Troy Industrial Development Authority - Regular Meeting

Great.

Thanks, D. Um, okay, everyone. We're going to start today with our first meeting of 2026 of as the Troy Industrial Development Authority. It's January 16th, uh, 2026. We're going to call order the board meeting and we're going to start today with our public hearing for the, uh, First Columbia 433 River Street LLC project 2025. Um this notice was put out in the Troy record and uh we are uh conducting this public hearing in pursuant of title 11 of our slaves public authorities law state of New York. um as amended in chapter 759 of the laws of 1967 of the state of New York and as amended uh a notice public hearing um describing the project as mentioned published in the record a copy of which is attached herein and is official part of this transcript a copy of the application submitted by first columbia 433 river street LLC to the authority along with costbenefit analysis is available for review and inspection by the general attendance in a public in attendance at this hearing that copy is out on the table Um I don't see anyone on Zoom. So we will start with are there any members of the public present that would like to speak? If you would uh please uh stand up, uh introduce yourself to the board, uh your name and just where you're coming from or representing and any members of the public. The floor is yours. No one. Uh it's 10:09. So I feel Oh, [clears throat] how long we've been streaming for

uh since you started. Yeah. Right. It's like two minutes. Uh okay. There's people that want to join on Zoom. They're they're already

Okay. I I don't feel like we're uh we push anyone out by starting late or anything like that, but um I I feel like okay moving on past the public hearing if there's no members present. Um, so I'm going to conclude uh the public hearing section of the portion of the meeting and we will jump into uh item number two on our agenda. We have a new board member at the table. Uh we have Greg Campbell Cohen uh council member from Troy District 6. Uh, welcome Greg and we look forward to serving with you on the Troy IDA and student CRC after this very much. Um, now we're going to go into the long approval of rather than uh we have four minutes in front of us, five minutes in front of us to for to approve today. September 26, 2025, October 17th, October 21st, and December 19th. Um, I don't have a role in front of me of who was present for which meeting. Uh, unless D, do you have that?

No. Candy. Okay. We've done this before, uh, when we've had these things compiled due to, uh, just absences. Uh, do we have a motion to approve the full set of minutes together, uh, for these four uh, these four moments? Uh, I guess everyone except for Greg is welcome to vote on this one. All in favor? We have excuse. All in favor? I Okay, we just we have seven passes. Wait, oneain from two, but there's still enough to have approved. Still got five. Well, I still have six then. Yeah. Yeah. Then other people have to abstain from others, too, right?

Yeah. Was a Because if we weren't Yeah, we've done this before. Yeah, it is bad. Yeah, I'm acknowledging that. We Otherwise then we So we can push to the next meeting, but we didn't do that last time. No, I'm just saying. Oh, yeah. I I thought we just approved for you to approve them all at once. That's what I just did. Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying we have seven for one extension, right? Yes. But and I believe that the way that with the attendance we have today, there would be enough still aggregate five at least, right? Okay. Okay, now I get what you're saying. Sorry, that's cuz you had to abain at least five. [laughter] Yeah,

I wanted to be sure before we started. Okay. Um, now we go into new business the page. We have a project uh authorizing resolution for First Columbia 43 LLC project 2025. Let me get to my script page. Okay. So, we have a resolution in front of us of the Troy Industrial Development Authority appointing First Columbia 43 River Street LLC as its agent to undertake a certain project um authorizing the execution and delivery of an agent agreement renewed

revised or should be amended. I'm sorry. Benoon, amended lease agreement, amended lease back agreement, amended payment in lie of tax agreement and related documents with respect to the project, authorizing the provision of certain financial assistance to the company, adopting findings with respect to the state environmental quality review act and authorizing the execution of related documents with respect to the project. So, we have members from 433 River Street here uh for addressing any questions that the board has. We um I open that to the table to the board for any anyone who wants to um address any questions with uh 433 treatments agents.

I was trying to find out I I'm trying to I guess get to your 485 job threshold number with a max of 650 and 2030. your uh based on the uh the application, you're saying 30 to 45 construction jobs will be uh created uh between January 30th of this year through December 31st of 2030 with 846 retained.

Uh 846 is the retained number from the previous year. construction jobs would be for the projects undertaking the and and then 107 city hall jobs lost uh for 2027 with a gain of 31 for the 2024. How many I guess proposed uh jobs do you have coming in that are not construction?

Um so that's going to be at a per tenant basis. Um, so as we attract new tenants and bring new companies into the city, that's we'll have job figures. A lot of it depends on the square footage they're taking. Um, for instance, there's a a tenant that's took small space on the fourth floor and they're going to have roughly 15 to 20 employees total. Um, it it really depends on what tenant is coming in, what jobs are coming in with that tenant. Do you have a proposed uh teny for fifth floor?

