Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

I see you know. All right. I think we might as well get going and then we we recognize that Eileen is trying to come in. So calling the meeting to order and u present at the [clears throat] town hall are um myself Joe Cameian co-chair uh Jeff Hartman by video conference virtually here Scott Smith Cheryl Pyer Mona Caldwell an excused absence for Wendy Russell and we're waiting for Eileen Mueller new commissioner to come online that she's in the process of working on getting connected. So, we we shall proceed.

Call to order and welcome as the first item on the agenda. Oh, Maline, I'm so sorry. Yeah, Mattaline Longfellow. Maline, I'll get there. Maline Longfellow, new commissioner also. Welcome.

So, I I do want to welcome our new commissioners and thank you so much for stepping up. It is a valuable service to see what we can do to to do some good work. Um, do we have any members of the public online? Doesn't appear so. So, um, if anybody comes on, we'll we'll we'll recognize them, but nobody there. So, the first item on our agenda is the approval of the January 7th minutes. Uh, does anybody want to make a motion to approve? I'll make a motion. Scott Smith making the motion to approve the minutes. I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I I

abstain. Okay. Okay.

Okay. [clears throat] The chair's report. Um with great appreciation for our new commissioners, we still need one more. So, I'm asking everyone to uh see if um there might be found another candidate to become a commissioner that can be referred to the board of select persons because we we can certainly do our job better with resources. [clears throat] And our vision is to implement the strategic plan by the appreciated ownership of those who have volunteered to um participate in in moving the the objectives that we have on our on our strategic plan. So I I'm going to just step through each of the five initiatives. Um the first initiative and and I'd like to identify who's working on them. So promotion and marketing, Cheryl is leading that initiative. Do you have a second Cheryl that you know of?

Well, Wendy is participating because of her knowledge in tourism. Okay. So Wendy is the is the if you will the the second or the assistant to which we what should we title that function the second or the assistant? Assistant co-chair the co-chair. All right. So we have Cheryl and Wendy as co-chairs of promotion and marketing. [clears throat] Um, anything to report or it's a little premature. We're just getting going. Oh, I have stuff to report. Are you going through? I I thought we would cycle through each one one by one. You don't have a copy of the No, I do. I have it. Oh, okay. Great, great, great. Okay.

Yeah. And I I I pointed out to Eileen that it's posted on our website if she came on.

Great. a couple of tasks and actions under promotion and marketing to highlight uh website management and updates. I have talked to the selectman's office about creating a business welcome page on the town the EDC town web page. So, uh they're actually going through a refresh of the town website. So, there may be ways to further explore how to highlight that. Um so, more to come on that. under photography and video content. I am starting to make a list of uh business and commercial photography that perhaps we can use such as you know the interior of one of the businesses you know people inside one of the businesses in the industrial complex and maybe some small business owners talking to customers that sort of thing. Um, so I'm starting to put that list together. And I have some photographers that have strengths in um, people, which is very different than

Yeah. taking gorgeous um, landscape and nature

um, photography, which is we have some wonderful photographers for that as well in town. U, so I'm working on that. Social media postings. I just did one this evening on the town website. O line is a busy place when summer arrives, but as winter weather continues, our yearround businesses need us all more than ever. Please consider shopping local and supporting the small businesses that keep our community thriving all year long. So, I already shared that to women of lime and old lime and I'll share it to people of old lime and community forum and but I'll pace that out over the next week or so. And then uh in the next few days, the Midsummer Festival will be opening its um call for vendors, which is what we kind of fall under for our outreach table. So, I will make sure we get a um you know, our application in to have a table at Midsummer Festival.

I think that's all I have for this time. Well, it's a considerable considerable amount. It's appreciated. Can I ask a question about the Mint Summer Festival? Do we get to do we have any say in where [clears throat] we are because last year we were kind of lost there. Um Yeah. And I I wasn't in town for that. So yeah, they they put us in a place kind of we were mainstream. Okay. Like we were better the previous couple years I was involved anyway. We were on the edge where people were coming in. We were in the middle. Okay. Yeah. So, we might like our old spot back up over by the corner. Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Good, good point, Scott.

