Economic Development Board - Regular Meeting

Eating of the economic development board to to order. Thanks everybody for being here. This is the most we've had in a while.

What are you doing? Well, we

didn't have a

a quorum yet,

so have

to send it to everybody.

I hope it's okay. We'll be there.

I don't care. Yay. Yay. Well, first item of business will get in out of the way is consider the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of the economic development board on 03/24/2025. Almost to approve. I'll to approve. Second?

I'll second. Second. Second.

Second. We got you got a third, a fourth. Alright. All in favor, aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Alright.

That passes. So we've got exciting news tonight. You may have seen it all over Facebook already anyway, but, because everybody over in Great Mines crying big crocodile tears of of their loss. But, wanna introduce you to our, a new assistant director of economic development for the city of Keller. This is Anna Erwin. You probably already met her. But, she is how many days do we have now?

Because today is five.

This is five.

So Yeah.

A full business week. Yes. Alright. So, anyway, she is joining us and I've already had a very productive and and fun kind of meeting with her. And but I want her to get to know everybody here. So I'm gonna let her kinda start off and give you a little bit of her background and what drew her to Keller. And we we decided on three things. So what did we decide on? What were we gonna say?

Oh, yes. So we I wanna know so I'm gonna kick it off and tell you a little bit more. And then I wanna hear from all of you kinda how you got on the board, why you chose to serve in Keller. And then I'm gonna ask you. We're gonna do this a little bit more interactive, but maybe start thinking about it. What are Keller's biggest areas of opportunity, and then what do you see as Keller's biggest strength? So for me to just to kick it off, my name is Anna. I'm thrilled to be here. As Tag mentioned, I come from the state of Grapevine where I focused on retail recruitment and retention, and and that was really fun. I wanted to come to Keller for many reasons.

One being I'm a resident here, and my family has lived here since 2019. Moved here with my husband and our daughter, and I'm not a stranger to Keller. Before working at the city of Grapevine, I actually ran the local Tarrant County editions of Community Impact News. So I've been I've been in Keller before in a different capacity. I am an Aggie. I don't know if anybody else here is an Aggie. No. Just me and Aaron.

Okay. But

I am I'm really excited. I see a lot of really exciting projects ahead, a lot of opportunity. I get really fired up with retail recruitment. I'm also a foodie. So I and I'm hoping to do a one on one with with all of you to really kinda get to know you better. So yeah. So I'd love to maybe kick it off this way, Ashley.

We have one one down here too.

Oh, she can go first.

What? Because I gotta keep it in order here. I'll confused, I'll be walking out of here and nobody introduce themselves.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Ashley.

We'll go

back up.

I'm like, you wanna skip?

That's okay.

I actually know Anna. I actually do know Ashley. Yeah. So I've actually known her for quite a few years. I had a mobile salon here, if anybody knows about that, and she was my client. So it's been a pleasure watching you, and I'm so excited to have you. Alright. So what brought me to the economic development board? I've been on for about two and a half years. I am a small business owner, and I actually used to work alongside the SBA in Connecticut and the Women's Entrepreneurial Center with the Barney School of Business in Connecticut. So when I came in 2020, I really was just looking to dive back in and how could I serve and show up for small businesses and just be supportive in whatever way I could. So this board definitely drew me to that. So that's how I got here. What was the other question?

The other questions, hang on to that. K. Because we're gonna do it in an interactive way.

Okay. Yeah. And does that sound good? I covered it? You're good. Alright. That's it. Okay.

I'm Justin. I'm a CPA. I'm an almost lifelong resident of Keller. And what brought me to the board is I own a building in Old Town now. I'd like to be invested in the Old Town growth project. And I figured with a financial background, this was probably the place.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Of course, you know Melanie.

Oh. Okay. I am Kingsley Fragane. I've lived in Keller since 2019, almost six years now. I my day job, I'm an engineer. I joined the board about a couple of years ago. I I saw the notice Mhmm. And I thought, oh, this is a good opportunity to serve. We moved here just before COVID. Usually, I like to be involved in the community, but we couldn't do anything. So that was my first opportunity to get out of my house and contribute to the community. So I enjoyed working with everybody here, and I look forward to continuing.

Thanks,

Okay. I'm Basil. I lived in Keller for about a decade, and I can't remember anything before that. But I believe I was in D. For a few years, and I'm born and raised in Ohio Okay. Before coming down here. I'm an attorney. I work at Charles Schwab in Wesley. And serve on the in addition to my job there, serve on our some of our regional leadership committees. And so in addition to hiring people and trying to build up the Schwab connection to the region, is trying to convince people to move to Keller and share my experience with them on that.

