Economic Development Corp. - Regular Meeting

Call to order the city of New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation, Thursday, February 20 at 3PM. Miss Boggs, will you please call roll?

Don Austin?

Here.

Kristen Carden? Here. Larry Hammonds?

Here.

Shane Hines?

Here. Item three, citizens communication. This is time for citizens to address the board on issues and items of concerns not on this agenda. There will be no board action at this time. Seeing no citizens, we will move on to item four, treasurer's report. Presentation discussion, treasurer's report.

Thank you, president Hein, members of the board. Let's start with some fantastic news on sales taxes. As you can see there in the graph, December, which is our largest month for sales tax collection, came in at over $5,000,000 It's a 28% increase. There's quite a story behind that though. Within that, there's about $560,000 of positive audit adjustments.

Heard a lot of conversation over the past eighteen months in regards to audit adjustments. The majority of them, not good story. This one, legit. This is actually a large audit adjustment from two large national retail brands that must have gone through either a state initiated audit or a self audit, which resulted in major audit adjustments to just about every city in the state of Texas. So those dollars will remain here in New Braunfels.

You remove those adjustments and just look at the current collections, which is the better measure of what was happening in New Braunfels in December, it was still up 5.5%, which again, which is fantastic news. A great course correction from how the fiscal year started. We're not ready to call it a trend yet, but we're, again, back to see we're glad to see these numbers back into positive figures and going in the right direction. Again, your revenues have been updated to incorporate those sales tax projections. Again, even though it's the first three months of the fiscal year, sales taxes are projected to either meet or exceed the budget for fiscal year twenty twenty five.

And even though it's been some time since we last met, there's been very little adjustment to your current commitments. However, everything that has been approved both by the EDC and the city council is incorporated into your fiscal year twenty five through fiscal year twenty nine projections. I think I may have mentioned this last time, but right now, one of the large projects that the EDC has committed to is the Call Street drainage, Castle Avenue Phase one. It's kind of been referred to as both those projects as roughly a $7,000,000 project. That's currently been planned to be funded through another certificate of obligation issuance supported by the EDC, similar to how you supported the sports complex and other projects.

However, though, we're going to continue to analyze that throughout the year, work with our transportation and capital improvements team to understand the kind of timing of the outlay of that project because you may have an opportunity to just cash flow that and not issue debt for that project. And so if we feel really comfortable that, that does not impact the EDC's financial flexibility, that's probably the funding strategy that we're recommending you. You should take advantage of the cash surplus reserves that you have in cash flow of that project over the next twelve to eighteen months. Again, the Downtown Right of Way Enhancements Phase one, that is the only project from that kind of tranche of projects that you all committed to funding during the 2023 bond process. But everything else has been incorporated into your financials into that current commitments table that we just went through.

And then again, just to get a quick illustration of how everything ties together to get a look at those surplus reserves, your revenue over expenditures. Again, this is kind of where we start to have the confidence that a project like Call Street drainage can be cash flowed and be funded without a debt assurance. That concludes my presentation. Happy to take any questions if there are any.

Questions from directors?

I was just going say that's great news.

Yes. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. Item five, executive session in accordance with the Texas government code section 551.071. The board reserves the right to retire to executive session concerning the items listed on this agenda to consult with its In addition, the board may convene executive session on any of the following items with any final action being taken in open session. Item A, deliberate and consider the purchase exchange lease contract terms due diligence or value of real property in accordance with section 551.072 of the Texas government code number one a dash 154, S U R dash three four H foster acres zero point nine four two, one point one six nine, one point one four, one point zero and two point four three seven.

Two, additional perspective real estate purchases. B, deliberate issues regarding the economic development negotiation negotiations in accordance with section 551.087 of the Texas government code. One, Project Nemo. Two, Project Ellie. Three, Project Shoot. Four, Project Beacon. Five, Northeast Lakeview College. Six, Texas Tito's. C, deliberate. Pending contemplated litigation settlement offers and matters concerning privileged and unprivileged client information deemed confidential by rule 1.05 of Texas rules of professional conduct in accordance with section five five one point zero seven one of the Texas government code, specifically one IBEX generators.

Thank you. Alright. We are returning from executive session where no action or vote has taken place. It is now 04:37. We are on to item six, approval of minutes.

Approval of minutes, 12/11/2024 special called meeting.

Make a motion to approve.

I'll second that.

Got a motion by director Carden and a second by director Austin. Austin. First time meeting you, thank you sir. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. Item seven, discussion pops. Presentation update on headwaters at the Kamal phase two project.

Thank you President Heinz. As you all know, we've invited Nancy Pappas with the managing director headwaters of the Kamal to provide you all with a little bit of a refresher on this project. EDC has historically supported this project with a 1,200,000 grant in 2022. And as NBU, I'm sorry, the Headwaters continues to work on this project, they wanted to have a discussion about the potential consideration of some additional funding for the last phases of this project. So with that, I'm going to ask Nancy to come back

you for allowing me this opportunity to present an update on the headwaters. There's some information that you will recognize from the last time I was here in October, but I'll try to go through that quickly. But please let me know if you have any questions as we get started. So as I think you all know, the Headwaters is a project that is an MBU retired utility property at the corner of Lakeview and Klingaman. It holds the first headwater springs, the first springs of the Comal River, and is still a really important working water Master plan was developed to repurpose this property to become an education center and restore it to a more natural environment protecting the springs from the pollutants that used to wash across it and spaces for education and community engagement.