No, we do not have a proposed tenency. Obviously, we're we're marketing and and getting the word out there um to prospective tenants and different office users, but we don't have anyone that's looking at the because you also mentioned that you were uh discussing, you know, a possible move here for those that were considering a colony, correct? Location. So I'm just trying to, you know, get an idea of how many you're, you know, you're looking at to to see if this number is actually realistic to get up to that number. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's,

as you know, Colony is probably the biggest competition for office market in the capital region. I mean, that's where a lot of the firms that left downtown Albany, all of them go to Colony. That's no surprise the last two years. Um, but for instance, so on Tuesday, we received an inquiry for um 17 offices. Um they asked about uh Centry Hill and Leam and then Troy, New York. So that's you know 17 offices with a few admin. That could be 20 jobs. I think we steer it down towards Troy in uh 2027. What space they go in we'll have to see what their exact program is whether it's on the fourth floor or fifth floor. But um that's kind of how the the system would work. That helps clear it up a little bit. We're at 35 maybe

just for those possible inquiries. But if no, like nothing installed either, just seeing people that were talking to and and just just I I think I reiterated this to you guys last week. Um I was here when the state moved out. It was catastrophe for the buildings too because there was no I mean we had so much space that we had to fill. Right now we're being faced with about 100,000 square feet of space we have to fill. We're out there, I mean, trying very hard to find people right now because that's the last thing anybody wants and we want to spur on economic growth and that's what we do. You know, I think we've proven that over the years of being here. We've been here 20 years and [clears throat] we've proven that

and we we've looked the last 15 years in the city of Troy in respect to pilots. If you took the top six job pilots excluding this building, um all six of those combined, correct? jobs roughly or still 96 jobs more than the top the past six combined. So if you think like this building is truly an outlier on type of economic driver it does by the city. I mean other than RPI you point to a single building how many jobs are in this building. I mean, you combine those last six and you're at that number. It's pretty astonishing to see how much economic activity this building can produce much jobs.

15 years, top six. So, there's been more than But I see what you're saying. The top six top 389. Wow. 389. Yeah. It's an economic an economic You've got projects that have been um the city station area which around 40 uh the original tractor one was around 40 you know dinosaur barbecue had 80 in there um the Hudson renovation was 80. I mean nothing is is truly on the scale of what this building can can produce jobs

and nothing like we'd like more than to bring people into Troy that aren't in Troy already. So I mean our marketing staff is working very very hard right now knowing what we're being faced with. So doesn't stop us from thinking and this is why we came into tour in the first place is to spur on economic growth here. So sticking to that and we're working hard doing that. But it's hard to predict. That's what I was trying to say. Hard to predict. It took me a good five years to get us stable again after the state moved out of plan again. So just to give you an idea of how long it took us and that was in a not bad office market. Now it's like we're faced with different parameters due to co's created a lot. Yeah. The urban a lot of

companies the urban office market's a lot different than it [clears throat] was 10 years ago. I mean Diana is here from the puppet. She works in commercial real estate fact. Yeah. Yeah. It's a trend. So when the residential real estate is booming then you know commercial usually sees a decline. So that's what normally happened. This is a little different. Yeah. This is a little different now. the mindset of people because they had a couple years to be remote. It's changed. You have hybrids now. You don't have as many people which means [cough] there's not as [clears throat] much space they're looking for anymore.

I mean it's a it's a domino effect. So I think that's here to stay personally. you can comment. There's ju just a a question I have is like just to understand the so with those hardships there's no the building can you speak on how this building like does this does this building serve unique challenges if you were to try to convert this to let's say apartments or try to convert it to medical suites like like this you're looking at just office and you've done the work to do venue space up top restaurant down below with co-working but this core is it is that the only real use space for Yeah, those are really the only ancillary uses on the first floor for restaurant and the ninth floor event space. I mean, if you look at the just sheer block size of the building,

you would have apartments in the middle, no windows. I mean, did we go through the exercise in 2022 to possibly look at it when we saw CO happening? Yes. It's just not really feasible. It's kind of a It's like the central warehouse building in Albany. Like, people have tried to do apartments there for 20 years and it never worked. I mean, it's the same concrete big block building. The only thing that really works in this footprint is office. Um, and [clears throat] to the point of that, it's not every building should be transformed to residential like this one can, but not every building should be. You still need jobs in the city to feed those apartments and feed the restaurants. So, that's kind of where our mindset has been in the last 20 years and and bringing jobs into this and that's where it's going to continue. Um, so the building itself would not be able to be converted to residential. So, do you see on the first floor with the with the sliding dirty uh how many uh permanent jobs is that bringing? Do you have an idea of that yet?

I I don't have that number right now. I think they have six uh as they continue to expand the business. That'll probably increase. Right now, there's six employees. It's the owner and the general manager are hands on site. They're not actually managing. They're behind the counter with cooking. They're serving drinks. They're trying to grow the business right now and they're working hard to do that. They have expansion area in the back too to do more music and possible catering too. So if they grow that.

Okay. So with that is my concern again with the jobs. So relying on that same model with restaurants first carrying more of you know that type of business. Do you think that that is going to be sustainable because that has been tried and then we're we're here again, you know, talking about a revision of a pilot because it's not working. So that's, you know, I want to know what your thoughts are.

It's a different concept now and um he's got a fing and he's already doing very very well and this building needs amenities for the people to attract people to it. Even in our suburban setting, they're they want amenities. They want restaurants. So food is very big and walkability which this has. I mean you have everything that um new people want. I think the co hurt of restaurants we hope is dwindled. Like the

the food hall opened at possibly I think it opened September of 2019 which in retrospect is the worst time to open food hall. So you had a bunch of smaller vendors who rely on daily foot traffic for 2020 to 2023 weren't getting it. So that's why it was kind of closed down for a little bit and him, you know, sliding dirty came in and he had a loyal following to begin with. So there's a little bit more nighttime activity down there which is good. So we don't really see him going backwards. I think the the onslaught of food struggling was in the main frame of 2020. It was all small local vendors just trying to make it work on on low traffic, competing with each other.

