Community Development Block Grant Committee - Abolished 5.11.2017 - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. We are gonna call this meeting to order at 03:02PM on Wednesday, 04/22/2026. We have one commissioner out. She is excused, and everyone else is present. And we do have corn. I'll take an approval of the minutes from I gave you my sheet that had the date. The last meeting. Right. Fill in the blank. Is there a motion? Motion made by commissioner, Markison, second by commissioner Lee. Any discussion?

I will be abstaining since I was not at that meeting.

Alright. Council president will be abstaining. Seeing no other discussion, all in favor, please signify by saying aye or a raising of a hand. Alright. Any nays? That motion passes. Going to our first agenda item twenty six zero four four six presentation from family friendly workplaces, which the city of La Crosse is one. So I just wanna, you know, to grow our own horn about that. But, Julie?

Yeah. So we've invited I invited Neil Klein, who's the executive director of Family Friendly Workplaces to come here and to present on this topic. He actually I heard him present last month, at the Chamber's workforce innovation series event, and he just does a really excellent job of connecting or shifting demographics to the impact we anticipate it's gonna have on our workforce, things we can do to address that, and, of course, how family friendly communities play into that. So he I did ask him on somewhat short notice, so he's coming, joining us remotely instead of in person, but he's online. So, Neil, if you wanna go ahead and share your screen and get started.

You bet. I will find find my way here. It would not be a modern meeting if someone didn't narrate while they tried to share their screen. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with everyone here today and to present to the commission about family friendly workplaces and and everything that we're up to. I will be brief, and I will move as quickly as I can so that we can try and have time for questions.

You are correct. The city of La Crosse is a certified family friendly workplace. So it's Amplify Health, State Bank Financial, and TrustPoint to name a couple more employers in the La Crosse area that have become certified as a family friendly workplace. I always like to start these presentations out by talking about what we at Family Friendly Workplaces really believe, which is that family is central not only to the individuals that make up those families, but to the communities that are built from those families. And so if we can strengthen family, we have an opportunity to positively impact both sides of that spectrum.

You know, the folks that are in those families and the communities that are built from them. And we work through employers really for two reasons. The first is that employers touch a lot of lives. So if you think about beyond kind of the concept of covered lives in health insurance or something like that, the number of people, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, cousins that are connected to a job, let's just say at the city of La Crosse, is actually pretty big. And so if we can strengthen the benefits that those families receive and strengthen those families, we can impact a lot of folks.

The other reason is because we have a workforce shortage. And so I'm gonna fly through some data that I went through with the chamber to try and help provide some color about that workforce shortage, and I start at the top. So this is a projection of Wisconsin's total population that is developed by the Department of Administration. And you'll notice that in 2020, the Department of Administration projects that Wisconsin's total population will peak and will be in kind of this soft decline through the projection window, is which out into 2050. This is unique for us to be operating in this kind of a demographic environment.

And the the two things that the demographers at DOA look at when they make this pre when they do this forecast is the number of expected births and then the number of expected deaths. So there's not any other evaluation that's included. They're not looking at in or out migration, people moving here or moving away. None of that. Just births and deaths.

And so what I what I would like to do is just zoom in on kind of both ends of that spectrum. And I'm gonna start with this map. This is a DOA map, and what it shows is the percentage of each county's population that is 65 in the year shown. So this is in 2020. So if you look at La Crosse County, the way to read this would be to to see that 17% of La Crosse County's population is gonna be 65 in 2020 or was in 2020.

And for our world, that's relevant because if you're over the age of 65, I joke it's it's feet up and margarita time. Right? It's you are retired in all likelihood. And and you might have a job, you know. There are folks who are over the age of 65 who work or who are picking up a job at Menards or somewhere in their local community, and that's valuable. But broadly speaking, you are not participating in the workforce after 65. And so what we can do is march through time and watch how this plays out across the state. So this is what 2020 looks like. I'm sure folks are focused in La Crosse County, but I encourage you to kinda keep an eye on the broader map. Because as we move to 2030, you'll notice that the state just got a lot older.

And then as we go through 2040 and 2050, that continues. We never really see a change in those numbers. And so if you've ever heard the phrase silver tsunami, this is what folks are talking about, that we are aging rapidly and that that is gonna have profound implications for our local economies, our local workforce. If you're in health care, you probably are paying close attention to this sort of dynamic. And I'd encourage you.

I mean, La Crosse County in 2050, they're projecting about 22% of the population will be in retirement, which is pretty good number. And then if you look across, especially the Northern tier, I'm from Polk County, 34% of our population will be in retirement there. If you're Iron County, nearly half of your population's gonna be in retirement, and it's a shared problem too in Southeastern Wisconsin. So I'm I'm in Northern Wisconsinite. I always like to poke fun at our southern brethren.

But this is a statewide problem that we're gonna have to deal with. That's the aging side of that population equation. The other side are births. And there's really one chart that I use to talk about this, and that's the total fertility rate. So this is again from the Department of Administration, and it shows total fertility, which is essentially the measure of number of babies per woman is how to to interpret this.

The the key distinction here is that if you want a population, again, setting aside migration, so people moving in or out. If you want a population that's naturally sustaining, you need a a fertility rate of about 2.1. My joke is two kids and a wrist. And that is how you naturally sustain a population. We've been below two since 1975 and really took a digger after COVID.

And so when you combine these two things, an older population and less babies, we expect a shrinking population. And for a workforce, we actually look at this specific number. So this is what's called net workforce entrance. And the way that you take this is you take the number of sixty five to sixty nine year olds coming into the labor market in a given year, and you subtract out I'm sorry. You take the fifteen to nineteen year olds coming into the labor market in a given year, so the folks becoming workforce eligible, and you subtract out the sixty five to sixty nine year olds who are leaving, and that gives you this net entrance number.

And I have my color commentary here. In 2030, and this line was based off the 2010 census, we were expecting Wisconsin to add a 129 souls to its statewide workforce, which is really low. You you know, generally jaw on the floor kind of a moment there. Again, that this yellow line was the 2010 census. We had a new census since then.

So that's this blue line is the new net entrance projection for the state based off the 2020 census. I named that super yikes because you'll notice we actually go negative in 2030, which means more people are leaving than entering, which means the workforce is shrinking during that time. I'm gonna leave five minutes at the end for questions. So I'm just buzzing through to try and try and make sure that we can cover this information. This chart, that net entrance number that I was talking about, we have it for every county in the state.

And so what this chart shows is really Western Wisconsin network force entrance. And the way to read this is looking at La Crosse County. That's this red bar here. In 2020, on net, La Crosse County was gonna add a 114 people to its workforce, then a 110, then a 106, then a 147, 188, one zero eight, and then 27 in 2015. This is not a lot of new workers to be bringing into the workforce.