So as I mentioned in that first phase, we diverted close to 12,000 pounds of pollutants away from the Comau River, improved the riparian area, have provided trails access and education, and also a lot of historic information. The first phase included a construction portion of around $5,500,000 additional archaeology expenses. And the community actually contributed over $1,500,000 to phase one of that project. In 2017, a nonprofit was established to partner with MBU on seeing that master plan vision come to fruition. Since that time, MBU, the city, and GBRA have agreed to collaborate protection and a holistic approach to managing our water resources in the community.

Headwaters is an incredible demonstration and example of ways that we can work work to better manage our water resources. This is an example, for instance, of how green storm water installation at the headwaters is channeling that storm water away from the headwater springs and allowing it to filter and cleanse through natural green storm water infrastructure. Headwaters has some other components on it which really demonstrate very vividly those one water elements. And because of that, it has become a model for not just this local area and a demonstration for people who are building here, but also for the region and even the nation. In fact, to just this week, I've been contacted by two organizations outside of this region, Midland in Denton or sorry, Duncanville, who are really interested in what we are doing here in New Braunfels and coming to us for information and resources.

We're also a great demonstration site for low impact development. And in fact, as we have developed the project and look forward to opening this next phase of the headwaters, we've been working on this low impact development workshop, trying to engage the community that is building here and needing more water resources on how they can better build and we can grow here in a way that protects our water, especially our Comal Springs. Then one one of the really fun parts of the headwaters is engaging the youth out here. And our programs, I just want to mention, run from preschool nature adventure walks to field trips that engage engage like third to sixth graders. And we also engage the high school students.

I think people think of our project a lot and just think it's an environmental restoration project. But there's a lot of education and outreach to school age and children of all ages. For instance, depending on the weather, we're expecting about 30 high school students coming down this weekend from the aquatic biology and environmental systems class to do a biodiversity survey at the headwaters. So looking forward to that. And it also provides great information for us on all the work that we've done.

Okay. So phase two of the project, project which as Jeff mentioned you all contributed to is was to provide really essential resources for the center to allow us to grow those education programs. It includes this space, and this is what it is looking like today. Thanks a lot to the contribution that you made back in 2022. You can see, obviously, that main building has been repurposed and we've added a front drive thru.

Those pavers along the front are reinstalled from a concrete part of the concrete slab that had to be removed during demolition. And so they were cut into those pieces and reinstalled on the property. A low impact development technique. And this is a view of the back of the the building, and kind of in the middle between the two sections. So these building spaces will provide a gathering room that seats this space here, about 200 people in theater seating.

We have conference rooms that will seat around 25 people, some additional community meeting spaces that seat 50 to 60, a learning commons which fits a classroom of school age children, the picnic front entrance area which can accommodate up to 150 people, and that adds to the 200 person pavilion and other meeting spaces. So you can see we can be attracting a number of people here as we continue to grow into the center. It will take time for us to build up to utilizing all of those spaces, but that's the overall plan. Then I also wanted to bring to you today that because of a TCEQ grant and hopefully some funding from the EDC, we'll be adding this parking area across the street which will really completely improve the look of Klingeman Street. It aligns with the city's hike and bike plan.

It's an important piece of the Great Springs Project Trail that will flow through this area, out River Road, into Green. And, if you know that area, you know right now it's a real eyesore. It is also contributing in large rain events to pollutants entering Bleeders Creek, which flows directly into the Comal River. So, again, we'll be providing low impact development in this area, permeable pavers. We'll have signage explaining what we've done, and are planning for EV charging stations.

So when I came to you back in 2022, our project scope for Phase two was $8,000,000 You can see because of cost escalations and then adding the parking area, that main Phase two project and the parking is $13,000,000, a little bit over. We've worked really hard as a small growing nonprofit to partner with foundations, individuals in the community, and we're very proud of the fact that our total community investment is close to $5,000,000 now. That still does leave us with a funding gap to finish the capital for this phase of the project and really be able to focus on programs and operations. Our gap is $2,284,000 and that's what we're coming to EDC to see if you'd be willing to help us complete this gap and let us focus on what we do best, which is community outreach and education. And I also wanted to point out that this project itself aligns really well with the city's comprehensive plan Envision.

Not only do we actually have a page in Envision on page 146, there's a full page about the Headwaters Restoration Project. But within the nine goals areas, the Headwaters Project meets a number of those strategy and action goals. And not just in the parks and recreation space, but for instance in urban design and cultural heritage. You know, we are restoring the original waterworks for the city of New Braunfels. And as well, we have unearthed some really incredible archaeological findings there that will be demonstrated, or you know, communicated to the community.

Just underscoring underscoring how really vitally important this piece of property is to this greater community, and our understanding of the people that have visited New Braunfels for ten thousand years or more. We also are emphasizing energy efficiency, resource conservation, environmental stewardship, as you'll see in the natural resources and infrastructure goal, education and youth. I mean really within these goal areas we hit almost a point or two from each of those goal areas. And then finally, when I first came to the board back in '22, we engaged in this Ecometrix report. So Ecometrix is a national organization.

