Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Great. We are live. Okay. Thank you, Sam. All right. Good morning, everyone. This is the Glens Falls Industrial Development Agency meeting. It's September 10th, and we're just a few minutes late in getting started, but we've got a forum here, so thank you all for being with us today. And we're also joined by staff and we are live, I believe on our, not Zoom, but whatever it is we call it. And so if we have any questions from the public, I think they can come through that. Susanna, are you going to monitor that in case any questions come in? So I'm going to start and just do quickly a chair report. We'll be talking in a minute. The governance committee did meet on August 13th and we'll talk about that in a minute. The governance committee has been working with Jeff on a compensation plan, and we had a good meeting, so thank you to myself, Mary, and Tim Larson for that meeting, so thank you. We are also going to have a discussion about the bond allocation summary. There's a document that's attached, and we'll go through that. It's something that we do annually. When we get to that, we have not had any requests for any kind of bonds this year, so we're probably going to be sending that in with the bond allocation back to the state, but we can discuss that in a minute with Jeff. and then we'll have our minutes of financial reports and a number of project reports. So let me turn it over to Jeff Flagg, our CEO, to give an update.

Okay, yeah, just most of the update will be with respect to individual projects, but I wanted to go ahead and move forward with the conversation that we had. This was all predicated about a little over a month ago. The mayor had asked me to take a look at the... the respective amount of work that was done on behalf of the agencies vis-a-vis the city itself with an eye towards sort of right-sizing the compensation, the respective compensation, compensation of the various agencies and the city itself. To put this into a little bit of context for those of you who weren't here back, way back when, when I was hired, actually when I was appointed, when I was hired by the city back in 2021, neither the IDA nor the LDC really had any resources to speak of. The IBA had around, oh, I think about $30,000 in total, and the LDC had substantially more money. However, most of it was tied up in projects, primarily the DRI projects. So it only had, I think, about $40,000 of unrestricted cash. We eventually sort of came to a small compensation that wasn't even what that had gotten previously, but still it was something. But what had happened in the subsequent five or six years, fast forward a half dozen years, And both agencies, and I'm speaking specifically the IDA and the LDC, the other two are sort of tangential to this a little bit, but they're both relatively flush. Certainly they're comfortable on their financial positions, largely due to the success of the BRI and the private development that has sort of surrounded all that. In the case of the IDA, a number of projects that we all know about that we've sort of approved for support packages over the last five or six years. And in the case of the LDC, success in getting rid of some of, getting rid of, of transitioning some projects into private hands. You know, the DRI projects, also the crude coffee property things. And then in the case of the LDC, there's also a little bit of money that was received from, from through ARPA. So having looked through that, I went back over the course really of the year and I came to the conclusion and the examination I had that I spent, and it's tough to do this exactly, but that about one day a week, I spend on projects that are defensively either LDC and or IDEA. Obviously it overlaps a little bit with some of these, but that's the conclusion I came to. In talking to Cara about this and the idea that we met with the governance committee and one of the suggestions of the committee was that one of the ways that you can structure a compensation package for these agencies In fact, one that's more preferred by the ADO is rather than doing something through like an independent contractor is to create what they call professional service agreements. And these are pretty common among these agencies. And what they are is an agreement between the agencies and the city, whereby rather than paying me as a contracted agent, you simply have an agreement with the city and pay the city quarterly. That funding gets sort of rolled into my overall compensation that I'm paying by the city. so that there's no longer a contractual relationship directly between me. However, if you're going to do that, you also want to make sure that the duties and responsibilities are embedded in the duties and responsibilities of my position at the city. So what I did was I came up with, I believe I sent everybody a copy of this last week, rather lengthy, but essentially what I did was to take the four agencies, combine their responsibilities or fold them into the duties and responsibilities they have, as the economic development director of the city, right, with an idea of, you know, once that agreement is codified, then to sort of create these professional services agreements, whereby the services that are embedded in that agreement then are sort of compensated by or paid by these agencies to the city. And then I just have my, I'm just then paid directly through the city in that way. So at this point, We don't have exact numbers yet. We're doing our budget right now. So until we have that figure, and I don't know that it's going to have to be down to the penny, but I would say it's going to be roughly in the scope of about $25,000 per agency per year, which if you look around at agencies around the state, it's still very low. But certainly, I think it's fair to both parties at this point. So what I'd like to do, but Karen, there's an email in here you can see.

Okay.

Yeah. Kara looked at all this. She also, there's an email from her, if you can see. Yeah. She proposed a resolution. And what this would be is to agree to the format of a professional services agreement, right? Next month after our budget's completed with the C, we can come back and give the number that it would be that would fit this. And then that would just go, the agreement would be, you know. Annually? Yeah. You'd have an annual, you'd pay quarterly. Presumably, I'd be an unusual way for Mark to do it. And then we'll come back and have the have the PSAs and Taylor and said she would work with Kara on getting the between the agency and the city.

