Economic Development Board - Regular Meeting

Meeting of the Color Economic Development Board, to order. Before we go into executive session, we're gonna move one, agenda item up, and that is, the, work session item for receiving a presentation, on the open rewards program from Blue Dot. That is right.

We are pulling them in their virtual. So, they'll be appearing on the screen soon, I believe.

Yeah. They don't like us enough to come

to No. It's gonna No. I'm just trying

to see you. Come on. Well, thanks.

Was controlling.

I gonna do the I can't have

Well, while they're pulling it up, let me give you a little bit of a preface of of why we're here for Blue Dot. So this is Sofia Zane. She's with Blue Dot. We have been investigating opportunities for a CRM system. That's what Blue Dot does.

They are specific to economic developers. And we have already been looking at this when we also realized another opportunity with Blue Dot could be their open rewards program. So Villa's gonna tell us all about it tonight, but just kind of as a preface, the city of Southlake and North Richland Hills are currently operating this system, which is meant to be an incident program to bring individuals into the city to spend money at our businesses. So, there's a lot more to it than that. I'm gonna let Sofia explain how that works.

Our city council has already seen a presentation on this. We wanted the board to see it and and try and ask questions, give us feedback as we consider this opportunity. So I'll with that, I'll hand it over to Sofia.

Hey, Sofia. Yes.

Hi, everyone. Can everybody hear me okay? Yes.

Yes. Give me a

little more volume.

Okay. I am gonna go ahead and share my screen. So if you guys wanna also give me a quick thumbs up whenever my screen is visible on your end as well. Amazing. Thank you. Well, hello, everyone. I'm Nelly, live today from DC, attending the IEDC annual conference. So really excited to to present to you all of you board members. Thank you for the opportunity. So I'm gonna do today a quick introduction about us, what is Blue Dot, and then I'll dive right into an overview of the open rewards program, how that works for your local consumers, how that works for your local businesses, as well as for you guys as the program administrators.

So I will go ahead and get started now. Quick introduction about us. Blue Dot was actually built in 2019 inside the city hall in collaboration with the local CDC development team. We work so far exclusively with local cities and counties and videos and making sure that we fulfill all of our local communities in health development initiatives and strategies. Since then, our solutions are used by over 200 communities all across the country as you can see on this map.

We do offer a few different economic development solutions, and the one that we're gonna be focusing on today in our walk through is gonna be the one on the right called open billboards. Okay. I'm gonna jump ahead a few slides here and dive in. Alright. Open Rewards in a nutshell is a citywide rewards program to incentivize your local shoppers to spend money at their local businesses within your community.

And we have seen rewards programs being extremely effective way to motivate and incentivize consumer behavior. I am sure all of you guys, me included, have used a lot of rewards programs in our in our own ways as as a consumer as well. It is very effective in terms of motivating and changing where consumers spend their money. And here, we're hoping to partner with our cities and counties to give the same power to all of the local businesses in your community. So that could include small businesses, single location, mom and pop shops.

That is really hard on their own to launch a rewards program of this kind of a scale. But together, we can, and with your partnership is how we can make that possible. Possible. So So in the following slides, we'll explain exactly how that will work, and I'll start with how that works for a consumer. As a consumer, first and foremost, you can go ahead and download the app from both of the app stores and then create a free account.

The app is already available and of course it's live in Southlake and North Richland Hills. So feel free to download the app and check it out and you can see the user experience on that. Once a consumer has created their free account, they will be able to start earning rewards when they spend money at their local businesses that that is in your program. Okay? Now a few definitions here.

What is an eligible eligible business? That is something that each of our communities can decide. So we have some communities that have decided to include all of the businesses in their in their city regardless of whether it's small businesses or maybe it's a chain or anything else, whereas others have decided to focus on the restaurant sector or others wanted to do only small businesses, no chains, right? So there is a lot of strategies that our cities have chosen to implement as part of the program.

So that's one. Secondly, we really want to

make sure that the program is very inclusive towards all of the consumers in your community. So that means regardless of how a community member might be shopping, whether it's credit card or debit card or cash, there's a way for everyone to participate. Even if a business is cash only, maybe it's a barbershop and they only take cash, there's a way for them to participate as well. So this way, we can try to be inclusive and include as many types of consumers and businesses as we can as part of this collective program. Okay. Quick pause. Any questions so far from anyone? You're good. All good. Perfect.

