Troy Industrial Development Authority - Regular Meeting

All right, so we will start with the public hearing for Gulf Stream Development. We'll call the public hearing to order at 10.08. Justin, do you want to give a summary of this project?

Oh sure, yeah, just open the hearing being held in connection with an application from Gulfstream Developers LLC, a project associated with the redevelopment of 100 Hospital. Quick summary is that there's a post 86 individual one bedroom residential buildings to be run into persons 55 years or older for the copy as a redevelopment of that site. They've applied to the IDA for a payment in lieu of tax agreement. SALES TAX EXEMPTIONS AND MORTGAGE ACCORDING TAX EXEMPTIONS. THEY'VE BEEN THROUGH THE CITY PLANNING BOARD FOR APPROVALS, INCLUDING A SEEKER REVIEW. IT'S ABOUT A $17 MILLION CAPITAL INVESTMENT FOR THAT RESIDENTIAL HOUSING PROJECT. AND THE PROPOSED PILOT TERMS AND COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS ARE HERE FOR REVIEW. AT THIS POINT, WE'RE JUST OPENING THE FLOOR FOR ANY PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE PROPOSED APPLICATION AND BENEFITS. And once the hearing's closed and the motion's made, the board can ask any questions and receive an update from the developer. So defer to the chair and the floor. Any comments?

Do we have anybody? No, we don't have anybody. All right. So I don't think we have any public comments. All right.

Yeah. So it's going to start off at $11,000 for $17 million. It's going to have an appraised value of like $17 million. We're going to start off at like $12,000 and add taxes for the first year. I just think these numbers should be higher, especially coming at the back end.

We're just looking for hearing comments right now. We don't want to have the record full of... We can ask questions during the motion, during the regular meeting. Just to keep the balance straight. Not to cut you off, but we can close the hearing and then once we get into the motion, we can talk about some of the details. Maybe we can answer some of your questions.

No public comments, then we will close this hearing at... 10-11. All right, moving us along, we will do approval of minutes from the last board meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes?

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries. All right, on to the executive director's report, Randy.

Okay, so a couple things to talk about. You know, 74 new turnpikes on the new business, so we'll talk about that then. That's one project that hopefully we're making some progress on. I've had some preliminary discussion with an owner of 80 and 84 Jefferson Road. It's at the corner of Jefferson and 3rd. It's an old, very interesting looking building that the owner has put some money into the building to shore it up and put a roof on it, but he wants to convert it into eight housing units, and he's approached us about potential IDA benefits. So I've talked with them about the process, pointed them to the application, and let them know there's a process, that there's fees involved, and so they can make a decision if they want to move forward.

How many units?

Eight to nine.

Is that a big enough project?

The scale might not suggest that the idea is the best vehicle that we can once you see the budget maybe you can make a determination and kind of pencil it out see if it makes sense okay well that that did come to mind I don't know if we don't I didn't see anything in our policy procedures that project well at some point it just if it's small it doesn't make a lot of sense there may be unmarginal I mean it's really Sharon was here but um It's a marginal break if, you know, I don't know what it's assessed at now, but what's it going to be reassessed at? Right. What would the pilot do? There may be nominal benefits there, but IDA in the past has done just sales tax only.

Yeah.

As a way to give them some benefits without all the complexity. Right. And kind of it's cheaper to get there.

Well, I did point, I pointed them to the application. I pointed them to the fees. Right. And I pointed them to, you know, once we have that draft application We can sort of pencil out some potential benefits, and then he can make a decision as to whether he wants to move forward.

Right. With his typical remodel, and it's nine units, a couple hundred thousand apiece, call it $1.8 million. I don't know. Maybe there's a million in materials going into it, and there's $80,000 in savings. Something like that. It might be worthwhile for him to do something like that.

