Community Redevelopment Agency Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the City Commission Conference Meeting, this, 12/02/2025. Thank you all for being here today. I know we got some exciting stuff to deal with today. It's gonna be a landmark and pivotal moment in our history to be able to hopefully at the end of the afternoon session to be able to come up with a decision as to, how we're going to move forward with the building of our new City Hall.

So, it's going to be a long day and I appreciate everyone's patience. But before we get to that, there's some other business we need to take care of. And, so why don't we get through that and then we can move on to the City Hall presentations. So CF1 annual investment report for fiscal year ended 09/30/2025, City Manager.

Mayor, I think we were gonna do OPEB first. I'm sorry? To do OPEB first and then the Yes.

I'm just reading from the from the oh, we're gonna do that's a separate one.

Yeah. That was a separate one. That one first?

Yeah. Okay. I believe that's Alright.

So we'll do the OPEC meeting. Alright. Alright. So switching course. Mister Clerk, please call the roll.

Vice chair Herpes is on his way. Commissioner Glossman? Here. Commissioner Beasley Pittman? Here. Commissioner Sorenson? Here. Chair Trentellis?

Here. BR1, this is regarding other post employment benefits trust annual investment report for fiscal year ending 09/30/2025. City Manager.

Mayor and Commission, this is the Annual Meeting of OPEB, of which you serve as the Board. We're here to report on the performance of our portfolio. I'm going to turn it over to our Finance Director, Ms. Linda Short.

Linda?

Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. So positive news story, which I like to bring to you guys. The OPEB portfolio both for the health and the PPS fund performed fairly well. The benchmark that we have set for it is 7% and they both earned over 10%, which means that it reduces our unfunded liability as

well

as provides enough funding for the benefits that are paid from it. Wow. Good to Any questions?

Who's your investment adviser?

This guy right here. Well, actually, with this particular fund, several years ago, when we first opened it up, you guys decided to use a passive investment strategy with it. So basically set it and forget it and it's been doing very well for us. So we don't really have an advisor on the funds because they're all passively invested.

Right.

Okay, great. Any questions? There being none, thank you so much.

No problem.

Moving on to M1, motion approving the minutes for the 12/17/2024 other post employment benefits trust board meeting. Probably should have done that first, but anyway, do I hear a motion

to approve the minutes

from last year?

Second.

Moved and seconded. Any questions? Please call the roll.

Commissioner Sorenson? Yes. Vice chair Herbst not present. Commissioner Glassman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley Pitman? Yes. Chair Trentellis?

Yes. That meeting is now concluded. We now move on to the special meeting for this afternoon. Anything else, mister Clerk, before we do this? No. We're good. We're good? Alright. So now moving on to CF one Annual Investment Report for Fiscal Year Ended 09/30/2025. Linda?

Good afternoon, honorable mayor and commissioners. So another great news story to present to you guys. I do have our financial our investment adviser from here just to give you a brief market update. But I report on how well we did overall as a city. The actual investments in this particular pooled investment funds earned close to $35,000,000 last year.

Our budget for the investment pool was $8,000,000 So we've earned well over what we anticipated earning. Trinker on you, Linda. Let me tell you what that means in dollars and cents for us. For instance, our general fund had a budget of $1,800,000 We end up earning $5,800,000 on that. Our Water and Sewer Fund had a budget of $1,900,000 We earned 11,400,000.0 just in that fund alone, which gives an additional $9,500,000 to further future infrastructure or whatever we needed to

Can we use that pay down the debt

on the water treatment plan? If so chose to, we absolutely could. Yes. It's something to think about.

So it'll reduce the amount of interest we pay over time and perhaps even give the community an opportunity to have water rates, either leveled out or reduced at some point in Right.

So that these funds are in fiscal year 2025.

Right.

So they will fall back to fund balance and you guys as a commission can determine how to best use that fund balance that's there.

Do you have any idea what the fund balance is now in the water and sewer fund?

Not offhand. Alright. No. The only But did you bring that

information to us? No problem. Okay.

Yes.

Alright.

But in the meantime, I'm just gonna let him just give a brief market update just to see whether or not we anticipate having the same favorable market we've been having for the past couple of years in this upcoming year.

Richard Pengeli with PFM Asset Management. Linda already gave the good news. Returns were good for the fiscal year, driven by the fact that the Fed actually began lowering interest rates at the around September, in a falling rate environment that actually, increases the market value of your existing bonds, so that contributed and helped, with

the

returns that you saw in the portfolio. The downside from here though is that the Fed is forecasting to continue lowering interest rates. In fact, we expected their next meeting this month that they'll lower interest rates another quarter point with the goal of eventually lowering rates over the next year down to their what they think is the neutral target of around 3%. So although earnings were good this year, we are projecting that earnings will be a little bit lower, for the next fiscal year. What's the Fed rate now?

So, right now, you're at 3.75 to 4% rate.

You think they're going to lower it down to 3% by the end of next

They're forecasting, based on their last, forecast that they would lower interest rates further and that their eventual target is 3%. Whether they hit it at the end of next year, sometime in next year, the following year is probably a little unclear, but that's where they think they will stop, in lowering interest rates. Okay.

Anyone else have any questions? Anything further? Thank you so much. We appreciate Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Now moving on to Business One, the City Hall update presentation of supplemental responses and evaluation findings from the shortlisted proposals. Just to bring everyone up to date, the City Commission engaged the community approximately, two years ago to reach out to members of our community, our neighbors to discuss, what they would like to see in their City hall. The reason why we had to undertake that mission is because as a result of the April 2023 flood, our city hall was disabled and the cost to repair it, was not only prohibitive, but it would be time consuming. I believe the last report that we received from, then Public Works Director, Alan Dodd, was that it would take approximately two years and $20,000,000 before we would ever be able to move back in.

And that just was a nonstarter for the commission. So faced with that challenge, we reached out to the community and we a number of outreach events, reimagining City Hall. And we appreciate the work of the infrastructure task force that undertook that endeavor. And there were a number of meetings throughout the city, and we got quite a few comments. In fact, it was all summarized in a report, which was presented to the City Commission a number of months ago.

And today, we are here to hear from the we're here to listen to the various presenters that we as the commission have asked for a final presentation. We have four whittled down from a list of six. And today, hopefully, we're going to whittle down to one and two. I believe we said we wanted to pick one and then a backup, correct? So now I suppose there's no particular order that we could follow in doing this, but my recommendation is we just follow the same alphabetical order that we received the presentation and our backup.

And if we do that, we can just begin with Balfour Beatty. Does anyone have any questions before we begin?

I thought we were gonna Yeah. We we will.

Oh, okay.

I'm not we're not ready for

them yet, but there's some

they got city managers, city attorney. There's some other things that we're gonna do. Gotcha. Yeah. But I'm just saying that's so we'll start with them. But before we do that, there is a number of things we want to go over, and we'll start with

city manager. Thank you, mayor and commissioners.

Can you speak up a little bit

because I'm hard of hearing? Thank you, mayor and commissioners. We appreciate, your vision and guidance throughout this process. As you mentioned, two and a half years ago, we experienced the flood of April twenty twenty three and staff has been working diligently to get us to this point. I want to highlight certain members of our team on staff who have been very pivotal with this project, including Assistant City Manager, Ben Rogers Assistant City Manager, Yvette Matthews Angela Salmon, our Program Manager in our Real Estate Division and Keith Farrell in our Budget Office.

They have worked tirelessly to ensure that this process has been smooth and transparent. We have had six public workshops. We have had 10 commission agenda items and eight memorandums or letters to the commission offering insights into this process, which has been very open to the public and we're proud of that record. We consider that the P3 process has great opportunities for the city in terms of expediting delivery and we know that all of the proposals, all six that initially submitted have done a lot of work to get to this point, especially the four shortlisted proposals who we will consider today. So I do want to thank them as well.

We have Balfour Beatty, Fort Lauderdale Civic Partners, FTL Beacon Collaborative and FTL City Hall Partners. Thank you for all the work that you've done to date and the work that at least one of you will do along with us as our partner. Since we went along the path of an unsolicited proposal, staff has had the challenge of providing some guidance and a framework for making sure that we could evaluate and compare each of the proposals fairly and equitably. We did ask proposers to submit information in response to our supplemental request for information package and each of the four shortlisted firms did so timely. They also submitted in aggregate about 50 questions for clarification by the city and we provided them with that information.

And at this point, you know, we tried to ensure that we had an apples to apples comparison for each of the four proposers. However, due to their creativity and their interpretation of the information items that we requested, we were not always able to get an apples to apples comparison. So what you see before you in the report is an analysis and summary of the work that staff has done in collaboration with our consultants who have worked tirelessly as well. We have Jacobs, our owner's rep and PFM, our financial advisors, and they're here to provide some information based on their evaluation of the information submitted by each proposer. The city attorney's office also did a lot of work in terms of looking at the litigation history for each team and each member of the team.

We have our city auditor who has done his review of the proposals. And so I just want to thank all the charter officers for their participation in this process as well. And I think David Solomon is still working right now to make sure that the presentations will flow seamlessly for the rest of this meeting. At this time, I want to turn it over to Ben Rogers, Assistant City Manager, to just briefly go over the evaluation process and what our consultants will share with us and then the run of show for the rest of today's meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, manager Williams. Ben Rogers, assistant, city manager. Good afternoon, mayor, commission, and and everyone here today. As the manager said, we had a very collective, effort and evaluation process. It was, internally with city staff, the departments that the manager recognized with the attorney's office doing litigation history, the auditor's office looking at potential deal structures, sequencing and and what the future may hold for, the agreement.

The Jacobs, was selected as the city's owners representative over the summer. They helped serve in the advisory role during the initial review that led us to the shortlisted four. And during this process, they provided technical analysis, including the design verification, constructability review, schedule sequencing and cross comparison cost breakdowns. They looked at the proposal qualifications, the facility experience, references, safety metrics and also some litigation history as well. PFM, did our independent financial modeling, the capital stack analysis, credit evaluation, affordability review, life cycle cost analysis, and overall financing modalities.

They looked at the annual operating impacts, and the availability payment implications, debt service obligations, and validated the construction cost assumptions. In addition to those two, we had a third, consultant, Beacon Advisory Partners, who helped support city staff in refining the documents, making sure that we caught all the things that the commission has requested over the process and made sure that they were, transparent and and forward facing in our report. Those three, four, entities really looked at the materials that were provided by each of the proposers. And as we put in the supplemental information package, there's really three, foundational areas we're looking at. We're looking at financial structure and feasibility, where we wanted to know the clarity and defensibility of construction and financing assumptions, the reasonability of, escalation, contingency, material costs, the life cycle investment strategy and projected budgets and then the credit and affordability implications over the thirty year term.

In addition, we looked at the cost of reasonability and value validation, where we looked at the cost per square footage and made sure it aligned with Class A buildings, made sure it, met South Florida benchmarks. We made sure that the components of the building, were adequate for what we requested, and then also that the construction costs were broken down, in different, silos such as direct construction cost, indirect construction cost and soft cost. And the last, pillar we looked at was just the responsiveness and completeness of the proposals where we asked, and looked for the inherent the baseline program requirements and constraints, making sure that their proposal responded to the information that we put out, that it was consistent with, statutory compliance and that it, had a completeness, to the submission, of all the information that we requested. So that's really what we focused on. In addition to that, we did submit a second version, throughout this process and that was based off of the feedback that the commission gave us on October 23.

And so that answered some of the, further concerns of the commission, illustrated the podium parking garage, litigation history. There was about 10 different things that we added, and received that information back. So that information is also in the recommendation report that staff has provided. Moving forward today, what we're going to do is we're going to hear from the city's consultant teams first. We're going to hear from Jacob, and then we'll hear from PFM.

They'll both do brief presentations about what their evaluation process looked like and what the outcome was. And then we will turn it over to interim attorney, Spence to do a quick overview of the litigation history. And at that point, we will then go into presentations from the proposers. We do have a separate room secured. So when each presenter goes, we're going to be asking the other firms to relocate downstairs.

Andrew Diaz will be supporting that team and moving the people back and forth. So we will have some transition in between presentations. Once we get done with the fourth presentation, staff will be doing some additional analysis. We'll be talking about our our position in this. We'll be talking about the financial overview of what the city has budgeted and what financial resources are available moving forward. Then we'll turn it over to the mayor to do some public comment, public outreach before we do city commission, discussion.

Very good. Thanks clarify and add that based on the statute, we're asking the commission to rank all of the proposals before us. So not just number one and number two, but all four.

That's fine. We'll get to that. Sure. So is Jonathan Jordan here from Jacobs? Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jonathan Jordan with Jacobs Project Management Company. Of course, we're the owners representative for the city. Joining me is

David Can you speak into the microphone? Sure. David Veet, also with Jacobs. I was involved with the review process in, Heredosis. Okay, great. Thank you. I

going to

be speaking to you today on the following subjects. If we could go to the next slide, please. As you can see from the screen, the evaluation focus, the program, the scope, the cost, the schedule, escalation, contingency and safety. And as you're aware, the city issued a supplemental information request to the four shortlisted P3 proposals back in October 28 and they all responded, on November 10 and we were issued Jacobs was issued a task order number two to review and evaluate those responses and present the findings to you, the City Commission. So our, as per the task order, our evaluation really focused on construction scope and sequencing, cost breakdowns, the adherence to the building program requirements, phasing and schedule and escalation factors and contingency provisions.