But the other point that I'd make is you are in a region, if you look at all these counties, where they're losing people. And, you know, workers don't stick to the county line. They don't stick to the city limit. They travel for work, and they travel to Minnesota for work, they travel from Minnesota from work. So when you look at this, what this story is really telling us and the take home message is that we have a long term human resources shortage, and we need to be thinking really strategically about what we're gonna do to try and address it.

And so at Family Friendly Workplaces, we've got three different time frames that we use. We've got this immediate term, how do we help you as an employer recruit and retain talent right now. In the medium term and where I'm hoping we can dwell with this group, we're focused on talent attraction. So that's really focused on how how do we become a family friendly community that people wanna move to and family friendly employers. And then over the long term, it's about early childhood.

So just to level set, we run the family friendly workplaces employer certification program. We've got about 80 employers across the state that are certified, including the ones that I mentioned at the start here. And it's really designed the program is designed to address that workforce shortage and to strengthen children and families. In the immediate term, and I'm not gonna dwell on this, our goal is really to help employers with that recruitment and retention. So for the city of La Crosse, for example, helping them strengthen that competitive advantage by attracting new talent and helping them keep the talent they have are the two main focuses.

We have a matrix that we use to evaluate employer benefits and make sure that we're recognizing particularly robust employer employer benefits packages. Again, we can open it up for questions. I'm happy to take the conversation wherever we'd like to once I'm done buzzing through this. In the medium term, we're really focused on that talent attraction piece. And so here, we always like to talk about our BHAG, our big hairy audacious goal.

We want Wisconsin to become known as the premier destination to come to to raise your kids. And so for us, because we work in economic development, we had to make an acronym and a program for that. So we developed the talent attraction partnership. And what we did here is we received a grant from WEDC to go into the Twin Cities market, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the counties that surround it, and they ask people what family friendliness means to them, not only for their workforce but or their workplace, but also for their community. And these are the attributes that people talked about. They talked about a safe community. And when they talk about safe communities, they really weren't talking about crime rates. They were talking about quiet streets that their kids can play out front. They don't have to worry about it. Cars don't drive fast.

You know, that kind of bucolic nineteen eighties cul de sac vibe is what folks were really focused on. The next piece they talked about was engagement. So that's parks, libraries, community sponsored events, those kinds of things. Because when you're a parent with a young kid, you want something that is nearby and free, and you can leave or come and go however however often or frequently you'd like to. And then the last piece is this sense of being welcomed, which is much more of a vibe than anything else, but the idea being, you know, I I own two dogs, and if I ever bring them anywhere, I'm constantly worried they're annoying somebody.

And in our focus groups, parents seem to feel similarly about their young kids, and so they want communities that are welcoming to those kids. After that is our long term, and that's early childhood. And here we really talk about this skills matrix, because the reality is workforce development begins arguably before kids are born and then carries on throughout their life. But this noncognitive foundation for skills is really important for kids, and that's learned early in life. And so I'm not gonna dive into the full explanation here just in light of the time, but for employers, it's really about relationships and making sure and for kids, it's really about relationships and making sure that parents can develop and maintain those strong, stable, and healthy relationships for the kids in their lives.

I'll pause here to acknowledge the people who help keep us going. These are our corporate sponsors, and, otherwise, that's my spiel. That was blindingly quick. So I'm happy to go back to any slides if there are questions. Julie, if there's anything else you'd like me to emphasize for my remarks with the chamber, I'm happy to, but trying to stay on time.

You got anything you wanna add, Julie?

The only thing that stuck out to me that maybe you breezed through, Neil, was the slide with the triangle of the the kids. I just more wanted to highlight that too as far as since this body has been overseeing the city's childcare project too. Neil just talked about too, like, the work that needs to be done to help, especially in their shifting, workforce and the skills that are needing, and we really don't know what's coming down the pipe with AI and everything else and the skills we need. The folks that are coming behind us to be in the workforce and to maybe help keep the wheels going while we're potentially retired someday, that it really requires, you know, the that support in their early years as well. So I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to add to that, Neil.

No. Happy to. And and I did I did a disservice to that portion of this. So this noncognitive skills chart, like I mentioned, workforce development begins before kids are born. And and you can pretty quickly I know a lot of work's been done with the parenting place in La Crosse around childcare, and and it folds in here because these noncognitive skills, so that's resiliency communication, integrity initiative, adaptability, all of those kinds of things.

Employers rely on these skills every day, And the critical reason they matter is that they're learned in early childhood. And by the time you're here in k twelve and we're teaching you those basic skills, if you never learned these noncognitive skills or you never got the foundation of these cognitive skills early in life, it is very hard to teach you these skills in k 12. Let alone the difficulty of teaching you industry specific hard skills. So think of this like higher education. Right?

Our universities and technical colleges are up here. And the way to think about it is if you wanna make me a welder, but I never learned math because I never had the resiliency to get through math class, it's gonna be really hard to make me a welder. And I think as we look out, you know, I I ask folks all the time, how do you think kindergarteners are doing today? And the answer is that they're not doing particularly well. And that is an issue that is gonna reverberate throughout our workforce development system and eventually end up in our local economies.

Because, again, if you never learned these noncognitive skills I mean, Timmy's gonna take your crayon when you're in kindergarten, and he's gonna take your crayon at work. And the ultimate question is how you handle that and whether or not we are able to effectively train you into the jobs that the local economy is gonna have. And so I think this over this long term piece, we think about early childhood. And oftentimes when we talk to employers, you know, they go, oh, I make widgets. What does early childhood have to do with me?

It actually has a lot to do with you because in fifteen years, you're gonna be looking at today's kindergarteners to come work for you. And again, how do we think that they're all doing? So, Julie, hopefully, that kind of emphasizes that point and and drives home that workforce development is not something that we can just leave to education. It's gotta be a lifelong lifelong thing.

Yes. That was great. Otherwise, I thought yeah. You did a great job, Neil. So, yeah, I'll turn it over to the commission for any questions that they have.

Awesome. Thank you. Neil, is it possible for you to provide us, like, a one pager or even this PowerPoint?

Of course. Yes. I will send this PowerPoint, to Julie, and then I also have, like, a trifold brochure which kind of explains the program as well.

Awesome. Thank you very much. Commissioner Markerson.

Hi. Thank you for that because I did miss that original presentation when that was given at the chamber. So just this might be too deep than you can possibly cover in this meeting. But having worked in workforce development now in economic development, the number one question I get, just had it two days ago, is people that need on the job training level skill sets, and talent attraction campaigns are really challenging for those type of employees. And to your point, we have population decline, so focus is on attraction. How do we still cultivate that level of employee that is on the job training and not higher education?