It was unfortunate. It was a great concept that the the foot track just dropped because of the co and and it just built up getting people back into the building. It took a while to get people back in the building working. So that's where it hurt. You alluded that to this being a completely different concept than what was under the original pilot um for Yeah. Could you just catch me up to speed on how River Street Market was the original concept? There was six vendors at Yeah. There was six separate stalls with vendors and we had a bar. Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

Driven by foot traffic, right? We wanted as an amenity for the building when we had all the tenants and visitors and guests here. And again, CO was a game changer. But once you had that foot traffic disappear, none of them did make it. We even offered significant rent breaks to try to alleviate it. That didn't help it. So, and one of one of the vendors, Jamie Ortiz, has Prime Burger. He's got hem smoke across the across the water. He's got to he's got for he's a he's an excellent operator. It was just zero foot traffic was able to sustain the business.

So, it was multiple times. People would walk around, see which menu they like, have something. This is this is just blind. You go in there, you're sitting down, you're ordering off his menu. um usually a loyal following but there's been a lot of people who are just going down for lunch quick for having to go and coming back up the whole music program. I don't want to speak for both of them, but there's also awful for ride share just I know we're just we're if we're uh sorry we're going off the rails. I know we're doing inner uh inner uh conversation but uh Kevin we might even ask you you introduce yourself.

I just want each person who's introduce themselves and please just don't talk back and forth. let's go person and uh we're addressing who we're addressing the questions to but I appreciate if you need to call on someone for another question. I'll have them introduce ask them but Kevin um First Colombia with me is uh Democranian First Columbia and then Joe Castaldo First Columbia who manages and runs this whole building for us. know and Dallas from NI platform but I'm here [laughter] a local developer so do we have uh so sorry Greg you keep going on was your question addressed sorry to interrupt on that I had one other question if I could

of course um in the in the proposed 10-year extension of the pilot for the projected taxes can you just walk me through how you're arriving at the assessment that you're using for those 10 years out. And um also like what percentage of units you expect are occupied when you're making these numbers for the proposed other or the existing for for the prop for the projected taxes that we're comparing them to. Those were off uh current assessment

and and tax rates. So that's where those numbers are always derived from. Um and then the projections on on the right side are um also analysis of what it would be what you know people are paying versus percent of gross rents versus um bourbon as well. And then also you'll see the the there's no deduction requested. We're asking for um to say level why all these vacancies all hit us at once and give us a few years to absorb 100,000 square feet which is quite quite a chunk of space. um and then increase it from there once we have a little bit of stabilization as we project

I just want to thank you for meeting with us and going over the financials and putting things in perspective of how the tenants had moved out over the course of time and the whole path to how you got to this point and um it really puts in perspective It is. It is, as you said, a very it's a unique building because of the size and where it's located. Of course, Troy would never want to see it not be as full of life as it has been. Yeah.

For the last 20 years. Um, and if and that's part of it, too, to to keep that in mind as people cross over into Troy. And it really is very eye-catching and and that you have a goal to to see that come back again and the repairs that you've been putting into it. Yeah. Are massive. The last few years saw some of the facade repairs that Joe and his management team doing. I mean, nobody wants to see buildings crumbling, you know, like you see a neighboring this building kind of an icon for the city and I'm a driver of the city and that's what Chris wants to continue to do. So,

yeah. So between a hundred year old building and a little faults that little faults big faults that happen yearly but um we have that along with marketing 100,000 square feet. So um one of the interesting things is they have the largest footprint. So if you have a big corporation needs a lot of space this is really the only place they can go right now. What is your typical uh like per square foot uh rent like list list right now on the marketing? Like what are you putting that out in like the public marketing? Like what are you Yeah, you and it's a lot of it's available on online the market rent um for all Detroit.

I just got one. Again, they vary what the tenant asked for. Tenant fit up. I mean, we have a certain, you know, amount that we give and if they want more, they agree to to it and there's a lot of variables into a rent. So, so hard to be straightforward with the rent rate, but there is variables. Albert had a question, but just [clears throat] um you talked to us about this last week. Um, your relationship with Mnt. Um, can you just talk about that for the for the rest of the board?

Yeah, sure. They're uh they're there's a lender on the building. Um the principal ownership group has been doing business with them since 1990. Um they've stuck through, you know, when 2012 when the state left in 2010 2012, it was um conversations we had with them as well on on how do we get this building back uh standing tall again. Um so it's a a relationship we've had with them for quite a bit in the commercial office market. And your your renewal is 2031, correct? Yeah. Okay. catch up here. So important to them for us to back to where we were 2012 with them probably having the same conversations that we'll have to have with them too.

Reporting, you know, the progress [snorts] and so forth like [clears throat] you got a question? Yeah. We'll keep it open for the board for any more questions. I was just going to ask with the with the amended job creation numbers, are you anticipating like vacant space in the office building for long periods of time over the next few years?

Uh yeah, we're we're not going to be able to absorb 100, you know, 98,000 square feet within the next few years. That's why we kind of gave a five to six year buffer. Like if you look at it, like um Sienna said, this floor plate is is massive. Like if you go to the suburbs, one building is what a floor is here. Usually takes a few years to absorb a building. Um so we are anticipating a few years to backfill certain spaces like you know somebody might take 10,000 square feet 4,000 square feet. Um you kind of just chip away as you go.

Well it's changing too like city hall space 36,000 square feet. This can this will become probably multi-tenative. So we'll have several different. So that's more cost into it doing demising walls and the corridors by rating them different. Uh but that's that's a fundamental change that's happening is it's it's one type of office space to another kind of commercial office. Yeah. Office get a municipal user. You got to change the user the users of track. [laughter] [laughter]

No. Very good.