Okay. Now in the following two slides, I'll quickly I'll quickly go through the process of how a consumer will go about earning rewards. So imagine I visited one of the local businesses that is in City of Color's program. Amazing. So at the end of my purchase, I will pay for my purchase like I normally would. Credit card, cash, doesn't matter. So I'll pay for my bill in full. And once that's paid, there are two ways for me to earn the rewards. I can either link my credit card with the app, which is an option for every user when they sign up, but it's not a requirement. But if they choose to link the card, that means we'll be able

to see the transactions on the card. So when they swipe the card, we'll

be able to see, oh, great. You spent $20 at this business. This business belongs to City of Keller's program. Here's your $5 rewards in your City of Keller wallet within the Open Rewards app. Okay? So that's one way. Alternatively, if they don't want to link their card, don't have a card, left their wallet, shop by cash this time, whatever the reason, what

they might do is just take out

the app and take

a photo of the receipt. Once it's processed, they will earn the rewards in their City of Keller wallet within the Open Rewards app as well. Okay. So either way, it covers just about any way somebody might be shopping locally, and the rewards will be accumulating in their wallet within the Open Rewards app. Okay. Now each community has their own wallets in the app. So if I shop in Southlake, I might have a Southlake wallet. If I shop in Las Vegas, I might have a Las Vegas wallet, so on and so forth. But the the reward that accumulate and earn in each wallet is separate from the other communities and can only be used within the same community that I earned

it from according to that community's rules and guidelines. Okay. All right. Any questions on this slide on how to earn rewards? All good.

Perfect. Okay. Now in terms of the redemption, there are two ways that our communities can implement the redemption. So, obviously, we can require that the users redeem the rewards locally, which means they would apply their $5 towards another purchase at a local business, and they will go through a very similar process in the app, and then they will get a $5 payout from us. Or City of Southlake and Northridge, Richland Hills have both implemented a direct payout, so they skip this redemption step, and then consumers will just get a payout immediately.

In terms of the payout, we can send that to the user in any of the four methods: Venmo, PayPal, Zelle or check mail to their house. Each user, when they are requesting a payout from their wallet in the app, they would pick from one of the four methods, and they will set it up before they can initiate the payout. So once they set it up and they initiate the payout, we'll be able to we'll be able to know where we should send the money to. So the one when when we initiate the payout, we initiate the funds transfer from our account to that user's individual payout method. The account is set up such that each of our cities will deposit the rewards fund into the account that we will manage.

K? So the onset and the launch of the program, I was able to say, great. We wanna invest this much of our money into the rewards program, and then we'll take that deposit into our bank account. And then each time somebody is doing the payouts and redemptions in their in the through the app, we'll be withdrawing and and taking the money out of the bank account and going into each of our individual users' payout methods, whether it's Venmo, Zelle, or whatever they chose. Okay. Any questions here on how to redeem?

Sofia, I had one from the other night that I didn't think about. In this reward system, is it possible to do points versus dollars, or does it have to be in dollars?

That's a great question. We have started discussing the points idea. Maybe you can tell a little bit more about what you might be

Well, like with with my American Express, I can I get points that's not directly equivalent to a dollar amount? If I want, like, a gift card, it has a specific dollar amount. But if I end up using them for travel or something else, I get a great reward. So if so in applying this to Keller, if we had points and they wanted to use it back at a Keller business, we could actually have a a little different benefit rather than a dollar to dollar if they wanted to cash out. Does that make sense?

That's really interesting. I had not thought about that from that angle.

Well, I'm available for consulting.

Oh, I love that. Okay. That that's really interesting. Okay. We have we have definitely okay.

We have definitely discussed the points idea for for actually one reason. Not that this is another reason why we should definitely consider it. The the reason that the angle that we were coming in from is that there so for that reason, we're actually starting thinking about the points idea instead of dollars to just to minimize the confusion. But I really like what you're describing as well.

That's it

could be additional benefits.

For instance, we have a a member of the board here has a venue encounter. She might want to participate with us and say, alright. Your point may your five points may be worth $5, but if they'll come spend it with me, it'll be worth $10. And that's it. That. It's an incentive

that as well. And exactly to to what you're saying, we coded them double up in two.

Right. So that that was the reason for my question.

So That's awesome. That's awesome. And do you feel that we could do the same, in dollars? What would that so so so, like, if $5, you can cash out at 5, or you can redeem this worth 10?

Well, where I

was that.

Yeah. Where I was coming from, and you haven't got to this point in the presentation, so I I didn't wanna interrupt then. But this would create a participation between the city and a business where we're cooperating it to get the the consumer to come into their business specifically because I get more bang for my dollar within. So say keep it in calendar.

Kinda. Absolutely. Absolutely love that. And I can tell you the moment that we release this feature and you guys launch it, we'll have a whole suite of other cities calling you wrong.

Okay. Mhmm. Well, we we have just a small fee that adds on to their program.

Oh, love it. Okay.

Sofia, so you're saying that would be possible if we were to to go ahead and do this, that we could immediately make that happen?

We we can definitely do this. You may you you will take us a little bit if you follow the time. Okay. So just depending on how soon you guys wanna get this launched. But it will take us a little bit if you go along on time, so just

There you go. I'll hold my questions, Sylvia.

