them to stay the full day. Obviously, they have to at all of our events. But just so there's something going on. We were also going to utilize the city stage to do our presentation of the trophies and those things and announcements as well. So but we can look at we we can definitely look at that review.

Thank you for that suggestion. Just on the fifth you know, $50 for the vendor fee doesn't sound like a lot to me. Is that consistent with what you normally do?

No. The $50 for the vendor's fees, we asked what the vendors normally charge or what they normally pay here, and we didn't want to go too far a skew of that. We've had other shows where it's a higher vendor fee for just a regular 10 by 10 space and then up to $200 plus for a food vendor. But since this, again, was a first time event, since we're new to this area, we want to attract vendors that are familiar with Coachmen Park. We didn't want to be exorbitant in vendor fees.

Well, obviously we're sensitive to it because we're subsidizing it with tax dollars, so we just want to make sure that those people coming in making money on the event pair a fair price. Yes. Okay. Anything else? Excuse me.

I'm gonna have to grow the mustache

out for you. No.

I was just gonna make a motion unless anyone else had any more discussions. I I think being as though it's a first time event and being new to the area, I would be supportive in approving agenda item 3.2 at the amount of $15,000 in a city sponsorship.

I'll second it.

Okay. Moved and seconded that we appropriate $15,000 for this event. Is there any further discussion from the board? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Unanimous. Okay. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Next, we'll go to item 3.3 on

the agenda.

Approve a community grant funding request from the Tampa Bay Ukulele Society to produce a one day ukulele festival in Downtown Clearwater in an amount not to exceed $15,000 and authorize your corporate officials to execute soon.

Good afternoon. Vicki Shire, CR division manager. I just wanted to state, when we meet with DDB applicants, one of the things that we do is after or before, depending on time schedules, we take them and meet all the local merchants within the area that they're putting on their events at. And even farther past that if they'd like to. And we also, you know, promote their events too, asking all the other local merchants within the Gateway or Myrtle or on Cleveland if they want to join these events.

So they're always asked. And then also we did ask no food vendors so that it is, helping local restaurants down here. So we like to say just ice cream or snow cones, but we'd like to compliment our restaurants down here and not add any more competition. The next item. Before you today is request from the Tampa Bay Ukulele Society for community grant funding to proceed with their annual ukulele festival in downtown Clearwater.

The Tampa Bay ukulele society will host a one day festival on Sunday, 03/15/2026. The event will take place in the four hundred and five hundred blocks of Cleveland Street from 12PM to 4PM, followed by a concert on the green at Cochran from 4PM to 6PM. The festival is a free event featuring live music from live music performances and educational activities throughout the day. The event is expected to have a thousand attendees over the course of the day and additionally 300 plus more for the concert at Cochrane Park. The total project cost is $27,100 The applicant will contribute $75,000 towards this amount and is requesting $15,000 in funding from the Downtown Development Board.

Additionally, the project anticipates generating $4,600 in revenue based on income. Estimated city fees for the event are projected to be 2,455 thousand dollars according to Parks and Recreation. This proposal meets all requirements outlined in section three of the DDB grant request policy for community event funding. Staff recommends approval of funding in the amount not to exceed 15,000 for eligible direct cost and city fees. The applicant is present today to answer any questions the board may have.

Does anyone here from the public desire to speak to agenda item 3.3? I'm seeing none. Is there any discussion or questions?

Can I go through this quickly? Sure. It's the old fashioned way.

Okay.

Don't throw them away. They're $10 apiece. We're only bold enough to say in the opening slide, no one does downtown better. A couple of reasons. Ironically enough, I worked in the Colony Building on the 2nd Floor, 1978.

And my partner, Steve Redden, who is one of the top branded people probably in the world, he had a photo studio at 520 Cleveland Street. So it was quite ironic when we had the, workshops there. It brought back a lot of memories. In addition to that, for three years, I worked with in conjunction with the merchants and the DCMA promoting a loyalty program for the merchants. And then the last four years, we've come before you, and you've graciously supported the festival.