We were talking about it, you and I, when we were there. So, [clears throat] looks like Eileen might have joined. Yes, I do. Okay.

Oh, whatever. Um Eileen, right now you have a lot of static. Oh, I'm mute. Thank you.

Oh, okay. And then you know um Eileen I don't know if you you picked up that we're going through each of the strategic plan initiatives the five initiatives. So um I I know if you're haven't had a chance to look at it yet that's all well and good. We you know we'll we'll pick up on it next meeting. [clears throat] Okay. So we've talked about the first initiative promotion and marketing. Cheryl and Wendy are co-chairing that effort. And Cheryl just gave us a considerable amount of items that she's working on. Uh, initiative two, branded signage and wayfinding. Jeff is leading that item. And I don't think you have a co-chair, Jeff.

No, I'd love to recruit a co-chair for for initiative number two. So, um, so we'll leave that open. tonight. We don't expect anybody to pipe up tonight, but please uh if you don't have a part a role yet and you want to pitch in, that's that's a need that we have. Uh Jeff, do you have anything to report on branded signage and wayfinding?

No, I haven't started the building the um collaborative committee. I think my next step was actually want to see reach out to public works and see if the town has an inventory of signs throughout the town to start with that. So we know the scope and location of sizes. So that's that's going to be my first uh uh outreach. And then

um probably before the for the next meeting, I'd probably like to present maybe some municipal best practices research, some preliminary draft for the commission to review from um different local towns and how they've used a branded way finding uh signage effort in the town. So I will come back next month with that. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Um initiative initiative three is the business resource and Cheryl and I are co-chairing that one. Um want to go first? Sure.

Okay. Uh just in terms of awareness of what's happening in town, uh we we all know that Walgreens, the pharmacy, the one and only pharmacy in town closed, but it is now being replaced by the medicine shop, which the owner is a resident of town, uh that you see them in Old Sabbrook. They have a a storefront, if you will, a retail establishment there. So, it's a good sign that at least we've got the pharmacy back. um Pizza Plus, which is on Shore Road near Sound View, uh that is being bought out by Epic, it's going to now be Epic Pizza. And Teddy's Pizza, on the other hand, is up for sale also near Cross Lane.

And so far, they, you know, that's where it's at. It's up for sale. And um I [clears throat] uh by by request of the select first select woman I uh had collaborated with a potential new restaurant that wants to come to town. Also a town resident that has a successful restaurant uh on the other side of the river. Sounds familiar. Um I can't speak to what exactly they're doing but there there there's a couple of opportunities they're looking at to set up shop in town. So, in terms of, you know, businesses that we can benefit, um, you know, I'm I'm trying my best to come up with, you know, what methodology would be the best way we as the EDC can help businesses seeking to come to town and and smooth the ways for them to um, you know, to set up shop here. That's as much as I've got on that one, Michelle, you had something you want to add. Uh just I need to um work on the new business guide.

Yes, that would be so make some notes. Okay. Uh initiative 4, economic development and land use process. Mona is leading that one. You have a co-chair? No. No. So Mona needs a co-chair for uh initiative four, economic development and land use. So again, we don't need to hype up today, but please new commissioners and and existing commissioners think about that one. Uh Mona, do you have anything you want to put out for

I'm embarrassed to say I have not done my homework before the meeting. That is that is highly irregular. So we know Mona's been busy. Uh they have a meeting coming up this Monday. I know that the last meeting is seven pages long. Can't summarize without reading it. Okay. So, I do apologize. No, no, don't apologize. Um, but I'll prepare an update and I'll email it to everybody. All right. That's great. Would that be good? Yes, the idea. All right, Cheryl, do you know anything new? sometimes you know more inside information

just that as we go into February into March that new phase of the zoning right re-updating reating we'll be looking for our input so we we did talk about maybe a special meeting um or perhaps we dedicate our next meeting to just talking about that and the impact um I'm looking at Jeff through the camera but the the impact of zoning is a big deal on what happens economically in our town.