You can go ahead, Sylvia. I I really love I really love okay. Great. Amazing. Perfect. Okay. Awesome. So now as you can see, for just any of your normal businesses that are participating in the program, it's actually transparent to them from an operation standpoint. Of course, if they wanna offer the double up, they will be involved. But for the regular businesses, most of the time, our businesses actually don't don't have to do anything for the program.

And that is by design because a lot of our businesses may may not be very tech savvy or they might not want a site number in the system. So for a lot of those businesses, then this program they can still benefit from the program by being part of it without having to do any of the upfront work in terms of signing up or or creating accounts and things like that. And we also don't charge the business anything. So to answer that question, all of the the county, whoever is initiating the program in their community. So in this in the case of, for example, city of South Lake and city of Northfield, Hills, each of those cities are investing the rewards fund that we're distributing to users.

K? Did I answer your

question? Yes.

Yes? K. Amazing. Okay. If we put all of these together so imagine this local consumer went to a few locations around town. She went to a supermarket, went to a mercantile, got dinner. She earned just over $10 rewards, and then she redeemed that towards a brunch in in for a weekend. Now through these purchases, the investment from her city was just over $10, but the total economic impact is over 240. So all of these metrics are exactly what we're going to track as part of the program. So it will be available to you on the dashboard.

And this ROI is why we are really excited about this rewards model is that we're really trying to leveraging the the dollars to to get the biggest bang for the buck in terms of all of your local businesses collectively. And it's really and it's really encouraging to be able to see this kind of returns in a lot of the communities that we've launched in so far and to see the impact and the actual revenue going into the local businesses around the programs. K. A few more notes for our administrators, which would be one of you guys. There is very little overhead in terms of operations that we would need from the cities, the economic development teams.

A lot of times our cities are are are go to by the program with very little staff involvement or you guys don't have to check receipts with them or anyone. All of that is handled directly by us through the app. Launching is also fairly simple. Typically, we just take your guidance in terms of, oh, what are the businesses that we should load in the app? Great.

We'll load all of those businesses, and we'll create a profile for each business, including photos, including hours and such, making sure that each business looks really nice and polished in the app so that we'll be ready to go from there. And the only part that might take some planning would just be the marketing, getting the word out. So, typically, our cities might wanna have some social media assets, so they might wanna print some table tennis and stickers that they can distribute to businesses. All of that is great, and we can help out in any of those things, whether it's designing the assets or getting us sent to a print shop. All of those are very happy to assist.

And then so depending on how much of that we wanna do upfront, we just wanna make sure that we work backwards from the launch date to making sure that we give you enough time for all of those for all of those actions. Okay? Lastly, the data dashboard item. I already mentioned that earlier. It is where how our cities will be able to track live statistics on how the program is going, how many users are already participating, how much how much have they already spent at their local businesses, which business is the most popular.

So top 10 businesses by amounts and number of visits, where are the users coming from through interesting statistic, and, of course, how much it was that's been distributed, and what's the economic impact, what's the ROI. So all of those are gonna be available straight from the dashboard so you can check that out live anytime during the program. K. Any questions here on this slide? Nope. Okay. Perfect. Okay. A few more notes. We do have a lot of parameters and controls that we can send in the program.

So a lot of these can be adjusted based on what you guys might do. So the percentage of rewards, our default is 10 5%. Our premiums have down 10%, fifteen, twenty five, even 50% sometimes. And that can also change depending on the time of the year or any special events that promotions that might be happening. I know that City of El Paso did a really big Valentine's Day push just a few weeks ago, which was really fun.

A small business Saturday with small business week are also very popular options for our communities to do special promos. If there is a particular day in the week, the five day is low, and you don't remember what's that day, or maybe a particular, like, back to school or certain periods in in the year that your business need a little extra help, all of those are are are periods that you can, you know, tweak the rewards percentages a way to adjust your your your local consumers' spending. Now in terms of controls, we do wanna make sure that we put proper guardrails in place in terms of how a user might be using the platform. So everything from what's the cap of reward that you can earn per purchase? Are there any limits for that user total or for a particular time frame, like, year?

Are there any expirations on the rewards that they earned? Do they have to redeem by a certain time frame? If not, then expire comes back in the pool. So a lot a lot of these adjustments can be made before we launch the program. So we'll go through all of these with you guys during the initial kickoff so that we can make sure to set the right settings as soon as we launch. K? Any questions here on the parameters?

We're good.

All good. Okay. Great. Now the rest are some fun feedback from our users so far. So you will see that the vast majority of our users actually have indicated that Opry was really doing through their decision to shop local. So every time a user submit a claim or redeem any app, we ask them this one question. Did Oprah was encouraged with your decision to shop at this business? And they will say yes or no. So far, vast majority click yes. And then there's also a little comment box.

Our original intent for the comment box is for them to give us feedback on our app. But so far, our users were actually writing all kinds of really fun stuff. So they would write about how Overview has influenced the world they shop, and it's really encouraging to see all these kinds of comments. And it's also really encouraging to see that our customers have leveraged the app as a way to find new spots around town. The actual $5.10, $15 in their wallet, oftentimes, it's just the right amount of nudges to get them to try a new place and bring up some friends and family with them.