It's been used by organizations like Texan by Nature, which

is

Laura Bush's conservation nonprofit which businesses to conservation groups. It's a way to value the environmental impact of projects like ours, and not just see them as an environmental project, but more holistically. Just It's a quick overview. We did provide you the updated report, which provides more information on stakeholders. But in the original ROI, it was verified that for every dollar we spend on the Headwaters project, your return on investment is over $3.19 And the Texan by Nature statewide report actually shows that every dollar spent on conservation is actually a 4.39¢ return on investment.

So it's a great investment to make in the community. The biggest value that we find in our Ecometrix report is obviously around valuing the water resource that we have here. Our Comal Springs are vital to the health of this community, both economically as well as culturally. And, of course, an increased sense of community pride. And you can have that by investing in the headwaters at the Komau project.

So and just at the end, of course, we'd we'd be honored to continue to recognize your contributions to this project and, you know, your commitment to helping us see it done. And that is the end of my presentation. I'm happy to answer questions if you have any.

I don't have any questions. I just wanna say this is an an easy vote for me because I've been a part of this project since since its inception. And I volunteer out there with my family myself, and I'm just really excited for this to be available to our community. As far as our goals, not only is this a big part, as you mentioned, of of our Envision Plan, but also hits, you know, one of our community development and quality of life, all of those different things that we need to hit. So this is this is really an easy choice for me. And how about you guys?

Well, we do have an as a second executive session item where we can discuss, but any vote will take place in public. So we will be discussing this in the next executive session.

Oh, okay.

I just have a simple question. If you get all the funding you need to get the parking lot started, what kind of timeline do you think that looks like?

Oh, thank you for asking that. We actually would expect to be done early fall of this year. Mhmm. We're ready to go.

I mean, is that all all done?

That is the main building finished to completion and the a a good half of the parking area. So enough parking to open the center. And it includes a roadway improvement across the street. So there'll be a raised crosswalk on Klingeman Street to help slow traffic on that area. We work we've worked with the city closely on that.

I'm sorry, Don. Did I interrupt you? Didn't excuse me if you would. So you may have another is this the final phase or is there yet another?

There there is one more stage and and and MBU still has some, you know, budgeting things to do, but we do expect that to be done by 2027, late twenty twenty six or early twenty twenty seven. So this would really help us just get to that finish line.

So you would you would not be fully operational until potentially 2027?

Well, we will be opening the center. We will be able to take the programs that we're delivering now and move those into those those buildings will be occupiable or, you know, have certificate of occupancy so we can use them. And so we will be able to expand the programs that we're doing now into that center. We will still have to build staff capacity and all to be able to, like, use it full out. But and that will we're targeting at least twenty thirty on that, like, because there will still be ongoing construction and some limitations and working around scaling up the operations, if you will.

But, yes. For instance, if, you know, we wanted to have a meeting there, we could have it in a lovely condition space with great restrooms starting in later this fall or early next year.

So the 2.2 lets you finish this phase and you've got activities going on there, parking, programming.

Correct.

Well I mean there's been a large investment by our community in this and

certainly in BU and I think, I I know I'd like to see it complete

and your construction pause and be able to put this

thing in play. I know we'll talk more about it later. Can you go back to that slide with the recap where it gets kinda to the bottom line?

Yes.

There we go. Yes.

I just

wanna get a picture of that. I don't know if we have that for later discussion or not. I'm not gonna actually take a picture. I just wanna get another

I'm look at sorry.

I was there a question

or Okay. Other than just going back to that slide so

I can

check it out again. I Thank

wanna say kudos to you and your team. It's showing the picture earlier from what it was when you guys took it over. And we were out there a couple weeks ago with a group, volunteering a couple Saturdays ago. Yes. Difference is remarkable of what you've all been able to do so far.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you. By a huge effort, and I have a lot of volunteers and supporters in the audience. And as you know, we, and Kristen as well, we get volunteers out there really consistently, and it's through their hard work and engagement also that not only helps us gain additional supporters financially, but the work that they do out there helps us keep the site looking great. And it's really just a pleasure and an honor to be able to work on this project.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Item b.

Oh, sorry. President Einz, you might wanna open this item Let's, up for public

yes, open this up for public hearing at 04:53. Please introduce yourself and I think the new status is whether you're a resident or not. Does that matter?

Yeah. Just name whether you're resident

or Sure. My name is Ryan I am not a resident of New Braunfels. I do live in Comal County. I'm the executive director of Comal Conservation. And I just wanna salute you for your support of Headwaters of the Comal. It's incredible to see it in this stage, and

I

I wanna encourage you to support its completion. Not only does it preserve land, water, and wildlife, but it connects all of our children to the great outdoors, and it's just a wonderful thing for our community. The average child today spends about seven minutes a day engaged in unstructured nature play, while they spend astounding seven hours a day engaged in electronic media. And so headwaters at the COMAL is trying to reverse that trend, and they're doing a great So I just wanna give you kudos and encourage you for your support. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Hello. My name's Alita Byer. I am a citizen of New Braunfels since 1979. I've raised three children here, and I am a volunteer at the Headwaters. I've volunteered since 2018.

I feel very privileged to have this in my area, to be able to work there. We're a little community within within ourselves, the volunteers. I mean, we just we love the place. And I think we need to get this finished because right now there's one bathroom, you know, there's no air conditioning, and we need to we need to get these people of the the citizens of New Braunfels in so that they can learn how to do low impact development, save water, the importance of conservation. We need to get those contractors in before they I mean, while they're building these places, get them early on and whatnot.