We've got 12,500 the first year, 10 the second, 10 the third, 20,000 last year. This year, we're looking for 15,000. I think you'll see as we go through it, we've been very conservative for a couple of reasons. Number one, we're moving to a new venue in the park. Actually, at the suggestion of Chris Coach a couple of years ago, he said, why don't you people consider using our park?

So he planted that seed, and, it's gonna come to fruition. But it's a prelude to what we're planning in the future. We we hope, this has become almost the epicenter certainly on the East Coast of the ukulele world. We're planning to work with our, CALA sponsor. We'll get you one of those, David, instead of the Luna, to do what we consider to be probably the largest ukulele convention in the country in the near future.

We're extremely efficient and effective in our advertising. We leverage very heavily. As you can see, we got 250,000 exposures from the billboards. Ask yourself when was the last time the DDB had a billboard, but also the city. In addition to that, we work very, very closely with all the meteor outlets.

We're very good at leveraging, so we can get three or four times the impact with the spend. As you can see from the page that shows the various outlets, we're always, each year, on channel ten and eight. They give us a twenty minute spot. And all the acts always ask, how do you get those hosts to say that whole Clearwater District 405 Hundred block? And they're just conditioned to it over the over the years, and they realized that that's really what we what we focus on.

As far as the merchants, the reasons we do all the aforementioned is really community. Over the over the four years, we've probably invested 50,000 ourselves and untold pro bono hours, and it's mainly because we believe in the community, and the community has responded well to the ukulele community. Being very merchant focused, as you can see from the comments of the merchants, thank you Lena for your kind words at the concert this year. But the merchants are very, very close to us. We work closely with them.

And they are very responsive, and they feedback quite heavily. Our estimated numbers over the years have been anywhere from two to 2,500. We've had people like Gary Gin, very experienced, who said he it was the most he'd seen. This year, officer Castellanos, who was in charge of the police detail, when I asked him, he said he thought it was as many as he'd seen for that year even at Christmas. You can see the quotes yourself.

One one item is Bandy Harvey. She's an AGT winner, America's Got Talent, and world class. She flew from here to Switzerland, and she just said this is a world class event. This year, as I said, we're moving down to the park. It's a big step for us, but it's a it's a it's a initial step.

We're using a a 40 by a 100 tent. We're bringing in two extremely, extremely well known acts. As you probably know, it's Saint Patrick's Day weekend. We've offset that by both of them specialized in Irish and Celtic music, so we think we'll enhance it with that extra feature. We've surveyed the park, and we've actually contracted with the with the artist.

The only way you get artists of this ilk is you have to get them early. The schedule, we wanna combine both using both blocks. It is a Sunday. Again, another reason why what we're asking is conservative. We wanna have music on the twelve to 03:30 in the four or five hundred block. We've we've always done. The merchants tell us they turn the tables four and a half to five times. The four to six is gonna be the concert under the big tent. And then 06:30 to nine, they'll come back up to the street, and they'll do a jam either Clear Sky or Prelude or both. As you can see from the budget, our total budget is $27.01, but our mantra usually is we spend whatever it takes to get it get the job done.

My partner and I, we contribute 7,500. We usually manage about 4,600 in fees, in promotional fees. We are going to invite all the merchants from the district as well as Pete and Shorty's to be vendors down in the park as kind of a payback to them for all the things that they've done for us, we may ask them to contribute 10% to the two nonprofits. It's $7,500 It's not 75,000 Vicky's spending my money. As you can see, we do billboards.

We do social media. One thing to keep in mind, there are 17 very active ukulele clubs, very active in Florida. All of them have their own Facebook. Some of them do TikTok and everything else. They'll be engaged very heavily. We do draw from Manatee, from Venice and Sarasota, Bradenton Club. We have as far as far West as Orlando. We've had people come over from Fort Lauderdale. But we're gonna we're gonna start to nurture that in anticipation of future years. Again, we thank you for your past, generosity.

It's enabled us to do far more than we, we ever expected, and and the numbers just keep getting better and better. And we're hoping to expand it and keep putting a spotlight on the district, which as I said, we have in-depth knowledge of and a heart for.