And then they'll have a great experience, and they'll keep going back and tell other people, which is exactly the kinds of the kind of flywheel that we want. Similarly, lots of appreciation for the community, for their cities and counties, and programs. So just so much appreciation and positivity. We really, really love that. I really wanna amplify that. Okay. Yeah. That's all. So so kudos to us. And then here are some videos and testimonials from our business owners.

So just in their own words, how they have seen the program impacting their customers coming to their shops and any visible trends in terms of, oh, their customers are coming back more often, or they're getting new ones that are using the app, so on and so forth. Really encouraging to see those. Okay? Lastly, I'll I'm here, and then I'll see if there's any remaining questions. This is this is what the app looks like. So if you guys wanna download it from your host tools, feel free to check it out. On the main home page, this is where the users are gonna be performing most of the actions. I mean, it's simple. They click on claim redeem, snap a photo, and we see they're done. In

the

middle screen here, you'll see this is how the discovery page is laid out. So each business will have a profile, very clean. We populate the photos for everyone, including and then including the additional details like business name, address, categories, hours, websites, contact information, the social media links, just as much as we can find about each business online. And then we load up to the app, and they're all set up and looking good. And then consumers can just click on them and click play. Okay. Alright. I'll end here. Any remaining questions about the boat members?

I have a question. So Yes, please. Being that we're close to North Richland Hills and Southlake, and I have it for all three cities now if Keller goes forward with it, and I own my points from all the different cities. Does it go into one pool or does it have to be used as separate pools?

It will be separate wallets for each community. So you will have a self link wallet, you will have a notification post wallet, and then you will have a Keller wallet.

So they can't combine them?

You will not combine them. No.

But but we can decide to allow other cities points to be used here or their dollars to be used here. Correct?

So for example, the the dollars that you earn in Southlake would be funded by Southlake so that but then in the case of Southlake, two are probably bad examples because just you needed to cash out, so it actually doesn't matter. But for some of our other cities where you actually actually have the MED.

Contact. Yeah.

If it was that you're back in the same city, then it really has to be really in the back.

But we can allow them to earn points here or earn dollars here.

So anybody can sign up for this, obviously. Right. You know? I I personally live in another city, but if I were to shop here or if I go and shop in Northwood, Janelles right now, it would I could redeem those, and it pays it out

via know there's different walls. I don't want the steel bill combined and then say, oh, let's go to Colorado and use all our $100 that we earned in other cities and make us pay

It still has to be paid out from the other cities for them to be able to use it. So, yes, they could they could come and use it here, but they Southlake has to pay their wallet.

Got it. So to Ashley's question, we establish a budget and then we fund that into an account with Blue Dot and that's where the money comes from. So we take it out of, whatever economic development fund or whatever the city decides and that we fund that into a bucket with Blue Dot. So as it's earned, it gets distributed out to those users.

Okay. And so I I have a list of questions. Yeah. The push note is there push notifications that the so the when there are different events or things like that happening, is it pushed directly through the app?

Yep. You can send all of those notifications straight from your dashboard. So if you automate users, you can send push notifications, text messages, and emails for all three.

Okay. Perfect. And then Yeah. For the businesses, I see the screen here, what it looks like when you're doing the navigation. Is that clickable to be able to go and view more information about the businesses?

Mhmm. So you can click into a profile which will open up a full page view and all the hours and everything else.

Are there any links through through that, or is it just like a just a static profile? It will it will be links to the website

we we may populate some of those links if we can find them or if a business creates an account, they can add more.

I can show you some of what that looks like. We have a

Okay. Perfect. And then so the business does the business claim it? Is that like a process where they can it and be able to edit those details?

Right. Correct. So they don't have a screen for that. But once you the moment you open the app, you have two options, sign up or add my business. So a business owner will click the second button, and then they would enter their profile information, and then they they will submit a request. If the business already exists in the program, then they will just claim that profile. If it's a net new business that literally does not exist in the program, then it will come to you guys for review of approval. Okay. So you guys will say, do I wanna allow this business? So you'll review their request, and then you can accept it or detect it.

And they'll be able to upload upload photos and manage, like, any descriptions? Find find photos. Okay. And then is there a review system through that? So if someone is going to one of the businesses, they can actually review and maybe build reviews on that profile?

We actually don't do reviews. We can link to Yelp on the review sites. We haven't done reviews in here. It's a city funded program. We just wanna make sure it's mutual. That makes one. However however, we have as you have seen, our consumers really love the businesses they go to. So we actually have so many positive comments. So we'll be amplifying these positive ones, but we won't have any negativity. Mhmm. I I don't like toxic things.