I guess where my head's at on this and you know I totally recognize I'm 30 minutes into the job. um [laughter] uh is just um there's a lot happening on one side of the ledger here and not all of that is um your fault. this is like consequences of broader things and you know I'm totally symp but um it is an amendment of an existing pilot um and I' I'd work with you [clears throat] guys on helping to solve problems but I feel as though a value proposition has to exist on the other side of the ledger to sort of balance things out And I don't want that to be like a painful thing, but if there's going to be all of this vacant space, I wonder if there's an opportunity there to provide support for if not the city of Troy. I understand we've been out. Uh but um there's a lot of other governmental or quasi governmental institutions that needs

Yeah, we're Yeah, more open than anybody coming into picking and choosing by no means. We want somebody that fits right for the building and does exactly what we're saying. Like when the state did leave, they actually stayed in their space and didn't leave their space and went home at 4 or 5:00. People here now that are here, they actually walk around the city and actually provide economic growth in that fashion to to you know money or use the rent the restaurants, use the stores. They actually love being in the cities. That's changed even in 20 years. So that was a good thing that happened here.

And then with what we're doing down the street with the apartments, the grocery store down there, I mean, and the rock gym, we're trying to spur on people being in this area, not just downtown. So that's going to help too. So the people that we want here, we want them to be able to enjoy the amenities around them, too, and sp on that kind of economic growth, too. That's important for the city. We had a probably two, three years ago meeting with Mayor Madden at the time. He said when he was grown up he could throw a bowling ball down River Street and he wouldn't hit anyone. Yeah. There was just nobody on the streets. And I think James say look at rounds from Ryan's wake on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. It's a lot different than it was years ago.

Yes. Just to reiterate my point. I'm just sorry. Um I I'm again understand I'm just arriving here but my understanding is that you have a pilot for the things that you're talking about. you've been getting that subsidies to to play that role which we're grateful which I'm certainly grateful for. Yep. From 2016. Uhhuh. And so this amendment is is extending those terms. Correct. It's kind of taking into account the drastic change of what the world of 2016 is to what the world in 2026 is for urban office markets.

Um not just locally and couple regions. when like a just so you know like when uh when we look at the building we look at where can we maintain this for a little bit so it is attracting tenants too if your taxes keep going like this our rents go like this and then it becomes unaffordable for somebody to even be here so that's another thing that we have to play with we buy out Joe's been fantastic at keeping operating expenses pretty low here I mean we haven't had huge increases we buy out we really are aggressive on working everybody that operates the building. So, we don't pass those things on to the tenants. So, there there's a lot of like again variables of what we look at and what we want to provide for the tenants too because we're really passing through to the tenants and want them to be sustainable here too. We don't want them to leave or we don't want the ones that are here to leave and we want the ones that we're trying to get to come and think this is a great place to be. So they they you know it's Colony Troy just like kind of said in the beginning they have a choice.

Do you want to finish? Did you have a follow up on that? I guess just final question if um for folks who like me who are coming in at the back end of this you could just summarize I'm like maybe three sentences like what are the material changes in this amendment.

Sure. [clears throat] Uh yes, material changes is like I said, taking into account the the change from, you know, the 2016 original on this to 2026. Um the change in um the extension of pilot requests while we, you know, try and get stabilized for the next six years. Um taking into account what the different job factors are for office space um in in current markets going from what the old numbers were to the new one. Um and three, basically, how do we stay um competitive control counties have different neighboring counties don't need economies people don't need subsidies taxes are naturally low there people have access and then uh that's that's if I were to summarize it as how do we stay competitive and bring jobs to Troy when a lot of the times they're going out to the sub right now how do we keep economic development in the city I think what I'm hearing in that is not actually material changes it's an explanation to why the material changes are happening. The material changes are the job numbers

are going from 30 to 485 with stabilization. Yep. Right. Y and the pilot that already does exist is being amended. Correct. To be extended. Y

any other board members have a question to put forward?

I just want to say because you're new and your questions are great. Almost every project that comes to us is apartments, apartments, apartments, and they don't create jobs. they might create some construction and ultimately maybe a building manager. But for the years that I've been on and with CO, there were very few projects, but we had a we had a dry spell. But once once things open back up again and we can all see the building going on in Troy on every corner, we're bringing we're bringing people in. It would be nice to have office areas where people who live in Troy could walk to work. and you don't know. I'm looking at it like as an overall um part of where Troy could be in a few years because it had maybe people moving into these into the region that like the the more of the urban lifestyle would have a a connection to a tenant that might you know be suitable here instead of doing as we talked about we we've heard about just all right we don't we're not doing well with business let's just make it into apartments. I think we're drowning in apartments and we have another huge one about to come up and um so this is like the biggest one that we've had since I've been on this board where actual jobs would be coming back from what they were a few years ago. Not counting city hall. I'm just saying even express scripts the state all of those that had been lost over the last few years.

I just add on to that too. This is an unusual pilot. Like if you just take the pilot for like the amount of payment that this does bring in, the pilot payment is higher than almost anything that I've been in front of on this board. I can't think of anything that's given its size and scale.

Size and scale. So despite it getting the breaks, it's also for the 10-year extension bringing in I mean by far the most amount of any I mean it's getting 2.3 million over 10 years in breaks, but it's bringing in a significant amount. Um, so there is a to Greg's point of like one side of the ledger like I'm thinking of it from project to project. It's still it's a significant project scale in terms of what it can bring in and I am cautious of what happens if this doesn't get filled if uh it is back on the tax roll like is it is it able to even stay at the level it's at like what like what h like what's the worst case scenario is it's not bringing in there could be a scenario where it's not bringing in 500 to 600k.