And we do still have some time because it's not going to take effect until January. But we wanted we wanted to put this up in detail with you. The Governance Committee went through this in great detail as well. And we have reviewed Jeff's job description and i think that we were probably somewhere about in terms of the time about 20 of this time uh for these agencies but um what we'll do is we'll finalize that and do that after um i think the the city meets and determines what their budget is yeah for next year. And then, so we would revisit this next month and possibly the month after because we don't have to do it until January. Or it doesn't have to take effect until January.

But was Tara suggesting that we agree to the concept now so that the city can plan in our budget? Correct.

The agencies need to say this first so that in our budgeting of the city we have something reliable to go on that we're going to do this. So she had introduced the motion, and you'll see in the email, she said she had written a motion to approve a shared service agreement with the city. It was once followed for Jeff Light's annual currency, January 1st, 2027, at such amount to be budgeted by the city, but in no event less than the current compensation and directing council to work with the city attorney on said agreement to be formally approved no later than December 31st. So as long as we can approve to the structure of the agreement, then we can come back next month and we can have the numbers and we can get that agreement approved.

If this is baked into your job position, take the person out and let's talk position. Does this then mean going forward anyone that holds that position is de facto the CEO of the board? Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Well, I mean, it's an annual. We're going to review this annually, right? Yeah. So should Jeff at some point no longer be the economic development director and the new economic development director?

appointed as ceo of these boards i don't know that it would be the same thing like we're not we're not faking in that the economic development director will always happen right it's also worth mentioning that i'm an at-will position i'm not like a civil service position so there's no there's nothing codified in my agreement that couldn't be changed by the next mayor or by this mayor if she wanted to maybe a year from now

so that's not because jeff is appointed to his position on these boards so that's why that's kind of why i asked the question because when you're changing from a person to now it's part of a position not just coming from a corporate standpoint um then we're no longer talking about a person we're talking about a position correct

i think i think also in the motion what we'll do is we'll say starting january 1 2027 for the year so that it's something that we take up at least annually or as needed but that at least annually we would take this up yeah but i agree with you in terms of the position here that position you would anticipate a compensation but the person who fills that role doesn't have to be the same coordinating position at the city

Does that make sense?

It does. You're just going to have to rewrite the economic directive or job description if this changes. The city would have to then amend that job description. Sure.

That's why we have to review it annually. Yeah.

Which we do on the budget anyway, so it's not... We don't anticipate making changes, but...

So I guess, can we, can we, I don't make motions, but. I'll make the motion. Okay.

So I'm making a motion to approve a shared services agreement with the city of Florence Falls for Jeff Flagg, our CEO, commencing January 1, 2027. as such amount to be budgeted by the city, but in no event less than the current compensation in directing council to work with the city attorney and on set agreement to be formally approved no later than December 31, 2026, and to be revisited prior to December 31, 2027. Second motion. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Any abstentions? There being none, the motion is passed and we'll get, once Karen gets back, we'll get working on this and get back to everybody next month on more detail. Thank you. Thank you guys.

The next thing is, as you alluded to, Judy, I got a notification from Stephanie Rosen about our bond allocation, as Judy mentioned, too. We've not done any bond financing. I'm not just saying we couldn't. We just haven't had any projects. As I think I mentioned probably last year when this came up, you know, Until recently, interest rates in the last few years, interest rates have been so low that when your alternative was typically either to get some tax benefits through pilots and things or bond financing, you could borrow money so cheaply anyway, it didn't make sense to try and use up whatever benefit you could get through bond financing. There seems to be, as interest rates have climbed, there is some interest in these things, not here locally, but I've talked to a number of people who've done some of these larger projects typically. A lot of the bond financing projects are in the millions. Our allocation is relatively low. I think it's... tens of thousands, I think 300,000, something along those lines. One question I have for you, Judy, maybe you know this, and I'll have to find out. I had been talking to Chuck Barton about a project that they were looking at in the, it might have been in Washington County, of course, he covers both, born in Washington, and was asking about our allocation. Is that something that can be earmarked for other specific projects, or does it simply go back into the hopper and then they go deal with Empire State Development?

no it could be something that we could do together with him and so um i mean we should be saying this today if he has a

a transaction yes okay well i'll reach out to chuck um he was away when i called recently but i'll just double check with him with him and see if it's something um he had really asked what it was so it wasn't um i don't know how specifically what what what time frame does our allocation work on isn't it uh january 1st to december 31st yeah yeah from the end of this year so this is the 2026 allocation

So we there is a allocation adjustment report that we do need to complete and we're supposed to complete it this month.

And so my recommendation is that we report, that we plan to report back to New York State, that we do not need that bond allocation unless something comes up in the interim. But as of right now, I know of no project. And I think you know of no project. All right. So if we can pass a motion, I think to approve, Jeff and myself completing that report and sending it in. Unless something does come up with Warren Washington IDA, we should plan on submitting that and sending our allocation back to the state.