So that's not a bad idea. Cheryl may be too well Jeff and I had talked briefly about uh for example at Sound View [clears throat] the fact that this whole sewer thing continues to be a debacle you know where for I think I don't know Maline are you familiar with what's

highly steeped in it. Yes. Um but what's basically happened is you know that stalemate has prohibited investment and revitalization and development. So um I'm wondering if the board of selectment can come and talk to us about both the zoning regs and the sewering issue which I think are two big deals in terms of letting economic activity foster here in town. So, okay. Uh, last but not least, the commercial district support. So, I am on that and I don't have a co-chair yet. So, again, that's another one I'll put up for someone that wants to participate. Um,

yeah, Joe, I think I was on number three. I Yeah, I was just thinking uh Scott's in here somewhere. Yeah, it was number three. Yeah. So, I will jump off at number three then. Okay. and plug in Scott. Yes, Scott, you and I were going to work on the um documentation. Yeah. Yes. I mean, the only thing I have to report on that is the first part of that is I've reached out to the uh commercial building websites. Yep. And trying to get them to get embedded code. So, who maintains our website? That would be Katie Balanca. Okay.

In the first class that code sent to her. Basically, what it would do is we'd have a page where it would embed in there the listings for old line. Okay. It would be Katie and then um the gentleman, you know, from it. Yeah. Tom, I've been meeting with him, but I've been helping them with the IT budget here. Right. So, I think between Tom and Katie figure out how to do that. Okay. Yeah. If we can't do that, we can just create links directly to their websites. Yeah, that's all I have on that one. That one anyway. Thank you, Scott. And thank you for volunteering.

I've voted that so that's why. Okay. Commercial district support is me and to be determined co-chair. Um the primary thing on on that one that I have done is as part of sitting on the shoreline gateway commission, we have gone through the zoning regs quite extensively with recommendations that we'll make to the zoning commission on the rigs and too voluminous to go through at this meeting. But I I'll try to if we can succeed in getting the select persons to come to our next meeting. I'll see what I can do to summarize the high points of that. So [clears throat] that's our strategic plan discussion. Anybody has anything else you want to add, please pipe up. Otherwise, I'm going to go on to our next agenda item. Regional events and updates. Greater old Sbrook Chamber, the River Cog Council of Governments, and the Eastern Regional Tourism District. Um, some activities there. Uh Jeff and I attended a virtual meeting of the Rivercogs Connecticut boost fund which is a um a basically a lending um opportunity from the state lowterest loans considerable difficulty in applying and accessing those loans. Um, so I I I think the uh the opportunity there would be for a, you know, a business who has maybe no other channel to secure financing to approach them. Uh, they did volunteer to provide assistance with steering through their complicated process.

Yeah, it was it was quite evident. They acknowledge it was a difficult process, but offered um numerous resources to assist applicants through the process. acted what Joe said.

Yeah, that's kind of, you know, that's kind of the way I that was my takeaway from that that meeting. Um I'm going to circulate just to let people scan and you know, you can find this, but the um Rivercog is offering on call services to the member municipalities. So what it in summary what it turns into is they're basically offering 12 hours of consulting to us and the question would be how could we use that? Where could we use that? So I'm just going to I didn't make copies but that's sort of the gist of it. Um, [clears throat] Gene Wolzinski, a a commissioner who had served us well and stepped down sent us info on Middle Sex County securing housing grant money. And I I'm kind of big on, hey, you know, we are resource limited as a commission. So, whatever we can get in the way of grant funding is significant. So I'm I'm questioning I wonder what uh might old lime get uh that you know could be achieved by precedent of what Middle Sex County did. So just a food for thought and um I'm planning to attend the Yale Innovation Summit in this May and that is uh very heavy with biofarma activity but also other enterprises. uh they invite entrepreneurial business startups to come and speak and um that would be my biggest interest in in going to that is you know all of the above. I mean any opportunity to try to recruit a business to come to town is kind of where my interest lies in in going to that. Um so my next agenda item unless anybody has anything else on regional updates.