That's a good point. Yeah. And I I think to your point because you're looking down into the granular economics belatedly, right, which I I can appreciate. Um this kind of counterpoint point type perspective. Um but this this is an inducement. There's more tax breaks and more years given. Understood. And the exchange is a bottom line minimum number of jobs around four or five million of new investment in the building. That's that is capital work going in. um taking this extension off the table, looking at the last four years that are left, and I I think we can take um for face value what they're telling us about the jobs. We know City Hall's leaving. There's going to be a restacking here with uh several hundred thousand square ft of space being re reprogrammed. In the normal course, if this extension wasn't in place, and this is just a counterpoint, um if you look at the last four years at the top of your sheet, um next year, let's say in 2027, the city's out, they're still reprogramming and restacking. The most uh natural course of action for the developer in that case would be, I'm going back on the tax rules. I'm going to terminate my pilot. I'm going to show the assessor that I'm 35% to 40% vacant. And the assessor is going to look at that very soberly and say, "Okay, if you look at full taxes right here on this on the lower run, if full taxes are something like $750,000 now, based upon some supposition that the building's probably at 90%. The taxes, if they were out of the pilot, would probably be something like $400 or $500,000. So why would they pay more under a pilot?" And really, you can't. um this is a proposal that they're saying listen I'm going to stay in I'm going to continue to pay and we're not going to file a certiary saying we're empty or half empty

so it's a bit of a safety net for the school the city and the county as well so that there's another way to look at it in terms of a known vacancy you know uh occurrence happening and a blip and let's say they do scale up by 2030 and they're back up to 800 jobs they're back to 95% occupancy then the assessor would look at it again and say, "Oh, wait. Now you're worth more again." That would take two to three years to really absorb and the taxes going up again. So, there'd be a valley. Uh, so we're kind of avoiding a valley a little bit. So, it's it's just something to look at in terms of of the of the up down or the or the the cost benefit of of the IDA looking at the extension. So, just perspective.

These are the current vacancies we know are coming up. We do have renewals to that we didn't count in this that we're hoping that I just wanted to point that out. We haven't gotten that that option yet, right? Yeah. And this isn't a point for the board, but I appreciate what Greg's saying and trying to get other entities in. I think that I I I think you're going to be in a point where to get these job numbers up, you're going to have to make really attractive offers. And I hope it it like that's not our decision, but I hope that you come to that sooner than later to get it filled. But, um, I know the reality of that. What else we got from the board from anyone? And if nothing um you don't do triple net, you don't do triple net. You just do.

Yes, you do. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, do we have a if there's no further questions, do we have a motion uh for this resolution for the 433 Columbia River Street project? I'll make the motion. Okay. Let's do all in favor hands I one two okay so we have five four and any opposed and any abstent oh three one one recusal recusal two okay so you got that for the minutes Justin's got it yep 521 carries okay the motion

I would yeah and I would yeah and I would just like to add so my reason for as for my no vote is I would I would be more open to seeing a revision of the remaining term as opposed to an extension, but I I just have not been convinced that those jobs numbers would would make it there at at that 485. I I just don't see it. and you know I I'd rather let's you know talk about it now address it now than all right then we say yes and then you know 3 years later and then we're at the same point again with well we're not making it we're only at 200 you know or whatever the number is. Um so whatever we what else we could do to you know assist like

45 and targeting tenants and from experience from the state departure pack and back in the day we're are very popular.

I I mean I've lived it but I mean I truly lived it and I lived in in a different environment but I did live it for five years six years to get it back to where it went to. Well, thank you for uh letting us push this uh from the initial meeting three months ago forward. Uh thank you to the business public who are maybe present uh in the future watching this and paying attention to this. And uh that concludes that item of the new business. We are going to move into um we have a financial advisor um letter. Uh we have a letter from Victoria stores that I'll let Justin go into a little more detail on this but just background for Greg and for anyone who wasn't at the last meeting um or was able to look at this. So in the absence now this is not because of this absence but it's also to help this and this is very part for the course in a lot of different IDAs regardless of how they're structured who's on the boards who's executive directors. It's very [clears throat] common for IDAs across the state to bring on a third-party financial advisor to review pilots for the board and essentially provide a again I'll let Jessica this just my summary of it is provide a rating of that pilot for our to essentially to advise us in the absence of an executive director. I think this is very proven for the force too, but it's also something that works in tandem with them because it's someone who's dedicated to this. Now, there's a fee per pilot that comes in that is covered by the pilot application.

So, it's not something that we're pulling from our accounts for this except maybe to put it up front. It looks like there's two fees. There's a $10,000 fee and there's a 13,000. The $10,000 fee looks like stick out. I could provide a little bit of background

and just the background last background on Victoria is this came highly recommended by Justin. I met her at the conference two years ago and uh we'd like to get more proposals but Victoria was the first to respond quickest and uh sent this to us uh last week. So it's here in front of us. We there's no decision at this meeting. Um but I'd like to invite her to come in to the next meeting. Um, if we can get another proposal from someone, I'd like them all to be here at once, but we'll see how possible it is to juggle that and we can, but this is is Yeah. Any questions like that? I appreciate you bringing up now. Yeah. Can I bring a copy of one of our reports? Yeah, I think uh Oh, sure. I I think they're all they're all public. Yeah,

I can send you links to them. And just in in context, I my firm represents probably 50 IDAs. I do probably 15.