This slide, particularly the top of the slide, summarizes how the four firms viewed the building. They came up with their own individual schemes as you're aware. And, these varied in size between 295,800 square feet to as much as 408,800 square feet. However, that larger number 408,823 included a two twenty two car garage that was adjacent to the podium, which was part of their original concept. So if you take that out, that was about 90,000 square feet.

That would get their building to very close to within range of all the others. So they're really all in the same general range as far as size. Cost varies somewhat from a low of $216,805,000 to as much as $344,295,000 And on a square foot basis, as you can see, those range from seven seventy three dollars per square foot to $11.40 dollars and that's total cost. That's not just construction. That's with design fees, soft and hard costs and the full package. And those costs per square foot are from our experience and our research reasonable for a Class A office building in South Florida.

Let me ask you a question. When we look at the least expensive cost and the most expensive, are we comparing apples to apples in terms of their building, their design, the components of that structure? Is it an apples to apples comparison?

To a degree, sorry, can't be more direct, but some of the designs are more complex and because they're more complex, there's more cost. Some of the building some of the design seem less complex and so the cost would be less. So, as far as the spaces that are included and then there's a slide to discuss, they all include the proper program and the square footage that the city requested be included. So from that standpoint, they're all apples for apples. But as far as the actual the look of the building, the facade, the layout of the building, the shape of the building, the way they've shown where the chambers will be located in relation to the offices that has varied.

Okay. Thank you.

The bottom part of the slide merely shows some of the breakdown of the costs that are in the total costs, shows the design fees and how they vary, shows some of the indirect soft costs and how they vary and, some of the contingency, which we'll get to in just a minute. The city also asked the, proposers to include two options for a 1,000 car garage. First option being located adjacent to the podium or in the podium and the second option being to located on an adjacent site, assuming there is an adjacent site. And those, for option one, those costs varied from $43,600,000 to $82,600,000 pretty large, range there. That was for the podium based.

For the standalone garage on adjacent site, the cost varied from $35,300,000 to $53,000,000 So pretty good range on those as well. This slide shows the program and the square footages that the city asked all the proposers to make sure they had included in their design, in their program, in their project. And it's various spaces that are critical to the operation of the city as well as the square footages for those spaces. And we confirmed with all four of the proposals that they had included, these spaces and at least this much square footage. So from that standpoint, we do have that apples for apples comparison.

All the firms submitted as requested a schedule. There's a lot of schedule information. We won't go into too much, but what we did, for the purposes of today's presentation is compared overall duration from the start of or from the finalization of the interim agreement to final completion, not substantial, but final completion when the building is totally done. And those timeframes, overall durations vary from thirty six to forty three months, with three of the firms being within two months of each other. One of the firms, Fort Lauderdale Civic Partners indicated that they could get the chambers completed in November '28 and complete the rest of the building three months later.

FTL Beacon indicated they could complete the whole project by December 2028, but they had a very aggressive twenty two month schedule, which really needs to be carefully studied. As far as escalation and contingency provisions, as you can see from the slide, the construction contingency that was included varied quite a bit between firms from $2,800,000 to 16,500,000.0 which is pretty wide variance. And then FTL Beacon included two other levels of contingency, one for design contingency and one for hard cost contingency, which wasn't really explained, but we thought perhaps it was just extra contingency for the developer on the top of the project. And escalation varied from 2.5% to 8.25%. However, for a project that's going to be thirty eight to forty three months at 3% to 3.5% per year, it's going to be in the range of 6.6% to 8.25% over that period of time.

So, just to let you know that's how they saw it. All the firms were requested to provide information on their safety programs and their statistics of how they've performed over the last three years. And they all had very good safety statistics. This is really for the general contractors that were part of the developer team. And, these statistics show that they had a very low frequency of incidents and they had good safety management record.

So all in all, they do a good job in safety. There was one firm that had a subcontractor fatality back in 2001, but there wasn't much information on that included. If there are any questions, I'll take them at this time.

Okay. Does that complete your presentation?

Yes, it does.

Does the gentleman next to you have anything to add? You're good? Okay. At this point, does there anyone have any questions or shall we just continue with the presentation? Okay. Thank you. That's it right now. But don't go too far. City Manager.

So we're going to invite PFM to provide information on the financials.

Sergio? Yes.

Thank you, mister mayor. Good afternoon, commissioners. We also have a brief presentation, and then we'll start by just kind of setting the stage for what our scope covers and our what we plan to speak to you about today. So really we looked at the financial strength of the proposers themselves, the capability to deliver the project. That was a core component of our analysis.

We also looked at the capital stack, the funding plan and the proposed financing plans for each of the proposals. And then finally, towards the end, we do have some conclusion remarks and a recommendation, not in terms of which proposal you move forward with, but maybe how we structure the financing. And I think that will look familiar to many of you. So looking again at a high level of the comparison of the proposals you received and your plan of finance and the capital stack as we say, debt to equity ratios, there was actually a lot more in common, than different in each of the proposals. I think that's to be expected.

Overall, most of the proposals expected or presented a 90% debt ratio versus a 10% equity component. So ninety-ten is very standard to what we see for these types of projects. The equity return ranged anywhere from 10% to 12% on that private equity, the 10% piece of the capital stack. As far as the some of the differences we noted in the plan of finance, some proposers suggested a tax exempt structure using conduit issuers, some suggested a taxable structure, and really those have and others had different ideas as to what the credit rating might be on those varying plans. And really that has a material impact on the financing for the city and what the ultimate cost is on this component.

Really importantly, want to say on this slide, we didn't know any red flags as far as the financial stability. We believe all of these firms have the capability to deliver the project for the city. On the next slide, we'll cover just quickly again the plan of finance. And looking at the there were two requests made by the city. One was a design, build, finance, operate, maintain.

The other one was just a design, build, finance, the city would operate and maintain themselves. In the chart here, we looked at only that bigger component, the design build finance operate maintain that included all the components that were requested by the city, operations and maintenance there. And the highlighted number you see in the chart is the total cost in availability payment that the city would pay to each of these proposals, depending on the structure you chose. We tried to determine what the capital component was versus the operations and maintenance. It was more clear in some proposals than others.

So we had to infer somewhat there. And I will footnote, one of the proposals came up to me before the meeting and noted that the we pulled an incorrect number. That was, the FTL Beacon Collaborative. The O and M component of that is not 13.5%, it's actually 2.2%. That's something we discussed with the project team.

It was, as you can see, pretty far out of the range of everyone else, so not surprising there. So it's 2.2% there. Immaterial to the city, I think, in that the overall cost is still all of these are correct, 17.9 all the way up to 35.7. And then one other note on this is that Civic Partners and Beacon also suggested milestone payments for your predevelopment costs. So there are some predevelopment costs before actual construction starts, design engineering, and they suggested some repayment.

The other two rolled that into the total availability payment that the city would pay. So that's really an overview of proposals you received, the total cost structure and the availability payment that they proposed. And again, as I mentioned, I'll leave you with financial stability. We believe all these firms are capable of delivering the project, important note for you. But I do want to step back and take kind of a 30,000 foot view here and look at the project delivery alternatives.

This will look familiar to many of you, are familiar with the Prospect Lake project that was funded a couple of years ago. There are components to project delivery and all the alternatives that go in with that. You don't have to necessarily bundle them all together, design, build, finance, operate, maintain, those are all discrete components. There are best practices. Design, build, you likely want to bundle together. You don't want a contractor blaming an engineer and architect for the design. Makes a lot of sense. Operations and maintenance, kind of the same thing you want to bundle those. Finance, I really treat separately. We believe there's a better mousetrap and quite frankly, the city solved that mousetrap with the Prospect Lake project that as you know won a P3 award, with the way we finance that project.

So let's let's talk about that for a minute. So we think might save some the city some some money. Availability payments, that's something I think is is talked about a lot in our industry. A lot of folks don't understand the municipal space that well and how efficient it is. City of Fort Lauderdale has incredible access to capital, low cost capital. You have a triple a credit rating, double a one credit rating from the two agencies. So the highest credit rating you can possibly achieve. Anything you do like a conduit issuer, that's going to degrade that credit a little bit. It's going to kind of filter it through. It's going to cost some basis points, and we'll talk about what that cost might mean.

As far as the auditors and how they'll treat that, there is no question in my mind the auditors will treat this availability payment structure as on balance sheet financing. It won't be off balance sheet. It will count in all of your credit metrics. It will count in the audit as a real liability, long term liability. That's an important note. The credit agencies, we talked about that. You have a AAA rating, AA1 rating. All of them have come out at this point. Ten years ago, it was a little bit of a gray area where they count this availability payment in their metrics. Really depends on the type of project.

Is it revenue dependent? Does it generate its own revenue? Or is it a project like a city hall where the city needs to use it no matter what doesn't generate revenue? They will all count it in the credit metrics, in the criteria when they look at your credit, no question about that. So let's talk about the Citi's capabilities.

As I mentioned, tremendous access to capital, really the lowest cost capital you can possibly achieve. I think all the proposals will tell you that if you use the Citi's credit, that is the best credit you can get. And then we talked about the differences in some of the plans of finance, conduit issuers, credit differences, whether it's a AAA, AA, single A and then taxable versus tax exempt. You'll see on the right hand side of this, using a conduit issuer even on tax and basis might cost the city somewhere between fifty and twenty five basis points. Each notch credit difference might cost the city another 10 basis to 30 basis points.

Those two are compounding. If you go with a conduit issuer and it has a lower credit rating, right, those stack up. Each present basis point on this project of a $200,000,000 financing, as you could see the project costs were a little bit more than that, so we're being somewhat conservative, but each basis point was worth about 180,000 net present value. So that's real money for the city that we can save and it doesn't we're not transferring any risk, you're not making this off balance sheet by using your own financing really. It's going to be on balance sheet no matter what, one way or the other.

And then if you go taxable, that really does increase the cost quite a bit. As you know, tax exempt versus taxable, somewhere in the range right now, I would say about 100 basis points, maybe up to 120 basis points. We can also, as the city is aware, structure the financing however you want. If you want to capitalize interest for the first three years of project while construction is going on, that makes a lot of sense for the city. As you know, you have the pension obligation bonds outstanding that are also secured by the special obligation credit, the CBNA.

Those bonds tail off in 2032. You can start making more payments on this project. After that, we can structure it that way. The city structured their bonds, a number of ways over the years. So I think really important considerations here as you think about the project. I'll wrap up here with the conclusions and recommendations. I won't tell you which proposal to go with, which project, that's certainly up to you. But I will say as far as the plan of finance and capital stack, I think we can make this a little bit more efficient by using the city's credit, very similar to what we did with Prospect League. I think an important note there and our recommendation will be maintain the risk transfer, maintain some of that risk transfer you do get, design, build, operate, maintain. You certainly want to put that risk on the private sector.

They might do that more efficiently. Financing the city, incredible access to capital, low cost capital, you can do that more efficiently. There's no question about that. We can split the O and M versus the capital component. The chart I showed earlier, there's a capital component to

the availability payment and there's

an O and M component. We can split out that capital component, finance it on the cities with the cities credit rating, and actually bring that cost down a little bit. And then you'll still have the O and M on top of that. If the O and M is set up as a qualified management agreement, we can actually move the O and M to be off balance sheet. So that will be a subordinate expense, a current expense of the city. It won't count on your debt metrics. It will be that piece could be moved off balance sheet. And then finally, far as the capital stack, while we are suggesting the City finance this project, yourselves using your own credit, that's the debt component. We would still recommend you maintain a certain portion of equity in there. 10% equity for this type of project, anywhere between 510%.

And the reason we want that equity component is you still want ultimately the developer, the proposal team, you want them accountable long term for this project. You want the design to be right, you want the build to be right, you want it be delivered on time, and then you want the operations and maintenance and ultimately the hand back to the city in thirty years, to all be done to up to your standards. So we think that 10% equity component keeps them in the game and keeps kind of skin in the game for the development team. I'll conclude there, but happy to take any questions if there are any.

Okay. Any questions? Gave us a lot of information.

You did. I just want and I thank you for that. It's interesting to me because I did notice when reading the materials that you do really stress a lot about availability payment. So what you're saying now, didn't read so much in the report in terms of heavily recommending that the city do the same thing as the water treatment plan, and we look at it because of our strong record, the financing. Is that the reason why that wasn't even really discussed that much in the summary of your report in terms of looking at all of the presenters in terms of that financing? Is that the reason why it

sort of

downplayed? That's absolutely right. We really wanted to the report to reflect our review of the proposals you received and not so much our view as to how you should finance this project.

Okay. No. Thank you for that. I I didn't realize that until you just made that recommendation in terms of us looking at our strong record for financing.

Thank you.

Anyone else have any questions? Yeah, mayor. Thanks for your analysis on this. In terms of Citi financing, any just so I'm clear, any, of the bidders hesitant towards that model?