Okay. Questions from

I just

have a comment. There's two things regarding your events that stand out to me. First is your collaboration with the merchants. It's quite in-depth and it's very much interactive as a group. Your two groups just really interact very well. The second is how dynamic your event is. You're constantly moving different concerts throughout the street as well as engaging inside the venues. And I know that I attended one of them and the house, I mean, it was packed. So I like the way you keep things going and how you involve the merchants both inside and outside, very dynamic.

Thank you.

Council Member Amino.

I knew you'd get it the third time. Thank you. Quick quick question for you. I was out there last year. How did you estimate a crowd of 2,500 to 3,000?

Well, as as I said a couple of years ago, we were told by several people they thought it was that. I asked the police officers who've been for three or four other events, and they said this this is as crowded as they saw it during the holiday season, and the numbers we've heard for that is about 1,500. But like I said, going down to the park, we know you've had some events down there, so you had some experience. We've we've kept our our estimates conservative. We we want to under promise and overachieve because like I said, we're we're looking to expand that. Yeah. So, we were we were careful with it. This year, we're the restaurants say they turn the tables four and a half to five times. And

And and that's why I asked, and I bet I bet they did. And it was busy down there, but I think it's important to know that you are also sharing a venue and a footprint of our downtown with

That could have been.

The Purina dog show and Market Marie. I think that is that those are both great events for them. One is nationally televised, and we all know Market Marie is probably our most successful downtown

That's great.

That that

we Surprisingly, as Keith Green said, thank god for your festival. He said, he didn't get a lot of people from the park up to the up to the you can't tell. I wish we could find a way to really measure the traffic. I I don't know how how to do that other than empiric data from the merchants. And the police are pretty good. They're a pretty good gauge.

Yeah. And I agree a 100%. I think, you know, what I learned in it was standalone events down here sometimes struggle. And so just having, you know, while it's a great event, a standalone anything has trouble getting people, especially getting the numbers like that. I I think where you win and our downtown wins, the DDU wins, the citizens win, when we are partnering with multiple events just as you did last year. And Purina Dog Show, Market Marie and yourself, downtown was Our businesses were turning over tables, So I wanted to

I don't know what else is happening that day, but cross marketing may be a really good idea. I don't know what's happening.

Yeah. Well, if you're getting the credit for it, then take it. Yeah.

Because you Well, we we we went to the Sunday mainly for a couple of reasons. Number one, nothing else is happening. And being proximate to Saint Patrick's Day, we felt we could take advantage of

that. Gotcha.

And I think this board is still trying to navigate this process and figure it out. Mean, in my head, we partner with business owners and you put together a business plan and you put on a successful event, there's no question they are. At some point, we hope it's a partnership that gets you on your feet and gets you moving and gets you running and you can slowly step back from the reliability and responsibility on the city financially and maybe we help you in that sponsorship on taking care of your permitting and policing and alleviate some of that in a partnership. I think we're going into year five and like you said, we've December, October, October, 20300, and now we're asking again for another 15,000, which is still we're in that 50% responsibility financially. Right.

Do you see yourself in your business plan of this this successful event finding a way to alleviate some of that financial burden on the city?

Well, we'd like to. Obviously, we'd like to remove the financial burden for us as well. Unfortunately, and I've said this before, it's so focused. The the the benefit to the city is and to the downtown is we push downtown Clearwater. It's so focused and so narrow.

It's difficult getting major sponsors. We have a bourbon company that that supports it by about $2,500 only because the the restaurants take the bourbon. And the the ukulele companies, they'll only trade product, which then we have to, you know, raffle and sell and do all kinds of things. So it it is difficult getting major sponsorship just because of the fact that it's very niche and it's a very narrow it's a narrow market. It's it's downtown Clearwater and.

Yeah. So, but yes, obviously, we would like to and we try and seeing one of the big banks tomorrow. But again, you know, dealing with the major people is not expansive enough for them. So we can get small bits and pieces. But we try. Trust me. We try and we leverage and we trade every way we possibly can.