Uh they all have different kinds of policies. you always have to have a uniform tax exemption policy and you're familiar with the other policies and Greg will be bored with them very soon I'm sure but um in that context when applicants come to an IDA there's generally standards that you present to them for how a pilot looks ours hasn't been touched probably since 2006 or seven and it's been a long-standing kind of housekeeping back burner thing that'll probably come to the four soon and there's some backstory on that but I'll use uh one of my clients. The village of Portchester sits on the Connecticut border. If you're familiar with Westchester County, it's a TOD community. The Metro North runs through it. So, what's occurred in the last 10 years is they've got probably 8 to 10,000 apartment units coming online within a 5-year period. So, just massive amounts of housing coming at them. Um sorry. Um so, in that context, it's been a dynamic change to the community. They adopted a new form-based code at the village level to accommodate this new growth coming in and standardizing it with impact fees and you know recreation fees and the maximized density and how things are supposed to work around that rail line within the village. So they they went through the the process of adopting a new form based code which Troy has done in the last three years. Um and the IDA in conjunction with that cuz it knew all these applicants were coming with thousands of apartments, some commercial, some retail, um they adopted a new uniform tax exemption policy to kind of match that volume of projects coming in saying, "Okay, if you're an apartment project, it will go up to 15 years. But if you're in our major CD5, CD6 section right next to the rail station, you can qualify for up to 20 with this schedule. If you have enhancements for parking, enhancements for green space, enhancements for public services, if you're building a water

sewer line, you're stuck with that will enhance your pilot a little bit to make it make sense. And what that does with having a somewhat stringent UT is it avoids the process. Every time you have an application, you get into this nitty-gritty negotiation. And as you go through that process, every pilot looks a little different. There's no uniform standard. It's why did we do that seven years ago? Why? Um as opposed to having an applicant come to you and understanding what they're capable of and what you're capable of giving them. And it's kind of a not necessarily a one-sizefits-all, but at least it's standardized. Uh and it doesn't affect when you have turnover and staffing. You know, Randy might have done one thing with a pilot and Steve might have done another thing with a pilot or Dylan would might have done something different and they might have had a different personal relationship with that developer. It becomes kind of helter skelter in terms of what you have. If you look at a suite of 20 projects you closed over 10 years, there's some outliers and you don't know why. A UTP will help you get into a uniform position where they come to you and they know what they can get. We do the math. If it's a $10 million building, the pilot's going to generate this amount of savings. If it's a $50 million building, obviously that'll scale. Uh, but they know what they're getting. They can sell that to their bank and it's somewhat uniform. On top of that, what they've done because, and this helps with board members who are like, does this make sense? Uh, Elbert who asked very specific banking oriented questions. You know, Greg, I think, is going to be a good resource obviously asking questions about the financials and the inducement and what does that mean to us? You can have someone like a Dylan or a Steve or a Randy telling you it makes sense. U what they've done on a non non-cost basis. It goes to the applicant. They accept an application and this is the the old joke with Kevin O'Brien as chairman here. The initial resolution is the first bite of the apple and then we go into a process where that it's been a little chaotic in the middle in terms of

what you get in the end and then we have a project authorizing resolution. in Portchester and elsewhere. What they do at that initial resolution is say, "Okay, we're accepting the application." And then they forward everything to the financial consultant who's a third party, confidential, they're under a non-disclosure agreement. They look at it and they develop a report that in essence determines whether the pilot under their UT generates a fair ROI, high, low, or indifferent. um and and if they're asking for a deviation or if they're asking for something different, is it really needed based upon their actual financials, what they're seeing from their bank, what their interest rates are, what their vacancy rates are, what their assumptions are. That individual, in this case, Victoria, generates a report before your public hearing. And in fact, they actually have a middle month where they get a report back and that board says, "Okay, we have it what we're thinking. The UTP makes sense." Then they advance to the public hearing and then the approval happens. So you know we have something that maybe takes 60 daysish maybe two to three months maybe 90 sometimes they have a very deliberative almost 120 days where they look at it they have a third party report that the board can rely on and say okay I voted yes because it makes sense not because I'm guessing. You know what I mean? Um so that that's helped them a great deal. And to Albert's question a minute ago, her proposal uh is put together here with two metrics. One to come in and help us with the UTAP, which is a long-standing housekeeping thing. Right now, we don't have a lot of staff. DA is keeping the lights on, but isn't drafting policies right now. Right. Uh I know Jeff has wanted to and we had a discussion about linking it with the code a little bit.

Just add happy to see that she included that. That wasn't the expectation, but that's just speaks to Justin and I asking back to Dylan to revisit the UTEP. The first thing that someone from the outside does when they look at our board and putting a proposal for reviewing project evaluations is, "Oh, you're not ready for that. We need to look at your UTEP first." So, I was pleasantly surprised that she put that in. And to a question you had about the feed, that is not something that comes out of those pilot applications. There are things on here that would be board money that I'd want these there's some of your budget here. Right.

Right. I'd want these people to come in present to us, but I want to conclude today just are we interested in them coming and presenting on these three. There's the third thing is this student enrollment and household evaluation analysis if we're interested in them coming in to present on those three things and then we can decide which one or are we just interested in the project evaluation for example. That's the only thing I approached her with. It's kind of an alocart, right? Um, so sorry if you wanted to go back to the three.