I'm glad you asked that question, and there was one that was hesitant to it, and I will pull that up for you in a second.

While he's pulling that up, Raquel, I'm just, and maybe you're gonna share this, but, your view of the financing option in terms of city financing, what's your view?

Yes. I think the city should participate in the financing of the project and we shouldn't have that 10% equity in the project. Yep. I agree with that.

Great. Thank you. And so commissioner Sorensen Yep. I I noted actually on in the comparison plan of finance, all three of the four proposals said they were basically agnostic. They they would work with the city if the city decided to finance it themselves. In our in our interpretation, Civic Partners, however, said they, were inflexible to the structure. They strongly preferred the full design, build, finance, operate, maintain.

Great. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Don't go too far. Okay. Now next item we'd like to discuss before we begin with the presentations is to ask Mr. Spence giving us a report on litigation history findings.

Good afternoon, Commission. In Exhibit 2A of your packets on page 63, you'll find a litigation review. So I'll just briefly explain, what this document information has provided in this section of the presentation, means. To facilitate the commission having a clear picture of the litigation history of each of the proposals, our office office prepared a litigation history form that we asked the proposers to, complete and certify. That form required each proposer to disclose to the city any litigation, administrative proceeding, claim or dispute filed pending or resolved during the last ten years prior to the submission of the proposal for the qualified project and whether such matters were brought by or against the proposer, any parent or subsidiary of the proposer, its or any predecessor organization.

Additionally, all proposers were required to disclose to the city all litigation and administrative cases filed, pending, threatened or resolved against any principal of the proposal, regardless of whether or not the principal was associated with the proposal at the time of the litigation commenced against the principal during the last five years prior to the submission of their proposal. So that form is was summarized by staff and included at the beginning of each, proposal listed in that portion of the exhibit, followed by a docket search. Our office conducted a international docket entry search utilizing Westlaw Precision docket search tool. The Westlaw precision docket search tool is a legal research feature that allows users to find and analyze court dockets through advanced search filters and AI powered summaries. The search parameters we used for this docket search included the parties' names as the search term.

This may result in the inclusion of cases from other entities with similar names to those as proposers. Included in the report were a number of open and closed cases for federal, state and international courts. The caveat that we provide there is that, using their product is not the same as using the individual jurisdiction searches. So if you were to search the databases directly with the individual courts or jurisdiction, you may, receive a different result. This search resulted in over 48,000 cases.

So we 48,048 cases. And so you've so we've just provided you a summary of the cases found in the dockets based on the subject matter, and that's what's provided in the packet. And we hope that, this information is useful to the commission as it evaluates the, proposals.

Okay. So the bottom line is 67 pages. So for the public to understand, are there any pending litigation matters with any of the contractors or subcontractors that are presenting today?

Yes, they have disclosed, several of the proposals have disclosed on their submission forms, which are also provided in your packets, some of cases that are before them. And what I would encourage the commission to do is to inquire directly with the proposers as to the status of those cases.

There any with the city? Is the city a party to any of these litigation matters wherein the any contractor or subcontractor of a presenter is currently either plaintiff or defendant?

We recently settled a case with, that involved one of the proposers with regard well, we have two cases, yes. We have the case with the Los Olas, garage, and also the case with Fire Station fifty four, which, we recently settled.

And which contractor or subcontractor are those

lawsuits with? So the firm that's involved with the Los Oles Garage is ArchaTectonica. And the, with Fire Station fifty four, that would be PGAL.

Could you repeat that? PGAL. PGAL. And that's the, Station fifty four?

That's correct.

Didn't we just come to a settlement with that?

That's yes, sir. We have.

Okay. And which of the four broader developers is Architectonica with?

Architect Tanica with FTL Beacon Partners. Yes.

Hold on.

Hold on. This is Beacon.

Architect Tanica is the lead architect for FTL Beacon Collaborative, and PGAL is the architect of record for FTL City Hall Partners.

All right. Thanks. But we've settled that case, correct?

That is my understanding.

Yes. Well, we did. Okay. Alright. Does that conclude your your presentation?

It does. Okay.

City manager, is there anything anything for oh, do you have any questions of yeah.

Go ahead.

Can we ask Dwayne a question?

Yeah.

No. Thank you, Dwayne. I appreciate that. So, Dwayne, I just wanna look at exhibit one, page 22 of 27 and page 23 of 27 with you. And we heard a little bit about this from our consultants where much of it was said was the, you know, sub contractors and not necessarily the principles that we're looking at on the proposal teams.

But if you look at, 12.3, should that be of a concern? Do we need to flesh that out more where it says staff notes that some proposal information includes a serious OSHA citation, a twenty twenty one fatality, and in one case, no OSHA citation information was provided. Is that something that we need to be concerned about or should flesh out when we, see all of the presentations? Or is that something that's not necessarily disqualifying nor should we be concerned about it?

So in terms of that being disqualifying factor, it's something that is for the city commission to determine whether or not, those types of, risks is something that you're willing to take in terms of the history of the proposers and the jobs that they've done in the past. Staff has correctly identified that, that type of activity is concerning, but I think you can flesh it out with the proposers as they present and ask what type of measures that their companies have taken to ensure that there is workplace safety measures in place to ensure compliance.

Okay. If you look, with me then on the next page, three, and let's look at, letter B, yes, 12.4 b on the top. Again, it says one or more proposals disclose design or professional negligence matters connected to civic or municipal scale buildings. These are not per se disqualifying. However, the commission may seek clarification regarding the nature and relevance of such matters during the presentation phase. So again, I would ask you, is that again something that you would find would have any weight, when we do discuss our rankings in terms of, those those issues?

It should be part of your consideration.

Okay. Because obviously, these not identified by proposals, so I guess we would have to ask that of every single one. Is there any reason why it was just basically stated that, you know, one or more proposals disclosed design or professional negligence matters connected to municipal or civic buildings. Is there any reason why it wasn't more clear, or were we expected to do some more research there?

No. I I think that's an accurate statement. So what we've provided is a litigation history form that we ask each proposer to list and certify to. I think that statement is just stating that we are relying upon, the proposers in terms of what they've disclosed on that form. That that is what that is indicating.

Okay. And then just lastly, because you did mention PJAL, I just wanna note for the record in case I'm mistaken here, On exhibit one, page 13 of 27 under number eight, evaluation summary, FTL Beacon Collaborative, it says that PJAL is the architect of record, and I do not believe that is correct.

So commissioner, yes, that's something that you highlighted in our agenda briefing yesterday, and that is correct. However, based on the question asked today, the information provided is accurate.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

That's it. What is the answer? P g a Well, it

says on page 13 of 27 exhibit one under letter, number eight evaluation summary, FHLBeacon Collaborative. It says PGAL is the architect of record, but that that's not correct.

And in the summary sheet provided to you earlier and provided to the clerk for the record, we have PGAL listed as the architect of record for FTL City Hall Partners.

Yes. Yes. So, again, mayor, that was listed incorrectly on page 13 of 27.

Thank you. Duane, what's the nature of the suit, the La Sola suit with architectonica and the status?

So the suit involves both the lighting and the meshing, and we have, brought in all parties associated with the design and construction and installation of those features. And the status of the suit is that we're still, going through the process of discovery and depositions.

Thanks. Okay.

Any other questions of Mr. Spence? Okay. There being none, City Manager, do you have any additional comments before we begin?

No comments.

Okay, great. All right. So why don't we proceed? And as I indicated earlier, we'll start with Balfour Beatty, and I guess the others are gonna be dismissed downstairs.

Clearing the room. They

play music.

It's like the Miss America pageant. They go into a booth. There aren't any. What's that? There aren't any. Well, you got Ted and Sarah's here.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so let's get going. We behind schedule a little bit, so we'd like to make sure we don't shortchange anybody in their in their attempt to make their presentation.

Who's keeping the time? We've got thirty minute. Right? Time will get you

that in

a second. Okay. Nice.

Just wanna make sure everybody's is everybody who's not part of Balfour Beatty not in the room or part of the public? Okay. Alright. So as who's gonna be the who's gonna be the initial spokesperson for Balfour Beatty? I have a number of people for Balfour Beatty. So there's Mark Jennings, Pratima Raju, Kobi Karp, Jonathan Perch, Todd Orr, and Alec Bogdanov, and Peter Moore. Are all of you going to be speaking in this regard?

All of us except for Fatima will be speaking. Okay.

Mr. Jennings? Okay. So we had agreed that there will be thirty minutes of presentation and then fifteen minutes of question and answer period after that, But that doesn't preclude the commissioner from wanting to ask questions during the presentation, but we'll certainly make sure you have your full thirty minutes. Okay?

Fantastic. Okay.

Great. So let us begin. And, Mayor, just to be clear, are you keeping time? I'm keeping of course. You're keeping time? Alright. Let it begin. You wanna keep time? Happy to if you like me

to. Okay.

Great. Well, good afternoon. I'll just move this up there. I'll need to move it up and down. I'm a bit vertically challenged. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, good afternoon. My name is Mark Jennings. I'm the President of Balfour Beatty Developments, and it's my honor to be here today to speak to you to present this team and our vision for how we can work with you to develop your new City Hall. We are a little tight on time, as you mentioned, thirty minutes. So I'm not planning on us talking through who we are right now.

You have a handout with our mugshots on and our names, which hopefully that will be useful as a point of reference. So without further ado, we'll kick off and we'll start with who we are, who is this team, why did we bring this team together. You can see on the left here, I'll look down here, it's easier, we have our corporate structure there that we are proposing and down the left a few bullet points that highlight some key points that will be brought out through this presentation about our company. And really, we brought this team together to deliver the best value for money, low cost City Hall that you and your residents deserve. And there's a couple of points I'm going to bring out on this slide and the rest will be brought out through the presentation.

The first one I really do want to highlight is this team is truly local. When you look at the structure diagram, Balfour Beatty been building here in South Florida and Fort Lauderdale for the past ninety years. We've just delivered the convention center just down the road. Bresarga and Chemmoor, you know they're headquartered right here in Fort Lauderdale. Kobe Carr, part architect, headquartered just down the road in Miami.

And Johnson Controls, the market leader in FM and life cycle provision, is providing the only other availability payment P3 product in Florida just down the road in Miami. Why should you care that we're local? Well, fundamentally, construction is a local business. Yes, it's great to have the financial strength and the international buying power that comes with large companies like ours, but really you need to understand how to build here. You need to understand the subcontract market.

That's really important to get the lowest available cost. You need to understand permitting. You need to understand resiliency. And that's what this team brings. The other point I do want to highlight is we are vertically integrated, which is basically just a fancy way of saying Balfour Beatty is the developer and the builder.

The reason that's important is we bring a single culture of transparent partnership to this team. We are not layering risk money on top of risk money, so we can provide a low cost solution. And most importantly, we are completely flexible with regards to the financing solution. If you want to deliver a design build finance maintain project, a design build finance project or just a design build project, We want to be your partner. The suggestion made earlier about having you all provide the financing and us provide a tranche of equity, we fully support that.

That makes a lot of sense. And we would love to have the opportunity to discuss those options with you to get the best solution. But we didn't just bring this team together because we're local and we're vertically integrated. This team is also very experienced. As you can see from this slide here, we've developed over 130 P3 projects, but importantly, 25 of those have been progressive P3s. This is a progressive P3 and that's really important through that interim agreement phase where the partnership needs to work. We bring that experience. We're currently doing one just up the road in the University of Florida. We build right here in Fort Lauderdale. This construction team has delivered over $3,400,000,000 worth of projects here in this city.

I mentioned Johnson Controls. They are the market leader hands down and I'll speak about that a bit later. Balfour Beatty and DLR have delivered over three fifty municipal projects. So this team is hugely experienced. It's also got the financial wherewithal to deliver this project. You see that Balfour Beatty has over $1,300,000,000 in daily net cash. Johnson Controls has even more. The reason why that's important is if you're structuring this with private finance, the lenders look to the prime contractors' financial resilience. That's where they get their comfort and that allows them to put higher leverage solutions, which is cost effective. And we'll touch on that a bit later as well.

And finally, safety. Safety is important. We pride ourselves on our safety record. And it's not just the safety of the folks who come to work at our sites, that's our license to work. It's also the safety for the members of the public who walk past that site. This is a downtown site. So that's really important, and we pride ourselves on that. Now I'm going to hand over to John, who's going to talk a little bit about how we envision working with you throughout this process. John?

Thank you, Mark. Good afternoon.

My name is John Pierch. I'm Vice President of Operations for Balfour Beatty Construction, based here in South Florida. So Mark touched a little bit about our group and the expertise and the skill set that we have, and we tried to outline exactly how we see that working. So what we don't want to do is be part of the team, then go away to our respective offices and not have an ability to collaborate. So what you see here are different working groups that we've organized together, but more significantly, what you'll see in the blue boxes is where we've tried to assign staff to each one of those working groups. That helps keep the information current, helps us collaboratively plan together and more importantly, the names and faces that you see on there are also the names and faces that you're going to

see here

today. So how does that all start? So what's unique about Balfour Beatty, is that we have basically Meeting one, which is a collaborative session called Smart Start. So Smart Start is, where we invite all stakeholders for this project. We essentially look at values alignment, we look at milestone alignment, we look at how we're, developing the design and how we're going to communicate with each other.