I I think it's a great point, and I and I think as employers interact more with this shortage, it's gonna push them in directions that are new, including to the point that you were making about on the job training and how can employers help support that. I think that so I'm a a trustee at Northwood Tech or Technical College up here. And I think one avenue that I always encourage employers to pay attention to if there are on the job training needs is to look to partner with their local technical college because they're a really great resource for that. I also know that the workforce development boards have wonderful programming that can help employers fill those gaps or provide the kinds of training that they need to to have provided. And in in general, I found, as I've talked with employers, there's not always a great understanding of what workforce development systems are out there and how employers can engage with them.

And and I think that that's an area where workforce development, you know, is always trying to engage with employers as best it can. But it's also an area where I think we at Family Friendly Workplaces recognize that one thing we can help employers with is to say, what's your what's your shortage look like? And, hey. Here are these programs. Here's a program might be able to help you. Because I think oftentimes employers and and by employers, I specifically mean HR, is not always aware of of those programs. Does that kinda address your question, I hope?

It does. Yes. It's a there's no simple solution. That's kind of the answer. It's it's gonna take a lot of different entities to try to address all the workforce shortages. So, yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions from commissioners? Council president.

I'm really curious as to why there's that wide band of aging population in the Northern part of Wisconsin. Can you explain that?

I will do my darndest. It really I'll just leave it here, I think, as a good kind of visual. So the way that this data is calculated is it's just looking at the number of people who will be 65 at the time. So, really, it's it's a function kind of of median age. And the that northern tier of counties, which, you know, my home county would be in, is they've just got an an a population that skews older.

And I think maybe one way to try and help it's not really an explanation about, like, why are they older necessarily. I don't have an answer for that. They're just older as a percentage basis than other counties in the state. One of the counties that always interest me actually is Trempelo County here because they're actually, I think, the best performing county in the state in this metric. They even beat Dane County, which is pretty unusual to beat Dane County in any kind of demographic metric.

And and the reason that Trempelo County would be this low would be one of two things. Either there are not a lot of old people in Trempelo County, or the state is expecting that there's going to be a lot of babies in Trempelo County. And so the reverse of that is what would create the situation you have up here in Iron County. There are not gonna be a lot of babies in Iron County, and there are already a lot of old people in Iron County. Does that kinda help? It's really kind of a function of how they how they develop the number, but hopefully that kind of sheds a little more light.

Thank you.

Seeing no other questions. Neil, thank you very much for coming and doing this presentation. This is very informative. Also, if you could do me a favor when you go around the state, just tell everybody to move to lacrosse. We appreciate that.

We, we try to tell everybody. Every sometimes I'll talk to folks. They're like, don't tell anybody. It's really great. And I'm like, well, you need some folks. So I'll I'll make sure I I'll take the show on the road for you.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Alright. Moving to

our next thank you. Moving to our next agenda item twenty six zero four three four, recap of BLACK's ARPA funded project to support small business owners. Julie?

Yep. And so just a quick reminder on this one. BLACK received an award from the city for $50,000 that was through the city's ARPA funded RFP that went out for small business organizations to support small business owners. DMI came previously and gave a recap for this commission regarding projects that they did with their funding, so black's here today to share about theirs.

And if you don't know, black stand for black leaders acquire collective knowledge, so throw that out there. Please state your name and municipality.

Alright. So this is Terrell Mallett. I'm in Alaskan and with the deep program. Well, I'll try to get you there.

And I'm Antwana Williams, executive leader of Black and La Crosse. I live in La Crosse.

Good to go? Okay. So I wanna just maybe back up and kinda well, see some friendly faces. Nice to see you, commissioner Markinson. So what some of the goals for the program was to really get some funding to folks that are usually underserved in our communities. So going back to programs and businesses that were affected mostly by the pandemic was kinda where this program had had started. So we have a PowerPoint today. Just like to walk through kind of a update on where we are today and as this program is finalized and kinda finished its first version of it. So we can step to the next slide here. And, Julie, appreciate you helping us get this prepared today.

So alright. So, yeah, I mean, the overview again, kind of the program. We got $50 from ARPA to try to work through and had doubled with the program that's already being served through WL. They had some of the source information. We're able to partner with them in programs that have worked in the past and brought some new participants that wouldn't usually get, access to these programs.

So a general overview, we had 30 businesses between the two different cohorts. About half of them have, finished all the requisites for the program. And with that, we're able to give some grant funds out to these businesses to either help with start up costs. If they need a place for rent, they have some things that they were able to utilize these fundings for, and then also get plugged into some other programs that are around in the community as we worked with other nonprofit organizations to help out. So that's kind of the overview for this. And I wanted to highlight a couple different businesses while we're here today. So if we could

He's on the tool. Yeah.

So we could go to the next slide here. Yeah. So we've got in this last eighteen to twenty four months, we've had about 30 businesses that have come through. What that's looked like is they go through a six week program. We cover things like marketing. We bring in an attorney. We bring in a a lawyer. Everyone that they're gonna need their corner to help with their business journey, whether they're just starting or been in a business for a couple years. So my background is in banking, so I got to help with a lot of the financial numbers for the organizations as they were trying to figure out what kind of records do we need to keep. So we're talking people that had either never worked through, you know, balance sheets and and financials all the way to, hey.

We've done this for a couple years. We just need to add to what we're doing. So within that, we were able to give out grants that were around 1,300 to 2,000 depending on the number of participants per the cohorts that we had, and then we also were able to assist six startups. Go to the next one. So you'll just see a couple pictures here of some of the folks that have partaken. We will dive a little bit deeper into the gentleman holding the camera, Thomas, there. But as you can see, we have a few folks from the SBDC that joined and helped with the program and really facilitated some of these as well. So special thanks to CWL and their program. Could go to the next one. Perfect.

So, yeah, Thomas Nichols, he's the CEO and founder of Viscorix. So it's I'll I'll just kind of explain this product here. So think about your camera. You can take photos, you can take videos, but it's not in three d. Everyone is talking about these meta goggles. You put this huge thing over your head, and you're able to see, you know, the full three sixty view. So that's what his camera allows you to do. It's a plug in device to your phone and something that's not available out there in the space. He's doing it for about $200 a camera, where comparable software is, like, $4,000. So he's really found a great way to do that.

And he's actually having a soft opening. I'll give him a quick plug on May 2 for anybody that wants to know more about what he's doing. So that's Thomas Nichols, and he's been doing this here and started and founded right here in our La Crosse area. So we'll do one more. And maybe Antoine, you can help me with this one a little bit too, but everyone's familiar with with with Mia. She's done a great job with her kitchen. Somebody that started here locally, had a dream, wanted to get a food truck, and has turned it into much more than that. She ran through the program with us and is obviously doing a great job with everything she's got going on. Did you wanna add anything to this one, Antoine, before we continue?