Yeah. Of course. Okay. And then So

if a customer's love the business and some sometimes describe two words, great burgers and love that. So we wanna amplify that. We wanna share share that with the business and say, hey. We're customers really love your burgers, and then we can put that on the activity feed. So the activity feed is this one. Right now, if you keep scrolling, just analysis rows. Basically, it shows you, here, what are the activities that are happening around you. And then in in here, we can insert some of these comments that people are saying about the businesses nearby. So if somebody does say great burgers, we can update like that in the in the in the activities.

Oh, I love that. Mhmm. Okay. My other question was about the cap for is there a cap for the city investment, or what does that look like? But it's it is is

So the way that that works is we establish the budget and what goes in that, and we would also establish a time frame that we would wanna run the work works for. So for instance, one of the ideas that we have is to launch this with restaurant week and what we're planning there. So we could say, okay, it's restaurant week. However, we wanna do during that, maybe it goes a few weeks beyond that. And then based on the budget, say it's 50,000. If that 50,000 is reached within three weeks, then the funds are it's until funds are exhausted. If it goes to four weeks and we've only spent 25,000, then that addition that remaining 25,000 comes back to us.

But you can also in the previous slides, you showed how we can put a cap

Right.

On what a individual user could get. In other words, we can't have, you know, somebody go out and spend $10 and they take all the money and nobody no money's left for anybody else

Right.

Type of thing. So there's all kinds of parameters that we could define for how it works in our city.

What happens if the city reaches a cab? Does the app not work? Does the rewards

Well, if we run out of money, we can either choose to put more money in Yeah. If our promotional is still going, or we can say, hey. Yeah. It's So

this is always the terms and conditions is that it's as long as funds are available. And that's very much promoted as you if you look at any of the other ones that have put these especially Southlake and North Churchill Hills, that is one of the highlights they have is that as long as funds are available.

So they reached their funds yet? No.

So are you looking at just doing short, like, only promotions or is this gonna be

a year long thing? We would only we're only looking at it in short promotions. Mainly, you don't want people to get so

Used to

it. Used to it that they don't think to use it. So there's a lot of promotion that goes on with these, obviously, with leading up to. It's time sensitive. You wanna go and spend, and we wanna use it during times that were lower traffic. So restaurant week is a good example of why you do it at the end of the you know, in the summer. That's a slump time for a lot of restaurants. So we're trying to increase traffic during that time. If we were to add this on, it's an added incentive. We wouldn't necessarily run this whenever it's not high time for the Yes. Would advertise the time frame.

Yes. Because I mean, nothing worse than, hey, I'm almost got my $10 and I don't need to do one more business. Yeah. But at end you're like, wait, what? Yeah.

But it's it's it's real time and a real percentage. So every time you spend, you don't it's not like a Kroger point where you have to spend so much to get It's not use

or lose it. It's once it's in there, it's in

there. Right.

Okay. But if you have redeem it in a certain you can they will expire at a time. So But

I mean, just as far as earning it.

Earning it. Whatever I earn

and that's the contest sense in four weeks, but I have $9 in my account. I can still use it.

You can redeem it as you go. You can spend one thing, redeem. Spend one thing, redeem.

Even after the after our promos over, you still have that money. Right.

That's that's You

have a certain time frame before it expires. Yeah. We can set what that time frame would be.

The redemption process now, if we're not doing where they're cashing out and taking that cash to their Venmo in their bank account, what does that look like when they're redeeming it and using it out of business? Does the business get redeemed? What how does that work?

Right now go

ahead.

I was gonna right now correct me if I'm wrong, Sofia, but right now, it's just money that you get back. It's like it's like a cash back on your credit card.

Right. Right. Right. Okay.

So you can use it where?

Okay. That's like the cleanest probably way as opposed to doing the reduction process with the business.

I was introducing a new How easy

is it for you to reactivate it and then deactivate it? Like, if you wanna use it three or four times during the year. If the city wants to use it three or four times during the year, can you once we once we've set it up and businesses have signed up, that database still stays there. So the

next time we activate it again. Well, and and even larger database and necessarily who would be in qualified for for any of the rewards will exist because of of BlueDot itself being a CRM tool. We would be using them for that for many other purposes in the city. The open rewards would be, okay. Maybe we're doing it for two months. We pay for two months of open rewards, and we activate it with Blue Dot and we set up all of our parameters and then it

goes live. Then you can set the expiration on the rewards and that parameter and

that time frame.

Yes. You

yeah. Exactly. That's one of those parameters

you change. Okay. That makes

that makes sense. So we can say, you know, you have a month to redeem after the end of the the program. That way, after a month, if they haven't redeemed it, it goes back in the pool, and then that is available for the next time we wanna do open rewards. There are plenty of options on how what that time frame looks like.