I also serve on the Police Chiefs Advisory Council. And I'm a graduate of the Keller Citizens Academy, as well as the Fire Department's what's it called?

CERT program. Erin Keller. Awesome.

Well, Anne and I know each other, but I am Bev Dixon. I'm an ex official on this on this board. I'm the president and CEO of the Greater Keller Chamber of Commerce. We moved here in two thousand eleven after my ex and I retired from the military to raise our family here in Keller. We were brought by the school district. I'm all about community. Started volunteering, worked my way up, spent some time as elected official, came into this role. Two it'll be two years permanent in May, but three years in October. And I love it because it's all about making connections. It allows me to get out and make a difference and get to know my neighbors. So yeah. So that's that's who I am in a nutshell. A small nutshell.

Small nutshell. I'm Bob Stevenson. I'm I'm I'm the old guy on this group. I've been on the board me, Bob. No.

I'm talking about I'm

talking how long I've been on that. We could we could compare social Security numbers and all that too. I've been here since, I believe, 2012, if I remember right. I've been in the hospitality industry for forty years. Currently, I'm doing consulting work in the industry and also looking at possibly doing a teaching gig. So I have some fun doing that as well. Sweet. Former owner of F and G Eats up the street. Worked for CRO for fifteen years in Chili's and Houston's and a couple other places like that. Been a resident of Keller since '99.

Bought my first house there in '99, second house about eight years ago. So decided to stay here. Love the community. So

Looking for for a difference in family night in the need of us.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm Nate Burnclaw. Been in Keller since 2019. I came down here for a job with Bell helicopter. And then after our government contract didn't come through, I moved over to Kubota. So I'm a senior research technologist there. I also run a small engineering firm here in Keller and take on work for inventors and other folks that have ideas and do product development and things. And what brought me to the board was part of my career has taken me towards from products to more systems and learning how systems are both social and technical. And so being able to come here and see how the the city works as a system, it's been a great education.

So Thank you.

My name is Steve White. I moved to Keller in 2021 from Huntington Beach, California. I moved for a company, Urban Air Venture Parks. I was with them for a while, and then COVID hit, changed out a little bit, and then I'm I'm back with them, but a franchise group opening up parks. So background like Bob, we've got about thirty five years restaurant industry, entertainment industry. But my role right now is helping open up parks. So submitting plans to the city and doing other things and dealing with fire marshals. I'll be definitely the they're the they're the same everywhere. But yeah. So I've got financial background and I enjoy what I do and looking to open up more parks throughout the the country.

So Okay.

That that's everybody. Right? Well, tag, do you wanna go?

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm tag green. I sit on city council here. I have no authority or responsibility or whatsoever. I, we moved to Keller in 2007. Mhmm. And I have kids that have graduated from the schools here. And it's been my home for business. And and, in 2017, ran for city council, and and, then in 2020 ran for mayor lost, and then I ran for city council again in 2022 at a one. And so if that's working out, this may be the last time I get to talk to you. So if it flips back and forth.

So, anyway, that's kind of me. I'm, married to my high school sweetheart, and, she hasn't, hit the road yet. So I'm just glad her eyesight's getting worse as I get older.

Long tablet.

I don't know that's

every now.

Well, thank you, dad. Okay.

If y'all could take your phones out and open your cameras, we're gonna do this one in an interactive way. Hang on.

Let's see. There is a mouse. Closer to Ashley, can you

Oh, okay. Yeah. That'll be a lot easier for me. Thank you.

Don't think so.

I'll look here for that house.

Loch Ness, maybe?

Okay. It's the house across from the park. Oh, yeah. Real quick before y'all start. I I know a lot of you. I'm Sarah Hinsley.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No. No. No. No. I just came mostly to observe. I'm the director of development services. Again, I a lot of familiar faces. So I now have planning and zoning co compliance building services and economic development in my kinda area. I think you're in really capable hands with Anna. We were really excited to hire her. But you'll probably see my face a few times, you know, as she kinda gets her her feet under either. But again, just really nice to see all of you guys. Nice to meet a few of you that I I haven't before, but just wanted a quick introduction for me.

Oh, it didn't

go. This is the first real test of employment.

He's probably Here we go. Audience. Okay. If you guys could scan this QR code and send your responses, it shouldn't put your name on it. I'm looking for themes and things that we can discuss.