Uh in does that include events? That includes events. Yes, that would include events. Yes. I have a couple. Yeah.

For the Eastern Regional Tourism District, there is a um conference February 27th advancing tourism across our region. It uh has a discounted admission rate of $75. I think it's from like 9 to 1 or something, but it's got um the director, the state director of tourism, um Regan Digital's chief digital strategist, president of the Greater Mystic Chamber, chair of the Eastern Regional District, um creative de director for office of statewide and marketing tourism, a couple of business leaders talking about uh building tourism in our area. There'll be some panel discussions and then also Connecticut Main Street Center. They have an upcoming building a main street business ecosystem and if you are on their mailing list they sent out who would be their keynote speakers or not their keynote their case study presenters

right um for that and that is going to be March 12th from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Bushnell. Um, and I found those events very practical. Um, and they I think they're very well done. So, Connecticut Main Street, I think it's a great um opportunity to learn more about what other towns are doing to build their community Main Street. Those were the two organizations that I wanted to mention.

All right. U moving along. Our next agenda item is something that's kind of a personal thing that I've taken on. Retention of in town talent and the schoolto career approach within the town. And for our new commissioners, I'm not advocating u students graduating the high school immediately do a business startup. But I am advocating that we have an excellent school system. We produce really highc caliber graduates and to have them go off to college never to return is not good for the e economics of our town. So I'm very interested in what could be done to facilitate, you know, our brightest and most motivated young people to to be given the knowledge and the wherewithal to that the ones that have that exceptional ability to initiate an enterprise in town. And uh I'm I'm very interested in what what economists I think call industrial clusters because that's what once was the case in Connecticut. Uh there's an excellent book named connections talks about how one invention leads to another leads to another and how how this all expands you [clears throat] know in an industrialized society. And we have we used to have a robust uh organic growth of businesses in Connecticut and even in our local area here. Uh, I'm looking for ways to figure out what are appropriate industries, clean industries. And one example, it's just something I I've been looking at because I I read a journal article where the money that's going into industrial automation, you know, everything's being run by robotics and so on, right? And and frankly, it doesn't matter if it's an automobile, a building, a ship, an electric power plant, a manufacturing plant, it's all industrial

computerdriven. The firms that are doing that, what's called system integration. They're they're knocking down hundreds of millions of dollars right now. And I'm shocked that there's no major local presence. And here's Electric Boat, which is probably buying these services, and they're right here. So, it's and it's something that again, you know, the the right high school graduates put into a co-op program to get, you know, if you will, an engineering degree or computer science degree. And, you know, next thing you know, we could grow this. And it's the kind of industry zero need, well, pretty close to zero need for water, pretty close to zero need for sewer. doesn't make any noise, doesn't generate any pollution, you know, no no vapors and, you know, volatile organic compounds blowing out the roof. So just as an example, so it's something that I want to try to do more with and I encourage anybody who's interested to to pay some thought, you know, so that's part of my thoughts on [snorts] you know to recruit just to get the initial you know the if you will the uh the starting kernel of a of an enterprise. If we can get somebody building you know electronic panels in town, we could keep increasing that. And as you have more and more skilled, you know, highly skilled technician type labor, we could grow it. So anyway, that's as much as I have to say for that.

I think um I think perhaps as we go along, we should grow that thinking into a more holistic view. And I don't know if you started looking at like what what land is even available to build on and what what [clears throat] properties could accommodate that kind of

Yeah, it's it's kind of it's a good point, Cheryl. I I've thought about the two industrial parks because there there seems to be, you know, some available space in both. Um I don't know what's going to happen and and I think of them. I guess the the industrial park that is to the to the south of 95 is the mountain industrial park and that is where a whole major housing project is being proposed and the proprietor of that I believe is trying to sell the project now. So I don't know where it's going. Jeeoff, I don't know if you're familiar with what's going on with that.