So I I really hope y'all will strongly support this. We need to get this up and running. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Marm.

I'm Gail Groves. I'm also a volunteer at the Headwaters and a participant in so many programs there. I was thinking that I would not be preaching to the choir, but it sounds like y'all are pretty much on board. But I recently gave a tour of Land Of Park to a bunch of native plant people because that's what I am. I'm a native plant person.

And I had to do a little studying of history. And I don't know if you know the story of Pete Nowatney and Land Of Park. How Pete Nowatney and the JC's basically saved Land Of Park in the nineteen thirties. There was a 12 foot fence surrounding Land Of Park at that time. And it was the Land of family had to sell it.

It had been foreclosed on during the depression, and and I believe it was an insurance company out of Dallas that owned it at that time. And they had a little quibble with the city, and they just decided to erect the 12 foot fence. And the city at the time couldn't be persuaded to pay the price. Well, Pete and Awatney and the JCs saved Land Of Park. They went to the the people and had a vote to make it a bond issue.

So Pete Nowatney had the vision of what Land Apart could be. And I hope that you want to be the Pete for the headwaters and have the vision to see it's been so much already, but when it's finished, it's it's going to be so amazing what it's gonna offer, not only us, but to all of our visitors from throughout the state and from other states. So I'm just want to remember that we have we have just a little inkling of what it's gonna be. So I hope that y'all fully fund, or give give the full ask that Nancy is asking for, so we can move along in this project. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Gross.

Hi, I'm Courtney Lyons Garcia. I am a New Braunfels resident, and today I'm representing Great Springs Project, who's a partner with the Headwaters. And at Great Springs Project, we strive in this rapidly developing region to protect our four springs and the land over the aquifer that feeds those springs, which, of course, includes the Calmol Springs. The work Headwaters does to not only protect the spring, but to provide education to the community about the critical importance of water, and its conservation is of utmost importance to our community and our shared future. The work being done on this property is fantastic demonstration for sustainable development in our community.

We hope that both residential and commercial developers will look to Headwaters to learn how to create spaces that conserve water and not create additional runoff and pollutants. At Great Springs, we're excited to continue to work with our friends at Headwaters to bring this message to the public and our local community. We fully support the Headwaters and hope that the EDC will provide full funding for continuing this project. We believe they'll be an excellent steward of the funds that this project will be a centerpiece of our community for years to come. And thank you guys for everything you've done so far.

Thank you, mister Lyons Garcia. Seeing no others, I will close public comment at 05:01PM. We'll come back to this after executive session. Item b, presentation update from the Brontex Performing Arts Theater.

Similar to the previous item, as you all know, have supported the Brahntex theater most recently with a $1,200,000 grant that allowed them to finish their capital campaign. And so Ms. Cheryl Fisher with the Brontex wanted to come provide you all with an update on what's next.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Cheryl Fisher. I'm the Executive of the Bronchex Theater. And with me today is Delia Salsetomilum, director of development and major gifts.

And we're excited to be here to talk about the completion of this event and that that you helped us complete and just to do a little refresher. So just a just to let you about our our mission is to add value to the community of New Braunfels and the surrounding area by advocating for the cultivation of heritage education and culture through the lens of arts and entertainment. So some of you may or may not know, but this this is a picture of the previous historic theaters that are no longer with us. The Cole Theater, which is now the SEACATS. The Palace of Pictures and the Palace Theater, which is now Myron's.

The Capitol Theater, which is the plaza, the Kamau Flowers, that area. And of course, the Tower Drive In, which was the old original Kroger, which then is now I think has been reimagined in some other areas. So these are the theaters that either are no longer with us or repurposed. And if you actually go into Myron's and you walk into the main area and turn around and look behind you, you're going to see where the old projector spaces were. But this is just to remind you that we are the last remaining historic theater in New Braunfels.

So just a brief history. We were hailed the modern theater of the beauty spot and opened 01/06/1942, just a month after Pearl Harbor. And we closed right after the war was declared, but opened up so that it could show newsreels of the war to the community. So from the very beginning, the New Bronx has always been about what does the community need at the time, and that it met those needs. It closed in 1999, and a group of the community citizens rescued it from demolition and then created the Brontex Performing Arts Theatre Association, opened it up in 2000, and did some initial renovations and then we were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Summing up the last 25, the group that did purchase the property, they had a noble but they had a narrow vision of what the theater would become. As we remember back in 2000 what our downtown was like. It was quite different as well and they really took on a great feat by taking on this old building in a downtown that was struggling. We got our historic designation in 2008. We did some early renovations those first ten years and it allowed us to open and operate.

And then a strategic plan was created in 2015 and it was the springboard to the forward campaign. In 2016, we divided the forward campaign into six phases and we accomplished three of those by 2019, which was the roof, the parking lot, the ceiling, and the walls. We began phase four in January 2020, but the pandemic closed the theater from March 2020 until June 21. We stayed focused on the campaign throughout the pandemic and completed the project by September 23 in budget and ahead of schedule. So some of the things I wanted to add to that though is through all of that challenges we have remained financially sound operationally.