It shouldn't put her name on, but if it does

If it does, it's type it. Yeah. And so I smart tested it out?

Okay.

Yeah. Sure why it's not feeding to that one.

Is that everybody?

What if one half didn't show up?

One of the ones you did didn't show up?

Yeah. Which one? That's alright. Because it's not a secret. My other one was attraction of daytime population employers. Mhmm. Okay.

Does anybody wanna talk about theirs and expand on it?

Or pick one that you wanna expand.

I saw someone had family fun, and so I duplicated it. I guess that's why it's bigger because I thought that was a good call out. Yeah. Because I think, you know, sometimes it's not just we talk a lot about what we wanna attract, but it's it's about what we wanna facilitate. And I think, as the mayor talks about a lot, becoming the friendliest family, friendliest city or whatever.

I think part of that is certainly within the purview of when you and your department make these decisions and when we review things that come to this committee. That's one of the things we're trying to facilitate. And it comes in different forms. But a key principle.

Mary and I were actually talking to a couple of developers about family entertainment facilities coming here, Venture Golf, Slick City was one of them. But just having the right spot is a challenge because you definitely wanna have the park and go with it, you know, in the square footage. But I think it has to be something that's not just batty cages. It's gotta be a destination, someplace where the kids from the softball the the sports complex can come and have their pizza parties and stuff and keep the money here rather than go over to Alliance all the time. So something where they can go with local not not just another not another just pizza place, but a place they can go and hold their their team outings and their team, you know, end of the year parties and stuff like that.

Yeah. I think it could be one place that is focused on that, or it can be sort of the facilitative outcome of a of an area. Right? Like, we talk about the sports center, I forget what it's called. Sports park or the center stage or the old town. But those are places where you want to show up, you can park and spend a couple hours and go to multiple different places. And that's a that's a you know, what's the term that your predecessor used to use a lot? Experiential attraction as opposed to just commodities or whatever. Yeah. No. Totally agree.

What Tag said, I think it's extremely important to someone who's out and about a lot during the day, going in and out of like our restaurants and stuff. We just don't have a daytime crowd. Everyone's working elsewhere. So what do we do to bring people in? Yeah. Especially for sit down restaurants.

Yeah. Anyway, along the same line with experiential, if we could have some kind of cultural event or activity, maybe start one from scratch that over time hits its stride and becomes talked about in the region. Mhmm. That was something. That was one

of the things I was so excited about. Houghton Horn's coming and starting some of their concert series, which it'll it'll be an old town and and bring some of those more classical type of of, concerts and and entertainment. There were several here that kinda conjoined, I thought. I I don't know if anybody wants to explain, but what are we considering downtown?

Yeah.

I would I would assume Town Center.

Town Center is downtown? Or

see I felt like Old Town.

Yeah. I

got I'm I'm like, I've been yeah. I've been working in Old Town for sixty days. Yeah. But I walk to lunch Yeah. At least once a week. I meet other people down there for lunch or breakfast or whatever. And I park and I walk to the restaurants or the other stores or whatever. And that's to me that's I've never expect you're a big color. I've never experienced a walkable city before.

I I consider this more civic center because of city hall.

Right. Well, and city hall used to be over Right.

There. But but that's the differentiation that I've that I've kinda made over the years is that Old Town is a the traditional downtown, but this is more of a civic center because we split it up that way.

Well, and that's called Main Street. Yeah. And Old Town was the vision was kind of to make it, you know, small town Americana, businesses, restaurants. There's even still residences throughout there. So I was just kinda interested to what we were calling downtown because this this has kinda become the center of Keller. But that's Main Street, and Old Town has that kinda old fashioned

kind

of downtown, plus City Hall used to be over there. So Mhmm. I just was curious. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, we're gonna save these, and we're gonna move into our next question. So please get your thumbs up again. Oh, please. Technology.

But you gotta, you know, just click on the

forward. Oh, that's right. This

is a fairly new software thing we're working with.

We're testing it out on y'all. I'd like to try and do this for counsel for some of the work sessions, but we'll try to test it out here in a safe spot.

Mhmm. Do we need to scan again? Because mine came up. Sorry. Can you peek?

Yeah. So you shouldn't have to

Yeah.

Should automatically. Once she forwards the question, you should be able to it. Okay.

How come they disappear?

I wonder what I don't know how they're this good.

Don't Ty, what was yours?

Well, I had several. I didn't I wasn't trying to limit to one. But one that was on there that I put in is we're kind of an up and coming foodie

It's up

there. Capital. Isn't Pretty

capital up and coming.