Um, the final point here, and this is, you know, and I I think, uh, council president Sue is here, Greg's here. Uh, you all know history, Troy, the county as a greater, uh, entity. We have two IDAs in Renor County. Uh, well, several. There's one in the city of Rensor as well. Um, establishing a really good housekeeping. Having a brand new UTP that's linked to formbbased code is great. It's aspirational. We should do it. There's a little bit of tension in in the system where if we have a rigid and very intelligent design pilot system here that, you know, it's one, two, or three. You know, choose one. Do you qualify for the hire? We'll now we'll analyze it. We'll figure it out. if people don't like what we're saying, they can go have a conversation with somebody else and there's a tension there almost a race to the bottom. So, we've been trying to come up with a way to deliver that in a way where you know Troy IDA does all things Troy that always doesn't work out the way we'd like it to. But, so there's a little bit of tension there at Portchester uh there's a little bit of a day. county IDA won't go into a community that has an IDA in it just out of a little bit of long-standing understanding and won't go nice.

Yeah. Wouldn't it? [laughter] Yeah. Um there's some ideas that Jeff and I have talked about along with others with the planning board and the planning well it used to be commission now it's a board. Is there a way to enhance the site plan process and the formbbased code for both zoning and site plan whereby you got to use the Troy IDA? There may be a way where you can tie the planning process uh to the IDA inducement process. So the Troy boards from the council down uh have a voice in the tax impacts of a particular project. And that's really there's nothing wrong with that, right? Um, but if another IDA comes in, and we're publicly speaking right now, another IDA comes in, they're not necessarily going to drill down on the impacts on the library district or or the bid district or the jobs on fourth a, you know, it's more of a they're looking from a very different altitude. Um, if we can get to a point where the new hygiene, I call it corporate hygiene, we get our policies kind of updated, are they going to be consistently deployed? and do we have an ability to make sure that people go through that that channel? There's tension there and that we're we've been it's been there forever. Um but uh we're we're trying to figure out a way to get our housekeeping up to snuff. Um and this would be helpful and we can get other proposals. I I work with Victoria. There's Kimoy Associates is very active in the space development council,

but this board isn't required to put an RF. No, it's professional services.

Reminding everyone of that, too. It's up to our discretion and we the absence of an executive director isn't the reason for us not having pursued this because we've had multiple that have asked about this. But there the first step in doing any of that with the UTEP or the arrangement planning board is we have like we need someone that's not our board council to like work on this for us. We don't have that right now. We're all we also serve publicly on this uh priva let's say put it that way and Justin's time is not to be spent on this. So like that's what I want to start pushing while I'm still here on this board as chair and with you guys uh in 2026. So this is the first step is the proposal to look over in getting your approval. are we interested in these like these areas the there are other there's other avenues of research that she could look into she put down for because it's very relevant to I think many board members we've actually had people come in Greg for Catholic high the uh whatever that's called now uh from the school board about that [clears throat] project and like her point of bringing up student enrollment and household fiscal analysis if you read this [clears throat] it's a one time report but you can do this for other areas that we might be interested in jobs and just give us cleaner summaries that uh so I'd be interested in hearing what other my goal of bringing this to this meeting there's no motion today but just um I'm interested and I want to see if there's board support for seeing is there um interest in these three areas and in learning about maybe other areas for advisement that they could bring on and continue down this path of looking for maybe getting another [clears throat] bid just to see what it looks like and any questions I going to say yes and of of the structure of a master services agreement. So where one may be stronger

in another area than you know could rely on that other consultant to provide that type of information. But I I do really like this idea.

Right. And to to Mike's benefit I think uh to a certain extent u there's another divide here early in the process and I keep using Portchester but other clients have done it. Um when the village was going through their form-based code process, the IDA also uh uh procured a study through ergonomics I think was the firm and it was a school child mitigation impact study where if you bring in 4,000 apartments, what happens, right? Is there an impact if there's multif family 2, three, fourbedroom apartments or whether it's affordable or market, if you're going to be providing an inducement and a tax break to those things, what really happens to the school? How many kids are coming in? what is the impact for both capital projects and for your service delivery. So, in the formbbased code, they actually come up with a a number. Uh you're going to pay an impact fee if you get a building permit of $9,000 per kid. And that gets edited every year. They have to report every year for 10 years. This is under just a code side of the world. Um and when it comes into the IDA pilot, there's also an enhancement. If it's multif family, they check the the address. you have kids in the apartment and they figure out how many kids are in that building. Uh so they've come up with a way to rightsize and balance pilots because I know there's a tension historically with you give a tax break to an apartment building, what does that mean to me as a school district and what am I, you know, if I'm if I'm not seeing that revenue or if I'm actually gaining revenue, which is the other argument, without that building, you wouldn't have pilot payments. Uh but is there a way to accommodate the cost of the school district for delivering kids there? Um so that's another thing to look at. Um, and

the bottom line there is how do you deliver education without an increase in tax dollars? Exactly. Yeah. Whether or not your student enrollment goes up or down, you still have to deliver education to a group of people. Minus one minus two doesn't really affect, right? You have 30 new kids in a building. That cost is Yeah. And if you get 30 new kids in one year, it's really not that big of a mover. Yeah. But they're looking at stuff like that and they actually have impact payments that are being made outside the pilot. Yeah. To absorb that hit. The piece that I like that you're that you're speaking truth to is the jurisdictional concerns between a county and a municipality when it comes to the IDA because, you know, I don't like historically I'm not a fan of IDA shopping.

This is Troy when we [clears throat] construct and build within our city boundaries. This should be the entity that controls how that financing is arranged, not people that live in Averil Park. Absolutely. So it's a lot of catching up um and and and and good housekeeping I call it. Um yeah, so I think we have an opportunity even the absence of you know someone like a Randy you know running the board agenda now Jeff has really stepped into the crease as a volunteer.