We develop, kind of set the expectations between all of our groups, so we know exactly how we are going to communicate amongst ourselves. But then also importantly, we also look at the milestones. So schedule is very important to this. You'll hear a little bit about the interim agreement phase and those milestones we're going to talk about earlier. We take a reverse phase look at this and really plan out what are the milestones working backwards that helped us to achieve those different milestones, which Mark is going to talk about right now.

So sorry, a little bit of chopping and changing there, but I do want to say the Smart Start process as well. It's a great tool. We've used it many times before. It's also a lot of fun. So I do hope we get the chance to do that with you.

And SmartStyle kicks us off on the right foot on this journey, and it is a journey with a progressive P3 and the interim agreement. And it's important at this stage, you're not selecting a final solution final project and a final product. You're looking to select a partner to go through this journey with you to come up with the right solutions for you and your residents in the city. So a couple of points on the interim agreement phase I just want to highlight. The first one is we're targeting financial close in March 2027.

This is after fourteen months of the interim agreement phase. Now that may seem a long time, but that allows us to work in partnership together to develop the contracts, to develop the designs, to develop them to a point where we can be very low on our contingency and provide a better value for money solution for you. Now we have multiple tools that we can bring to bear to make this an effective and efficient process to develop the solution with you. And importantly, I want to reiterate what I mentioned earlier. We're not wedded to a structure or a solution.

We want to provide information to you on a transparent basis through this interim agreement phase. So you have information when decisions are made, you can see what the cost is over the thirty years and you can make the right decision. And that's a really important iterative process. The final point I do just want to make here on the interim agreement phase is you'll see that we have the execution of the interim agreement scheduled for the January in 2026. Now that may seem aggressive, but we have delivered interim agreements on phases shorter than that.

The one thing I did want to highlight, I have a draft interim agreement right here based on the precedent that we're doing right now just up the state, the University of Florida. If we're fortunate enough to be selected by you to be your partner, I will deliver this to Raquel and her team tomorrow morning and we are literally ready to start working on this and moving ahead. So that gives you a bit of a flavor of what we'd look to do. Clearly, we're trying to cover a lot of information in a short amount of time, but I think it's important now to go on to some of the vision for the building that we have. So I'm going to pass over to Kobi and if we could go to the video, that would be, amazing. Kobi?

Good afternoon. I'll be brief as we're playing a little video, which as was mentioned, it is our vision, yet it allows us to create a sustainable and resilient design that at the same time will allow us to carve the spaces and make it unique and special for us here in Fort Lauderdale. This is our home. This is your home. What we did is we took the opportunity to create a design that is uniquely Fort Lauderdale.

The curves, the integration of the outdoor spaces in a very sustainable and natural feeling. The feeling of what we have out here, the curves of the river, the sand dunes, the design that we have here in Fort Lauderdale is second to none. We took the program that you gave us and we raised it up in the air and took the public land, public space and brought it back to the public, both indoor and outdoor spaces. There are the spaces that belong to the public and we took the program and we lifted it up in the air. That allowed us to create a very unique urban destination.

This location, which is basically the 50 yard line. We're in the 50 yard line in relationship to where it is the train stops, where we are in Broward County Boulevard and how it is that we have an opportunity second to none to create a destination where the public can come in and use on a daily basis in the comfort of their home. This is our home. This is Fort Lauderdale. This is the design that we wish to give a feeling to.

This is just a prelude to where we are going. There will be dialogue and there'll be placing of the feelings and the designs of each and every space. But you see here, we have taken the thought and came up with a vision and an idea second to none that nobody else, not only in the state of Florida, not only in the Lower 48 in The United States Of America, but nobody else has this kind of a land in this kind of a location in this kind of a concept. Footsteps away from the river, footsteps away from the train station, great location to come by and spend time, both for public events and on Saturdays and Sundays, if you want to have a festival outside or have a choir. If you want to come out here and enjoy yourself with your friends and family or have a nice covered walkway from the garages where you're protected from the rain and from the sun, This is what it's about.

It is to give you the inspiration and the design that we wish to carry here. We are uniquely special here and the opportunity that we have as a team, as a group here in this room to create a design that is special and unique, two for Lauderdale, second to none. Yes, I'm an architect. I'd like to win awards, and we all do. But this is really a step above and beyond. This is a unique opportunity for us to take a step forward that nobody else has done before, not anywhere else. And that's why I am part of this very, very strong and important team. Thank you for your time.

Great. Thank you.

UR? Todd Orr with the DLR Group, Principal. Proud to be here today. We're going to talk a little bit about my role. I'm going to be the Civic Planner and Designer on the project.

And so what that means is I'm going to be in the room with you and your staff working through, the interior design of the project, understanding how we're going to create a building that's operationally efficient, one that's user friendly and one that's customer service driven. And what that means is as we organize the building, as you see graphically in the stacking section, we want to appraise high volume functions that easily accessible to the public coming to the City Hall. As an example, the commission chambers, the community spaces and planning and development, those are the type of spaces that we'd highlight to bring down lower in the building so that ease of use and wayfinding for those citizens are coming to the new City Hall. As Kobe described, we're talking about a building that is unique to Fort Lauderdale. So the interior and exterior design is seamless, and it speaks to the community and it speaks to the sense of place.

So as you look at the main entry lobby, it's the sort of the front door to the city Hall, bringing people into a light filled environment, multistory space that allows for usual visual cues from the 1st Floor to the 2nd Floor. As we talked about, that customer service approach, if you have that easy line of sight to all the departments and divisions you need to go to, that supports that ease of use of wayfinding that's so important in our city hall buildings. We're going use durable materials. We have opportunities for public art to enrich and the life in the space and make sure it's durable and maintainable for the life of the building. As we talk about the Commission Chamber specifically, it is an important functional space, and we must not forget that.

It is important from this climate control when you have 100 people sitting in a room for a commission meeting. The lighting must support the tasks that go into the meeting. We must not create glare and must be enriching the space and be supportive of the environment. It must be acoustically tuned. We must be able to hear people speak and be able to understand what's being presented.

And finally, in the situation that you're living in here today, technology and integrating technology in the commission chamber is so very important. The setup time will go away in the new facility. It will be a quick flip of the switch and be integrated into the design, easy to use for you day in and day out. And finally, when we talk about a new city hall building, it is going to speak to the people who live and work in this building day in and day out, eight hours a day, that the environments they create that we create do that. That.

The project working both to outside in and inside out is how we approach our design. And now I'd like to turn it over to Peter, who's going talk a little bit about the site aspects as it relates to the new City Hall.

Great. Thank you. Peter Moore?

Thank you. I appreciate that, and I had to put the microphone down low. Good afternoon. I'm Peter Moore. I'm the President and CEO of Chen Moore and Associates. Headquartered right here in Fort Lauderdale, Chen Moore has done over 50 projects over the last thirty five years for the city of Fort Lauderdale, including design, design, build, and p three projects. And today, according to the South Florida Business Journal, we are the largest engineering firm headquartered in the city and in the county. In the schematic site plan presented here, you'll see there are several important features. And as Kobe mentioned several times, this is the gateway to our city. And the proximity to the Brightline Station, which we were the designers of, and the impacts on right of ways and utilities.

Chedmore has done a lot of emergency projects, a lot of utility projects for the city, and we're very proud of our knowledge of the city's projects. In here, right now, we're under contract for the a five pump station. It's actually gonna relieve a lot of the sewer sewer issues that are coming out of downtown. One of the original sites for this was particularly gonna be on the City Hall site. Obviously, that's not something that's preferred, but our knowledge of the local utilities and local things like that are very, very important.

I was born in the city right here at Holy Cross Hospital, and my wife and I are raising my daughter in the city. So being exposed to outside outdoor spaces is incredibly important. Right now, it's not included in our proposal, but you'll see we have a consideration to the one stop shop. If you'd like to talk more about that, we can do that in the questions and answers. But alongside to me today is I have Doctor.

Alec Bogdanov with Brzaga, another Fort Lauderdale based business. Chenwar and Brzaga have partnered on dozens of projects, and together, we bring deep local expertise and statewide leadership in flood resilience, stormwater regulations, and the impacts of sea level rise and climate change, including groundwater table issues, which will impact us from day one. This team understands that we're not we're here today only because the old city hall flooded, and resilience cannot wait. That's why we're here today to help Fort Lauderdale build a city hall worthy of the people it serves, one that stands strong through storms, supports our community every day, and becomes a model for resilience across Florida and beyond. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

And last but not least, Alec Bogdanov.

Alec is there for eye candy, but he is available

for questions afterwards. I would hang it up right now.

So we've seen a little bit about the building and the vision of the building. And what we have tried to achieve with that is something that is aesthetically pleasing, but importantly, is cost effective. It's really important. So I think it's important now for us just to touch on some numbers in the financing a little bit. And I want to reiterate the point I mentioned earlier. We are completely flexible on the financing structure. We're not an infrastructure fund. We don't have to put dollars to work. We are an integrated infrastructure services company. So whether you choose a design build finance with no equity in or a DBFM with equity in or the structure that PFM recommended earlier, we are completely on board with all of those.

We just want to help select the right solution for the city. So I'm going to touch a little bit on our structure and then come back to the numbers. So in response to the supplemental information request, we put forward what we thought was our best structure for a DBFM, a design build finance maintain and a DBF. The difference between the two being on a DBFM, the facilities management and life cycle costs are risk is retained by the private sector. So in both those structures, we propose tax exempt bonds utilizing a five zero one(three) not for profit entity.

In the DBFM structure, we augment that with sponsor provided subordinated debt and a qualified management agreement, and that basically provides the risk capital that takes the risk in place. We've provided the structure before. In fact, we provided that structure just up the road at the Florida Atlantic University student housing project that we did. Importantly, because Balfour Beatty and Johnson Controls are financially robust entities, lenders can have aggressive leverage assumptions. Now one thing I saw in the PFM presentation, they said our leverage was 90%.

You can see here, actually, it was 94% in our DBFM structure. And that's based off a 1.5% coverage ratio and we believe is highly deliverable. The other thing that feeds into this is when people talk about the cost of these, naturally, gravitate to the cost of construction. Of course, they do. But there's more than just cost of construction. It's cost

of

construction, schedule, the financial structure cost and the cost of the operations. So on cost of construction here, our cost is $773 per square foot. That's based off of our efficient design, our understanding of the submarket here in Fort Lauderdale and we also have a thirty eight month notice to proceed to construction completion schedule, again informed by our design and informed by our experience. Eurobo, as you mentioned, heard earlier from Jacob, this is deliverable. Our financing structure cost, again, everything here you heard confirmed by PFM deliverable.

The other point I want to highlight, FM cost. Our FM cost with Johnson Controls, which Don will speak to in a minute, is $1,900,000 per year. There are some other aspects that feed into that graph with the differential, which I'm happy to answer questions on if that's useful. What that results in is on the DBFM, the amount of money that the city needs to spend is $17,900,000 per year. Thank you for the water, Kobe.

Dollars 17,900,000.0 per year. That's the lowest of all the bidders. And I know that you cannot base your decision solely off of numbers today. I get that. However, when you compare this number to the most expensive number at £34,800,000 I think it is pertinent to note that over a thirty year concession, that's a difference of $5.00 $7,000,000 That's significant.

And therefore, I think that whilst you cannot base your decision solely off these numbers, it is an important consideration here. And I think that what we bring with cost effective design, with our local presence and understanding of the submarket and our flexibility on financing, we can help deliver the best value solution for the city. Now I've mentioned DBFM a couple of times, so I'm going to ask Don to come and have a chat about facilities management. I'm Don

White with Johnson Controls. We're a $23,000,000,000 organization. We've got 2,400 employees in the state of Florida. And as Mark said earlier, 43 P3 operations across North America, by far, by far the market leader. So we'll spend a few minutes here just talking about some of the nuance to FM and the P3 space.

And Mark and others have talked about this first one, this whole life cost concept. We're looking at not we're looking at the term of the cost, the thirty year cost, not just the first cost in that regards and all the costs that go into it. The cost of operations, inclusive of the cost of energy, and I'll touch base on that in just a moment. We're integrated with the design team. In the smart start concept, you'll see us in those rooms talking to the folks, talking to the design team about what's the best cost for this in terms of first cost versus thirty year cost. The analogy we always use, elevators is a big one, not to choose the lowest cost first and also the one we can all understand,

for strong

twenty

foundation we

the company.

Company.

A that are untimely, that goes back to us. But We that's literally all that's in there in that regards. We take it all in that respect. The only thing we don't take,

and I'll touch base on

that in just a second, is the cost of the unit energy. So the guaranteed energy consumption, will guarantee the consumption, the energy consumption of the building for thirty years, not the unit price of energy, the units of the energy. And if by chance, it were to come out that the building is using more, then it comes on comes out of our pockets to fix that. So if that means that we're there's gonna be financial penalties associated with it, we're up for the game. We've proven it.

We can do it. And we'll invest capital out of our own pockets to correct those measures where they need to be done. The next point, the full risk transfer, touched base on this with the energy. If by chance over this thirty year period, operations cost or repair costs come going

the to

And a lot That's of it. So lastly, this point about hand back. It's P3 nuance.