Totally disappeared offline. Yeah. I feel like that's we've been written up and we're, you know, we're gaining some restaurant momentum. I heard heard for the first time in a long time the concerns over drive throughs springing back up because we, had a couple of others that got approved. But we're we're getting a wide variety, which is also why I wanna see daytime population grow because I don't wanna see them come and then fade away because we can't we can't keep them here.

People complain about too many drive throughs.

It used to be a big thing. And and but

Yeah. But post COVID, it's not as bad. Yeah. And then of the convenience aspect of it, it's not as big a concern as it used to be.

Yeah. Well, it became a way of life during COVID. And and so it kinda had died down for a while, and then now it's springing back up. And well, I'm probably more in tune with it because I'm knocking on doors and talking to people, and and I'm hearing from them. And and Yeah. It's a

slippery slope because in California, they there's some cities that live in the drive throughs.

Yeah. So some of the

place that went in ended up shutting down because people didn't wanna get out their cars. And or there wasn't a parking for them to get out

of the

cars at the same time. Right. At dinner time, you get get what they wanted. So it's you gotta be cautious on that.

The interesting thing about the the two that are being added is it's very limited number of their clientele. So it's it's not gonna have a lot of people going through the drive through kinda like what Jason's Deli is now. There may be a car or two there. It's not gonna be like Chick fil A or In N Out Burger where We're getting In

N Out. We're getting In N Out. No. I just that's just fresh

in my mind because we had grandkids out and you could not get into a parking place because of everybody's lined up for the

drive through.

Chick fil a is doing their super remodel for their Mhmm. Yeah. For their drive through just to handle the volume. Yep.

And and, God bless them for it. They bring a lot of sales tax dollars in here. Mhmm. So

Yeah. Would anyone like to talk about their mixer?

It's one of the the schools up there. I mean, that's what attracted us to to Keller. And I still hear that a lot from our our realtor friends and folks that especially for people like myself who are moving to the area.

You know,

top choice for a realtor is just to, you

know, stay in the Keller ISD.

Do we still have that that sense though the the Keller ISD being one of the best with all of the distraction of trying to split it up, though? I mean, that's a concern. It's it's how that's viewed by the by the public. Yeah. And then where the tax dollars gonna go and how that's gonna happen. So It's

again, just speaking from being kind of more in tune or more in listening to people. There's been concern over the talk about the detachment and split, but it hasn't hasn't, I guess, migrated into a making it question about questionable about the excellence of schools. So I'm hoping that it doesn't taint, but it's definitely a topic. It comes up everywhere, but it it hasn't turned into, we think our school district's heading downhill. All public education is struggling, especially financially.

And when you look at the the rankings or the ratings of of how they major at fourth grade reading and eighth grade math, Public education is struggling. And so but everybody that, at least showed up to the debate and form the other night is wanting to focus on excellence back in the classroom. Correct. Yeah.

Academics. So I I put the proximity to top colleges. It's it's both a strength and an opportunity. I think we could do more leveraging the opportunity. For instance, forming partnerships with some of these schools targeted at not just workforce development in general, but engaging with industries, identifying where they have needs, and providing that hub for these institutions to establish centers or train these people and Mhmm.

Make those kind of connections. So that could be a way to diversify as well. So we're not always talking about high end retail and things like that, but also what what kind of high end service industries can we locate in the area.

Yeah. I think another one that's, like, kinda random that I put up there on investment infrastructure. Mhmm. I feel like that's just, like, a good sign from a couple different angles, whether it be someone just personally moving to the area or as a business. Just seeing the investment that cover is making throughout the city. It's not even just in one isolated area. It's it's generally, like, in all different pockets. I feel like we we're seeing things pop up all the time. We're always like,

we need

to get out there and get more drone. Like, there's something else going on. So it's been really interesting because it is it's in so many different pockets. And I think that's just like a good sign that the city is embracing that growth, and then also like putting the things in place to to help facilitate that. But like people genuinely care. I feel like with what what gets chosen and what gets done. And so from my perspective, I think that's really positive.

I wanna piggyback that too, though, the city's investing in maintaining Yeah. Yeah. Quite a bit, which is good. And that's instead of letting it dilapidate or or degrade over years. Yeah. They're good really good.

Well, they also they

also care what the citizens think with the surveys that we do and stuff like that. Yeah. Getting feedback. And as a resident, you feel like it's it's actually listening to

you. Mhmm.