Okay. I make that motion. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any abstentions or nay? There being none, motion is passed and we will I'll take care of that with Jeff. We'll get that done, if not today, tomorrow. Okay. All right. I also wanted to report, and we do not have the details on this, but we had been engaging the Economic Development Corporation of Warren County to assist with Tech Meadows. This is something that's joint between the Wealth Development Corporation and the IBA. There's supposed to be a meeting where the public can go in and hear more about this. It's supposed to be at 773. and the facility that we did the farm allocation for. And I believe a pilot as well. Yes. Very nice building. With the beautiful landscape. uh but we do not have a date or time yet and so as soon as we have that and let everybody know because you know i would like to go and uh others here may want to go hear from what people's concerns are industrial or um Let's see. And Mayor, I don't know if you want to announce this too, but thinking about the date, tomorrow is 9-11, and I know the mayor is doing an event tomorrow, and everybody here is welcome to attend.

It's

I'm in front of the Ridge Street Firehouse and the fire chief, police chief, and I will say a few words. The chaplain will say a few words. We'll have amazing praise. Okay. Thank you for that.

Okay. I'm going to switch right over to the, let's see, the minutes from our regular meeting. And we had a special meeting. We're both, both copies are attached for everyone here. July 9th was the regular meeting and July 28th we had a special board meeting. Has anyone had any questions or comments on those minutes? There being none, is there a motion to pass both sets of minutes? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any abstentions or nays? We'll get those minutes posted on the website. Thank you. Financial reports for both seven months ending July 31st and eight months ending August 31st. We're joined by Mark Toomey here today. Mark, do you want to come up and maybe appear so that you're on?

So our activity for the two months, paid productions for one month, 100 bucks. CEO wage second quarter, $1,687.50.

Farm depreciation, 587, five months of farm rent for 2,500. Internet for the farm, $109.99. Two Fitzgerald bills for 720. And payroll for myself, $302.

Any balance as of the end of August 31st? No.

9,692.

9,692. And you're reporting a request for bills to be paid. There's seven bills here under Schedule A for a total of $3,027.01. Yes. Okay.

So we may have to revisit the transfer back from ICS. We'll take a look at that based on what we've got coming in for the October meeting.

Keep in mind that the cash balance doesn't include the ICS money market, which is about $121,000.

The CDE balance is $144,849. Okay. All right. So any questions for Mark on the reports? There being none, is there a motion to approve the financial reports for both July and August?

So is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any major extensions? If you're doing none, the financial reports are approved and we'll get those posted as well. So payment of bills, and everyone's got that on your Schedule A, it's seven bills for a total of $3,027.01. Is there a motion to approve the payment of those seven bills? So is there a second? All in favor? Aye. Any laser extensions? They're being done in motion to pass and there's no sign of today. Let's go right to project reports and start with Crew Coffee.

Yeah, Crew contacted CARA about middle of last month and requested an extension of their sales tax. They've been held up by two things. One, National Grid with some of the utility and also they're expanding their capacity. So they've decided in just the time they've been building, they need to grow the business already. So I think they're putting in some more additional equipment. I don't know if the foot from the building is not expanding, but they're actually doing, I think he's pulling forward some expansion that he thought he was going to be doing further down the road, and he wants to do it now while we're moving. So they have asked for an extension to February, the end of February, February 28th of 2027. and I have the resolution here. I don't know if that was included in your packet or not.

Yeah, it's not, but you've got it there?

Yeah, and it's February 28th.

Okay. And where's the date?

Go to the second page, around the first or second paragraph.

Okay. Okay, so we have been working on this since December 12, 2024, just to give you the start date. So it has been rather extensive. And it was supposed to end October 10, 2025. And so the motion. is authorizing us to increase and extend the sales tax authorization and project completion report for the crew coffee project up until February 28, 2027. And we would be increasing the sales tax exemption amount to $61,700. It had previously been at $47,000. And in And it's based on purchases of over $181,430 from what had been 681,430. Is there a second to that motion? Second? All in favor? Aye. Any nays or abstentions? The day none of the motion is approved. And we'll get updates on that as well going forward on how they're working out. Okay, Waltham-Warren.

Yeah, running down the line here. Waltham-Warren, there was some discussion. You might have even seen some emails. Kara was thinking that they might have closed on project while she was on vacation right now. They pushed that back a little bit, but I'm guessing that that closing for the law firm down the street will be sometime the next week or two. So they should be starting that project, I would guess, within the next...

46 weeks from closing and I needed to sign the closing documents if it did occur and The attorney here did not call me. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been pushed off again.