Well and Steve Steve was very strong for getting development here and that frankly like the amount of time he spent doing a lot of things like sometimes there's not time to step back and just bring something new on. That's the sense I got with Dylan and Randy too. Randy, we I mean Ry's effort. I'm not taking on more things or Ry's effort on bringing something to like let's just say in the 21st century for this board is not happening now. So there's we're we're kind of at the whim of whoever is in the executive director. This is the board taking more control of it. So I'm [clears throat] happy to see a positive response to this. I appreciate everyone's like, you know, time on this. And I think between now and uh the next meeting, just come prepared with questions and take a look at her website. We'll share as soon as we find a a second person to uh get a quote for. We'll we'll just email that out to we'll have to email that out to the group and you can look at their information, too. And because this is all public information, the first time I saw this in action was at a Green Island meeting. is that from the company and so going to see that like all this information is public so you can see a lot of these reports but if you don't find anything or you have specific questions uh bring her to the meeting I don't expect this coming on board until you know for a couple months but we'll try to get and Victoria represents people all over the state so I'll try to get her in person but if she can only do video conference we'll do that and

she's also the chair of the Bethlehem IDA right in her in her free time right yeah so that's thanks I'm excited this I I'm glad everyone's on on board with this. The last item for new business is the vice chair position. Um Ryan not being on the board anymore leaves the spot open. Um I was messaged by Z and Justin that Alex expressed an interest in that but just keeping it democratic. Is anybody else interested in taking the vice chair position and when I'm sick having to run the board meeting? Alex, you'd be great. Do we have to put that to a motion? Sure. Yeah. Let's put a motion forward for Alex in the vice chair position.

So move. I'll second. All in favor? I Great.

And there's no old business today, but on to financials is met. Our first court is the payment financial position. As of December 31st, we had total assets of1,298,641 with $1,216,715 of that cash. Uh we had total liabilities of $21,543 which left us with a fund balance of $1,277,97. Uh most significant uh change to the statement finance position is just the uh other government liability account and customer deposit. Um we received for the proctor school at f pilot now that was terminated obviously paid that portion it would be $500 which is still pro more detail on that but someone application fees and we got to work out the closing for that I believe

yep uh we closed in the month of December I believe Troy s great music hall project uh that revenue came in I think it is something 136

136 um and as part of the Troy City Hall project which you're uh all familiar with in Proctor's uh the prior owner had a pilot through the IDA um and as part of the sale that was terminated so much like when you close on a house you split the taxes based on the number of days um the pilot terminated as of December 18th so they paid their school tax payment through that date for the school year 25 to 26. So that was paid to the IDA and it will be distributed out uh to the school. Um and that's uh one less project in the suite of projects for today to manage. So congratulations to today. Um and so it's a pretty good strong close out to the year.

So a few more things coming. American Theat's I think waking back up again through um the Proctor's Organization and uh I think there's a couple others that are probably coming in 26. Wasn't it like two years ago? Yeah, they started in 2019. In fact, yeah, I think we're on our third crack at it. But

the pressure on clearing the ARPA funding, clearing other grant programs, and getting their tax credit equity together, I think this is the year. Um be nice to see that finally wrapped up and woken back up. [clears throat] [snorts] Our last report is activities. The month of December, we ran a surplus of $12,728. Our most significant source of revenue was our uh admin fee for the project. And then our largest expense is our annual management fee to the city. And I have no update on New York class. That was my question.

Um talk to the McN. I go I go between I have a there's a barrier between me and them of D and Justin. So I don't have direct line. I think we need to probably schedule a meeting with the three of us and Sheamus and him and figure out it's a question of what they have the city has in terms of fund balance held within Pioneer traditionally as their largest banking institution. if there's an allocation to break out of city fund balance just to start an account with New York class that would allow the IDA to come in and follow on. So I think they just now that they've cleared the budget and they're in end of 26 with maybe a little bit of bandwidth opening up we can have that conversation the end of the year was all budget crazy. Do you know what the interest rate is?

Report to the city council members who might see them in the halls. Just tell them Jeff's coming for them for on this this money. Uh if you look at their website, they provide daily average earnings. Yeah. New York. Yeah. And I think they're still around and Oh, for the year. That's better than it was before. Yeah, four.5 New York class just went from 3.60 to 3.61 while I was on the page in the 7-day yield. So, I don't know how long they're and you can take out any time. There's no CD breakage or no. So, it's similar right now. It's actually lower than when we first started looking at this. It's a shame.

Well, I was looking at the interest earnings and it actually is pretty good for where we were at two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Do we have a motion to approve the financials? Can I just ask one quick add? The 125,000 management fee, is that for 2025 or does it cover over 25? Oh, okay. We pay late, usually December to clear the year out. Perfect.

I think we're looking at dialing that a little bit up uh given the proctor's relationship. So, the IDA and the LDC can help subsidize some of that rent obligation that the city has. So, it's a little bit of arbitrage along the way. So because we will be the IDA and the LDC will continue to occupy space within that facility as part of an economic development department. So the idea is that the both of the boards IDA and LDC would attribute to that for the space that they use. Okay. Motion to approve the financials. Second. All in favor? I have a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Meeting adjourned. Um, all done.

It's past 11. I'd prefer to not have a CRC unless they absolutely need something for financial audit at the end of the year. Are you going to be in a good spot if we do in February? It's just a matter, you know. I don't I mean everything will just roll over until January, but I don't know if the auditors Matt ever ask about that like financial weird. Uh I mean I don't get but Okay.