What is the what what's the rest of this aspect of it being tied to a CRM? What's what's the

So we didn't go over that specific side of it. That is I mean, it it is truly a CRM tool. There's some data pools that they do as well that helps us on our end of what businesses are operating in the city beyond those who are in a brick and mortar store who have a CO because they're pulling information of who might be a home based business and things like that because they have inform and so be able to talk more about that, but of how that gets pulled in. If you want to learn more about that, we might wanna set up a a different kind of detail of that. I don't I didn't we didn't plan to take up that much time on it tonight because this is that that program itself is fairly inexpensive when it comes to CRM tools.

It's specific to economic developers, and it's one that we were already looking at swapping something that we're currently using

for them. Okay.

So that has an additional separate investment.

It is. Yeah. It's a separate investment that would be part of our regular operations.

Okay.

But we also leverage things like Google Maps or account for any places where we feel some data points are updated a little bit more regularly than some of these other more traditional data sources. Especially consumer facing businesses, they really wanna make sure their hours and everything is right on some of these Google sites or job sites so that we find that information to be a lot more current than some of these other sources that might not update quite so frequently. So depending on what the data is and where the business is coming from, we'll merge a bunch of these together to put together the database that you guys will see through the CRM.

Is this something that could plug in to the back end of the the website?

Yes. That's one of the things we've been talking about is how that could it would reduce a lot of our time and and putting things in to keep it in killer. So yes.

So you pull the data that's going into the CRM, it can show up on the website. And this way, when a business closes, you audit it.

It reduces a lot of our duplicate or or Yeah. Yeah. Of our efforts in that. Yes.

Okay. Yeah.

K. Well, thank you, Sofia. Any other questions? One one last one. What does this cost for us? Yeah. We

So the CRM, it does cost per month. Right. And Sofia, I know that you'll have some new pricing. So I'm gonna quote the old one so you let me know how far off it is. But the we currently have less than a thousand businesses. Their current pricing is $395 a month for the CRM. And then and I have that it's $2.95 a quarter for the business database. That's fine. Okay. But there's

no no cost to the users.

No cost to the users. That's just what we would be we're already using a different system that is pretty comparable to that. And so we would just be trading that out for something that's much more functional. Then in addition, the open rewards is paid for for the time frame that you're using it. I believe that's $4.95 a month?

I think $3.95.

$3.95? Even better. Okay. So yes. So if we if we did it for two months, you're you're looking at 8 less than $800. And then the budget that we set that's going to other people.

But there's not, like, a membership. Okay. Yeah. I think so.

Like a is that, like, a feature

you toggle on and off?

For when we do the open rewards? Yes. It's for when you're running it.

Yeah. Alright. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Sofia. Alright. Thank you, everyone.

Really appreciate the opportunity. Alright. Bye. Bye. Alright. Bye.

Okay. Well, we do have an executive session item. So in accordance with, section five fifty one point o eight seven of the Texas, code, we are going to, recess into, executive session, to deliberate, about our offer of financial other incentives. Approved second. All in favor.

Aye. Alright. So we will move, item, e one, new business, up to, ahead of, the other work session item. This is to consider a chapter three eighty development incentive request for Keller House Collective Inc at 207 South Elm Street. Any more discussion? Make a motion

to approve as is. Second. I have

a motion to approve. Second. Any other discussion, amendments? Alright. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?

I don't get to vote.

I'm an ex officio. It's okay.

So if you're one in where the alcoholics in the room all the ones that I Alright. That item passes. Congratulations. Thank you. Look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you, Howard. It'll be recommended to counsel on what name are we bringing it?

The city.

It'll be it'll be recommended to council

at the next meeting on March 4.

On March 4. Yeah. So

alright. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

You're welcome to save you money. We

said we don't have to follow-up. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We have another work session item, discuss updating the Keller, senior Keller economic development strategic business plan. We asked for input. We have one that we had input come back in. I've got a bunch of notes.

So, I I wanted to kinda take a couple of minutes and just kinda, help bring more structure to how we're recasting the vision of this in discussions. Arm and I, we we really, really wanna see this board move into a self directed and self led, self incentivized board that gets very active in bringing things to city council for consideration. And so rewriting our strategic development plan is the first step in doing that. So we've we've asked for a lot of things. I've I've got a

lot of

information, but I really wanna challenge us to, respond and become very active in, and creative in coming in with what economic development should be, in the city of Keller. We want to look forward. And, how we develop, economically over the next twenty five years to that 2050, perspective is gonna be crucial, in Keller. We're we're at crossroads for a lot of different things. We are and and most of council is committed to to trying to preserve our community, small town charm.

That's one of the reasons old Town killer like this is developing like it is, to be that small town Americana. But the only way that we can let me rephrase this. We only have certain buckets of revenue that can can come into the city, and most of our revenue comes from, property taxes. To replace that, one of the only other few places we can go is sales tax revenue. And that means we need to to plan for the future if we're gonna keep the burden light on all of us as property owners and homeowners, then we've got to start developing up our our economic development.