So The 76 one street I was over there I left a call for them. I haven't heard anything back I don't see a whole lot of activity going on there. They've done some interior demolition and I know that from just talking to some of the folks who were there, but I haven't seen any proactive construction, so I'll follow up with them and see if I can get some information on that. Once they're at Maple Street, I did talk to them recently, and they're still moving a base. They still think they'll have that building completed before the end of the year, probably by the middle of fall or late fall. They should have that project completed and taking applications for residents. The smart farm, the RFP, I did not get any responses. Formal responses, I did talk to a lot of people. I talked to Cara about this and I've begun sort of some independent negotiations, which we can do now because we went through the RFP process. So I had about three people who expressed some interest. When I spoke to them, they said they weren't able to get a formal application in or proposal in. So I'm going to sort of negotiate with them independently. There's a lot, we have a lot more flexibility in doing that now that we've gotten through the formal RFP process. So I'll keep you posted as soon as I can. I have to figure out some way to move this forward. I did have several people, some of them didn't have time to get some of the requirements they had in the proposal as far as reporting things, business plans and such. Hopefully, I'll get some progress with that before the end of the year.

And we just paid rent for the next five months? Yes, we did, unfortunately. So should that five months be our kind of deadline to see if ?

Yeah, and I think what we'll have to do is I'll have to figure out some way. I'm also going to reach out to the college. Tim ,, I talked to a few years ago. He's retired from SUNY Adirondack in agriculture. But that's another one I need to talk to to see if there's some opportunity for that. One of the other challenges I have is that Brian Bargino, the owner, is sort of chomping at the middle of it. He wants to do some redevelopment of that space. He could theoretically work around the project and sort of build apartments around it, but that would be sort of a challenge. So it's a little bit of a stickler at the moment.

Jeff, I agree with Tim that if we can't have a viable Yeah, I have had a few people who've talked about maybe moving it and that's one of the issues is that they could do that.

The question is how easy could we move?

It was designed to be somewhat portable, but that was a little more challenging than it

in reality than it was on paper when we first developed it. So I'll update you on that as soon as I can.

Okay, very good. All right. And so I don't think we have any other business at this time, but we will be getting back to the board members both on the PSD bond allocation summary, depending on the discussion with Warren Washington, IDA.

While we're connecting, hang on.

Come on, Peter. Yeah. I have a question.

You're live. Okay. The power went out and we have plugged back in and we're starting again. So we paused and I will open up the Lance Falls Local Development Corporation meeting for September 10th, 2026. We have a forum. The first item on our agenda is the chair report and the CEO report. I just wanted to thank everybody for the extra work in between signing the documents with Arrow Bank to be able to authorize Jeff and Mark to move the money that we had previously discussed from the non-interest bearing accounts to the ICS accounts. I think you all had to fill out four different forms, so thank you for doing that. And I will transfer to Jeff.

Yeah, just to reiterate a conversation we just had in the IDA meeting, a similar one with the LDC, met with the governance committee to discuss a proposal to create professional services agreements covering my compensation vis-a-vis the agencies and the city. The details of this were discussed in the previous meeting, but they're essentially that the Rob Leibowitz, Ph.D.: premises that the IDA and the LDC would each cover approximately one day of my compensation, which will be codified through a professional services agreement that will be. Rob Leibowitz, Ph.D.: formalized at a later date, the purpose of this meeting, we had a motion, I believe the motion is in an email from Carol as the city, the lec attorney to. The structure of a professional service agreement, the details of which will be hammered out for the next meeting once the city's budget is finalized. Do you have a copy of that resolution?

If you don't, I can make a motion again to pass that resolution. that it would be revisited at the end of, or prior to the end of 2027 to reconsider that plan for 2028.

Second motion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, motion carries. Next we'll go to the minutes. Does anyone have any questions or opinions to the minutes?

I was just going to say, so I'll move to approve both the July meetings in July 28th and July 9th minutes. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, the minutes are approved.

Next we will go to financial reports and I'll turn it over to Mark.

Okay, the two month activity, two months of rent for 36 Inc, $16,174. The sterile bill, $544. Jeff's second quarter CEO wage was $60.87 and payroll two months, $453, totaling $18,855 activity.

Okay, thank you. Any questions on the financial report? Is there a motion to accept the financial report?

So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, those reports are accepted.

Now we will go to payment of bills. And on the payment of bills and Schedule A, there are four payments. We have a payment to MARC for 392. We have the October rent to One Small Ventures, which is 8,087.

And we have two bills to Fitzgerald Morris. They referred 427.04.

Any questions on those bills? Is there a motion to approve the payment of those bills?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Now we'll move on to project reports.

Yeah, there's the first one there, Tech Meadows. I met with the CEO of a regional, very small company who expressed some interest in possibly relocating. They need to up size their business. And we had a broad discussion, I went up and visited the county. and discuss the possibility of moving what we're going to do now is look at see what their. Their statuses is someone in flux because they get a lot of their equipment or supplies and things from. foreign countries, which have some challenges at the moment. But he's the CEO sort of planning for the future. And so we're looking at some opportunities, maybe looking at being able to cite the relocation of businesses to get to that point. Lightning infection.