Yeah, if we do a real estate update that's on my list of available properties online. So, yes, that site is for for sale for $4 million. It's the Mark Bold site, but it hasn't doesn't have any approvals. It didn't go before zone zoning and planning. Um, so it's just raw land for sale. Correct. And and my thoughts are there's an example. I mean, there's how many acres, Jeff? Um, hold on. What a guy. Knowledge is power. Well, he's looking that up. How many? 38

38 acres. I mean, we could definitely put some taxpaying. That's the other thing. 95% of our tax base is single family houses. 5% is commercial. I think that's something I'd like to see us change that ratio away from the, you know, they're everything burdened onto the residentials. So, I'm sorry, Charl, but you're right. We we need to figure out, you know, the methodology of how to move this along. And I do think that identifying physically where these, you know, these these factories, if you will, could go. You know, it is a light industrial park as it said. Um, and by default, it became a distribution park by the action of Kellogg moving there and Sennheiser moving there, which is really more of a warehousing distribution operation. But either way, it's light industrial. It's not smoke stack industry at all.

So, I think one thing with looking [clears throat] at um is there even uh commercial zoned property [clears throat] that could accommodate your vision. Mhm. Um and then also what you know maybe we need to talk to I I heard the other day that there's another a number a growing number we'll say of um young adults in their 30s who are moving back yes to old line

and maybe we should find a way to talk to them and find out what brought them back because we've scratched our heads quite bit here about how do we attract younger yes people to live here when there's not like the Starbucks and you know all the culture that um MJ used to talk about. So, how do we ensure that we're a community that people do, young people do want to move back to and um live, work, and and um yeah, raise families here or [clears throat]

Well, I think one one of the resources that we can look to, sorry to interrupt you, Charl, is is the Urban Land Institute. You know, they do I think there are studies. I can't cite any off the top of my head, but I'll agree to look and see, you know, when when um you know, they're doing community design, what are you know, core tenants that drive people to relocate to communities. So maybe we can start and do a little work on the you are alli urban land institute site and see what uh drives younger consumers for housing decisions and what when incorporates into design and downtown and you know different things like that.

Okay plays really well into the branding and signage right. So if we can like really understand what are those key differentiators like make the town you know identify as that. Oh yeah great idea. Okay. Um so I I know I'm kind of not per se beating a dead horse but I I'm very motivated that it's something we can do that would be a concrete economic growth in town both population as well as as employment. Um, new or other business? Anybody have any new or other business?

I I you know, I have an overview of what's for sale, what's for lease. If you share the screen, I can put the Krexy site, the free site up. So, yeah, one of one of your great technicians there can share my screen. You know how to share the screen. Scott, don't volunteer. Those who can do get the work, Scott. And I think um in our future meetings when we're in initiative five, that would be where um Jeff's analysis would go. The first bullet. Yes. If you can't do it, I'm prepared to run through it verbally if it's

getting there. You're a presenter. Hey, hold on. Let's see if I can open my window. Sorry. And close all the windows. I have way too many windows open now. Hold on. You see that? Yep. There we go. Wow. Scott, you're making me look good tonight. Thank you.

So, I do this all day long. So, great. Better [laughter] be lucky than good, right, Scott? I've always That's how I've driven my career. Better be lucky than good. All right.

So, this is everything in sale for sale in Old Lime. you want to drive down. I can drill into any of the details. So, we have Old Lime Landing, 47 Hatchets Hill Road, $4 million. We have the iconic Teddy's Old Line Pizza Palace for sale, $895,000. We have Snap Fitness, which has been for sale for a while. Um, [clears throat] at $50,000, which is you're just buying the lease only, not the, you know, thing. Uh the next one is the uh the James Bugby store on Main Street. 1,395,000. It's at 69. Patric Patricia Sprat for the home building. Yes,

for those who don't know where James Bugby is. Sorry, Jeff. Go ahead. No, thank you for cleaning that up for me. And then uh scrolling down, we have 34 Lime Street, which was last the Old Lime ice cream store, and that price is now $550,000. And last but not least is Blackhole Marina, which listed at 1,995,000. And it doesn't come with a name. So you have to rebuild the brand or taking it down to Oh, it doesn't it it does not come with the name.