Right. Okay. So that's good feedback. Thank you. But that's... The pilot billing letters are out. Thank you, Denae, for getting those letters out. I've heard no response. I don't know if anyone else has. So hopefully that's behind us. I've had some discussions with this gentleman, Isaac Friedman. I don't know if anyone knows who he is. He owns properties at 35 Congress. I guess was the former Troy Light Factory. Oh. And 223 8th Street, the former Church on the Hill up by RPI. He approached me about sort of helping him broker his properties to find tenants, and I had to remind him that we're administrators, not brokers. But he is... Anyways, that's just an item that I got pulled into. The Bella Vita project is something I'd like to talk to everyone in executive session. We're still talking about some confidential financial information in regards to that project, so we'll come back to that. This week I went to a ceremony Denae and I went to a ceremony with 504 Broadway. They did their topping off ceremony for their new platinum certified professional offices building and I guess a ground floor is going to be a restaurant and there's going to be some space for temporary residents. And at the same time I did a tour of the 1818-5th with Jeff Morrell of Rosenblum. I just bring these up because it's good to see these projects up and running, and IDA's involvement was no small part in helping those happen. I'm still working on a project to try to get a lot of our information on the pilot all of our pilots, which were in the 46 range at the moment, get the data into a database and set up the database in a way that might make it a little easier to manage the information. This is a project that I'm not really a database person, but I'm learning. I'm putting a lot of time into it. I'm not billing for it at the moment. But I'm just in the interest of transparency. If this works, I may want to come back and bill for it.

Are you doing it in Excel?

In Access database. So that's pretty much it for my executive director's report.

Thank you. I know a thing or two about databases, so if you have questions, let me know.

Oh, I may have lots of questions. That's a big chunk of my job.

All right, on to new business. Let's start with the project authorizer.

Just one question. How many accounts are you looking at?

Well, we have, I think, 47 total projects. 46 of them are pilots. One is just a sales tax only project. But right now, all of the information is just managed in spreadsheets, and it's just like there's no way to do this. If I want to know how many housing units have been done based on all the projects, it would take me forever. It's like it's taking me now to get it into a database to figure out any kind of analytical question about anything that we're doing. And so having it in a database, if we can get successful at that, then we'll just be in a better position.

If someone were to ask you in year 2030, what's the financial contribution of all the IDA deals that we have in one total sum, would you be able to answer that? I will if I'm successful with this database.

I mean, like today you couldn't tell, right? Not easily. You could take days to go through the applications and look at the actual you know, billing permits and then see which actually have been closed and which ones have COs. And you can probably extrapolate how many units have been constructed in the last 10 years and what the aggregate investment was. I think those are the top-level data points you want, right? Those are relevant, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that's like the first public consumption question anyone walking the street would ask. Well, how much money is this generating for the city? Exactly, yeah.

have you induced in the last X number of years? Right. Cool.

All right. I'm going to move us on to new business. All right. So, first item of new business is a project authorizing resolution for Gulfstream developers. Do we want to start, Albert, I know you have some questions, so do you want to start with board comments and discussion?

Yeah, just before you start, I just wanted to just, hopefully there's nothing wrong based upon the review, but I did share this with a couple members of the board in advance. You know which I sort of process wise. It's like have a have a subcommittee look at it. Give me comments and most of the comments that I received were were supportive. Talk with Anthony about it. From from my my viewpoint and and other projects that we've done, this looks like a. A fair and reasonable. proposal that would be supportive of Gulfstream developers and help ensure that the project can get undertaken.

Anthony, have you applied for a building permit yet? Yes, I did. When was it officially issued?

I have my site work building permit. I got that in December. That's my actual structural building permit that I applied for them a couple weeks ago.

I just had some issues with the numbers. At the end of this 15 years, I mean, the next year his taxes could go up 30%. I mean, that's just a huge jump. From 15 to the year six, that's a huge jump in taxes. It's a huge jump in expenses from we've got to come back and ask for another pilot after year 15. That's a huge jump.

Tensions don't generally happen unless they add on or double the project or like we've done in the past. We've done like with Bonaccio at 200 Broadway. We extended a pilot only because they're reinvesting.

So we're not here to refinance projects in a way. We're to get them off the ground.