How much space are they looking for?

Well, that's what they don't know. He's trying to think about how big they really want to get and how much space they would need. It sounded like they might need some buffer zones for some of the things. Yeah, you bet they do. And there might be a strategy whereby they could do something temporary. Again, we have to talk about what kind of location they're looking at. do something on a temporary basis to sort of upgrade what they're doing or to supplement what they're doing with an idea of down the road being transitioning their business. Very, very preliminary. So I don't want to get too far, but it's a local business and they're probably existing. So sometimes we get thick metal gets used as a sort of a stalking horse for folks looking at other locations, but I don't think that's the case here. So I'm interested in talking to them. Yeah. And then

Judy reported with the IDEA meeting, we will have a public engagement question on Tech Meadows. The EDC has been working with Allison, our planning and zoning director to plan that. And we are, they were going to do it next week. I'm at a NICOM conference on the date they were gonna do it. So they're changing, they're looking for another date. And as you said, that'll be at 7-7-3. So I think this is early and we have to consider it with all the other questions on the table. Okay.

next we will move on to 36. yes so as you guys know we spoke with um with nick and spencer last month they were here um we had a special meetings uh and give us a little a little bit of a presentation um one of the things we needed to get was information on what the real build out would look like so um it looks like from getting here now in front of us that they've made some progress on that and we'll turn it over to nick and spencer to talk a little bit more about that

Yeah, so hope everyone's doing well today. It's a beautiful fall day. We made some good progress. When we started the ideation around the concept, we were engaged with AJ Architecture. And we did end up making a decision to engage with Ethan Hall, as well as a group out of Troy, this Emmy studio. And we had a couple of meetings. some good progress on a conceptual layout of the space. So that's kind of what we've kind of put forth here. This is depicted essentially as you have some some booths that are right off of the kitchen space. And then on the opposite side wall, there would be a management office and then there'd be two additional booths, which could end up being retail. They could end up being, it really is kind of fluid at this time. But in spending time with the space, We feel this is the best flow and the best way to approach the space, you know, to make sure that, you know, our vision with it would be the farmer, the farmer's market, you know, is kind of there, the eggs there. And then, you know, once the Bonaccio project finishes up, you can kind of get both of the garage doors open and people can kind of come in and yander and you know, patronize these tenants that would be occupying these spaces. So that's kind of our idea and our vision for the space. And kind of beyond that, we then did engage with a couple of contractors, you know, construction groups in the area and, you know, kind of asked for an order of, you know, magnitude of, general scope of what we'd be looking to accomplish here. And then just kind of ballpark pricing from them in order to really get it done. Because I think for us, our objective is we want to be very transparent at the start of this project and make sure that everybody's aligned with the vision of it and really how much it's going to cost to bring it to fruition before we continue forward. So I wanted to get the concept out in front of you guys first and kind of open it up to the floor, see if you guys have any thoughts or

you know just on the general concept here a couple quick things um nick i noticed in the you have the the floor plan and then you've got the sort of the rendering um in the rendering of the part that that affects the kitchen it looks like these are open as opposed to that there's balls in the and i i from a practical standpoint i understand why you're doing that but The one issue is, do we need walls to put things against? You're losing a lot of the wall space there.

Yeah, and it's a great question and a great point. And I mean, so really, I would say there's two, again, kind of architects involved with this. This gentleman has actually done some of these concepts. And so he had suggested that we look into this approach. We actually did have some productive meetings with Christina Richards as well. And she had said, quite frankly, like, the kitchen is very valuable, right? So, I mean, when you guys originally engaged her and asked her to say, hey, look, we want you to put together a kitchen, she just kind of was working within the framework of what that space was. With that being said, I mean, the more robust of a commercial kitchen you have, the more that kitchen's gonna cost. And it's really depending on what you guys are looking to do with the space, ultimately. We see, we would be able to accomplish with that hypothetical layout the objective of what the kitchen would serve the community as well as being able to serve those spaces. But of course, we can put the openings in the front of the spaces as opposed to behind. It really sits one way up above the other.

Yeah. To the extent that these are all, well, the ones on the left side, they're all food related, ostensibly directly food related. Is there some framework in which you say, well, these are the kinds of things you could do, I mean, or could not do. In other words, if you said, well, is this going to allow a bakery? Well, if you're going to have a bakery, if somebody comes in and has baked bread, you know, we've talked about local people who do whatever, is how much would this be able to accommodate X, whatever X is.