And we have challenges with that. Keller is is not a resort area. We don't have freeways running through us. We we do have good, traffic counts on 1709 and 377 because of development other areas, those are increasing. We have a economic market that back when we were doing the fluff, work, we were at, like, 1,500,000,000.0 is the market that is. Where are we at now?

Do we I let me look that up for you. Okay. I've got a report.

But anyway, I just am trying to help us cast that vision that that we want a board made up of of individuals who really want to take this task on and help us develop a economic development plan and strategy for how do we maximize this part of Keller. And, I mean, one of the projects I I because I think I told everybody I begged to be on this board for three and a half years, and I finally got on it. But one of the projects I did was going through the cities in America, and looking for all of the cities that were between, like, 35,075, and then weeding those down by cities that were first, a suburb of a major metropolitan area, because we are. That's one of our our benefits. We have a, you know, huge airport.

We have a lot of economic drivers in the DFW Airport. But then did not have a body of water, did not have a freeway running through it, did not and and I created criteria and and I've got a sheet that I worked on where I've got the contacts of of the, town councils or, board of governors or whoever from those cities. And we have ever we're from, you know, Greenwich, Connecticut, Fairfield, Connecticut to Wheatland in Illinois. Five cities just in and around San Francisco look like Keller. And and so I would like to know what's what's working there.

What's unique in those cities that could be a benefit to us? And then I I, I think I don't wanna take the time tonight, but I would like to look at those cities for what are their largest employers. How can we get daytime population in Keller? What do those businesses look like that that actually come to brick and mortar offices? What's the unique, dining? What's the unique retail? What's the what's the attractions entertainment that those cities have? See if if we get any ideas from them. We may not, but it would be a a a, you know, a great project to to take on. This is just some of the ideas.

And then and then look at Keller. Talk about all of our our venues that we have. What can we get creative about driving events or that we could attract or even create for Keller. I know our team thinks about this stuff all the time. I I want to cut and timing is good here again with, you know, Mary, you know.

Abandoned it.

Oh. Mary trains We've already

I I

will tell you because this is what I told Mary.

She knows I'm teasing.

It it used to be that, people would would go to work somewhere and they would grow with that. That's not the thing anymore. And we have a lot of people that come through or have come through Keller, and that's a good sign for us. It is it means, first of all, that people's value gets recognized in Keller, other places, and that's how they grow. But we have a great environment for attracting talent.

And and and so this is not a bad thing. This is a very good thing. It's a very positive thing for us, and I I wanna make sure we are understanding that the the the strategic goals that we put forward are attractive to to not just our community, but also to people who want to work here. So this is not a bad thing. So I I just want us to start focusing on things.

I'm gonna turn all of this stuff over and, through Melody, get it out to everybody to to be thinking about. But I want us to really start developing this plan into something that says we're going from this place to self directed, self led board that is going to take on these type of projects for Keller and be a resource not only for our economic development department, but ultimately the city council of how do we cast the vision for the next twenty five years that that this is how we are going to allow Aaron to keep coming to us with tax cuts and still make our our funding work. Makes sense? Okay. So, anyway, thank you for all you've done.

But we've now ordered I'm gonna turn it over to you for what you had planned for this or is this what you had

I mean, that's the main thing. We did get receive one piece of feedback, but I think maybe the best thing would be to combine it with yours. And if anybody else wants to get it in the next couple weeks, we can add it in and and have a little more time on the March agenda. I won't be here, but that is great opportunity for y'all to go over all of those.

But this this is the priority is is rebuilding this plan for for what this board and and what we wanna submit to council for an economic development plan would look like. And so, yeah, I wanna get out. Everybody should have gotten Nate's or did we send that out to everybody yet

or not? We didn't send out Nate's. I can't. I can send it

to We'll send that out. I'll give them my notes. It'll come out. And if if we can then set a a work session that's, you know, to really dig into it, even if we need to divide divide up and and take a section, each meeting over the next few meetings to to redefine that and reword it and line it up, that's the input I'm looking for. So make sense?

Yeah.

Can we do that? Is that something we want to do? Yep. Alright. I have one. Yeah. Nothing else. So okay. Great. Okay. I'll be here. Economic update?

Yes. So I have a few things. These are from the January numbers. So we haven't pulled all of the twenty eighth of the February ones yet. So, you'll get those at the next meeting. But, we had five new businesses that opened in January. They included Grizzly Brothers Gutters, Typewriter Justice, Redemptive Sports, Pediatric Eye Specialists, and WellMed. WellMed is the one that went into the old El Paseo Building. There's been questions on that one a lot. It is now operational.

We've had a total of 13 COs that have been issued year to date, six of those being those new businesses. And we have a building permit that's under review for HTO. That's one that we've been working with for a long time. They've been on our recruitment list for at least eight years. And we've met with them multiple times at things like retail live and Which more by Walmart? Other events. Yes. By Walmart. Their SCP was approved by city council some time ago. And they are now getting to the building permit phase to be able to build that out. Lone Star Cafe has received their CO. They should be opening soon. That one's in front of center stage. If you did not see Penguin Patch no. Yes.