If you can hear me hopefully, you can hear me people online too. But the the big component of this is this is not the only funding, that Mia received. But because she came through our program, wanted to highlight her success just because I know everybody sees the pink truck around town. So, this is one of the the ways that we've benefited with helping with the community. I think the last presentation, this is a reason why people stay because they have support.

So as you all continue to do the good work that you're doing, just remember that sometimes people need a little bit of help that may not necessarily come to them easy. So we appreciate the support, but we wanted to highlight this this was just two visual presentations that were easy. I went through the program before I took over Black. I have a small business on the North Side. I was able to benefit from this program as well to upscale my inventory.

Sometimes people don't know with vendor, inventory, there's a set amount of money that you have to come up with in order to scale up your business. For me in the beauty industry, it's about $3,000 to bring in a new vendor. So if you wanna stay relevant, you have to bring in new, inventory to be able to do so. So I'm also, living proof how this program benefited me as well.

And then, yeah, we'd love to just open it up for any questions, and appreciate everybody's, you know, time this afternoon, and thanks for inviting us to go through the program details and highlights.

Thank you very much. Any questions from commissioners? Commissioner Markerson.

Thank you for that, and congrats on assisting those businesses. And it'll be exciting to watch them grow. My question for you is so this was onetime dollars. How will you continue this type of programming, or is are there plans to continue?

Give us more dollars. I was talking to Terrell about this. I think it's beneficial that we would love to do a deep two, to continue those relationships, one with the businesses that we've already helped. Some people, the timing wasn't right. I think 50% success rate with this program where, you know, 30 something thousand dollar direct support, that's what you wanna see with grants.

Right? You want that direct linkage to the people. So we're gonna continue to look for more grants. As you all know, Black is a nonprofit, in this economy right now. Getting additional support funding, is always a challenge, I think, just across the board for everybody.

I'm sure Terrell and I will continue to come up with ways, as as well as the rest of the board to continue to scale up. As a entrepreneur myself, I believe this. I think I just mentioned in a meeting we were in, we talk about population. I'm a pre college girl, so used to be upper bound director years ago, and I believe the children are our future. So if we want these programs to last, we have to teach them the tools like we're teaching the adults.

So we can't forget about that population as well. So with our youth empowerment, we've done some of that, in the past where we've taken our students on trips, focusing on entrepreneurship as one, science and technology as another. So we're gonna continue to come up with creative ways to make sure those touch points that's crucial for our community that we're providing and leading those educational efforts.

Thank you. Any other questions?

I'd like to add to that real generally. So, one of the things that we brought up in each of the meetings that we had with our cohort was the other partners that are, helpful in the areas. We had groups from Coolie Cap in the past. We had, Wibbit come through. We had a ton of other community support that's, given their resources to the team that we've been working with. Yeah. And SCORE has been a big partner. For those who don't know, mentors that are in previous business experience that have either retired or decided to share their knowledge with their receptive, business lines have partnered with a ton of our businesses that have gone through the program, and they keep an ongoing relationship. So our goal is just to make sure that folks have the support that they need, whether it's through our programs or things that are already happening in the community.

I didn't forget to mention, it's been great working with Julie. Yeah. Hey. But when I wanna know something, guess what? Who did who did I who did I email Julie? And she got back to me with who I needed to connect to. But the other part that in that relationship, the city contracted with RevB. I've been out ill, so I haven't been able to connect with, Michael, the CEO. But for me, that's the step. It's not always about the grants.

It's also, like Terrell said, I just wanna reemphasize that. We're doing a lot of amazing things in lacrosse, but sometimes we don't know that people are doing amazing things. And so how do we continue to market, and get in front of a demographic that maybe you wouldn't otherwise work with? And that's that's everybody's responsibility. I shouldn't have to always go out and seek.

Sometimes people should seek us, because that's the only way this community is gonna continue to thrive. So, if you have resources, I know you got a workforce development entrepreneur background too. We've never connected, but I know you, in a, like, third party kinda situation. But now you know. I was in a meeting on Friday, didn't know about the Cooley Regent Center business center.

John reached out to me after that meeting being in that meeting. So there, we can do some good stuff, maybe centralize it a little bit more. We're a little bit disjointed as a outsider looking in. So if that's what the economic development committee could assist with, I think it will be a phenomenal thing for our community.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions from commissioners? The question I have is so recognizing the completion rate's great. For the folks that don't complete, what type of connection do you maintain with those individuals? Do you provide them with other resources, etcetera?

Yeah. So I've mentioned with everybody that I've talked to about the programs that I'm available to them whenever they need me. So whether they completed the program or not, I've stayed in contact, and I actually visit some of the businesses that are, open and active. As far as, like, a touch point, you know, I'm reaching out probably quarterly at this point just to stay in touch. And as we know, if there's more funding available for a deep two, that will be part of the consideration is reaching back out to those folks. Because like Antoine said, some of it was just timing, you know, kinda when we were open to doing the schedule of classes, so that might have played a part.

Thank you for mentioning that.

And then, mayor Washington inspired me. The other component of that that we hear too is about placement. So you laughing. I gotta do it. The formal. You know, being able to place your business somewhere is a over alarming concern for our constituents too. The cost to get a brick and mortar space is not feasible for startups. Sometimes it's not feasible for existing businesses. And so that's another piece that I know has been a concern for some of our participants. And then when they go through the program, they don't realize.

They think they have this great big plan, and then it knocks them down a couple levels to say, okay. I've really got some things that I have to work on, that I didn't think about before. So, whatever is the next step, that's where black and other organizations in the community will try to help. I did talk to someone the other day that's saying it would be nice to have more kinda incubator space, in the city for startups. Not necessarily.

Some people don't wanna be downtown, but other places throughout the community, especially if they wanna do food. They the one place on the North Side, I don't know the actual name of that. But That's the CRBC. Okay. So that's the c. Then never made the connection. I was like, go over to Viaduct. Turn the corner. You know? But more spaces like that is what I'm hearing people talk about because it allows for a unique experience to really determine if this is something they wanna do.

Yeah. Thank you for that. That's that's definitely conversations we're having within the city hall as well. Any other questions? So, you know, thank you all very much. Thank you for the work that you're doing and keep it up. Appreciate it.

Thank you. And, again, thank you for the funding opportunity.

See you.

Have a good day.

See you. Alright. Our next item, twenty six zero four four four, introduction of TIF applicant, Bridgeview Plaza developer, Eagle Bay Properties LLC. Julie.