Yeah. And so I think really for us, right, we would look to build a space out and I mean, really just get local vendors from the community and whatever capacity they're currently operating that want to come in and set up shop, you know, so. To your point, there may be some restrictions on what can go in there based on the capacity of what the whole kitchen and the spaces ultimately end up having. But I think we would almost look to get the go-ahead, the green light on the project at large. and then we would really dig deeper into the details of what each individual space would have in the form of infrastructure and kind of we would we would spend time ideating you know hey we envision a you know a breakfast type spot here or we envision a x type spot there or you know or whatever right i guess what i was sort of thinking was if you had if someone comes in and has a specific product line

Is it your thought that if they needed specific equipment for them that they would provide this to them? Yes. Let's say I'm a hot dog guy and I want the little rolling thing that you talked about. They wouldn't buy that. That they would get off.

No, this would just be mostly infrastructure work. So, I mean, of course, whenever, and this, we've learned a lot through this process. And quite frankly, that's one of the points we really want to make. Because this is a food venture, because it's a kitchen, the cost goes up because there's all this fire protection and, you know, all that good stuff, right? So, I mean, it really, ultimately, we'd have to get certain things for New York State Department of Health, you know, sinks and, you know, all that type of infrastructure work. So that would be, you know, that would have to be involved in the build out of the space. But with that being said, of course, we're not looking for the city to put the bill on all these, you know, all the equipment for all of these users.

The LDC, yeah.

The LDC or whatever, yeah.

Sorry. Okay.

So if I recall correctly, part of your thought was to pull vendors in for a specified amount of time. Yes. So it looks like you have spots for six vendors for a year. I don't know what your timeline there was. Do you envision any temporary small spaces for someone, I'm not even sure how to put this, that, you know, someone that couldn't commit to a, maybe there's a special event going on for over the course of a weekend. And there's some vendors that would, that would fit. My thought is six vendors really hope they're popular with the public and Because it's not a lot.

Yeah. And totally hear the point. And really, unfortunately, the space isn't that large. With the kitchen in there, those spaces are 100 square feet each. And we're working within the frameworks of that. To answer your question directly, though, We see that space right in the middle as really the prime space to be able to have some pop-up events or even some retail vendors that maybe they're at the farmer's market. That was my thought.

Something, you know, obviously, like whatever, we're having an Irish Fest, whatever it is we're having. Something might work with that.

Absolutely. And quite frankly, like the way we spend a lot of time ideating really the best way to attract recurring customers to the space right and we feel that within the spirit of what the whole space was designed to be which was really around food in the kitchen that's also going to also bring the most recurring customers because the vision with this is you know hey you're you work locally and you want to go down and grab a slice of pizza or you know whatever and then maybe somebody else that you work with they want something else well there could be some different options and it would be it would be folks in the community that are looking to kind of get going and kind of take that step, you know, in whatever capacity.

Is there an option for utilizing the kitchen for, well, initially the concept was to enhance the farmer's market abilities for these people more year round, but also just to be able to rent the kitchen from midnight to 7 a.m. in a shift kind of situation in order to enhance somebody's

home business or whatever absolutely that's still oh yeah so that's designed really part of the reason why we um you know design the boost in that way is so the kitchen really acts as a standalone entity yeah so then that way christina can you know coordinate with local folks that want to use the kitchen for catering or events or you know that support the ed or whatever so the objective with it really has not changed you know that kitchen is the really big

And the furnishings that you have in the open spaces, those reflect, because I know she's been talking about these things and she's called me a few times. about the list of what she was looking for for chairs and are these roughly equivalent or consistent with what she's looking for?

It's all fluid, right? But what we had discussed is essentially she books an event and basically we would have it set up to where she could just utilize all the seating for that event. So then if there was someone who wanted to book the kitchen and then they host a you know a rehearsal dinner you know they could then go ahead and you know have whatever company they hire to use the kitchen they can make the food and then they could have the space to be able to and it would be separate you know we would be able to kind of whether it be with you know some high-end curtains or some movable pieces that you know some greenery it'll be able to separate it off so then they have their own private space and it wouldn't impact you know the ability for this to still operate yeah and if you needed to move the furniture the chairs and

tables so that that space was open for some reason. There's enough storage space either in the basement or in the living room. Correct.

All right. What do you need from us? So the concept, and yeah, so as I mentioned, we did connect with a couple of groups. We started with AJA, as we mentioned. Their budget was quite high. And so we decided to kind of shift gears a little bit. We met with CG Construction Group. They're the group that's behind that Maple Street project. um you know really a reputable group and we also know bonaccio obviously bonaccio owns the building you know so of course that makes a lot of sense to um you know touch base with them really because of the kitchen and the equipment and that was kind of the point that i wanted to drive home there is i mean if take our concept completely out of it if you guys are actually going to do this this kitchen it's going to cost somewhere between 250 and 350. I know Christina had floated some numbers that were a little bit less, but what those numbers didn't reflect are the nuances in the actual, you know, the hood of the elevator shaft and the base and, you know, all the fire protection. So we feel pretty confident that you know, that's really the range in order to get the kitchen done. And then in order to kind of make this whole concept work, our ballpark range that we feel we can certainly get it done for us in that 500 plus or minus 500,000 range, which we understand is a big ask. And, you know, that's really why we wanted to kind of have this conversation to see if it is something that, you know, the LDC sees as a viable path forward, because that's for us, you know, it would be a waste of time to continue forward in, you know, in the conceptuals and really diving into the details if it wasn't something that, you know, you got to work through.