And thanks for that glass half full perspective because nobody likes construction and nobody likes detours, but it is that sign that we're investing in the things that are gonna make for a thriving community. You know? So

I appreciate it. It's not up there, but it was implied in some of what y'all said, I would agree. The city's pretty good at communicating with this. They're you know, say what you will about stuff that comes out that developments or the center stage thing from a few years back or whatever. Right? There's obviously disagreement on pros and cons of different things. But I don't think there's ever been a lack of well, at least not recently, a lack of communication and transparency from the city, which I think is pretty remarkable. Mhmm.

Okay. Anything else now? We're gonna save this. I'm gonna revisit it soon.

So I'm gonna throw one out there, community, just kind of feedback. It's it's our citizen engagement. That that's that's one of the things that's worked out really well. It's to your points of we hear from you and we try to respond, but because when and staff always finds it sometimes cuts a little bit the other way, but we hear quickly about what the citizens want and what they expect, and we're able to react because of that instead of hoping we're doing the right thing. So when we do take the the survey seriously, but also the Facebook feedback, all of that Mhmm. And recognize how important that is in making decisions. And it ends up being a really good strength because we know instantaneously if we're heading in the right direction or not.

And I think also good at not overreacting to things not over correcting for things like that. Citi seems good about, look, this is our strategy. This is our vision. We can debate the flop every few years or whatever, but we know where we're trying to get. And we we seem to do a pretty good job of trying to box what we're what we do with alignment to that strategy. Which is a nice sort of source of stability and maintains the character and direction of the city.

Well, thanks, everyone. Any last thoughts? No? Okay.

You're welcome.

Alright. Thanks for the feedback. Okay. The next thing we're gonna do is something that Tag and I worked up, and it is our peer city assessment. Okay.

So what this is is we're looking at cities that are a little bit more apples to apples with color than some of the cities that we sometimes get compared to. So TAG did a lot of research and found several cities that are similar to us and that maybe they don't have a major highway going through it. Maybe, you know, not a body of water or something substantial like that so that we can really come look at cities that are more like us and build a network, a peer city network. And I can tell you that I called a few of those cities, and they were very responsive and called back and are very willing to have that as a resource of being peers to each other. So what we wanted to show you today is an example of one of these cities, and then we wanna ask you we're gonna email you some of those cities tomorrow with some questions.

And wanna ask that you maybe reach out to some of those cities so we can really kind of beef up this network of of similar cities to us. We also the main thing we wanna understand is what have they done that didn't work that where we could look at maybe not doing something that didn't work, but also what have they done well. And so I kinda wanna walk you through a quick just some research that I did on Brentwood, Tennessee. That was one of the cities that Tagg and I talked about. You're gonna see their demographics are very, very similar to Keller.

So a suburb of Nashville, just like we are a suburb of DFW. The population is very similar. I'm assuming now about 2025 is probably really close to ours as well. Pretty high median household income, 91% owner occupied, and this one really stuck out to me. Referred to us an ideal place to raise a family.

And in talking with their assistant city manager, we have a lot of similarities. There are some differences. I'm sure most of you have heard of Brentwood, so there are some some differences. But as far as zoning and demographics, it matches pretty closely. Now something where I looked at, you know, kinda looking at the citizen surveys, what citizens are asking for and seeing that Brentwood has a lot of those large retailers like the HomeGoods of the world and the Chewy's and the, you know, the Frisco's.

That's something that I asked their their staff. You know, your demographics are so similar to ours. How how did you recruit those businesses? And they just like us, they have a pretty healthy locally owned, you know, small businesses as well that they value and you need to have as a foundation for a city. But some of these larger retailers, I just kinda wanted to to know more of how they got those.

And here are some of the I did not save my notes. But here's some of the things that they that they told me. So they've really focused on class a office space. And Nashville has a really strong health care scene, so they're really trying to capitalize on that. So what kind of healthcare businesses can they recruit to Brentwood to really complement what's going on in Nashville?

Now, something that's happening there is that some of those class a offices that they recruited while ago have now become class b, class c. So they're going into redevelopment, which is a whole new thing for them. And one of you mentioned this, one of their challenges that they are seeing is that now with redevelopment, the parking requirements are getting a little bit tricky, and it's become a little bit of an impediment to them just because years ago, something else was approved with different parking requirements. The number one thing that they told me is why Brentwood has had a lot of success is their schools. They said that their schools are the they their words not mine.