Yes. So a few weeks ago, we received a net tip application from, Eagle Bay Properties LLC for, their redevelopment project at Bridgeview Plaza. So I was gonna invite Jacob, Jake Buswell. We've seen him here before with other projects they've done in La Crosse to kinda share about what they're planning. And then in the meantime, of course, we're working through the review and the analysis on the TIF request. So he's just here just to give you give you an intro of just the overall project and what they're planning for that site.

Thank you, Julie. As she said, I'm Jake Buzzall with, Eagle Bay Properties, also Three Amigos, Property Management. And this first slide is just an image looking north from the, with your back towards, Harbor Freight, the existing Harbor Freight building. Next slide. So a little overview about us.

As Julie mentioned, we have been here before and appreciate the ECDC support in our previous project, worry goal that's going on right now. Three Amigos is a multifamily mixed use developer and property management company headquartered right here in La Crosse, Onalaska, Wisconsin. We have an extensive resume of of building and renovating multifamily housing properties over about forty years. We've developed thousands of units, some of which we we own today and some of which we've developed for other, investors. Over the past six years, Three Amigos has competed, completed anywhere from a 150 to 250 units per year throughout Wisconsin.

We have developed current developments in La Crosse, Sauk, Winnebago, and Sheboygan Counties with hundreds of of units currently in our pipeline. Last year, Three Amigos comp completed 202 units. And this year, calendar year 2026, we expect to complete 225 units and over 25,000 square feet of commercial space. And within that count, includes the War Eagle Building. Again, thank you, ECDC, for your support in that project.

Our entire portfolio, consists of approximately a 1,400 to 1,500 apartment units and a 150,000 square feet of commercial space, of which we we own and manage, with a a a staff of about 25 to 30 team members today. So this next slide is an overview of the the proposal for for Bridgeview. Really, this is the, this area of is I'm sure you're all aware of. It's, the kind of the gateway to lacrosse. One of my partners previously told me he's he said that there's three ways in and out of La Crosse, and two of them pass right by the site, Rose Street and, George Street.

So, really, kinda one of the themes or the goals is to really enhance the curb appeal of of the overall north side, of the site plan and and making it connected connected to the to the Hickey Park area as well as, the Eagle, watch area, making it walkable, bikeable, and making it flow better from from north to south. So the first phase is, outlined in yellow, if you can see that. The first phase will be the 101 unit building in the yellow dash, and then the second phase would be the red dash line, which would be another 100 unit building right along, Rose Street. And then also highlighted in blue is a a to be determined, a potential third phase, of the development, on the north side of the property. So so for the, phase one, development next slide.

Yeah. The first step will really be demoing the existing structure. So right now, from from the southern wall of Blue Zone to the northern wall of Harbor Freight would be demolished. And, and we that's where we'd we'd build up our, first 101 unit building. With phase one, we would also be improving the entire east side of the property line, which goes from, Palace Street Street on the South all the way to McDonald's Place on the North.

The utility connections are along the South towards Hickey Park, most likely that that'll come into the project, so it makes sense for us to improve the site along that entire eastern property line at that time. And these below images so the, bottom left image is, looking south there. You can kinda see in the lower left the blue the existing Blue Zone facility, And then the lower right image is kind of the inverse of that looking straight north with, you got Harbor Freight on your right hand side. Phase one continued here. So within the 101 unit building, there'll be 94 interior parking stalls and then four stories of apartments above.

There'll also be additional, 60 surface stalls. Of the 101 units, there'll be forty two one bedroom units, twelve one bedroom plus den, 42 bedroom units, and seven three bedroom units. Also, the, first phase, we intend on doing here, we intend on repurposing about 25,000 square feet of the existing Blue Zone space. So really taking about six to seven Blue Zone courts and then making storefront commercial spaces along the, western frontage of of the existing Blue facility. So on the lower image here, you can see on on the far left is the existing, Lee Bakken store.

And then kind of in the, middle there, you see the Blue Zone. And then where it says existing retail center, That whole middle section would come down, and the far right building, is the Harbor Freight building. So you'd see you'll see the four new commercial space with store frontage, will be repurposed as part of a Blue Zone space. We'll be moving some existing, an existing tenant to that space as well as, we have a a a new tenant that that will occupy that space as well. And here are a couple renderings again.

So the bottom left image would be looking Northeastern, at the at the Phase 1 Building as well as the plaza area between the two buildings. In the lower right image, would have your would be with your back to, Rose Street. So you'd be looking Southeast, at the Blue Zone Building and in the distance, the the Phase 1 Building. And then for, Phase 2 would be the 100 unit building right along, Rose Street, and that will also feature 95 interior stalls. That building will comprise eight studio units, forty two one bedrooms, four one bedroom plus dens, thirty eight two bedrooms, and eight three bedroom units.

There's also approximately 2,000 square feet of new commercial space that'll be added to the north end of the building where it's, says signage on the building, if you can see that from where you're sitting. And I'll I'll also along, during phase two, we will finish the the plaza area between the two buildings. We'll need to, do that towards the end of development so that we're not, ruining the nice landscaping we intend on developing. And this image is is, looking south. So this image is the northern wall of the Phase 2 Building.

There's another rendering as well. So this view is looking southwest at the Phase 2 Building, so with your back, to, the existing Blue Zone Building. And And then slide here. This view is looking basically directly east with with you. Let's see.

You're stay both standing in Rose Street looking east on this rendering. And then the final image here is, also on Rose Street, but on the kind of the southern end of the property looking northeast towards that phase two building along Rose Street. I guess that's kind of what I had. In general, we're just excited about the project and hope to move forward as soon as possible. We should have plans wrapped up here in the next couple of months or so on our phase one, and, yeah, just looking forward to moving forward. If there's any questions anyone has?

Thank you very much for being here. Any questions from commissioners? Cost me commissioner Barker Center.

Thank you. It's exciting to see the designs and to see you back here. The original plan was just kind of a facade improvement, so this has come a long way from that initial conversation. It's exciting to see this for the North Side. That is a key gateway project. My question is the former gas station to the south, has there been conversations of incorporating that into this plan?

I know going back a number of years, one of my partners, Rick, had reached out to QuikTrip owns that site. I know he tried to acquire it. I'm not 100% on, where the the rubber hits the road there. It didn't happen, of course, but I owe a dollars thing or it's, I'm not sure if there's potential issues with content with, you know, gas being a gas station as well, so there's complications there. So, yeah, don't have the best answer for you there, but, I know that was looked into, years

ago. Yep. Councilmember Goggin.