Does anyone have a preliminary payment budget, concept, time, anything? What do you mean? So the potential to rent this space would pay some of this back. potential to uh well there are proposals to have the space rented we probably have to recalculate i don't know how your space lays out if it's where it was relative to what you were looking at before right but we're we're promoting startups here basically which is not a big payback we're not looking for that work i mean i i feel that that's our role as an lbc But I'm just wondering, like, the general rental of the kitchen itself from the farmers market, Christina has any idea. She did.

She's given us some proposals. And, you know, between the rental of the kitchen, the potential fit-out of rental, some of the space in the basement, and the rent that they would be paying to us, is it going to cover all of our costs? Probably not, but relatively close, I would think.

we would certainly reduce the burden that you guys have and beyond that too it really would would bring a community space to life you know that that in a perfect world you know you have you have all the locals patronizing i think it's also important to think about this as what it is as an incubator right and if the goal of this project is to have you know and as denise mentioned a few minutes ago

I would structure a transition. The idea would be that you're not here permanently. Unless you're a temporary, unless you come and go and come and go and come and go. But if you're somebody who's setting up shop here, you have, I don't know, 18 months, two years, whatever the time frame is, in which case you say, then you're going to go forth and multiply and you're going to go get a brick and mortar.

Right, which is development and lovely and what we're supposed to be doing. but at some point in time, there would be, unlike our firm, there would be actual income, even if it's the minimus, but there would be some sort of payback for the investment. I mean, because these people shouldn't have that burden. That's not what we're trying to do, but there should be some burden reduction.

So that's it. i don't have it in front of me but there is a rental payment yeah yeah for sure but it's not going to offset that and then christina was proposing that she would get paid for managing running all of this but would share the take the revenue the revenue of everything that we did pretty much level two yeah yeah oh i thought that wasn't great and we also have to remember that the fit up costs initially for what was initially planned for So this is actually less than what came in.

Yeah, our original one was like 1.8. I remember it well.

right so i'm just saying this looks like a not to crack but i think that you have to realize that over time there will be offsets to this 500 is this inclusive of the money we already approved or beyond above and beyond that um we're looking at a total project cost right i mean so that's kind of i mean that's that would be our goal

of course you know there and there were disclaimers with with meeting with these folks like listen there's there could be some nuances that are unforeseen that could increase it but we're saying plus or minus we feel we can get it done okay in your green world which of these proposals would you go with I mean, quite frankly, it's, it's early, right? So we would, we, we personally would want to spend more time really flushing out the concept and then really get hard core proposals from these folks. But again, we didn't want to go through that exercise if like the 500 was dead on arrival, hypothetically. Right. Um, you know, I think we're, uh, value engineer driven people. So we would do our best to, you know, spend that money as, uh, economically possible, you know, as best as we possibly could. Right. So we were trying to get it done as best as we possibly could, or as little as we possibly could. It's really our objective, but going forward on that path, you know, we would, we're kind of saying, look, it's going to cost in that range. Like it's, I know originally when we came in, we had said, you know, a hundred or whatever, you know, we kind of get it going, but it's, it's going to be, it's going to be, that's true too. We've got, well, originally we weren't going to be doing the kitchen, but you know, with the kitchen involved.

So in your mind, though, and I know I'm sort of beating a dead horse here, but you're comfortable that your plans here would still be able to accommodate the use of the space spaces for both supporting the ed for various things and for, say, off site. anybody who was offsite that wanted to use it with scheduling issues, but as far as physically.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, a part of these plans is having a small hood and the infrastructure in each one of those little booths. Now, those are the booths that are around the kitchen, right? The other ones that are on the opposite wall, those are, it's flexible, but those would not be, there wouldn't be any infrastructure there, so to speak. So those could end up being retail, you know, it could end up being a small market that supports some of the local farm market folks. We're kind of open to concepts on that front. But, you know, at a minimum, we see the core is that kitchen and then the infrastructure off of that kitchen. And that's designed in a way that will allow the tenants, the subtenants of those booths to be able to operate separately from the kitchen. So Christina can still do her thing, can still generate revenue on that front, and then the folks in there can still operate.

And the other revenue source And Christina talked about creating storage units with, you know, kind of like cages so that people who live there could potentially use it or vendors could use it. And then she was also talking about doing a CSA box program with the farmer's market. So lots of ideas to maximize every square foot. Right, yeah.