We support an inducement, an investment in the first instance, and they run their course. If they do reinvest, that's happened on this building several times where they've come through and done a major renovation and in exchange for that investment, the IDA will extend a pilot. In this particular case, this will be built out. I don't know that there's going to be another phase of this project, kind of running out of land, right? But... But there has to be another project, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's just a huge that's $100,000 going to be after this. You know his tax is going to jump like 100 grand a year.

That kind of the case with that happens with every pilot. I read violent yeah.

I don't know. Just soften the blow and think I'm looking at.

Well, with proper financial management, they should be able to do it.

Do you have any additional questions or comments?

I just, one thing that Albert had mentioned, like when you look at the first year, the payment's very low. Is that because no one will be living there? So it's kind of like prorated starting at that low of a level.

Well, no, the pilot is fully constructed assumption, right? That the first payment is low because all the added value is abated. Is that your question?

I mean, but there are people who own residents in Troy that pay that much for their taxes.

How does this benefit in the community? That's what I'm saying, yeah.

Well, the point the point of a pilot is to provide an inducement. Oh, yeah.

I'm not saying don't give them a discount. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying.

And then it gradually goes up. That's it's you know, it's land that was. Previously, there's nothing there. And so stepping up the You know assess value and in tax payments is just like a good thing and doing in a gradual way seems.

They'll be raising rents gradually to.

What is it currently assessed that.

You know yes.

You're one.

Yeah twenty twenty seven our policy we freeze where taxes are now so we don't go backwards so that the taxing jurisdictions don't have a budget hit Because we're helping, we've maintained that base value. 260. Yeah, it's 260 right now. And that's what the $11,000 is generated off of. And the IDA abates future value. So whatever the assessor assigns for value to this post-construction, that's what we're abating. And the schedule of abatement here, you'll see that the amount of pilot payments increase because our abatement burns off.

In general, as a 15-year pilot, it's

A REASONABLE LENGTH FOR THE DEVELOPER, BUT IT'S A LITTLE BIT MORE CONSERVATIVE. YOU KNOW, WE'RE NOT DOING 20, WE'RE NOT DOING 25. SO IT SEEMS LIKE A FAIR SHAKE.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

I WANT TO JUST THROW A COUPLE OF THINGS OUT THERE, BECAUSE THAT SITE'S BEEN SOME CONTENTION FOR THAT NEIGHBORHOOD FOR QUITE A WHILE, AND I KNOW A LOT OF FOLKS WHO LIVE DOWN THERE AND WE SPEAK FREQUENTLY ABOUT IT. You know, it's an old tract of land that has been a sore spot in the neighborhood for a long time. We're bringing in, like, a potential of 86 tenants. At an age group, that doesn't place a lot of stress on public safety mechanisms like the police, the fire department, public works, that kind of stuff. It's an improvement to the neighborhood, and there's, you know, there's slow and, I would say, steady increases in revenue for, you know, our school district and, you know, the city. So there's some positives there. They're not necessarily all tangible, but it is a big plot of land that's currently vacant that this is mostly conversations that I have. It's mostly a welcome opportunity to develop.

Historically, the hospital was exempt, and then the city taking it for taxes, it was exempt. Over time, it hasn't. I mean, I don't know how many years. How long was Leonard there? The 50s, I think?

I don't know.

It was there when I was 12 and broke my arm.

Right. Demoed about six years ago. Yeah, so it's been vacant and then had no tax revenue.

And it's the kind of development that that neighborhood can digest, too, because there was a previous proposal there that was not something that was welcome, especially right across the street from an elementary school. So there's some things that the neighborhood is looking forward to. I think it's very creative as well. Yeah, I'm curious to see how it works out.

All right. Any other questions or comments? Or should we, do we have a motion?

Motion.

Second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All right. Any opposed? Yeah, opposed. I just don't like the numbers. All right. Excuse me. Sorry, the smoke is getting to me. All right. Next item of new business, I believe, Randy, we had a memo from you about this consultant funding request. Do you want to speak to this? I don't know if it's .