We have increased education and community impact by 700%. Just last year, we served over 2,000 students and young people. We've increased overall sales 22%. We've provided 40% daily rental rate to other non profits in the area. We have partnered with nine outside non profits just last year for shared programming, community and outreach.

And we have a 56% increase in programming. So we have five distinct programs. We have annual season, we have live performances featuring national international artists. We have a rental venue, we rent it out to other organizations, to corporations, businesses, and other community groups. We have an arts and education program that we foster creativity and learning through mental health groups working with the school districts, working with other communities education organizations in the area.

We have major historic preservation dedicated to maintaining the theater's rich history, which as you can imagine with a historic building, that's time consuming and money consuming as well. So the plan forward was the renovation of the lobby, the box office and the dressing rooms. When you come into the theater now, can also see the rake of the floor is quite different than it was at the beginning. We spent approximately $750,000 on that. Phase two, we have roof and ceiling renovations, again another $250,000 on that.

And parking lot renovations of $250,000 Then we had our Phase four infrastructure and technology upgrade, which was $3,100,000 I'm going to let Delia speak a little bit more about that.

Welcome back to the Brontex.

Thank you. It wasn't that much time spent away, right? I'm obsessed with it, obviously, because I'm very proud of the progress that we've made with the Phase IV infrastructure and technology upgrades campaign. If you remember, it was a three pronged approach to enhance the overall technical infrastructure of the theater, modernize the PA system and supporting the audio equipment with the new state of the art PA system, and then future proof the audio, lighting, and visual capabilities of the theater as that's probably the most visible upgrade that you guys all see with the theater's LED video wall in the back of the stage and then the screens in the lobby and on the side casts. The project objectives really is what drove that pro is what drove the the capital project into fruition.

It was to improve quality of national touring performances, support downtown New Braunfels revitalization, expand community outreach opportunities, and develop the next generation of technical arts professionals, and diversify programming to include film, the film again, theater, and conferences. This is really what the theater looked like when it was completely gutted working on the infrastructure and the steel that would support that audio and that lighting equipment. It's really shocking when you look at it this way, especially when you're used to seeing it with all the seats. Those seats were pulled out. They were all put into storage and occupied our lobby for most of the pandemic, which is really interesting, and then put right back in.

This is the final stage of that project, which is this is the backside of our LED video wall that is a 16 by 14 LED video wall, which helps and improves a lot of our arts community performances. So this upgrade not only impacted our theatre, our historic theatre, but it also has impacted and elevated a lot of our arts community. This allows them to do more interactive performances. It allows them to do a lot more diverse programming that that utilizes less expenses like backdrops and equipment that this video wall now takes on for them. Our impact since completion, Cheryl touched on this a lot, but we've really been able to bring in higher quality artists with a $50,000 price and higher and above and still working on that.

As we expand programming and expand fundraising, that'll increase as well. We've expanded our community outreach, like Cheryl said. We've we have now established a workforce development program with the technical arts through a partnership with the Audio Engineering Institute out of San Antonio. What that is is we're working with tech students now. They are coming alongside to RTS, who is our contractor, our audio contractor in the theater, and they will learn all the technical arts components and take that into workforce.

We've also diversified programming. Like Sheryl said, we've included film again, documentaries, interactive performances, and ballet. And since the completion of the project, the Brontes has increased new patronage by 15,638. This is just a great picture that I like to show of downtown. Downtown. We have a line wrapped around the the street, and it's just exciting to have to have lines. That was the first thing that I wanted you when I first got to the BronTechs. I was like, we need to buy a line. They have line companies. I was like, we need to buy a so that we can, you know, stir up excitement, but we don't have to now.

This is I really wanted to touch on was community development when it comes to the arts. I know that a lot of people kinda question why we need historic theater downtown, but New Braunfels is one of the fastest growing cities as we know. The rapid growth brings a diverse influx of residents who expect a vibrant arts culture. The Greater New Braunfels Arts Council and other local organizations are already working to enrich the cultural landscape, but there is a clear need to expand and diversify the offerings to meet the rising expectations. The National Endowments for the Arts highlights that place based arts and cultural practices can help grow social cohesion and encourage community well-being.

The the arts and economic prosperity sick study reveals that arts and culture are powerful economic drivers at the community level contributing to both social and economic development. I'll pass it back to

I'm going to reverse just a minute because this number right down at the bottom. Since we completed the project, we've increased new patrons to 15,638 people. That's new people. That's new people downtown, new people in restaurants and drinking establishments, other places of businesses. And that number I will tell you the first time I saw that it was shocking to me.

And we do surveys after every event. We run data after every event. So we can tell you after every show how many of those people are new and where what location they came from all over the world. So it has been fascinating since this project has been completed. The impact it has made not just on us but downtown. So I had to go back to that. Still impress me. So what do we need now? What's next? What's next?

So I I love this little diagram right here. Dream, plan, design, build, and sustain and then do it all over again. That you never stop dreaming, you never stop planning, you never stop designing, building, and sustaining. So what does the theater need now? Access. I think you had mentioned that the last time we were here. You would ask about that. We need more concessions, additional flex spaces, more lavatories, office space. We really have no office space. We're renting a space right now for six of us to office out of that's not at the theater.

Donor spaces, and more importantly, backstage expansion. We have no wing space. We have no backstage for a lot of our artists and our renters that even have to rent the railroad next door because we don't have space for that. Facade improvements. So with that in mind, sixteen months ago the board reached out to an architect that is expert in dealing with historical theaters, historical venues.