Yeah, and you kept the open spaces here where the garage doors are so it still flows through.

You know, as a worker, you probably see right now, we're doing all the work right now on that little block of Elm Street.

know the idea of being that would be in many ways a pedestrian mall at least temporarily for composers to make so yeah the idea about people coming from the air through the snow street sticks exactly with what was designed five years ago going what was it for it and you know there's it seems that there's a trend of a lot of local businesses wanting to

like just events that shut down the block and things like that. This could be, you know, I think this also with the ed, that could end up kind of being that stretch, you know, where, hey, retail vendors, food vendors, whoever they can, you know, they can all set up and they could really turn into a pretty nice draw for the city and for the community.

Given all that, I would make a motion that we encourage each gentleman to continue on in the vein of this number. I'll second that motion.

Just a quick question. We already have a basic design. And so someone's already paid any studio. Yeah, that's us. So we're helping to cover that cost. Is any of this going to actually be for construct or fit-up itself? We don't yet know what the cost of that is yet.

We don't know. So that's what I'm suggesting is that we have those conversations. And that ballpark, including the fit-up, is that $500. It is.

Just so you know, Judy, last meeting we approved a preliminary budget of $100,000, $75,000, which is coming to the OEC to get us through this initial phase.

So if you're rolling that in, is that $500,000?

We would roll it into the $500,000. So we're saying the $100,000 is now becoming $500,000. And the

construction you said they're doing something on maple 179 yeah they're doing that project yeah that's i know they're they're uh you all need football guys all in favor all right any opposed okay excellent thank you guys thank you so much thank you guys

And the next item for discussion is the end and an update.

Yeah, just a real quick, real quickly. So you probably are aware that they had the already and Dan had their first sort of overseen event. And there've been a few events there, but there's most of them have been handed off to them. But this was actually Jim Duggan who, who entertained folks to a sold out facility. There was a meet and greet initially, and then they had a, wrestling event, I was down on the track on Saturday, so I didn't get to see it until I came home late and saw just a lot of people in there and it went pretty well. They had a good time, they thought the facility was well used. Prior to that, they had had a meeting with the South Street event, all the South Street businesses, was about 30 some people, Amy and I, and Collins and I attended as well. It was a very constructive meeting. You know, I mean, a lot of it was, you know, how the end was going to be used, who was going to serve, how they can support, how are they going to support the local businesses that are there. Obviously every event is not going to help every business in every way. I think this is a good example of that. You know, the things like the wrestling event, you know, certain vendors, you know, people are probably not certain crowds are going to go to certain kinds of facilities and other kinds of crowds are going to go to other kinds of facilities. But I think it was fine with that. I mean, the idea of having as many activities as possible down there was really what the goal is. bring traffic and what nick and spencer are talking about is consistent with that right what are you really trying to do is you're trying to bring foot traffic down into the south street corner and i think both what they're doing now and planning for the things they're going to do next year um and also what these guys are looking at what both of commerce said incidentally as part of that meeting um there was also an introduction to uh the new group is going to be operating the farmers market starting in november You may or may not be aware that there was some discussion about the farmer's market going back up to the mall. Mayor had several conversations, as did I, with folks who are part of the current farmer's market that are going to be remaining down in the end of the winter. So Artie and Dan were instrumental in making that happen as well. And it looks like that's all going really well.

Good night.

i i just want to say i'm grateful that this is going forward and uh i'm a frequent person in the farmer's market and the the uh farmers that are part of that new group are some of the best at the market and i think it's great that they're going to stay here and uh and not go to the mall

Yeah, they were nothing but enthusiastic about the space, about getting more involved in the community. They want to connect with the collaborative. They're talking to the local businesses. They came to that meeting, as Jeff said, they got a round of applause from all the businesses. So there's a lot of enthusiasm. My husband and I went by the event last week, and it was, like Jeff said, it was packed. It was just kind of joyful. You know, there were families everywhere. Several of the business owners were coming by to check things out. It was very calm. Even though it was a paid event that was sold out, the doors were open. And nobody was trying to sneak in. And it was just, it was great. It worked out really well. Artie and Dan were there. So I think we have a lot to look forward to with the ed. And we have a really good agreement with Artie and Dan that as they bring more events and it benefits the community, community, it also creates a revenue source for the city.

So those are the two things. Go ahead.

And Hacksaw Hill is two by four. I think so. Yeah. The other thing that's been going on too, when the farmer's market is there, a bunch of the stores on the other side are open. And a lot of people who are either going to or leaving the farmer's market are going in to those stores. The expenses are a little crowded.

I think the businesses are happy that this new group has committed to a year-long tenancy, so they will be there. And the hours, I think, are changing from 8 to 12 to 9 to 1. People can sleep in a tiny bit, say, a little longer. All in all, good news, I think. All right. Let's see.

I think that was the last item for discussion. Does anyone have any other business? Okay, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Second.