Yeah, so we are. Giving serious consideration to. I should say some serious consideration to submitting a proposal to the state. Through the New York forward program, which is kind of a mini version of the downtown visualization initiative. And it's a the the process itself extensive and requires a lot of staff resources, which we of course don't have. So the proposal is to get this board to support us issuing an RFP that would get a consultant on board that would help us through that process and to put our best foot forward in terms of being a competitive application. I had outlined in the draft RFP sort of things that we'd be looking for from the consultant. The timing of this is a little, we're not sure the exact timing because the new guidelines for the program haven't been published, but I have talked with the regional director of Empire State Development, who they're forthcoming shortly. And I wanted to get this board's approval on this as quickly as possible so that we're ready to go when they're ready to go. And we'd expect to get a quick turnaround and get the consultant working. quickly in time that we anticipate the application would be due sometime in October and November. I have no sense of what this might cost. Maybe, Denae, you have some experience.

Will it be covered by the grant? No, I don't think so.

This is just part of... as I tried to articulate, part of our mission to support redevelopment of a major investment area, which is northern Lansingburg. It was identified specifically in the comprehensive plan. I had shared that just so everyone could sort of see the bigger picture blueprint. The New York Forward application is just a way to take that blueprint and really put some meat on the bones for getting projects sponsors to do the kind of projects that would meet the letter and spirit of the plan.

Is the four and a half million the total we could get or is the four and a half million the total that the state is budgeting

statewide I know that's a silly question because it's a ridiculous looking number but we could get up to 4.5 million yes okay and I want to know since this is supposed to be for North Lansenburg is it a typo that it says they're doing a downtown assessment

I don't think so. I think that one of their objectives in New York forward is to take an area, an investment area that could sort of serve as a mini Main Street kind of area. I think that's what their state's objective is, to redevelopment as a sort of a mixed use area. Does that answer your question?

No, so they're not focusing on what we consider downtown Troy. No. So it's a downtown north Lansenburg, what they're referring to. That's what I'm saying.

That was my reading. Well, their focus is on downtowns because that's their downtown revitalization. A downtown revitalization initiative. but then the New York Forward is like kind of a mini version of that where if there are other areas of an urban area that can be developed along the lines of a downtown, then you would go to that program. And each community decides what's the area that we'd like to do that for.

Michael, wasn't it like that in the past in Lansingburg?

Yeah, like right around 116th to 118th Street, there's, it's like a storefront. Like you're talking about convert aisles up to where they're currently constructed in the new fire department. It is. Well, it's not.

Not anymore, but.

It's all dilapidated now, but most of it. I'd be curious to see just a thought in my head is if they're going to shift away from that and make it more north, the downtown more north of that area instead of that area.

We should say uptown.

Uptown.

Okay. No, I can't hear your point.

Yeah, clarification because, you know, confusing. Yeah, so for me, because if we're doing Lansenburg, then I don't want to see this going to what we consider downtown, because downtown gets enough investment. If it's a new, newer area defined as the center for the Lansenburg, you know, then what are the boundaries, you know, are we going down to 103rd, 101st, because that's, you know, part of Lansenburg as well.

These maps are all, like, part of this is down by the Hannaford.

Yeah, that's the 126th.

Yeah, I think that is kind of the target area.

So, we have an intern, Samuel, who's been really helpful. Just as, like, preliminary steps to kind of look at WHAT A TARGET AREA COULD BE, AND IT'S THE STATEWAY COMING OVER THE BRIDGE A LITTLE BIT NORTH, A LITTLE BIT SOUTH, AND A LITTLE BIT UP NORTH OF THE DRIVE. SO IT'S KIND OF LIKE A STRAIGHT BUT SPRAWLING TARGET AREA. IT'S JUST A PRELIMINARY. AND THE GRANT IS INTENDED FOR BEING HEAVY WITH SOLVING THE COMMUNITY AND THE PUBLIC, SO THAT'S REALLY WHAT THE CONSULTANT WOULD BE NEEDED FOR. HELP FACILITATE THOSE MEETINGS, GATHER INFORMATION, HELP US JUST WITH THAT PORTION, BECAUSE IT'S PRETTY IMPORTANT AS PART OF THE APPLICATION.