Understood. And again, I'm not trying to poke holes because you do

put on a great

event. It's especially

run and miss Lina bounces around all day on that day and loves the energy and the vibe. And I've we've heard it a lot. I just hope that as a board, we keep setting a precedent at some point that we aren't here to continue to give handouts. We want to be a good partner. We want to help you succeed. But where is that kind of off ramp of financially

Well, I think one thing is we're lowering the amount. Even though the fixed cost with the tent and the staging and all of that is much higher. But we don't expect that you can you're going to carry all the weight. But we do try and we're good at it. It's just a a very niche market and a niche area.

Got you. Feedback board, I'm I'm supportive in that 10,000 to $15,000 range and pushing forward. I do hope that we find a way to to get an off ramp of some sort. The city sponsorship and taking care of city fees and policing and keeping people safe is is a great partnership. I just hope, you know, we're year five. I hope we can continue to take the steps in Well, that

we like to think that the the city gets the bang for the buck.

Thank you.

We we keep that in mind at all times. Nice.

Think it's important for me to just kind of pitch in a little bit on this. As someone who was on the DCMA and who, you know, floundered, and I'll and that's the word, trying to organize events in this downtown. I, welcome anyone who is willing to invest and risk in this downtown. The reason why we exist, the DDB, the reason why we're in a CRA area is because this is not a normal downtown, and we do need to assist those who are willing to do events in downtown. So I don't wanna send that message out or have anyone perceive that we are not appreciative of any offer or any interest that comes before us.

I, of all people, understand how challenging it is to have a successful event in this downtown. And we wanna be part of that solution. I think we're on our way to being successful, well on our way, but we're not there yet. So I really would like to officially say, at least from my part, I welcome all ideas, And I appreciate the fact that there is added risk and added work and resources that are needed in this downtown. And that's the reality. And I acknowledge that. So thank you for coming back.

Thank you. Councilmember Alburton.

I kind of want to say the same thing. You know, you've been here a few years, and I can tell you every merchant downtown knows when you're here and appreciates you being here. And I think it draws a lot of people, which is what we that's what our board here wants to do, is to bring people down here. And you did a good job at that, and I wish you success in the future.

Thank you. I think we're gonna borrow your trailer again this year. Okay. Again, trying to save a $100. Mhmm. Since the guy sold the other place, I can't remember name of it, that we used to get it from.

Yeah. Thank you very much. So I agree. I think that you throw on a great event. I don't think that council member Manino was trying to beat you up with

Oh, no. No. Trying I

to convey. I I think that we're the sentiment is noticed, that we're trying to make sure our events are flourishing and and like you have, but we're also trying to alleviate that taxpayer burden. It's a fine line of what to do and how to do that. So, I appreciate your events. I just want you don't feel beat up. I hope that nobody in this room ever feels beat up when No. We ask the tough questions, but there's a reason why we have to ask tough questions. And think I that you understand that I think the majority of the people here do.

One thing to understand is with the fixed cost, with less money, the only thing we can cut back on is the advertising and promotion, which is the most beneficial part of the whole exercise. Right. You know? And I do

appreciate you bringing the cost down, you know, as was pointed out. You know? And hopefully, we can see that start to take over. You you know, this cost lowers while your revenues and everything increase. So, I appreciate you. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay. I'll throw in, you know, echoing what really everybody has said. You know, we're just we're really trying to with a year two years now of Park operating, just trying to really, as much as Cleveland Street, try to help event owners like yourself make your event more successful by using what we've learned. And what I learned, I've learned, and I've learned yesterday watching,

if any of

you here didn't see the Credit One Dog Challenge yesterday on NBC, NBC Sports, I encourage you to look at the tape. Our park, our city, but our park in particular looked fantastic. And I can tell you, looked at somebody else who's watching with me, they said, boy, you know, that Market Marie really helped that event look better because the aerial drone shots were showing all this activity around the dog performance venue that was going on just because that event just happened to partner two years ago with Margaret Marie, and so that's what I would share with you is an idea which just came up as Council Member Manina was talking is, you know, in the past you've had this event in April, and so that's when the dog event's been happening. But this year, we're proposing March, which is not, that although it has seemed like a good idea for some event owners, hey, let's have our own event, you know, separate from anything else, try to generate activity on a Sunday when nobody else is using the park. Too often, more often than not, those events have looked really small for the big space that's down there.