They said it's the best private school education you can get through the public school system. And people move from all over the country for their schools, which is something that we literally just mentioned here as well. So they said that businesses come to them because their schools are so great. And they also said, you know, they're very they're very strict with their their long term land use planning and zoning. And something else that you just mentioned, Ashley, is that they said, you know, their their investment in their infrastructure infrastructure and really staying ahead of it.

So a lot of similarities, which is encouraging that we're, you know, reaching out to them to be a peer city. Some of the questions that I ask them are these questions, and this is what I would encourage you to ask as you're reaching out to some of the cities that we're gonna that we're gonna send to you tomorrow. And don't feel like you're tied to these. I'm sure you'll have other questions. Something that I'm really interested in as well is when you speak to someone, asking them if there's somebody else that we should also be speaking to. So maybe you're speaking to a city manager, but maybe they could put you in touch with their chamber of commerce so we can get kind of lots of different contacts and and ideas from different people.

You can always all different cities so we all won't contact the same city and Yeah. Talk the

same person. We'll have you guys kinda, you know, call dibs on on the different cities.

Just just a quick question. I'm I'm not totally familiar with Brentwood. Mhmm. But how is it situated with other suburb cities around it?

Yes. Good question. So they are about fifteen minutes south of Downtown Nashville. But if you keep driving so Downtown Nashville, Brentwood, and then Franklin is their neighbor to the south. Franklin is my understanding is kind of like the South Lake, you would say.

A lot of country stars live in Franklin.

Yes. Like it's So and they do share a shopping center, a gallery at type shopping center where part of it and this is what they told me on the film. Part of it is in Brentwood, part of it in Franklin. So they're they do compete with their neighbor where they're kind of a little bit less I think Franklin is even a higher income type community.

I would I would just in comparison, I would put us in a situation where we're located on the South Of Franklin Mhmm. Where we're even further away from the city center.

And there's

just so many more demographics in between us and the city center. And I think part of where they're located in between Nashville and Franklin is one of the reasons why they can manage getting some of these larger retailers and restaurants to locate in Brentwood because of that.

Sure.

They're a little closer to the main city center, but they're also wedged in between a really good demographic with Franklin. So it's it's better a little bit better advantage than we have. But

Yeah. How many houses Brent would have?

No. I don't look at that.

I would look

at that also because of the proximity to Downtown Nashville hotels, but also Airbnb's. Because I know I have a friend who's moved from California to Franklin, and he bought three Airbnb's out there.

To help

support his move because of the proximity to Downtown Nashville. So I'd just be curious to see how that would change people coming into the city and driving revenue in.

Tag, anything you wanna add to that?

No. I think these are awesome. And I you hit on some very key things, and and I think that whole I I wrote down the quote about the the best private education is available in the public schools. I think that's a very catching way to characterize something.

Say it, it's a tagline. Yeah.

It's a I think it's a great tagline for, because it's it's, not an unknown that when you have like they do. And I don't know what our current statistics are, but when we did the the fluff update in 2018, 84% of our homes were occupied by families. And they're at a higher percentage. They're more of a a bedroom community. But that is the number one draw to a place to live is what's what's the education like.

Yeah. And and what are those schools like? So I I was I was very pleased to hear that. I wanna steal it. So

That's the whole point of the network.

That's right.

Mhmm. Outside of economic development, do we have like a sister cities or some initiative like that? Do we We

we looked at doing it. We never really followed through.

Yeah. But I need to look back at that. This should be an international sister city.

That's international. Okay.

But we do we do have some internal, like, within Texas benchmark cities we look at. Right. But I don't know that we've ever really looked at from perspective of economic development. It's more just, you know, they're at this pod these metrics, how do they how do they handle things? I think this is taking a different view of it and saying, hey. The these cities may you know, they're meeting our demographics, but how did they achieve the balance they needed and the growth they needed?

I I look at it as just it's mining for gold. You know, if we can find that one little gold nugget that helps us create some direction did they say anything about what didn't work? Did they identify anything that didn't work well?

You know, he said he said the only challenge was the the fact that back in the day, they didn't plan for parking like they should have for now. But he said other than that

We don't worry too much about that around here. Okay. And we don't have a council member that harps on that kind of thing at all. So

Anyway, that is it for that. We will send a follow-up to all of you tomorrow, you know, with questions. And and tag even did the legwork of finding contacts for each of the cities. So thank you for that tag.

Well, I there's a lot more out there and because I didn't finish the project. We kinda set it on a sideline a couple years ago. Mhmm. And I thought this was a great opportunity to kinda revive it, see if it yields anything. Mhmm.