Penguin Patch received their TCO. That's one of the our incentivized projects. And that was for their warehouse portion. They're still finishing out getting their elevator put in and and things like that to fully get their CO. But we anticipate that they will be able to occupy that soon, and then there will be a big grand opening party for everyone to enjoy and celebrate that project. Houghton Horns is officially open. So that is our performance hall that we incentivized and stopped by there today. It looks fantastic inside. We I will be posting some photos on the city page if they're not out there already. So you can check those out.

They have, they're anticipating the concert series. That concert season really starts in the fall. So they're planning all of that in right now, getting their artists lined up. So be on the lookout for when those, those dates start being released to get your tickets and enjoy that. As you know, Teigen is under construction.

City sports campus, we just had their site plan approved at city council the the last meeting. So they're moving right along, and that's the one there in the sports park that is also an incentivized project. Restaurant week planning is coming along as well. We had a meeting as our second meeting with our restaurant tours today to get some feedback on the things that have been kind of structured for this. Our timeline for that right now, the event the week itself will be the last week.

It starts July 28 through August 3. So the last week of of July into the August. We plan for that to be a standardized every year, that kind of time frame. And right now, we are going through all of the structure for that kind of event with our restaurateurs to make sure it works for them. Our plan is to have that really finalized.

We are meeting with them again on March 10. So in a couple of weeks, We'll have it finalized to be able to go out to all the restaurants to sign up for participation April 1, and then we'll start promoting to the general public on May 1. And we're working through promotional materials and all of that right now with our communications department to have that fully set up and ready to go. So that is making good progress, and I think it'll be just nearly nearly tied up and ready before March 13. We attended ICSC Red River at the January.

We had some really great conversations with some brokers and site selectors while we were there. The one of the largest sites of interest is the Big Lots site, obviously. They that one's kind of unique because it has because of the way that they're doing their liquidation efforts through with their bankruptcy, that lease is for sale. And we we're waiting to hear back on who actually bought the lease if it's been bought yet. Gordon Brothers is is kind of facilitating that.

It's one of the more advantageous leases out there because it still has the lease itself ends in 2028. It has three more five year options. So we could go for another fifteen years after that. So we're hoping for a really awesome purchaser. More than likely, we have several family entertainment users that are interested that would be they'd be working with whoever purchases that.

They don't typically purchase them outright, and I I don't quite understand it myself. It's a new process for us. So we're trying to learn more about that and how why it works that way. And I've been g's site was another, big one for us on that particular visit, and we've had, a lot of interest in that one. I don't think it'll take long for it to be filled. The Petco site was another one that was of a lot of interest. We had a meeting with Regency Centers about that in particular. We've also set up additional meetings. We have one tomorrow with our brokers on Town Center Lane so we can kind of talk about the different things and what the city might be able to to do from our So we're we're gathering information on what we can do next.

When did Orange Theory close?

I wanna say November. So you will. That one was a a surprise one. I have that particular franchisee evidently closed several locations without informing corporate. And there is another franchisee that wanted to purchase that location and may be doing so so that they could then re up that lease and re What's that being directed? I don't I have not talked to them in particular. Why have they moved? Yeah.

They moved? Yeah.

That one SMB. That one became available after ICSC.

So because that's a great space too.

Yes.

The Shannon Arbor site is another one that we highlighted. That one is has been foreclosed on. So we're working with the the broker there. We do know that an LOI has been submitted for it, but I I do not know if it's been accepted yet. I'm gonna follow-up on that one because they should have information right now. Okay. It would be for a great user. I can't give you details, but an open session, but would be a good one. And Mcdonald hardware site was the other one that we were highlighting for that event. We've talked about open rewards.

You got the full view of that. If you haven't seen, we've been doing our killer foodie features in partnership with the communications department. The court had started on January 17 with the first video that went out. But every Friday, we're posting content specifically for Foodie Friday. Right? So, half of them will be videos of of businesses, led primarily by the other foodie favorites poll that we did. So it informs a lot of our decisions on who's being selected. And, and then the other, other weeks will be different content. It just won't be video, but it will be foodie related. We have a restaurant and retail survey open now.

It started on January 3. It closes at the February, so about less than a week left. And so far, we have I think it's 683 responses that are, that have come in so far. We will be callying what those results look like. We plan for it to be on the next economic development board agenda for y'all to see kind of what those details would be. And I'm I'm happy to I wanna congratulate Melanie. She finished her basic economic development course in Waco at the February. So she's now fully prepped and ready. It is a great course though. It's it gives a lot of that basic stuff that we need to know.

So she's got a great foundation to build on it. That is all that I have for you unless you have any questions.

Questions? Alright. Well, thank you everybody for being here for all your input. Motion to adjourn. Take one. Alright. We're adjourned.