It's really hard for them to fill that space on their own. So I I understand it will be a tent and all, but, you know, we're far enough out that if there's some way to incorporate, I think, and collaborate with Market Marie on this event in the in the infield there, I think we'll find that you'll introduce a lot of Market Marie participants to ukulele festival and vice versa. We'll have a lot of these folks who may have only experienced ukulele festival in Cleveland Street. They'll be wow, what's this market going on around it? That my experience, and I think our experience collectively has been trying to combine multiple activities on those market marie days has been a really great benefit for everyone.

So love what you're doing. I meet so many people, not just from Pinellas County, I meet at your event. I meet people from all over across even out from Tampa Bay. They're from all over Central Florida that come in just for this event, and the music aspect is something we want to be known for too, but I would ask, you know, to maybe talk with Chris again about creatively maybe how we can combine this event and the use of the park this year with Market Marie or some other activity down there.

Well, just as a note, I think the park can use some focus. I think everyone thinks of the sound, and that's it. That's why Chris mentioned to me. He said, why don't you think about using our park? And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, we can do events. It wasn't finished yet, so I hadn't seen it. But it's magnificent, I mean, on the water. But I think putting a spotlight on it, not just this, for other events, would help. But I was conscious of the fact that you had done some things there that were disappointing.

But we have this built in audience. The ukulele society has 4,000 members. I mean, it's huge. And they're very, very active in in Bradenton, and they're active in Orlando. So we're going to mine that very very heavily.

Okay. Any other board discussion? Is there a motion?

Make a motion to approve the agenda item.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Yes. Thank you

very much. I'm have a hard time getting that. It made my head so big. Can't go through the door. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, mister.

It's time we move to item four on the agenda, old business. No more business to come before the board, then item five, director's report.

We'll combine old business with director support, if it's okay. This is Nino, director. I wanna give you a few updates here, but I also have miss Vicky Shire up here just in case I can't answer some of the specifics. If you have questions, some of these items here. The first update, this will be on Saint Pete College the partnership we have with them.

It is a very good partnership that we have formed as far as multiple avenues that we're doing with the CRA and the DDB. But this particular one is for the downtown for the 405 Hundred block, which is the Cleveland Street activation and mobile vendor initiative. Right now, they had scheduled to begin this activation as far as their vendor market on July 11 to 08/15/2025, basically to bring in a few little small vendors, carts, like flower carts, little retail carts, nothing spectacular, but just start off small and then kinda scale up from there. But, unfortunately, we were notified this morning that they're requesting a few more weeks extension just to wanna make sure that they get their marketing strategy on point. Basically, they've been hearing a lot of the feedback from here, plus a lot of this is being done by students.

So they just wanna make sure they have a real good marketing strategy in place so they can have a good turnout, and it's just very impactful for the community and for them and their students. So that's the notice that I'm giving you as far as update for Saint Pete College. But, hopefully, we can get them rolling, and we did offer our assistance with our internal marketing machine, whatever that may be. We'll try our best to help them out, and including to partner partners them up with other individuals. And miss Vicky Shire, recently, she's always promoting also for people that have events to try to partner with each other.

So that comment was exactly what she kinda tells individuals. Hey. You you had a low turnout last year. Why don't you partner up at the same time? Was this event over here at the same day and just have more people? You can kinda share, you know, the crowd. I'm not sure if you have any questions on the Saint Pete College initiative. If not, I'll move on to the next item. We're continuing to move forward with our umbrella reimbursement program. So we have been talking to a few of the merchants out there.

I know it's Vicky. She's in the business response team that we have in place. They've spoken to a few of the merchants out there and kinda getting their their style that they want as far as their umbrellas and just their feedback to make sure we do it right. So we're hoping to finalize that DDB umbrella reimbursement program fairly soon and bring it back to you at at the next meeting or two. Okay.

As far as stakeholders and event engagement, the staff and the business response team continues to be very active out there in the downtown, not just the 400, 500, but also within the DDB boundary as much as possible because it is a community out there. It's not just merchants. So we have nonprofits. We have religious institutions. We have residents that live over here.