I don't believe so. I spent a little time looking at it. I I do not believe I could be corrected, but I I'm not not sure. Okay. So, those are uh if anybody wants to, you know, most of them have flyers on it. you know, we we'll drive into the Old Lime Landing. This is a great screen to share. Thank you.

Old Lime Landing. Here's the offering summary, and uh it shows how the town is presented, the old lime demographics, the location, the multifamily development potential. I believe put my glasses on because the font's kind of small. Um, they saying 230 multifamily and town homes. It's a top-notch shoreline town. Access to many regional accessibility, school district, a booming job market in southeastern Connecticut, scenic coastal town. Lots of smart people live here, tourism and gaming. And then here's more on the arts community and property description. You know, they're they're saying you can basically they're saying since um we haven't met the town hasn't met the affordable the permitting path if you look over to the right is through the A30G that basically um allows will allow this multif family. So, the seller is signaling that that's how you get this approved. So, that's that. That's And the brokers Kushman and Wakefield out of Boston. Yeah. So that's that.

That went on a month or so ago. It's been a while, has it? Yeah, it's been I think I think at least since November. So there's no property on Hall's Road right now for sale other than the Snap franchise.

It it it could be. I mean, this is just a public brokerage site and the brokers have to agree to put it on. So, it's not necessarily represents all I think it's probably close. And then and then you know on the lease and old lime you can see that those same two the same two properties. Hatchets Hill is $15 foot triple net. Southshore Landing is 11 to $15. So that's [snorts] new business under real estate. You know, I don't have a, you know, I don't have a a preview into the residential side, so this is just commercial.

No, you know, commercial is what we're most concerned with. All right, Jeeoff, thank you for discovering this resource. I'm going to stop sharing. Give the controls back to Scott. Thank you. There you go. Thank you.

You're welcome. So, um, other new business things I'll just throw out there. Uh, we we already talked about the River COGS, you know, on call availability, this memo, which might give copies to anybody who wants it. You know, how might we tap into that? You know, we have it available to us. Uh, it's already confirmed and the question is what services might we want to look for them to provide us? So that's something we can talk about at our next meeting. Um the board of select persons has a policy intern working for them and the first select woman made known to Jeff and I that there's some availability of time there. So please also think about that in terms of what might benefit our initiatives. Um, and [clears throat] know we've already talked about inviting the board of select persons, which I I will do for our next meeting to speak to zoning and the sewering issue. I think is a big deal.

Um, I think for the zoning issue, you might want to invite the land use uh so or map the land use. Yeah. Okay. Good idea, Sh. Thank you. Um, that's all I have for tonight. Unless anybody has any other business. Do we know when you're going up before the board of finance for budget? I don't even know if that's been announced yet. So, they haven't reached out. The answer is no. The short answer is no. We submitted everything on time. Yeah.

But we haven't heard anything. So yeah, I mean I in a short time that we talked about the urban land institute this is back on the new business the town centers walkable walkable spaces in suburbia there's there's white papers there for best practices at sites town centers goes back and talking about placemaking and a strong street level experience. Um, so I think we'll be able to have rich discussion at the next meeting on this issue.

Great. So I'll I'll try to pull down the reports and send them out with Joe's uh agenda items prior to the meeting. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks. Um, all right. this unless anybody has any new or other business. I'll ask for a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Scott moves. I'll second it. Cheryl seconds. Any discussion? Say I if you want to abstain. I. [laughter] It is unanimous. Thank you everyone. By everybody have