And if if our exercises don't show that we're we're picking up anything because the the retail that they showed, I mean, there wasn't really anything unique about any of that. We've we've seen a lot of that come and go in centers around us. So I I look at everything that same way is it's like, it's like going to a conference. You know, it's not a waste of time if you walk away with that one gold nugget that helps you do something better. And and I I'm all about that.

How many how many cities do you have other than Brentwood?

It's quite a bit.

I think I've got maybe a dozen on that one page, and and, there's bunch more to get through. So I've got in addition to all this other stuff going on, I've I've gotta get you that data so that you can kinda go through. It it's easy to identify population and proximity to a metropolitan area. The tough thing is to then go in and and dig in to do they have freeways freeways running through it. Do they have, you know, some kind of destination already there like a lake or a river or mountains or, you know, some kind of resort thing and weed those out so that, or a huge college around. A lot of our size cities are college towns.

Mhmm.

So it it that's the challenging part because it nobody collects all that data to say, alright, here we can weed it down and and maybe there is a tool out there. I don't know, man. Ask Chad GPT. Yeah.

Tell tell her about Keller and

say there are

cities that meet

Find me the city. Yeah. That's a great idea.

Actually, I sent you an email yesterday with some of that data. So check your email and maybe share with them.

See, I knew you guys were smarter than me when I get there. So so, yeah, I I think that's awesome is why don't ask AI, pull up some of these other things and see if we can streamline it a little bit? Because I think once once you identify them, then you can kinda go through and you because like what you picked up, what's the household income? There's a lot of cities that are about our size, but their household income may be half of what ours is. We're not gonna track the same kind of things. So yeah. Lot of data to get through.

Yes. So more more to come on that.

Thank you. Do we have an economic development update?

We do. Perfect. And this was the update from earlier this month with city council. So we had four new businesses in March, One being triple a cafe in 1540, Halfway Suite 130, and that was the Cindy Pig. So that's why it's filled. Also, splashing in a squad

Has anybody been there, by the way, Triple a? Yeah. I saw it.

They just

opened. Yeah. Saw their signs out. Yeah. Like a

Last week?

Yeah. Recently. I just hadn't had a chance to get in there.

I went to the little star cafe that opened.

Oh, yeah. I've been there been there one. I've heard

good things about it. How was your experience?

Yeah. It's good. Good. It's good. We got some creative menu items.

Where's that one located at?

And some you need coffee. I've never seen that coffee.

Center stage.

And then, Splishin' Out and Splashin' Pools on 2000 Whitley Road. Sweet Frog was on that list that opened, 101 Town Center Lane. Texas front porch, which is 255 South Main Street, and so that's a women's clothing boutique. We have some interesting things on there. Overall, that brings the count to 38 c o's that have been issued through the March, and then 16 new businesses for the year.

Just an update on an incentivized project, which is Cafe Medi on 129 Olive Street. So they had a facade improvement grant, and the deadline was May 7. So they've completed everything. So they're done. We submitted that to finance, so we should be issuing reimbursement soon. Just a slice of interest, Big Lots 1580 Keller Parkway. So we've received received some interest, at that location and a permit came through. So essentially, they're just, as far as, like, temporary utilities, just to clean it up and get the property ready for showings. As far as other activities, so small business week is May. We're excited about that.

And as you may be aware, many of you have been on board for a while. It's a week long scavenger hunt. We use the Goose Chase app where teams just earn points and those current points turn into entries. Businesses have donated prizes so far. We have 36 businesses signed up to participate, and we have recently opened sign ups for teams.

So, hopefully, anyone listening can get your team signed up. We open that April 15. And then the next update is restaurant week, which will be July 28 through August 3. So the last meeting with the task force that we had scheduled was April 7, and then we opened registration to businesses on on April 13, and we'll begin promotion to the public in May. And that's all

I have.

Is is the Big Lots property gonna be for sale or for lease?

I believe it's gonna be for lease.

Yeah. So they're that would That's a

it's a debotti prop property, ain't it?

I believe so. Yeah.

They own that whole shop.

So Big Lots bundled their leases in an auction, and so someone bought the leases as part of that. So but we've seen some interest in that. We told the group that has it is willing to kind of parcel out each lease individually. So we've had we've had some entertainment, family entertainment interest in that. So, hopefully, we can

Just some by there too?