So at the end of

the thirty year term, the building is not going to be handed back to you where we're really running out the door. Quite the opposite. We hand back the building. It's got a considerable amount of remaining useful life.

And in

the project agreement, we'll actually get into the document and detail it by asset class to show you what the remaining useful life is. And then throughout the thirty year term, a third party consultant will be coming in and assessing us and looking at how we're doing. And if we're behind it over, say, every five years, then again, that's another investment the market. Market. We're

growth

We're

seeing seeing

That's in the ninth year of operation. The next one is, many of you have seen this one, Miami Dade Courthouse. That just commenced commenced operations in October. And unlike what you may have heard with some of the developers or the general contractors, we've got a great relationship with the city That's it for me. Thanks. Peter?

Okay. Thank you. So

we'd like to touch on a little bit further about construction. So we talked on the interim agreement phase. Wanted to kind of jump into construction as it is. So the big milestone here is financial close. Obviously, that March date is what is important to us.

In order to achieve that and get that construction start in early April, really we're looking at starting permitting back in July. And that would be the site permitting from Peter's team, to try to start to put that ball into motion, while DLR and the team is finishing their, designs for us to go out and get to a guaranteed maximum price. So guaranteed maximum price feeds into our financial close with some buffer and we would start construction in April 2027. So in that construction bar, you could see our structure starting in July, 2027. We would then be in structure for about eight months, coming into, March 2028 and then we would have twelve months in order to dry in and finish the building for a total of twenty four months, which is more than doable for this size of a building.

So before and after construction, we also want to talk a little bit about engagement, how we're going to go about doing that. So, design charrettes with the public are very important to us. DLR is no stranger to that. Us and the team will be there. It's also important for us to engage vendors and subcontractors as well.

So you'll see this town hall here, that's for us to put out to the market to gain, enthusiasm and excitement about our project that will drive more bids for us during the time when we're ready to take bid. Obviously, it comes back to you as best price, that we've done before. That excitement, we want to go ahead and parlay back to the public. So of course, we want to have live feeds, cameras, monthly updates, that we can go ahead and share with the public of how we are going about the construction. And then finally, job generation.

This is extremely important when we talk about us getting into the ecosystem again of downtown, supporting those adjacent businesses, but also the trade partners. And so I'd like to touch on a few things here. At the Broward County Convention Center And Hotel, we over exceeded our goal for expenditures of almost 45% for CBE enterprises, but I think most importantly is a handful of those actually graduated from the program while at that job. So it's very important.

Thanks, John. And I've got a lozenge now, so hopefully I won't choke to death up here. So just one thing I wanted to highlight here, the LAX automated people mover project. So on that project, very large project, we had to generate in excess of $660,000,000 of business for disadvantaged business enterprises. We've exceeded that.

But we had to do that because if we didn't, we'd be subject to contractual deductions in the contract. And that is a structure that we're very comfortable with. We'd love to discuss with you at the next stage because if you're interested in that, we're interested in that and it can really help make this more than just a project of bricks and mortar, it can make it a legacy. So that brings us to the end of our presentation. I'd like to just say a few parting words before we open it up to questions, if that's okay.

So this team is genuinely embedded in your community, and we do believe that this is the best team to be your partner over this journey, and it is a journey. As I said, you're not picking a solution today, you're picking a partner to work with. At Belfour Beatty, we believe in the power of infrastructure to enhance communities and to leave a legacy that the residents of Fort Lauderdale will feel for the next three decades. As I said, we're local. That helps results in low cost solutions. This team is experienced. We develop mega projects. We've developed them right here in Fort Lauderdale on time and on budget. I also think it's important to say, when I say low cost solution, I don't mean low quality. I mean we design out frivolous cost.

We put in place solutions that are cost effective and value for money. We have the lowest cost structure. We have an achievable design build schedule and achievable cost, all as advised by your advisers. We're vertically integrated. That means you're going to get a seamless experience. It means we're flexible on the financing. We are very open to whatever structure makes the most sense for you. And overall, I think that we represent the lowest cost solution for the city, but most importantly, the lowest risk solution for the city as you embark on this process. And above all else, we want to be good partners. We want to be completely open and transparent.

We have tried to be as involved in this process as we can with clarification questions, reaching out, meeting, trying to understand what you all want so we can help make it a reality. And if we're fortunate enough to be selected by you as your partner, we are all of us here and all of our teams are ready to start work on this tomorrow, on this exciting project that is genuinely going to be awesome. So thank you so much for allowing us to present. Thank you for allowing us to be part of the process to date. And we welcome any questions that you may have. Okay.

Thank you so much. We really appreciate you. You kept your time almost exactly thirty minutes, so thank you. I open it up to questions. We'll start with the Vice Mayor. Do you have any questions? Okay. Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Yes. I have a question regarding, job generation. If you can go into some details on how, what method you're going to do to include local employment?

Yes, absolutely. I think, the best person on our team to speak about that is probably John, to bring his experience from the, Convention Center. John? Yes.

I think it really starts with these town halls that I had mentioned. The town halls, we've had great success in knowing that when we get brought on from a conceptual stage to move it through, we have time to generate both excitement for the project, but also opportunities. So that's really the forefront mechanism that we use in order to generate those jobs. And then, as we move forward with our different, trade partners, we extend that out to the actual physical workers where we encourage them to hire locally as well.

Is there any, percentage commitment that you have to ensure, a certain amount of, local employment from the city?

It it's hard for us to employ, directly as the contractor because that's outsourced. What we have done before is we've augmented our team with local smaller contractors themselves, here in the city and we'd be willing to do that as well to be part of our staff. We have done that before.

Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Glassman?

Sorry. I

was just going to say to augment that, what we're also very willing to do is to put that commitment contractually in the comprehensive agreement. So if we don't hit those thresholds, and that's monitored jointly between yourselves and us, if we don't hit those thresholds, then we suffer financial penalties. So we're very committed to it. We're not just paying lip service to it. It's a fundamentally important point.

Thank you for that.

Okay. I guess I'll ask some questions. Alright. Thank you. Appreciate it. First of all, great team. I really so appreciate all of the work here and I'm gonna probably end up saying that to all of the teams today. I was really just so really impressed with the questions you submitted, the documents. I it's this is a tough one. It's a tough one. Thank you. I have just two questions. You you just show a slide a little bit earlier. I don't know if we can go back to it, but they were percentages and I was just wondering, is that 4.24%, is that a realistic number? There you go. Is that a realistic number in terms of today's markets, in terms of executing debt or is that low?

What that is, is that's from the tax exempt bond market. We've assumed I think we assumed an average it's a thirty year contract, but we assumed an average life, I think, of twenty years on the bond. That was advised as of Bank of America as to the running yield on tax exempt bonds at the time of submission. I'm sorry, think that was November 8. I'm sorry, need to check on the date. But it's yes, at that point, we think it is realistic. I have actually checked it since. It stayed relatively stable because it's long tenet. It's twenty years. There's not a huge amount of short term volatility.

It's also worth pointing out one of our other competitors on their tax exempt solution, they had a yield, I think, marginally underneath that, but about the same. So yes, I think it is highly deliverable.

Okay. Thank you. And then I just wanted to discuss I found one of the items on exhibit one, page 17 of 27, very interesting. This was under the section comparative evaluation matrix. And I understand that the direct construction costs could change for everybody based on what we as a city, we can set a budget, we can set stuff once we choose a partner, and that will affect, obviously, construction costs

Of course.

If we determine a certain budget. But I'm not so sure about the other categories there. I thought it was fascinating when I looked at the indirect soft administrative cost, and and the contingency. Those numbers just vary wildly Mhmm. Among the four presenters. I didn't know if you could address that. I'm wondering, you did have a very low contingency. Mhmm. Is that realistic in today's I mean, I know we can end up coming back with change order, change order, change order, but I'm wondering about those numbers. If you could just address the contingency, the overhead administrative costs and the indirect soft costs?

Yes, absolutely. So I don't have those numbers in front of me, but a couple of things I will say. In terms of the overheads and the direct costs, clearly, are embedded here in the city. We already have overhead in place significant having done a large number of projects. So we have a certain aspect of efficiency there that can come in.

On the contingency, I'll let my colleague, John, provide more eloquent answers than I could. But what I would say is we have a longer interim agreement phase in our structure, which allows us to really design out a lot of those contingency and go through the buyout process with the GMP with the subcontractors, which helps to minimize that. And the other point you said about change order after change order, and for clarity, think this is the same across all bidders. Once we hit financial close, that's on us. That's if we blow through that, that comes that's our risk. That's not a risk that we pass back to you. But John, do you want to give a slightly more eloquent answer?

Yes. So the percentage that you see on contingency, we took that as a response to what we would carry as far as a construction contingency when we get to that GMP, that financial close. So that's why you're seeing that range between 1.5% to 2% is what we would carry, not necessarily maybe others had seen it as carrying it a little bit further. But that's how we responded to it that we think is responsible for a construction contingency at that GMP.

Okay. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mayor.

I'm good.

Okay. Commissioner Sorenson. Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, Mark and team. A couple of questions. One, what specific sustainability measures like energy, water, LEED certification and so forth are included in this price point?

So I do not believe we've included any specific Kobi is nodding, so I'll let him answer in a second. I don't believe we've discussed specific thresholds in the pricing. That is something which we're happy to explore with you. We have a lot of experience of LEED Gold. We even have LEED Platinum projects in our portfolio. But that does come with a price, right? If you want to achieve LEED Platinum, there are extra costs that come in. However, if you do that, there are also benefits that can come as well. So if you get a LEED if you structure this as a LEED Platinum project, you can make the bond a green bond and that can reduce the yield on the bond. So there's a little bit of give and take. But Kobi, do you want to speak?

That's fine.

All right. Okay.

Great. So that would most likely escalate the price from where we are right now.

If you I mean, honestly, so LEED silver, candidly, it's new construction. Think can LEED definitely get Gold, there might be a slight increase. I don't want get over my skis and misinform anyone. LEED Platinum, yes, that would definitely have an

incremental cost, definitely. And you answered a little bit of this just earlier with the commissioner, but why do you think you're able to have the lowest per square footage price out of the others?

So I think there's a couple of things. So one, I mean you saw our design. Our design is fundamentally quite simple and that's not a knock on code because I think it's beautiful. But it is fundamentally it has been designed with being cost efficient in mind. We haven't we purposely haven't gone down the route of trying to design, like a truly one of a kind global 100 foot iconic tower because we didn't think that was the task being set. Now for clarity, clearly, can be flexible in the design going forward. We're not wedded to anything. We want to deliver what you want. And for clarity, that's the same as our competitors as well. Everyone's in the same boat.

Where I think we do have the benefit though is, as I said, we're local and we're embedded here today. We have the overhead here today working on large projects. We understand the submarket. I would hasten to say we understand that better than anyone else. That conveys genuine cost benefits. Also, when you're looking at a P3 with this, it's not just the construction cost, that is so important. It's the long term life cycle cost. We have the market leader, bar none, with Johnson Controls. It's not even close. They get involved at the outset and they design out cost.

So they design this in such a way that over thirty years, not construction, in thirty years, you're designing out the cost and you're reflecting that in what you get here. And that's where we end up with a lower cost. The other piece as well is we're vertically integrated. So we don't have to fully staff up an SPV and then fully staff up construction. John and I work very closely. We can be very efficient from a human resource side of things as well. I hope that gives you

some helps. Thanks.

John, do you have anything to add to that?

That's good. How about, was brought up earlier, and I might be seeing if I'm getting the terminology right on this, design or professional negligence with municipal projects, OSHA violations, anything there?

Not from the development side, no.

Okay, I'm

seeing no on all, yep. Okay, great, thank you. And lastly, so when we go from interim agreement to comprehensive agreement, duration of the interim agreement, I think it's a little over a year, I think, in your model, something

like that.

I heard you mention a little bit of the advance for that. Is there any disadvantage to being that longer of a period? Or put another way, is there an advantage to moving the interim agreement faster to get into comprehensive agreement?

The only advantage that can come, if you compress the interim agreement phase, then the what happens with that is you have the potential for prices to move sorry, no, no, excuse me. If you compress it, design is going be far less advanced. So you're going to need far more contingency built into your price because when you hit your GMP at that point, you've got much less advanced costs. So you need to price it price the GMP and then go through. And as you finalize design, things can move up and down.

So you have to put risk in there. But if you're bringing it forward, what you are getting some advantage of there is your our construction colleagues will buy out the subs, like very they'll buy out the majority of the subs kind of at close, right, when the design gets there. So by bringing it forward, you're bringing the buyout of the subs a little bit forward. So you're also crystallizing some aspects a bit sooner as well. So there's a little bit of a give and take John,

I don't

know if you've got any other thoughts or comments on that.

No, that's correct. So when we look at when you look at escalation or price increases or other things like that, the sooner in our model we want to sign up subcontractors to get there sooner. So you do that, you negate that risk. But where the added risk is back to the perhaps with the drawings not being where they are, we have to implement a new higher contingency.