How do you create space when you have no real estate? How do you create create all of what we need when you have no land? And this is an idea that they have come up with. So this is what the front facade could look like with the expansion of actually two more floors. It would be exchanging locations of some of the things that we have now, box office.

Who knows what the box office would look like in five to ten years? So we have to look about what does the community need? We know all know what's going on downtown in the next five years. So how does the Braun Tex meet the needs of the community going forward? So this was a rendering of what that could look like. It brings office space. It brings people spaces. It could bring spaces that are open seven days a week even when the theater is not operational. It brings opportunities for other groups and organizations even civic and chamber options. And so that's what the front could look like.

And so we're looking at flex spaces and other optional spaces. So if you have no property, what do you do? You go up. So this is an optional flex space on the back that could be rehearsal space, dinner theater, chamber orchestra, wedding. It could be a number of options for whatever the community is needing at the time.

No, it's not a civic center type space. It would could probably hold up to 300 people. But it changes what the Brontex can mean to the community, what it can bring to downtown, and the impact it can bring to downtown in the community. So this is just a potential of what that space on the inside. It could be acoustically affected where a chamber orchestra could play in there or a dance group or a dinner or rehearsal space for ballet.

We just provided Ballet Texas their Romeo and Juliet, and they have no space for rehearsal. They have to go back to Spring Branch for that. So this is an optional flex space for something of that nature. So these are exciting ideas of what if, what could this this mean to the Brontex and what could it mean to downtown. And I'm ready to take your questions and your thoughts.

I don't have any questions. I have a comment. Noticed several years ago you guys started lighting up the sign.

I'm sorry?

You started lighting up the sign every night or most nights? Yes. Made a huge difference down there.

Yes. Started that on 04/06/2020

Oh, so almost ten years ago. Mhmm. But it's Mhmm.

It does.

So thank you for doing that because I think it's a great anchor for downtown.

You know, always felt like when you drive through towns and if the theater blade is dark, the town feels dead. So when the theater blade is lit it feels alive.

Any comments? Questions? Just gonna say

this very impressive presentation and it's very exciting to see what could come. This really looks great.

Thank you. No other questions?

Thank you for allowing us to present and thank you for your support.

Thank you. Open up for public comment. Seeing none, we will move on to item eight, advisory report. First station discussion of annual economic report and benchmark study.

Thank you. About once a quarter we like to update the board on our activity. I don't have the clip for one moment. I'll be quick. We're gonna share our annual report from 2024, and then we will share our annual benchmark study, which is our economic indicator.

So I think it's important to keep this board up to date on not only what we're doing, but how our economy is trending. For our annual report, the full report, the board will get. If anyone else wants a copy, here's the quickest route to that, and we'll make sure that everyone has a copy of that. As a reminder, confluence is our strategic plan. It's the community's agreed upon strategic plan.

We have the city, the EDC, NBU, and Comal County that are our advisory board for this. I'm gonna touch on the first two to give you an update. Track quality jobs. Are out, boots on the ground, outside the market, marketing New Braunfels as a business destination. We continue to see a lot of interest in this region, in the I-thirty 5 corridor between Austin and San Antonio.

And some particular highlights from last year are the projects that we're seeing certainly in manufacturing are growing in the size and requirement of the utility. We are seeing a lot of AI data centers and battery operations and projects that require very, very heavy power usage. And a lot of those projects we cannot accommodate, and so we don't work those kind of projects. But we're always keeping our eye out for what is a good fit for New Braunfels. Another key takeaway from last year is we saw a lot of FDI projects for indirect investment looking in this region, particularly related to IRA and the CHIPS Act.

With administration putting those federal grants on hold, we've seen a good number of projects put on hold indefinitely as well. So more to be continued on those. And then from last year, we have two very good manufacturing projects that were in advanced stages in negotiation and one to local expansion. This is great work. Second thing I'd like to point out is our business retention and expansion program.

And I think this is the most important work that we can do for our community is to make sure we're taking care of our local companies in creating that they can thrive and expand in, and they're not moving out of our market. So last year, we visited 54 companies. The majority of the needs of those companies are workforce related. And if you recall, a couple years back, we hired a director of workforce development. So we have one person focusing on workforce every day, and that's Mike Crowley.

You've met him before. And highlight is some of the new initiatives that he's initiated just last year. One key takeaway from those visits, though, is that childcare is still an issue for recruiting and retaining employees in our community. And it's a nationwide trend. And so more to come on that.

We're working on that issue in partnership with McKenna Foundation. We still work with TSTC public. Mike represents the private sector in understanding what the training needs are for them. So he's translating to TSTC what our manufacturers need. And so as a result of that, they've created two new programs this past year.

And as we spoke about earlier, we're still seeing Alamo Colleges grow and expand in our community. And hopefully, we'll see a whole new campus from them next year. Some of the additional, workforce initiatives that Mike has kicked off this year. We hosted the governor's small business summit, and they had record attendance in that. They they pick a community in Texas every year, and and last year, they chose New Braunfels, and it was the most well attended event that they've had.

Mike launched the first annual Career Expo, and that is with five hundred eighth graders from both Comal and NBISD. And they had a chance to work with explore 28 local companies, everything from robotics to shooting a nail gun with a roofer chicks. That was a success. We continue to host our regional job fairs. Our latest one, which was actually this past month, was the highest attended one ever. I believe there were over 600 job seekers there.