Hi. I'm a council member on the North Side, so thumbs up. Yes. I'm very excited to see this, and I'm, again, excited to see where you were to where you're going now. And just looking at

the

renderings, I'm very I know a lot of times we talk about how many apartments and, but I'm very encouraged that you're looking at the aesthetics too of what this will look like to not only people driving by as a gateway, but as the people who live and dwell on the North Side. It's it looks to me at this point like this is gonna be something that we can be proud of. And I I really can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you.

I I would ditto that. I'm excited about this. The, questions I have so I know at one of the design reviews, I remember listening, and I know there are some questions from the city around, like, right of way, those city bus, and some, like, utility stuff. Have you all figured that out already, or are we still kinda working through that?

Yeah. Actually, we have a meeting next week, hopefully, with, Matt Gallagher and, yeah, our civil engineer to work through some of the utility issues. My understanding is it's not too far. So the water connection and sewer, I believe, is just south right where Hickey Park is. Okay. So that's likely where it will come in to service the the property. Did you bring a bus, the transit? Yeah. Yeah. So that was discussed as well going back a number of months ago, and it was, oh, I can't remember the who's on?

Planning department who who said, looked into it. Well, I met with MTU as well, but, they ultimately decided that it they're able there's a stop right at Hickey Park that will end up being to serve service this site.

Okay.

Yeah. I know right now it goes right through the property, but I think it was discussed that, the opinion was that the Hickey was close enough relative to the new construction to where that stop would service the the site.

Gotcha. Okay.

I don't if you have anything to add to that, Julie.

No. I just think overall, obviously, like, my the main role that I have is helping to facilitate the tip assistance, but also helping move the other pieces of the project along. So there are conversations being had with our engineering department. We had multiple conversations with MTU as well to figure out what is possible. This is a challenge site for a number of reasons, as far as what it will take to get to development the soil needs just being one major one. So just trying to figure out how we can match our hopes and dreams as close to the reality of the variables and the resources we have in play. So there's multiple staff that have been working with the city staff and trying to help get this project moved along.

Yeah. That's that's a good point there. So the water table is two feet below grade right now, so that'll be a a big challenge for the development. And, the the soil conditions are a lot of organics underneath. We had soil borings done, and so it'll require it'll actually a very similar condition as River Point Okay. Project. It'll be there'll be geo piers that are deep within the soils to support the foundations.

So Gotcha. The only other thing I think about, only because we're having this issue right now with another development, when talking to the resident have you you haven't made it that far yet. Talking to residents about, like, heights of buildings and all that stuff. We're not there yet. Right? No. Alright. I don't think it's a concern as I'm thinking about, like

Like, the houses. Yeah.

To the Like, you know, people like their view of the river. And so then I'm like, is will this become a point of contention for for some residents? I don't foresee it. But

I I mean, the existing building already blocks all the houses to the east. So don't

We're good to go. Think they're Yeah. Never mind, man. Let's forget that. Commissioner Barker Singh. Yes.

I apologize if you had this in there. I was googling over the pictures. So is there a timeline?

I don't think there's

a timeline in there, but, we're ready to go really soon here. So the only thing that's gonna hold us up, frankly, is is the city entitlement process here. So, our architect's been kind of on it since the beginning of the year. So he's gonna have final CD, construction documents, next month. So just a matter of, yeah, getting with Ellers and Julie and the team and getting through the process and going.

So, hopefully, we can break ground this summer if we get all approvals in put in place. And then it'll be each building about be about eighteen month, build out. So from the time we break ground, eighteen months, and then the second phase would start shortly after that, after we get that up stabilized and then rinse and repeat on the second phase.

Awesome.

Can I do one comment?

Yeah. Go ahead.

Thank you. I know you will have this planned out, but I know that intersection there by McDonald's was redone. I don't know about what they were planning for traffic loads, obviously, to the south. It looks like you still would have those same access points, so I'm sure that's gonna be a concern for people of how much traffic's gonna be going in and out of there. And I'm sure you'll have that all planned out, but that was just a observation I made.

Yeah. Yep.

Thank you.

Council president Dickinson.

Thank you. I'm also a Northside district representative, and I'm really excited for this project. Do you know what the current zoning is, and do you anticipate any change in zoning? Because that will be something that we'll need to go through the process as well.

Yeah. That is a good question. I believe zoning will have to get updated. Or is it already in a PUD? It might it it might have to change to a PUD. I guess that's a good Andrea trained question when she gets back. But I know our our civil hopefully, actually, that's gonna probably come up next week with our our civil engineer we're using and, Matt, Gallagher when we have that meeting. So

So notice in, like, the the bottom level, are you planning to do mixed with, like will businesses be on the first level of that, or so you can all residential?

Yeah. The first building is all residential, and the second phase has, more commercial on that north side. So kinda facing where Blue Zone is right in front of Blue Zones. It'll be kind of a that whole area will be commercial district from Blue Zone straight towards Rose Street. So, yeah, there will be additional commercial on that second phase.

Okay. No. Thank you. I apologize if you said that. But, again, already got lost in the pictures. Yeah. No worries. I'm really excited, though, because I think, you know, we need some more unique architecturally designed apartment buildings our

city.

And so I'm just really excited about that. So thank you. Councilmember Gaga.

And, again, forgive me because it's a lot. But you said existing tenants, and I'm not gonna call anybody out, but I know that there's an existing tenant there that does nails. So are there people that are there getting offered to come with you?

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. That one exactly is is moving. Yep.

I guess my question is that if they choose not to, that's up to them, but that you're offering is, again, what I'm interested in.

Yep. Exactly. Yep. The the nail place is one of the new ones. So

yes. Thank you.

Awesome. One more. Okay. Council President.

Just wanting to clarify. So when you say parking, is it the 1st Floor of the building will be parking? That's not necessarily underground then because of the water table. That is

That's correct. That's correct. So it'll be, like, drive in at grade parking and then four stories above that. So it'll be a five story building. Yep.

Great. I couldn't think of the word at great. Thank you so much.

Alright. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for developing in the city, and, definitely, you, you know, making this spot look better and making sure that it, I like your attention to detail as well when you're talking about making that more attractive as one of the corridors into the city. Yeah. And so I just appreciate that.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Next agenda item, twenty six zero four four two, consideration of possible action on a preliminary term sheet for public assistance to Reiki Properties for the development of Lot 11 in River Point District into a multi story building with approximately 60 general occupancy rental units. I will go note this committee and or council may convene in closed session pursuant to Wisconsin state statute nineteen eighty five one e to formulate and update negotiation strategies and parameters following such close excuse me. Following such closed session, the committee may reconvene, in open session. Julie.