Okay. And then great, that helps. And then lastly, with that with the model with a longer interim agreement, obviously, we you can't guarantee anything now. We don't know what future holds. But how confident are you on maintaining a similar price point as you're proposing today with what it would be when we get the comprehensive agreement?

Well, I'll let all of the various specialists speak to that. On the financing side, in terms of the structure, in terms of the required cost of equity and stuff like that, very confident. On the underlying base rate, that can move down and it can move up. Is a question mark. On construction, John?

No, we do feel confident. We feel confident in the fact that the number that we have put forward based on the square footage that we are confident that we can build that product. Now, we've also assigned a great design team that can also work within the budgets and we're designing too. So we have a lot of experience in designing to a budget and really that's what that interim agreement is about and we can absolutely drive to a budget if that is what the number that we want to stay in.

Okay. Great. Thanks.

And Don, are you confident in the FM number?

We've a working just down the street. Sorry. Sorry. We've got a working model just down the street. So we've got a really good idea of what it costs to run these facilities. We feel very comfortable

with it.

That's the last test that we did, was doing a comparable on Miami Dade.

Just

to follow-up on that. So the term availability payment, explain to the public and to the commission what exactly does that mean?

Absolutely. So what that means is through design and construction, the city doesn't pay anything the we question. And And do to us? Exactly. Once it's once it's completed and it is available for use. Right. Then you pay us an availability payment for the course of the concession, and we've assumed thirty years post construction completion. There are many different ways to structure

So just to finish with your thought. So the availability payment is a per year payment that the city writes a check to you for thirty years. Yes. And that's for the use as well as the maintenance and operation of the building?

That's correct. So if in the comprehensive agreement that we structure with you, there will be certain thresholds that we need to achieve. So as an example, you may have if one of the light bulbs goes out in in in one of the offices and you report it on the hotline, the light bulb's gone out. If we don't come and replace it within three I'm making numbers up now, but within three hours, we may suffer a $5,000 deduction as an example.

But I mean just to get to the point though, but availability payment means a yearly payment city.

So, importantly, through that period, the city owns the asset, the city owns the underlying land, but we have a contractual right to receive the availability payment to you.

For the thirty years?

For the thirty years.

And what happens at the end of thirty years?

As we come close to that thirty year period, there are contractual requirements in the contract that lay out for certain building, functions and building aspects. There needs to be a residual life in there. So it might be there might be the roof may need to have at least ten years residual life as an example.

But it's all the responsibility of the city after that. Correct?

Afterwards. But importantly, as you come to that thirty years, we have to get an independent third party adviser to come in and assess the residual life on the roof. If the residual if if they come in in year twenty five and they say, know what? This is the roof from day one. There's not a chance in heck that it's going to actually have ten years residual life at year thirty. Then there's also a contractual provision that says that we then need to put money in to replace that roof at that point. So you are going to get the asset. You're not just going to get a nice shiny new asset. It's going to stay shiny new for thirty years and be handed back with residual life. And we put our finances behind that to guarantee that.

And who operates and maintains the building after the end of thirty years? That would be the city. Just if we come into an agreement?

Exactly.

Okay.

Yes. Alright. Alright.

Mayor, you'll be 105 when it's all done.

It's great. It's terrific.

You know, let us know how that works out. Thank you. 103. 105. I did the math. Thank you. 105. Alright.

Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, folks. We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Okay. Madam City Manager, you want to invite, Civic Partners?

Yes. We just need a moment to transition.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Of course.

Let's take a five minute break. Okay. Thank you so much, folks. Thank you for your patience. So, we have our next presenter and these are hold on a second.

And this is, Fort Lauderdale Civic Partners. Correct? How are you? Good. Thank you. Nice to see you. So let me set the clock.

Thank you.

Okay. Begin. Thank you very much, mayor, members of the commission. We appreciate you, giving us the time today. On May 15, we came into, city Hall and submitted an unsolicited proposal. We got the ball rolling. And we got the ball rolling, but you, in the wisdom of this commission and the mayor, decided to escalate that. We took from a hundred and twenty days, went down to sixty days. And mayor, at the time, you said, I want a decision in December, and here we are. So we're, we're very proud to be here today and, because we believe that we have a team that will hit this project out of the park.

So I represent the Miami Tunnel. I also represent the first public private partnership ever done in the state of Florida. And not only a public private partnership, but a public private partnership that has been used for a model. I've traveled all throughout the state of Florida. I've traveled all throughout the Northeast talking about the Miami Tunnel, how we did it, and, what we've done in the community for stakeholder outreach to create job opportunities, but also how we put together a deal that won us the deal of the decade, got us on the cover of ENR magazine, got us the award from Legacy Magazine, put us on the, on the social responsibility award for the Miami chamber.

So we're all about community, and we're all about delivering the service. But today, I have the opportunity to have with me the on time, on budget team. That's what we're all about. So when, I found out that, we were moving forward, I said, you know what? Let's put together the best team.

So I went out and I looked at those that I've dealt with in the past and those that have delivered a project both for the public and private industry on time and on budget because that's what we were about. And so we were able to do that. We were able to look at Suffolk and, and what they've done, not only in the whole state of Florida, but right here in Fort Lauderdale, building iconic, buildings, but also, doing that on time and on budget. So we put together a great team, and, we'd like to go to a little video to tell you a little bit about us.

We know Florida for its vibrant culture, its sense of community, and the incredible vision of the people who live, work, and play here. Bottom line, it's a place we're proud to build. It's because Florida has helped build us. It taught us curiosity, creativity, grit, and a commitment to something larger than yourself. That's what drives us to raise these structures to the sky.

Here in Florida, we've built some of the most iconic,

to

world.

There was one point in time in the early two thousands that within a seven or eight block radius, there were 10 Suffolk Tower cranes in Downtown Fort Lauderdale.

My name is Thierry Deo, and I'm the founder and CEO of Meridian. I founded Meridian about twenty years ago. Really, Meridian is a big hope. It's really focused on sustainability and building infrastructure for people and the planet, and that's really our motto.

And you couldn't have a nicer structure to be the sort of the entryway to the West Side Of Long Beach. It's terrific. It's gonna be a a a very big economic boost to the city, but also a great part

of the architecture. In Miami, we've been successful in reaching out to the community to really create these jobs, local content, and local employment to make sure that there is social cohesion in the community.

Hi. My name is Chris Hodgkins. I'm the CEO of the Miami Tunnel. We hired over 7,000 people in nondirect employees, contractors, vendors. Over 7,000 people, 83% of those folks were from Miami Dade County.

Infrastructure and the entire tunnel team have made the Port Of Miami tunnel project a huge success. Meridian and the entire tunnel team are a true example of what a p three should be. We've enjoyed working with Chris Hodgkins for his community outreach and operational excellence.

What we began on the Miami Tunnel was gonna be the model for what we do in the future. We're gonna include the community, and we're going to create another major infrastructure project that looks at sustainability, resiliency, and is a true and good partner to the community. Thanks. To do all of this, we need a team. And, I helped assemble that team, and, it was a very difficult process.

But this is how difficult it was. I called up Jeff Geneva from Suffolk. I called them in the morning. By eleven in the aft by the eleven in the morning, we met at a Starbucks here in town. By two in the afternoon, he gave a commitment that we're gonna partner. And, because we've worked together in the past. In fact, everybody

What did you put in that coffee? Yeah. I'm I'm yeah. Can you share it?

Yeah. And, the the the nice thing about all of this is everybody behind me that's part of this team, we have worked together. We've delivered together. There's not gonna be any getting to know you time. We're ready.

We're mobilized, and we've got a team ready to go. So when we looked at, doing working with Suffolk, then we looked at, Bernard to, work with Bernard, not only because of all the greatness he's done as an architect in South Florida and around the world, but because he's worked with all of you. He goes back a long way in finding out about what the desires were, for the Fort Lauderdale City Hall in working with you. We put together, great people on the team. We put together Keith Engineering.

Doty's here with us today as well as Greg. And the thing is is why Keith? Well, we worked with Keith on the tunnel. They did geotechnical concerns for us. They also did resiliency concerns just as Keith has done for you in this city.

We've also worked with ABM, who's our operations lead. What we're all about is not only about building on time and budget, but also about operational excellence and continuous improvement because we hope to run this city hall to hand it back to you in thirty years. Operational excellence and continuous improvement. And ABM has 333 buildings that they run here in Florida. So we're excited about this team, and we're also excited because we, had to watch a video of Marilyn from the task force, the infrastructure task force, when she delivered it to you about everything that they wanted to see in city hall.

So we took that video and we put that into action, But to put it into action, we also bought brought in Cheryl Dickey from Dickey Consulting because we believe one of the most instrumental things is communication, stakeholder outreach, local hire and making sure that we work for you. So that's what we're all about, and we're excited to be here today.

One thing we're particularly excited about is

Could you being please introduce yourself?

Mackenzie Welch with Meridian.

Thank you.

One thing we're particularly excited about is being a long term partner for Fort Lauderdale. As Krish mentioned, we have a demonstrated track record of delivering on time and on budget. And as a team, together, we have delivered $6,500,000,000 together over the last thirty years. I'm now going to turn to Gurran to talk about our beautiful design. Thank

you, Mackenzie. This is, Bernard Zasgovich. So happy to be back here.

And Bernard, before you leave today, could you please see the lady in the front desk and sign up because they don't have a slip for you. Oh, okay. And they have to swear you in and all that. Okay. You want to swear him in now? You can't? It's not it's not

oh, okay.

Alright. Alright. Never mind. Thank you. Sorry.

Well, when Chris started talking about, his unsolicited, it reminded me that we actually started this in 2020 with you. During the joint government center, we spent two years interviewing literally all of your department heads, 18 departments, 647 employees. We understand more about you maybe than you might understand yourself. But the the point is that we went through a very rigorous process that we wanna be able to leverage right away. And and we're here to tell you that not only do we have all that interview information and your your structural organizational issues, But we have stacking plans.

We know everybody that needs to work with everybody else. So we have a very big head start. But the most important thing is that we learned is how do we fit in with making sure that we accomplish all the objectives? Because the truth is the building is just an environment for the activities to happen in. The most important thing are the people.

So we're we're looking at a people to people approach, where the people are the first things that we think about. And in those interviews, I gotta tell you, we heard a lot about all the good things about Fort Lauderdale, but we had personal experience in understanding what doesn't work in the building, the inefficiencies in operation, and the most, common theme was wellness. Your staff wants wellness. They want to be able to make sure that the air is going to be repeating often, that they have fresh air, that the uses that come from, women who just had, babies, that there's lactation areas, powder room areas, that we have places where people can go and gather. And this is a fundamental part of what you are actually looking at on the screen, although without the detail, we can't give it to you.

Another thing is the inclusivity that we heard from all the great work that Sheryl did because she did the the the, Fort Lauderdale city study that you spoke about, reimagining city hall. We did all of the legwork regarding what you need and what your aspirations are. So the inclusivity is really significant. And all of our spaces in the building are actually very much oriented toward making it easy to find those little places where people can gather and making sure that all of the office plates and the efficiencies are there. And then finally, we've been thinking a lot about Iconic because I know this has been on everyone's mind.

And, I've been looking at that from a different point of view, which is the buildings that people love tend to be iconic. It's not the whiz bang thing. It's not the fashion statement that gets old in a few years. It's actually the places that reflect the community. And we have to tell you that Fort Lauderdale has its own international reputation.

My feeling about it is that when I look out and I see the weather, the boating industry, your marine industry, you are known throughout the world as an important city that has a kind of laid back vibe. And and we think that this is really reflected in our building. The building takes advantage of coral rock, is a historical reference to the old Florida and to the building that you had before. It has floor to ceiling glass, but not too much. You don't want the sun baking all of the spaces.

You wanna have resiliency that really addresses all the issues. So what does that mean? I imagine myself being the architect of your building that flooded. And I was thinking to myself, no way that guy could have anticipated that. But what we're thinking about is what is going to happen that is unexpected.

So we've built that into the project. We intend to raise the elevation beyond the FEMA code. We intend to have more fresh air than is required. We intend to set you up as a net zero capable building because you probably don't have the budget to be net zero right away. But we've just finished major work with school boards around the state where we've set those buildings up so that when PV becomes affordable, all it takes is a is a change in the in the direction and now it's a net zero building.

So, in conclusion, what what I wanted to talk about was what makes the building successful. I think that that it's attainable, that it looks like it can actually be accomplished in the time frame that you want, that it's gonna be a beautiful building that people love and therefore will be something that's admired everywhere, and then finally, that it's affordable and that we can actually complete the work. So we're ready to go. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Nick Phillips with Meridian. So as Bernard mentioned, our design reflects community needs not only for Fort Lauderdale today, but also for the future. But the real question is how we move this from a lovely video and a presentation to reality on time, on schedule to cost effectively serve the community at high level for generations to come. And just wanted to pause here talking about the various structures. We appreciated the presentation from There was a note that our team wasn't entirely flexible to their proposed structure.