SO WHEN DOES THE APPLICATION HAVE TO BE SUBMITTED?

WE'RE JUST TRYING TO GET AHEAD OF IT SO THAT WE'RE NOT BEHIND IT. AND THE IDEA WILL BE SOLELY

responsible for making the decisions as to how we move forward. Is it saying that the city, through the IDA, is applying for this money?

The city has to be the applicant. The IDA will help from the consultant.

So the city's making the decision, not the IDA?

The committee has to.

Yeah, we're a supporter to the city in this case.

You can definitely be involved, 100%.

I don't think you have a volunteer.

Yeah, the community has to input and they actually have to review the application before it's submitted to make sure it's what they want to be in the application. So it's very community.

So it's like a board kind of thing from the community, like key speakers, key communicator kind of thing. This isn't going to go out for like a referendum vote or anything like that, right? It's just going to be some folks that get together and say,

This looks good based on all the other getting more like how they had the Charette for the other yeah, yeah, it's intended for really I think was for like rural communities to get them. Activated the same way they did with the DRI but. We're not it doesn't necessarily have to be rural. It could be like another. Commercial portion of a smaller. I think that makes sense so like not the downtown basically right will make the decision to

Consult so you and then they are.

Well, it would we would we would we would get the RFP. We do all the administrative stuff, get the RFP out and we would review them all. And if anyone wants to be on that review committee, that's that would be great. But then we'd have to come back and get a record with a recommendation and a contract will come to you with a firm budget.

Yeah.

So it's our responsibility to pick the consultant.

We'll make a recommendation. Make a recommendation. But if we had a couple numbers on the review committee, that would probably be helpful. Yeah.

My neighborhood, sure. Given the scope of research that would be involved in this, is it possible That information seems like it would be valuable in its own right, regardless of whether we get or don't get New York forward. Is it possible to spin it off into a separate report and ask for that? Is it deliverable as well? Just so that we're not walking away with basically an application that if it fails, then this is all dead and it's proprietary information or whatever. But a separate report where it's like, well, we might not have gotten the grant, but here's all the information we collected. It should guide us. Community development and Lansing are going forward.

That would be a part of the comprehensive plan.

Yeah, it'll be there's a 20 page. Document that's part of the application and I think that's what will be reviewed at the community meeting to make sure that everything that's on it is in that report, but that is its own document. And it's ours at the end of this.

Yeah. Yeah, we would own it. We do have consultants where it's like, it's actually theirs. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know.

We'll make sure that Justin does the contracts and make it clear. Okay, cool.

And we'll do like a web page, either separate or on our website that'll, similar to the DRI, it'll be like a landing page with all of the details and documents.

Right on. Any more questions, comments? DO WE HAVE A MOTION FOR THE RFP?

SECOND. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. THAT IS IT FOR NEW BUSINESS. DO WE WANT TO GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION NOW TO DISCUSS RELEVITAS?

YES.

ALL RIGHT. MOTION TO ENTER EXECUTIVE SESSION. DO I HAVE A SECOND? SECOND. All right, all in favor?

Aye. Will you be coming back in and carrying on?

We will, but we don't really have much. Probably close, yeah. Yeah. All right, all we got to do is run meetings. We have a motion to adjourn.

Just one question. So the financials, are we just, when you get them, are you going to send them to us, or are you just going to, how are we going to do that?

We will, or we could wait until next month, or, I mean, you might as well talk about.

Yeah, because there were some issues last month, yeah.

We're not an executive anymore. But there may be an executive session attached to the next meeting that deals with our financial operations and perhaps an RFP. But I've given up the go here.

But the last pilot for 444 is in the works. That's the one you're asking about. I think they completed payment this morning, yeah.

Just in general, the balance sheet and the pro forma, yeah.

Well, the receivables, that's what I was, yeah, because there were some issues on the receivables.

I think the last one that was outstanding is on its way in, so that'll be, for 444, that'll be good.

Okay.

But if they send financials, I can still send it around, even though we didn't talk about it in the meeting, and then next month they can

All right. Thank you, everybody.