So we're trying to be as as inclusive as possible with our engagement. But going back to some of the events, we do have a few events that we're we're trying to basically run through the process, the city special event process. One is a Cornhole League. Saint Pete Saint Pete Cornhole is completing a special event application, working closely with city's parks and rec staff so they can get through the get that through the process and also working through DVD's micro grant. Then the next item is a step step competition.

Staff is meeting with Sadonis Taylor and Young Kings Hierarchy to explore hosting a step competition in the downtown. So just to kinda see their footage, it's it's very exciting. I'm gonna be there watching them. I'm excited just watching their videos.

That's awesome.

You ever see?

So It's awesome. Then the lunchtime market proposal, we're working with trying to put together a lunchtime market proposal out there for 400 and 500 block. So that's exciting as well, but we also have some internal logistics that we need to take care of first before we bring it to you. So hopefully, we have all that worked out and we bring it to you in August. Then upcoming funding requests. I know at the last meeting we have this is from last meeting. Right? The salsa in the district. Let's say it the right way. Salsa.

So salsa in the district. This item came before you at the June meeting and will return in August. The applicant is awaiting notification of their grant award from Saint Petersburg Visitor Center. They did this goes to the Board of County Commissioners. Right? So I think they already got approval from the Saint Peter Visitor Center. Now it needs to go to the Board of County Commissioners for formal approval. With that, that's my update for the DDB and open for questions.

Vice Mayor Tuchrader?

If do you have an update for the mobile vendors? I know that I've gotten quite a few questions about that. Everyone's excited, including vendors that are very interested in participating in that program. Do we have a timeline?

So as far as Saint Pete College, they were supposed to have a few mobile vendors because they're the ones that kind of started the whole concept when they met with you and staff. But in house, you know, Vicky Shire and the team, they're starting to see if they can get a list of vendors and just organizations just all together so we can create our own basically to at least push it forward. And if you want to say more about that, you can.

Vicki Shire, senior division manager. We actually have a meeting next week to schedule with organization that does local vendors on the sixteenth. And then also, we are actually going to create a website that's a call for vendors so that we can help other events and stuff like that when they're doing events in Downtown Clearwater. We have a list of local vendors that might want to be a part of it. So it's thinking being proactive. So yes, we will hopefully have lots and lots of vendors that are gonna join that so that we have vendors in the future to get down here.

So So are we still looking at it like it's a pilot program? You know, we were discussed I know that we had discussions about it being one or two days a week for for a a set time. Is it are we looking at the fall? Just

So that that I was about to say your question was a schedule. So, unfortunately, that's becoming difficult. Saint Pete College was supposed to be the organization that brought in the mobile vendors, but they keep pushing it out more and more and more. So that's why we're trying to work in, you know, in house to see if we can put something together. In addition, we're working with mister Alfred Battle here, ACM Battle, the planning division, and other stakeholders internally so we can see if we can come up with a strategy where we can have those continuous events, including the mobile vendors. We just need to get a sit down with the team and put together a schedule internally what we're gonna do, not just rely on Saint Pete College, which they're phenomenal partners, by the way.

So the direction was that St. Pete College and the mobile vendors was a a unified project?

Correct.

Okay. And then the second thing was I've also been hearing some positive feedback about some type of coverage over Cleveland Street.

We did made

couple of ideas were shared to me.

So we took that before the city's BPRC meeting, the building planning I'm not sure exactly what the entire acronym stands for. Okay. So the city's internal, basically, departments get together and review projects or concepts or ideas. So we took a few items to them. One was basically shade structures that go across the entire street. These are cells and and items like that. I know there's a lot of issues on where you're gonna anchor them to, trees, buildings, and but we took it to them to see if it's doable, plus fires there. So staff is putting together a report on the findings from that meeting. We also took other items like bicycle racks and all kind of different things.

Okay, thank you.

Any other board member have a question for the director? Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

With that, move to item six on the agenda, board members to be heard. Any board member like to share anything? Okay. If there are none, and there is no other business to come before the development board, we will adjourn the meeting. And we will recess for just three minutes while we change the menu plates here on the dais and begin the CRA meeting in about three minutes.

This time we'll called order the 07/07/2025 meeting of the