That's not true. We are very open to working with the city on how best to manage costs. We did say we were inflexible to a DBF. Anything to us that divorces the O and M in the long term aspect of the asset from the developer creates an inefficiency that we don't think is ultimately the best. But in terms of using the city's balance sheet and leveraging their AAA capacity and making sure that the developer does the O and M and still has some skin in the game as proposed, we're happy to have that discussion and support whatever is best for the city because ultimately, we're here to drive best outcomes for the city.

Along those lines, our team has delivered numerous major civic infrastructure projects for clients both here in South Florida and across the country. Talking a little bit about what we just said, in contrast to something like a DBF or a DB, an alignment of the developer and the government that ensures that the project is delivered with its long term future in front of mind that we think is crucial. Nobody wants an iconic building that opens but doesn't work five years later. That does no good for anybody. In a DBFOM or a DBFOM like structure as proposed by, PFM, there's a single point of responsibility for the government interface, not only just the throat to choke when things go wrong, but also this is over thirty years.

So as Fort Lauderdale grows and expands and its needs changes, it needs to feel comfortable working with the developer to adapt that building to what it needs to be ultimately in thirty years because one example is Bernard's net zero capability, but others are things that we can't foresee. Our proposal provides you guys cost and schedule certainty and our team has a perfect track record of being on time and on budget. One of the things that was mentioned, by PFM and we agree with is risk transfer is often underappreciated in these, type of procurements. Ultimately, is an infrastructure project that needs to serve Fort Lauderdale now and in its future. And I think as stated in the review of all the proposals, our team stood out with its most rigorous operational and lifecycle guarantees.

After thirty years, the city will still have a like new building that can support the community and its growth and its neighbors. Meridian, we're a long term partner with the municipal partners and we're excited to work with the city over the next three decades unlike other teams, not necessarily in this project or everywhere. We're not contractor led. We're here for the long term. Meridian has been in every asset that it's ever invested in and, we're not here to sell after completion or leave after completion. We're here for the long term. As we talked about briefly, risk transfer is crucial benefit to the city, and its main job is to allocate the risk to the parties that can best manage it. Over thirty years, things are going to happen. We all know that. I mean, you guys know that better than anybody else.

And our team will be responsible for ensuring smooth high level operations. HVAC system breaks before anybody expects it. That's our responsibility. Elevators go out and need new elevators. Elevators, that's our responsibility. The city only retains risks that it should that can handle and mitigate the best, and it allows this commission and the city manager's office to focus on what it does best, is ultimately serve the needs of its residents and its neighbors.

Okay.

Thank you so much. Mackenzie Welch again with Meridian. So the result of all of this is risk transfer, lower life cycle costs, increased innovation and better value for money to serve the residents and neighbors of Fort Lauderdale. Our availability payment, which is one of the lowest of all of the proposers, includes costs like design costs, construction costs, thirty years of operations and maintenance, key life cycle costs and very strict hand back requirements. As you heard from Nick, PFM identified our proposal as having the strictest life cycle and hand back requirements of all proposals.

All of those costs are included with one affordable availability payment that is $11,700,000 and $13,500,000 cheaper and more affordable than the next two proposals. That means that this is a proposal that includes costs and takes risks off of the city's balance sheet. There won't be surprises, there won't be deferred maintenance and there won't be emergency appropriations in year five, ten or fifteen. Our approach is fully deliverable. And importantly, this is a realistic proposal.

We've designed for Fort Lauderdale. We've designed to be affordable. We've also designed to be a key community space. Importantly, we aren't a contractor who are going to hand you the keys after delivery and walk away. We're a long term partner that's going to be here to help in year one, fifteen or 30. And so we don't just talk about performance, we actually demonstrate it. Meridian has developed some of the most landmark P3s in The United States, here in Florida and around the country. And as a B Corporation, our purpose is fundamentally different from a contractor team. We're the only firm here that is a B Corporation or a benefit for all corporation, where we are independently certified and accountable to meet high standards of environmental and social performance. If you look at this screen, you can see some of our key assets.

Long Beach Courthouse was delivered ahead of schedule, under budget and in twenty eight months, the same time line that we commit to delivering the City Hall. It was also almost double the size of the City Hall. The same goes for Montreal Research Center. It was delivered on time, on budget and it was double the size of Fort Lauderdale City Hall. You all know the statistics around Port Of Miami Tunnel and LaGuardia B Terminal is also an award winning meridian asset.

We promise to do this on time or early, on budget or under or with and with complete transparency. And here's also what long term accountability looks like. If you look at Long Beach Courthouse in this photo, just this year, after thirteen years of operation, an external auditor rated it in like new conditions. And that's what strong building standards, a strong maintenance program and thirty years of accountability looks like in practice. So you'll see many billions on this slide.

At our core, we're trying to say that we are offering Fort Lauderdale financial and operational strength with three major companies. They're committed to develop this project well, to build it safely and to manage it sustainably and affordably for thirty years. Iridium has built 135 P3 projects and is sitting on $1,230,000,000 ready to go for this project. Suffolk has $1,000,000,000 in single project bonding capacity and is ready to go to build this. ABM coordinates billions of square feet daily, including hundreds of clients in Florida alone. Fort Lauderdale deserves a partner with the strength to deliver the city hall and stand behind it for decades. Now I'm going to turn to the man behind the building.

Hi. Jeff Govea from Suffolk. Safety is not aspirational. It's table stakes for the way we do business. I oversee as the President of the company, I oversee our safety operation.

We have some metrics up here that are, half of the industry average, when it comes to overall safety. Public safety is the most important thing. There was a question that had been asked earlier about the OSHA citations, not being, listed. In the state of Florida, we have zero OSHA citations in the last five years. And the men and women who build this project, them going home every day is the most important to me thing to me as the president of the company.

On time and on budget, there's been some a lot of discussion here about this. I've got a couple of, very real examples. So the, Hard Rock Hotel, the Guitar Tower, we, when we were finalizing, our last presentation, we were asked to step outside. And a little while later, they asked us to step back in, and they said to us that you we know you're still under, an NDA. But and so we want to tell you a couple of things.

The Miami the Super Bowl, the twenty twenty Super Bowl is coming to a stadium that will be renamed Hard Rock Stadium. This is back in 2015. This hotel must open on 10/24/2019 or you may not be late because the twenty twenty Super Bowl relies upon you finishing this. The Royal Caribbean's, new cruise terminal, when we were finishing our contract negotiation, the gentleman who builds their ships came in and said that this ship is being built in France. It's the largest cruise ship in

the world at the time.

It was the Symphony of the Seas. And they had said to us that, when it sails from the Mediterranean, if this project is not finished, we have nowhere to put the boat. And so we finished on time in November 2018. The boat came in and we finished on time and on budget there. On mitigation and construction risk, something that's very important, in the overall on the overall project.

This project gets won and lost in preconstruction, right? In our digital engineering and our technical validation of the design in the early, early stages of the project are very, very critical to making sure that the project gets started and finishes without a lot of RFIs and without a lot issues. So there are multiple, hurdles that we try to jump early on in the process, and that tends to give us a more clean delivery process overall. On the schedule, so overall, we had a, we had a twenty eight month construction schedule, thirty eight months overall. The temporary certificate of occupancy, we felt that it was very important to have this, group of commissioners cut the ribbon on the council chambers.

We felt like that was very, very important. And so the way that we have structured our schedule was that we would TCO the council chambers in in in November 2028, and we would finish the TCO in February 2029. And we felt that was very, very important given the amount of, energy and effort that you've put into this. Fort Lauderdale, very near and dear to my heart. We, we're actually in a great, spot to see some of the things that we've been involved in.

We built, behind us the Symphony, right behind us here, Esplanade On the New River, Las Olas River House, which is still my favorite project that we've built overall. That, by the way, when we finished that project, it was the tallest building from North Miami to to New York City back in the day. Residential building. Residential building, correct, yes. It's surpassed several times by now. We also did, New River Village and we did the Waverly Las Olas. And so we're and it is very near and dear to me personally, the City Of Fort Lauderdale and it's been very good to us as a company. Now I'm going to hand it over to

Cheryl. Thank you. I have no slides. As you all well know, Dicke Consulting Services had the privilege of working with task force and your staff to help with reimagine City Hall with the community, creating community engagement. We will continue that with having meetings throughout the districts in the community, have a website that we would have up for interaction and be able to get comments back from people as they look at what we're doing during design. We want you to know that we are the team that can you can trust and that will work for you because we're part of you. So I'll turn it over to Dodie at this time.

Hi. Good afternoon, Dodie Keith. Wow. What a legacy opportunity stands before you. All the revisioning you've done for this city, for our city, and all the work you've done and and the successes we've had, It's out of the tragedy of great storms. We have an opportunity to have this beautiful facility come out before us. We do think with Bernard and Zasgovich team and his personal commitment to this project that it's not going to look anything but Fort Lauderdale. It's going to be unique with that with the stone and the coral and the things that we bring to it really make it different. But what's also important is cost is important. And when you're looking at teams here and you know, I'm not the great financier of world, we're just engineers.

But when I look at some of the teams talking to you today that are going to cost 12,000,000 to $13,000,000 more annually for thirty years, That's 300 to $400,000,000 for the building that does the same function. So we hope that we brought you not just a design that's beautiful, that's exciting for this city that all of us can be proud of, but something that functions in the way your staff and your team and you need and generations to come for thirty years, but we also are doing it affordably. And we're doing it in a timeline that we can deliver. And I'm really proud to stand here with Meridian and Suffolk and all these folks that I've worked with for most of my career that we had we've every project take a lot of people say on time and on budget. I'm talking no major change orders.

I'm talking really hitting the timelines that are in our presentation without excuses because we find the solution and we find the recovery schedule. When something gets off, you find your way to correct, you don't find excuses. So I ask you to please consider us as your choice for this facility. You won't be disappointed. And the partners that have chose us and worked with us over the years will talk highly of us and are very proud. So we're happy to answer any questions, but really it's a whole package. It's the financing, it's the beauty, it's the functionality and we hope we're the team that you can trust to be your partners to move forward.

Okay. Great. Is there anyone else on your team that wishes to speak?

I wanna add

Okay. That we're going to actually be using local, folks here. We're gonna employ local people. We're gonna work with the OIC, with the Urban League, and with Hispanic Unity and the Black Chamber of Commerce from who we have a memorandum of understanding. And, we will make sure we're having job, retention and job fairs for all of the people, not only the small businesses, but also, actual employment opportunities as well. Okay, great.

All right, very good. So that concludes the thirty minutes of presentation. So now we'll open up to questions from the commission. Vice mayor, do have any questions? Okay, Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

The question I have is about the employment, piece. Do you have a percentage of local employment that you're going to benchmark or aim for?

Yes. What we did in Miami, commissioner, is we used our local demographics. Right? That was our model, and we wanted to mirror that. For example, in Miami, we did, we did 51% Hispanic, 28% black, 11% Anglo. We put women in positions of, of management and supervisory roles. But it was the first time in a project, a public project in Miami Dade County that our demographics mirrored that of the community. And, it was easy. You can't pick people by the color of their skin, but you can pick them by their ZIP codes. You can make sure that the community is broadly represented.

And we did a lot of things to make sure that the community was involved, and we sought that out constantly. One of the things, for example, that we've done here is, we continue to work with Launa Local fifteen sixty two. As a matter of fact, I gave the clerk a letter that, we'd like to give all of you. Both the, both the, the president and the business agent of Local fifteen sixty two, have signed a letter that their most successful project that Launa ever had was, at the Miami Tunnel. When you look at the video that we had and we showed you people, thousands of folks worked on that project.

But what we are able to do is do job training programs to look ahead, help train folks to get in those positions, and, it was a great opportunity to make sure that we look hired what we call local labor initiatives. We're very proud of it, and we won awards for it.

Do you have any other questions?

That's all. Okay.

Commissioner Glassman?

Yes. Thank you. And as I'm gonna say to every single team, so very impressive and thank you for your work. This is a tough one. Thank you for stepping up first and getting this process kicked off and what an incredibly talented team. So thank you for all of your work. It's really greatly appreciated. Could you please go back to the slide that showed your, I think it's a key assumptions on the top. There you go. So let me ask you a question.

Again, I am not an expert in this field at all when it comes to the financing, but the 13.5% post tax, for the equity, that seems really high for an IRR. Am I missing something here? Is that a realistic number for that, internal rate of return?

Well, I mean, I think if you look at this, we wanted this to be a realistic and actionable project. On the same time, we did not have an actual risk, we didn't have a contract to judge it upon. So we view this as this is the highest, not the highest, but this is the upper end. And we can push down as we discuss what the risk transfer looks like. I mean, you've seen the other one.

So I mean, I'm not giving any public knowledge, but I think if you look 11% to 13% is roughly the range of a market level transaction, but it all does depend on the details. So we're happy to get into the CDA process. We have a lot of history and experience doing CDAs with municipalities and finding out exactly what works best in creating what's the most optimal situation. But to us, this isn't necessarily a line in the sand, but this is what based off the information we have, this is the assumption that we have.

And thank you for that. Just want to ask you a question about the availability payments, because that seemed to be a very key point in all of our consultants reports and evaluations. Yours is a little bit different than the others. All of the others seem to be pretty consistent. The payments seem to be the same. Yours seems to escalate, I think, at 2.5%. Why that approach versus the approach of the others that it's pretty much a consistent? And I look at it almost like as a mortgage payment that you just sort of have to know that you're going be responsible for. But why does yours start lower and then escalate?