750.

Thank you. It's crazy.

And then Mike also established a human resource roundtable, and so that's once a quarter. And he has about 25 human resource professionals that show up and they benchmark each other and talk about trends and how to better recruit companies. And that's all I'm gonna highlight annual report so that we can move on to our benchmark study unless you guys have any questions. I'd like to introduce Tate Corpy, who is our data analyst. He keeps up our economic development dashboard, economic indicators, and so I'll turn it over to Tate.

Cool. Well, again, I know most of you, but if I haven't introduced myself, Tate Korpi, New Braunfels native, and I'm really happy working at the chamber helping out Michelle and our awesome team. So this is our economic benchmark study. This is a report that we put out every year. The chamber has been doing this for a while. You should all have a hard copy. We actually just got those fresh off the press today, so you all are the first people to see it in print. But if you want to see the digital version, you can scan that code as well. All right, so we're just going to kick this off. There's four main sections of the economic benchmark study and the first one is about our demographics.

Obviously, growth continues to be crazy. New Braunfels is still a community of choice for so many people and is one of the fastest growing communities nationwide. The Austin San Antonio corridor particularly is one of the fastest growing metro regions and while New Braunfels isn't necessarily the fastest growing community within that corridor anymore, we are still in the top five. And so it is worth noting that while we are seeing a slight little dip in the rate of growth there, we are still saw 72% population increase since 2014. All right, next slide.

With that growth, we are also growing in a very desirable way. We have a very highly educated population. So those three bars there, the lightest blue is just people who have only graduated high school. The dark blue is people who only have a bachelor's degree and then that turquoise color is people who have a graduate degree or higher. So last year was a huge milestone for us.

We actually had more people who had just a bachelor's degree than just had a high school diploma. And then this year, we're continuing to see that growth and that gap even widen. And I wanted to focus on graduate degrees because while we're still seeing that bachelor's degree trajectory grow just as strong, the graduate degree growth is starting to accelerate a little bit. So we've increased that by almost 60% since 2019. We have about 4,000 more this in 2024 than in 2019.

All right. The next slide, medium household income. So you can see again, there's four bars there, lightest color is the city, the light turquoise is the county, dark blue is San Antonio Metro and then the dark turquoise is Texas. So you can see those callouts there in 2024. These numbers might seem a little low, that's because we use the American Community Survey for this and they use a five year aggregate.

So they use the last five years to get that data. They do have one year estimates, which are kind of more close to what we see now, but there is also a wider margin for error. So that's why we use that five year aggregate, it's much more reliable trajectory wise. But we have increased about 30 since 2019, which is growing a little bit faster than the SA Metro and Texas. All right, moving on to the second section, that is about jobs employment growth track pretty close with our population growth.

We've had about a 60% number of raw employees in the city limit growth since 2014. We've got just over 51,000 people in the city employed. And now we're looking at unemployment and labor force participation. So that top one is the unemployment rate. You can obviously see when COVID happened, this was a nationwide trend, just unique to New Braunfels.

We actually had a lower unemployment rate during COVID than most other cities across the country. And it has greatly stabilized right around 3% or so, which is lower than the San Antonio and Texas metros. So we're filling jobs. And what's interesting to note on that bottom chart, I know there's a lot going on, but that shows our labor force participation rate. This has historically been a problem across not just New Braunfels, but in our region.

And Michelle kind of touched on some of the points earlier with childcare being an issue, there's multiple factors such people retiring early. This is just who's actively being in a workforce. But we've actually seen that growth start to track back up since the turn of the pandemic in 2020, which is a really positive sign for us. So it's right around sixty nine percent labor force participation rate as of 2024, which is our highest number that we've seen since at least 2013. And then finally, we're going to look at the commuting data.

So this is data that the census puts out about every two to three years. We went over this last year, but I'll just briefly touch on it. It's kind of a convoluted graph. So if you look at that arrows with the two arrows flowing in and out of the circles, the arrow on the left is people who do not live in New Braunfels but are employed here. The number in the middle with the arrows in the circle is people who both live and work in the community and then that right number is people who live in New Braunfels but have to leave the city every single day for work.

And we break this down by income to kind of show that while workers who work some of the jobs at a lower wage, we actually have more people coming in to fill those jobs that don't live here. But when you go to a higher wage job, again, the census cutoff is $40,000 annual salary. You have a lot more of those people who are leaving the community every day for work. And so, as our population grows and as we track that educational attainment growth, it's important that we are, as economic development, trying to keep some of those higher wage jobs in the community so that we can help bump our taxes. All right.

And then primary job growth. So this is just primary jobs. Real quick refresher is jobs that export wealth outside of the community. So think of all of our manufacturers, all of our services that are used just outside of our area. This does not include retail unless it's Buc ee's because most people that shop at Buc ee's do not stay in the community and bring those dollars back.

But if you look at this, we had about nine thirty eight primary jobs added in 2024. This is slightly below our eleven year average of ten fifty four. But I also want to note that in 2020 a business. And a growth that aren't tracked there. So don't see this and think that our employment is bad, it's not. We just saw a lot of growth in our public sector last year. All right, on to the taxes and revenues. This is the most convoluted piece, so please bear with me. First, we're going to go to city property tax valuations. Now this is the market tax rate, so this is what they can collect.