So if you recall, Reiki was at our last ECDC meeting and gave an intro to their project, so we were able to move that along. And now we have a term sheet to present to you today. I'd sent that prior to the weekend for you to review. So we were gonna start with Lee, who's been here a few times for projects that they're doing. He's gonna go ahead and just give a quick recap and then also go into some of the specifics, the TISC the TIFF ask, the public assistance ask, some of the but fors, like, why this is needing of assistance. And then, staff recommendation is to go into closed session after that, and we'll go over the term sheet and just, the memos that were done by both myself and ours. So I would turn it over to Lee.

Can you guys hear me? Hey. Thanks for having me tonight. I recognize a lot of the paces I've been through here before, three different times. Basically, tonight, we're just gonna kinda talk about the intended lot, little specifics about the lot, the challenges with the lot, and then, the the tip term sheet that Ellers, myself, and the city have worked with to get it narrowed down to a certain amount.

And so I know you guys have seen this slide before. We're Ryeke Ryeke properties. A little bit about ourself, you know, we're vertically integrated. So we do development from the ground up. You're gonna see me out there on the job site when we're pushing dirt.

You're gonna see me when a tenant is in the building and we're, you know, having maintenance calls and stuff. So we're we manage the tenants, build the buildings, and we develop the dirt or we develop from dirt forward. So makes us a little unique. We don't collect capital from anybody. It's just us, so we're moving as fast as, you know, our wallet allows us to build, which is kinda why this one fell into our hands perfect timing because we do have Lot 9 that we're wrapping up, shortly, flipping the phases on that.

So we do that is our third phase of Reiche's development in that River Point district. So Lot 11 if you wanna go to the next slide, please. Lot 11 was a lot not to be confused with the Lot 11 and Lot 12. So we've separated this Lot 11 out. It was originally proposed as one option agreement for Lot 11 And 12.

We we proposed an idea to to kinda have it multiuse, residential, commercial. And the only way to do that is let the commercial developer, which is developing a restaurant, take on option the option agreement for Lot 12 in the southern section of, Lot 11. So we have a CSM proposed and in front of the RDA tomorrow, is it? Correct? Okay.

So it's kind of back and forth. This kinda shows the this is from your guys' original PDD from 2023. So it kinda calls for, you know, mixed use. It has the parking diagram there. But if you look at the enlarged Lot 11, the section the box you see towards the bottom, the south southern portion of that lot, that is for the other developer to start to deal with that because I'm not a restaurant developer.

I brought him in to talk about the restaurant development. I'm just talking about the 1.1 acres, that we we've narrowed this down to. So it went from 1.44 acres to 1.1 acres.

Let me jump to

the next slide. Some of these are concepts. Things have changed not much. The we thought it was best to put the lobby space on the northern side or the eastern side. But as far as the towers still going four stories, overall building height of three stories, that's still that's still consistent with what we're drawing.

The some of the specifics about the lot, we have we've narrowed drawing down. So we're at 30% drawings, 30 to 50% drawings, which is as soon as structural gets involved, they'll they'll ramp up to a 100% drawings. But we do we're for sure about a few things. We're for sure about that fact that we have 60 units. We had to get that figured out before we started going and figuring costs, figuring parking, what we could fit on this lot.

Of that, is there there's a structured parking. I think Jake mentioned earlier at grade. You can't you can't do underground parking in this, because of the because of the soils and the water table. But the structured parking at grade parking is, 24 parking stalls, one of those being ADA, 31 surface stalls, and these bedrooms are ranging anywhere from one to three. I'll talk about the specifics of them in a little bit.

Next slide, please. So some of the lobby amenities that we talked about at the beginning hasn't changed. We're still working on we will have a golf simulator in this. We're gonna have, you know, a health and wellness center, which is a fancy word for a gym, but just other amenities in there. Yoga mats. I personally don't do yoga, but there's a lot of people that do. I camp them that way. You know, coffee bars. Just we like to keep our buildings kind of state of the art, up to date on everything that's out there that what people want. We send out questionnaires to our current tenants now.

We ask them what would you change? Will we listen? We have the unique opportunity to to change our building design based on what they want. And a lot of the things they want is the same stuff we built at Lot 8 as we're building on this. They want amenities, but they don't wanna pay too much for it.

They want secured mail and package rooms, which we provide. They the gym is extremely important to them. So if they're paying a $100 a rent in or a $100 a month in a gym membership, they can justify that when they come to a brand new building. Right? So so of these units, six are gonna be what we call our they're they constitute as a one bedroom, but we call them a hybrid one bedroom.

They're a smaller one bedroom, 570 square feet. We'll have six of those. We'll have 17 regular standard size one bedrooms ranging from 650 to 725 square feet. We're gonna have thirty one two bedrooms and three three three bedrooms, which will be the lofted towers you see sticking up on the building. So it's gonna be apartment entrance.

You're gonna come into a master master bath living room area, and you're gonna walk up to the second and third bedroom with a 150 to a 160 square foot private balcony that's covered. So we're really excited about these units. As you can tell in my voice, I you know, to build such nice units, the PDD requirements has certain things in it. Right? So this program is great.

The the tip program is great. It helps us with our banks when we go to ask for financing. It helps on what I think I mentioned earlier is on debt service. So when you get the 85% PAYGO system as a tax rebate, and it helps when you don't have to pay a tax that large to get this building off the ground. So any of these projects, I can tell you in this development, would not be happening without TIFF.

You know? So hats off to you guys for making this happen. There's a lot of development that is winding down right now, and you don't see development happening without programs like this. So some of the specifics about, like, this these guidelines would be the you know, we're just like Lot 8 that we just wrapped up that we are almost right. We're over 50% rented, and we plan on being rented in another month full.

So just to give you an idea, the guys' housing need that you guys had down here, this would be our fastest. If we rent it by June 1, which is our last final occupancy today, it would be the fastest we've ever rented any of our buildings to show you that housing demand that you guys have down here. You know, some of the I'll just switch to the challenges. But some of the challenges comes with the site. Right?

So compromised soils. I'm sure you guys are probably rolling your eyes at the word GeoPure. Right? It's it's talked about, but it is real, and it is a real cost. And then the GeoPiers can matter too because you can have inexpensive crushed aggregate GeoPiers or you can have deeper, wider. It just matters a lot, and the numbers change greatly. So when we're building a building, we know what a two by four cost. GeoPiers can range all over the place. So when you think of a footing, footings can change too with this. So the structure of itself is such a deciding factor in the cost of these buildings.

So that's just a hurdle that we have to overcome. One thing that we had to put on Lot 8, which is the loss of River Point, the building that you just see went up, is a vapor mitigation system. If you think of, like, a radon mitigation system in your house, it gets the trapped air out. Well, this is no different. Basically, there will never be any methane gases, but the the DNR wants you recording it.