Next to that, the

Tuesday morning. Tuesday

So those are under construction right now,

Well, having two two entertainment places like that side by side would be good Yeah. Good draw for both for Synergy.

And then restaurant week. I can't remember. Is that a Keller restaurant week,

or is

that the same time

as Fort Worth or Dallas?

No. It's gonna be a Keller restaurant week. I don't know if they I'm sure I don't know if they picked the dates. Maybe they have for DFW. So that was something you start with Mary, and that's gonna be paired with open rewards as well. So with Blue Dot, we're planning to launch that about the same time to promote and just have restaurants only for those two months. And then down the line, hopefully open up for all businesses, you know, short promotions throughout the year, depending on funds available left from this current one.

I've been to that sweet frog about half a dozen times already. Highly recommended if you haven't been there. Just stay out of my way.

And you should have got an email probably this afternoon. Mad Mexican has scheduled the ribbon cutting for next week, the thirtieth. Okay. Okay. Literally, he emailed me that I was going in there for lunch today and

he filled out his paperwork. So he's

he's been working with Ashley, actually. Yeah.

That's

okay. So yeah. So April 30 is Mad Mexican restaurants. We're looking.

It's 04:30 now. I usually like to check it on Tuesday because it usually Monday is when

you send it. Yeah. Anyway, that would but that was last minute. Yeah. We usually try to

give a couple weeks notice, but

that was literally, like, once you get it dead. Try before Cinco de Mayo.

Mhmm. That puff bread taco.

Oh, the fluffy taco?

Yeah. Did you

see the video on that? Yeah.

Oh, I I

got a

chance to eat.

I went firsthand. Yeah.

It was good. So good. They've been fun to work with. Very Yeah. Very great couple. Yeah.

But thank you for bringing that up because I want I want us to try as much as possible to either wear our badge or wear our shirt and show up at ribbon cuttings. It's, creates a lot more energy when there's a lot more of us there.

We have badges and shirts?

Vagines? We don't need no such thing.

Or it could be like me where, you know, two other council members said they were gonna show up at a ribbon cutting. It was a ribbon cutting for a women's health thing. And I'm the only guy within 40 miles of it.

So I didn't really notice it until you pointed out. And I was like, There was you were like token man.

I was. And but I texted the other council members who who told me they were gonna be there and said, thanks for just abandoning me here. So anyway, I just wanna encourage everybody if you can to to make it to those. So pay attention to those emails and put it on your calendar and try to try to swing by. Means a lot to the business owners even if you are the only guy in the whole place.

So They really appreciate anybody from the city council.

Yeah. Yep. They do. So

alright. Anything else? Any other comments, questions?

Welcome, Keller.

Thank you.

Welcome back

to Keller.

Yeah. Well,

I guess

I I had one question.

Go. Sure. Go ahead.

This one, Mike.

What is there any update on the center stage, like those three restaurants in the grass park and

and all that? Nothing yet. And I haven't even heard if there's any more talk about it. They're, they're starting the single family development part of it. The guy's looking at me like deer in

the headlight. Did they just do that one again?

Do we have an update here?

No. No. No. At this time.

Okay. I got a feeling construction cost is gonna kill them now. Yeah. I mean, they they may they may have to put it off again for a little while.

So they've continued to indicate that the restaurants are still very much part of the project. Nothing they've told us or believe has indicated they've abandoned that part. But we don't have any type of submittal plans under review.

There's no sense of urgency for

them whatsoever

They to get it have said that, you know, part of what will move that along according to them will be the development of the single family homes that are getting serviced right now. But unfortunately, we don't have anything. Until I have plans in my hand, I'd never like to

I think a year and half where they said once they get full occupancy of the apartments, they'd be able to do the restaurants.

So the apartment occupancy, the less and it's it's been a while since we pulled up, but they were they were over 90% occupied the last time that we requested that information.

And they're they're, like, 80% on their retail upfront, aren't they? Almost 90%?

I think they're over 90 at this point. Okay. There's number the margin, they've they've got finish out permits, and they're not actually open yet. Yeah. But there's a business coming.

Good. And is there there's a an office building that's supposed to be on Mount Gilead there too as well. Right?

That one is up in the air at this point. They they got a site plan approved by council. I guess that was last year? Last year. '23, actually, I think. Was Yeah.

Approved. A little over a year ago.

Yeah. Unfortunately, I think the pediatric doctor's group that was supposed to go in there has has, decided against that that project. So I don't have any concrete details on the status of that right now.

Thank you. Alright. Thank you. We're adjourned.