So ultimately, we've done availability projects in both styles, I would say we're relatively agnostic. But what we found in kind of more recent discussions in municipalities is we've And seen growth

so a the of

basically taking thirty years of inflation and sticking it into year one and calling it flat. So I mean, ultimately, it's up to a city to decide what their preferred method is. Ultimately, we can be flexible on that, But we find it works best for budgeting purposes, for long term growth purposes that kind of the payment grows with the growth of the city.

Okay. I understand. Thank you very much for that. And again, thank you all of you. Really greatly appreciate it. Thank you. You, Mayor.

Alright, Commissioner Sorenson. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you all. Appreciate the time and being here. So just a couple, few questions here. So if I'm understanding right, you're open to DBFOM, just not DBF? Correct. Okay, great. So again, if I understand it right, open to full city financing?

Yes. I mean, as presented by PFM with the city providing the debt structure, I think the two imperatives we view is that there's a long term alignment that the O and M needs to be considered by the developer and that the developer should have some equity skin in the game. So I mean, the 10% and the O and M be it above or below the line, fine. But I mean I think those two are key to we as a team think those are crucial to a successful project delivery.

Okay, great. If I understood right, the net zero capability is included in the cost structure? Great. What lead status is included in the cost structure?

We've been looking at lead gold, but we're really more interested in well certification. So we're going to be working toward the well certification as I think the primary goal because that's the one that actually affects the health and the building and the wellness of the employees.

Does well certification include things like water efficiency, so forth?

Oh, yes. We're going to first of all, most of the lead, requirements are now built into the building code anyway. It's really not much of a lift anymore lead. Well certification is the coming certification because it deals with toxicity, the overall health and wellness of the building, and long term maintenance and operation, which we feel very comfortable with this group, not so much necessarily with all our clients because if you sell the building, it depends on somebody else to finish that. But, there's been proven scientific results of increased efficiency and productivity when you have more air exchanges in a building, and that's built into the project.

Okay. Thank you. And then could you go to the timeline slide, which had the yes, this one. So what's your I might be missing on this, the expected duration of the interim agreement period?

Seven months from selection.

Seven months. Okay. So seven months post selection then comprehensive agreement would be solidified? Or when would the comprehensive?

Yes. Mean, so if you look at this kind of this co development phase in the boxes here, the first box is functioning what we would call financial close where everything is locked in, signed, delivered. And then Jeff and his team go into early works in August '26. In kind of in parallel during the co development phase, they've been advancing the design to 60%, so they're ready to go. So kind of two things happening in parallel, the advancement of the design and the advancement of the contract, kind of all meeting together at July 26. And again, if the city is providing the financing, maybe there's some time to shorten that, but this kind of assumed that there was a full market financing process within that time

period. Great, thanks. Then thanks for sharing on the OSHA stats, which is great. Any design or professional negligence with municipal projects to be aware of? No. Great. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay. Just to follow-up on Commissioner Glasson's question. Can you explain to the community and the commission the milestone payment program? So is that a onetime payment at

So little So going able do take it out as an interim payment.

So is the $12,000,000 already rolled into the $22,500,000 Or is that still a separate cost?

Currently, it's rolled in, but deferring on what the city would like to do, it can be separated

cost

So the cost of of the the building building can can go go up? Up? No, No, it's it's subject to a fixed escalation amount. So how we have it structured is it goes by 2.5%. So the actual number is fixed. It's not fixed at the same number. It's functionally CAD22.2 million in CAD2025.

I understand that. But I mean, so the total cost is still going to be $257,000,000 It's not going to be that's not your total cost here is $257,000,000 But you're saying that the availability payment could go up?

No, it's still a fixed line. There's a defined escalation mechanism. Why? Well, so this goes back to the question asked by

I know.

It's why

I want to follow-up

on So again, we're fine saying that it's a fixed payment. We can change the structure. Ultimately, what we found the preference of municipalities and government entities lately is to reduce the year one payment to allow this to grow by CPI or as you know, a fixed escalation amount so that future years less short term budget constraints to decide which they prefer.

Well, the reason why I bring this up is we're trying to compare apples to apples and we're trying to see what the availability payment is going to be to the city from each applicant here. And it's like years ago when there were teaser rates for mortgages, you get in at 3% and then in two years it goes to 5%. Okay. So we don't want to be in that situation. We want to know you said the first year is going to be less and there's an escalation.

I just at some point, I'm not saying we have to do it now, but at some point we need to see what would be the availability payment if we did not have this escalation program that you recommend because and I don't have to get it from you, I'll get it from our staff. But it's just easier for us to, compare each applicant and how much the availability payment is going to be expected of us going

forward. Okay?

All right.

All right. Thank you. Any other questions to these folks? There being none. Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We'll take a five minute break. City Manager, if you can oh, she's already gone. Good

Good afternoon. Afternoon. Thanks for having us, everybody. My name is John Keegan, Senior Vice President with Gilbane Development, representing the lead developer for FTL, FTL Beacon Collaborative. Thank you for having us.

I'm joined today by our team members, Zach Tronte, who's behind me, Development Director with Gilbane Development Jason Sizemore, Construction Principal with Gilbane Building Russell Anderson, Preconstruction Executive with Gilbane Building Bernardo Port Brescia, Design Principal with Architect Danica Sherry Gutierrez, Project Director with Architect Danica and Peter Campbell, O and M Director with Elliston Facility Services. Our agenda today is exactly as you've asked us to lay it out. We'll be very concise and hopefully addressing all of the points that you've asked us to hit on. We welcome questions at the end or throughout, if should you have them. Our team and experience.

In PFM's remarks earlier, talked about an aggregated versus a disaggregated public private partnership. Our team is set up to be completely flexible. Whether it's a fully aggregated P3 or a somewhat disaggregated P3, our team members are set up to address everything from lead developer through facilities manager, through equity members, through design builder, through lead architect. Our team qualifications, we think, really do stand out, not only in public private partnerships in the state of Florida and throughout North America, but also city halls in particular with 22 of them valued at $2,600,000,000 And in the last ten years alone, over 200 government and municipal projects valued at $14,000,000,000 Our team knows P3s. We know facilities of this type, and, we are very comfortable working in this sort of arrangement environment.

I won't hit on all of this, but one thing I do want to point out that I'm particularly proud of about Gilbane, over 75% of Gilbane's work is from repeat clients. That's born of trust, We strong business. A have I'd like to turn it over to Peter We Campbell, our partner with Elliston, to speak a little bit about O our and M services. Peter? Thank you.

Hi. Peter Campbell with Elliston, representing the FTL Beacon Collaborative operations and maintenance team. We want to spend just a few moments today to go over our O and M experience, and give a flavor of the types of projects and the capabilities of our team for consideration by the city. We are the O and M provider for 15 P3 projects procured as DBFOM projects. Many of these projects are availability based with performance metrics and very stringent performance requirements.

We apologize, I'm losing my place here. We have great experience in public institutions. One of our key risk management strategies is to deploy leading edge fault detection and diagnostics tools in order to identify and fix problems before they manifest to a level where they cause operational disruptions. In total, we maintain over 20,000,000 square feet of facilities. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, Commissioners, good afternoon. Zach Tronte, Development Director, Gilbane Development. Touching a little bit on our project delivery approach here, I think our overarching goal was to be flexible, as has been noted, and to do a comprehensive and thorough analysis of all options. So noting PFM's recommendation and staff's concurrence with the DBFOM model, we have that as our scenario A here.

We'll talk a little bit more throughout the presentation about what the numbers look like there. But taxable debt and equity, and I think the main differentiator our team brings to the table is alignment across all scopes, O and M, FM, O and M, design builder and developer, all as equity members and having skin in the game under that DBOFOM structure. Talking a little bit on schedule, starting with an assumed selection of a developer in December and then kicking off right away into program validation, getting started right off the bat. And then ultimately leading to kind of a February 2027 closing based on a 50% CDs set That would then enable us as well to get an early works permit, which is really the basis for what is an aggressive but achievable construction period of twenty two months. So noting the desire to have a delivery in 2028, we've tried to tailor this schedule, again aggressive but achievable to meet that 2028 delivery timeline.

I'm going turn it over to Virdaro for the design.

Good afternoon. I'm Bernardo Faurebrescia. I'm a principal of Uncle Technique. I'm one of the founders of the firm. We've been in business in Florida for now forty eight years. This is our home state and where we practice. And we have followed the history of our state and our cities very closely. And, but I want to begin by some of the guiding principles on buildings. In 1896, that far back, Louis Sullivan, one of our great American architects, the first modernist architect, said form follows function. We know that word.

People talk about it. In 1939, Frank Lloyd Wright, the great American architect, said, Further, form and function should be joined in one spiritual union. And that is what we're trying to convey to you today. We want to convey the message of government efficiency, a simple orthogonal building for maximum functionality and flexibility for today and for the future. We want to convey a message of public outreach by expressing the council chambers as the most important expression of democratic values.

And we want to convey sustainable principles. If you look at our design, the tower is oriented in a manner where the primary source of light is the north light, the good light. But we also want to, talk about sustainability further. The south side is made of PV glass panels so that we can collect energy, which is the future of our nation and the city. We also want to provide resiliency.

We have a building that is elevated over the potential water surge and beyond for sea level rise. So we have a future proof building. And we want to provide safety. We do work for the State Department with many of the government agencies, federal courthouses. And one of the most important aspects is safety.

You will see that our design includes a garage, which is what belongs in a Class A office building anywhere today. And, that garage is connected in a private section for the commissioners and leading managers of our city so that they can connect directly into the building safely. And we provide enough parking for visitors to be and employees to be able to reach the lobby in a secure manner as well as weather protected. And so these are some of the aspects. What we are going to see today in our presentation is that this is not a guessing game.

We've done floor plans for every level, for every detail, every passageway, every elevator, every fire stair, everything that you see has been thought out. It is not just a sketch or an idea. It is a real building. We draw our buildings from inside out, and we look at the neighborhood, and never mind, it will not be millions later that we discover that we need to do a new design. We have already priced it as we were designing it.

So with this, I'm going to take you through the project. You can see the Ground Floor. And one of the most important principles of design is that you really shouldn't need signage. You should find your way around a building easily by logic. When you look at this arrival from North Andrews Avenue, which we considered a great address to have, you have a drop off for Uber's, you have a plaza that receives you and embraces you. You find an atrium that is monumental and tall that symbolizes the importance of the functions that occur in this building. You choose to the right to go to the council chambers. You know exactly where it is. It's very evident from outside. You don't have to be told where to go.

And to the left, you take the elevators and you go up to our functional, efficient building that symbolizes the efficiency of government. You can see the garage next to it. You can see there's a separate entrance for the leaders of this community to be able to arrive directly to the council chambers or to their own direct elevators to their offices. And there's a way if you continue to the next level where the elevators take you down and you arrive directly into that lobby where the security is. You can choose to go to the building or you can choose to go to the council chambers.

If we move to the next image, you can see the double height space, the multiple height space of the grandeur of a lobby that symbolizes the importance of government. And you can see the beginnings of the building. If we take you to the upper levels, you can see the garage there, how we managed to fit it within the site. Proximity is important. And if we continue the next image, please, you can see our classic floor plate, a simple floor plate with natural light flowing from all directions, particularly the northern side, which is the most important side for natural light.

We're thinking these are the sustainable principles of basic design in LEED buildings today. And if we can and you can see there how the garage rises. And eventually, you can see the upper levels, and this is where we are, and we have a clean building. Most importantly, government is always changing. The world is always progressing, and you need to have a building that is flexible, adaptable to the future.

And that is what we have created for you, a building that symbolizes how efficient the bureaucratic system can become and that it will adapt to the times as we go. If we move on to the next image, please, you can see here how the tower rises, 14 stories, organized with the primary views, natural light to the north. Next, please. Now you can see what I meant by orientation. You look at this building.

You know where the entrance is. You know where the plaza is. Hopefully, we'll have a budget for art so we can have also some sense of culture into the arrival. We have a grand lobby. You can clearly notice on one side is the council chambers. On the other side is the building serving the public for the functions of the government. Now I design buildings that have serious safety problems nowadays, like embassies and federal courthouses. You see those letters? Those letters are actually barriers. Well, beauty is where you can conceal the safety of the building in a manner that people don't notice that it is integrated into the design.

Likewise, the steps that rise in a manner that any truck wouldn't be able to make it through. We have it all prepared for the worst case scenario. And this is what we were hoping. We have transparency into the council chambers that is beautiful to be able to sense what's happening within. Yet that those vertical elements that you see there are also barriers.

There are still barriers that protect the space. And so we thought of every detail of this building so that it would have a total awareness of all the possibilities that could happen in this building, but yet to make it friendly so it doesn't look like a protected place. And when late at night commission meetings are happening, you can just enter the Ground Floor. You don't have to take elevators. You don't have to change any ways. You find you know, you see that lit up hall of democracy to the right. You know that's where you're going. It's very simple. You don't have to figure out what kind of crazy stairs or methods of entry. You know where you're going.