So how do you do that? You have to put the system in. So it's a 80 to a $150,000 system. So, again, another challenge, and not to, I'm gonna kinda pin these two together here, but the market volatility and inflation and construction cost, building's not getting any cheaper, labor's not getting any cheaper, and we it's hard to build when, you know, you have 7% mortgages or interest rates just all over board. What this this does is it take like I said, it takes the risk out of it for the banks that are lending us the money.

I wanted to point out on my last I just took a little snippet of the appraiser that appraised the last building, that Lot 8. He even stated in here based on the real estate value conclusions, the project would not be financially feasible without this economic incentive, which is you guys. So that's what he is saying. He's flat out saying this these projects would not take off without TIF, the tax incentive financing. I with the challenges and with the extra PDD requirements, was working with Ehlers.

We created a term sheet with the help of Julie and Jason Schilling and others. There was a team effort. We've asked for 2,656,000, and that's based on exactly what I got for Lot, eight within a few percentage points. But, basically, what it is is, it's it was just the cost of construction working with Ellers. I'm trying to figure out this this number.

The projected is the 85% rebate over twenty years, exactly like what it was on Lot 8, and a guaranteed project assessed of 8,522,000 and a guaranteed construction cost of 13.5. So those are minimums and maximums. Right? So if we would all of a sudden start design reviewing it and put up a 30 unit, well, we're not gonna hit the guaranteed project assessed. So all it does is kinda cover the city and cover us on as far as construction costs.

And then we requested a land sale write down, which is on the new CSM, which is on the 1.1 acres, not the not the 1.44 acres that it originally was at 275,000, which is consistent with everything that is else has been sold in in lot in the River Point District. So, you know, why Reiki besides us, you know, the fact that we love working here. We like this is gonna be the next home for us for a few years. I had my construction team pull up the amount of subcontracted work and where they're at. Because I know that was always on the tip's radar, but I never knew to the t.

We only have one sub that's not part of the Greater La Crosse area. So all the subs that are working on our project are all from La Crosse or across the river, but they're the Greater La Crosse area. Right? And most of them have multiple people working for them. Right?

So it it it's helping the community quite a bit. Another thing too is so we wanna expedite this. We wanted that the reason we're trying to squeeze this in our calendar, is we want this to go as fast as humanly possible. We're we're projecting a July 1 start date on this already, and we're, like, hitting dates and milestones that we asked your help for, and I think it's gonna happen. We've had record lease up on current on the current project we have.

It is it's great to see. We don't exactly have that kind of activity in the other areas we're in, so it's a breath of fresh air to see. You can read a housing study, you can take it with a grain of salt. But until you see real life experiences, you don't you don't know. Right? And so when we read that housing study, we're like, yeah, maybe 200 units a year. I think they re they wanted in the Downtown La Crosse. Well, it's needed. We're renting really fast. People are moving in as we speak.

It it it's really good. And we're fully committed to the River Point District. So, you know, the more we build down here, the bigger staff we're gonna need. These are all Lacrosse, you know, employees that we'll need. So we we figure just our Reiki staff will probably need five or six probably in another year and a half. Those are all gonna be lacrosse residences. So we're trying to expand on that. And then unless you guys had think thought different, but a proven track record with you guys. Working with the city, we've proven ourselves on Lot 8. We've proven ourselves.

We're almost near a developer's agreement on Lot 9 and then this one. So just a friendly face. Right? So but that's all I had. Happy to answer any questions that you guys have.

Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? Alright. Council president?

Since I'm relatively new to this committee, can you tell us how many years you have been working at the River Point or other projects here in La Crosse?

So we formed so that's a tricky so we formed Reiki Properties in 2019 was the LLC that was formed, but I was I personally was doing real estate as as early as, like, 2002. The LLC formation was just like, hey. Let's get this stuff organized and under a different umbrella. But I've been building for for twenty five twenty five years. Whether it was in the building, whether it was just actual construction or just a different avenue of construction. So

Thank you.

Yep. Commissioner Markson.

Thank you. Every time you come, I learn something new, so thank you for that. Okay. Two questions. The first is by separating the lots the way that you do, does that mean they're going to actually be separated buildings, or will they be built

They're buildings. We don't want, our construction to be affected by theirs, and neither did they want to be affected by us. So there is certain, firewall standards too that we have to stay away. So that was actually the the arm wrestling that we had behind the scenes that you guys didn't know about was driveways and dump dumpsters, enclosures, and things all that. So we actually got that buttoned up, presented to CSM that's hopefully gonna get signed shortly, and and that's where we're at with that. But they will be separated Okay. With the proper screening, because I gotta worry about my tenants looking in the backside of a dumpster enclosure and noise. So we're gonna try we're we're very careful about that planning.

So just thinking three steps ahead, does that mean that the restaurant eventually could be its own for sale property, or is this all tied together with you being the developer?

So the way that I talked to Jason Gilman on how this was gonna work is I would have first right of refusal if the city doesn't agree with what they are doing. But as far as a property itself, I really could no different than if I wanted to sell my apartment. Right? So I think that would be the only I I think that's what you're asking. Correct?

Yeah. I was just with him not being conjoined, if you will, it just

Yeah.

That possibility.

Correct. Yep. They could sell it to a different owner as as I could my apartment. Correct.

Okay. And then just for frame of reference, because I apologize. There's a lot of developments that come through here. The property that's 50% sold, how many units is that, and what is the rent in that one?

Five units. It is market rate. So we have we have stuff ranging everywhere from, I think, $12.95 to I think our two bedrooms go up to $24.50. So they range all over the how they're placed, where they're at in the building, if they're facing the river, if they're facing another building. So they range anywhere from a buck 90 to $2.25 a square foot, I think, is the is the range. I could be not exactly accurate on that, but that's about where we're at.

I just asked that from a pace of rentals perspective of if they're if we're comparing apples to apples.

Yeah. And that's the market rate. So these are not subsidized by that. They're not the 60% LMI. They're they're just market rate people need. Yeah. It it's it's alarming how fast these rent.

Got it. Thank you. That's very helpful.

Thank you.

Any other questions? I will say I know somebody in that new building, and they said they really like it. They're just waiting for the gym to come available.

We're working on the gym still. June 1. Yes. We did yeah. We made sure we let the tenants know we still got about thirty more days of work in there.

So Fair. Fair. I will now take a motion to move into closed session. So moved by commissioner Lee. Is there a second? Second by council president Dickinson. Saw both hands like my. Alright. All in favor signify by saying aye. Was your hand raised? Great. Unanimous. We'll be moving into closed session. Thank you.

Okay.