So remember last year it actually decreased and that's very unusual and we pointed out that that was due to a lot of the homestead exemption caps and things that were going when they were trying to change property taxes and how they were collected to get property tax relief. Well, since we didn't have a legislative session last year, we saw another big increase about 21%, which kind of tracks with the historical growth that we'd seen the last couple of years since 2021. We've increased $10,000,000,000 of market tax value since 2014. It's going to be interesting to see what this looks like going forward just because I know with the legislature this year again, there's additional talk of more property tax relief and increasing the homestead cap again. So we could start to see a trend where this graph kind of increases a lot and then decreases and increases again, just something to keep an eye on and keep top of mind.

Now as we look to real valuations though, these continue to increase. Real taxable valuation has increased by over $3,000,000,000 just since last year alone. You can see the breakdown there kind of by category. So our residential valuation, we've bought about $13,000,000,000 in the New Braunfels city limit. Single family is about $11,600,000,000 and multifamily is about $1,600,000,000 That multifamily number is increasing faster than the single family.

Commercial tax value, you've got $3,800,000,000 and then industrial is about $581,000,000 It's worth noting again that a lot of our industrial projects in New Braunfels are either in Guadalupe County or just in the ETJ. So that's why that number may seem a little bit low. But as we're kind of seeing more and more, that number is starting to grow steadily. All right. This next slide goes over commercial and industrial tax value only, and that's what that bar graph is right there.

You can see that just the commercial and industrial tax base in the city has increased by almost 160% just since 2014. We were at about $1,400,000,000 in 2014 and we're at about $4,400,000,000 in 2024. So that is great our community. And then on the bottom, you can see what the building permit values are. This comes through the city and you can see how that kind of tracks.

So, you can see ever since from like 2016 to 2022, we had that big single family residential boom that's kind of started to slow down. Part of that is just due to we're building out all the land that's available and that development is shifting out further and further into the ETJ and into the counties. But part of that is also the growth in our commercial rate. And just as a note here, multifamily development is included in the commercial category. That's how the building permits are categorized.

So we had about $470,000,000 of building permits filed in 2024. And then finally, we'll jump into sales tax. You all get these updates pretty regularly from Jared and his team, but it was another great year for sales tax in 2024. Just cumulatively, we had about a 2% increase year over year, and we hit an all time record at 37,800,000 in sales tax revenue. And New Braunfels is very unique in that we're one of the only communities in Texas that we collect more revenue from sales tax than property tax.

So we always like to see this number go up. And then finally, we're going to just jump into some real estate trends. First, we're going to start off with average home valuations. This is not median valuations, it's the mean, so it's the average. And you can see right there about 2019, 2020 when everything was going on, we had that huge real estate market boom and the entire state went up.

So, that light turquoise is the city, the dark blue is the Tri County area, it's Camel, Guadalupe and Hays Counties and then that dark turquoise is the statewide average. But you can see over the last two years that values have actually started to flatten and in some cases even decrease a little bit. Now we still including that exponential growth we saw in between 2020 and 2023, we still have had about a 27% increase in valuations in the state and a 33% increase in New Braunfels. But if you'll note, if you zoom in real close that the New Braunfels valuation actually decreased slightly from 2023 to 2024. So that might be a sign of how residential real estate is going in the future.

I don't know. I don't predict the future. I just report the numbers now. All right. New business meters. So this is the NBU new commercial accounts that they file every year. We have an average of about 195 every year over the past eleven years. And in 2024, we were well over that at two forty new business meters, which makes a cumulative number of about 2,155 since 2014. All right, real estate construction rates. So this is the construction rates of commercial real estate in Kamal County.

So that number that section on the left is what has been delivered over the last eight quarters. So we've had about 275,000 square feet of retail, 120,000 square feet of office and over 2,000,000 square feet of industrial that has been delivered. That middle section is what is actively under construction and is expected to be complete by the end of the next eight quarters, so by the end of fiscal year 2026. And then the column on the right is the proposed real estate, which they are looking at building, but is not shovel on the ground yet. So what's interesting to note is that we've had 3,000,000 square feet industrial real estate that either has been delivered since 2023 or will be delivered by 2026.

And we've got an additional $5,000,000 that's perspective in the pipeline. So that's really encouraging to see more industrial growth. Think typically in New Braunfels, it's been focused more in Guadalupe County section and the ETJ but we're seeing a lot more in Kamal County. So, that's that's a positive thing that we're noticing. And then finally, we just wanted to close out this report to kind of highlight some of the projects that y'all have helped us fund over the last two years.

So, since 2023, the EDC has funded about $42.7000000 dollars worth of projects in the New Braunfels region. That includes $19.3000000 dollars for parks, open spaces, and pedestrian projects. So, some of the highlighted projects on this map are the Northwest Parkland acquisition, that's eventually going to be the largest park in New Braunfels, and that was a big EDC win last year. We're doing common street pedestrian improvements, citywide pedestrian improvements, funding lots of bond propositions, so about $19,300,000 for that $15,900,000 for infrastructure and roads, so that includes projects like the Future Common Street bond project, Cullenburg Road and then $7,500,000 for workforce and small business support. So this comes with our contract with the Spark Small Business Development Center and things of that nature.

So that was a very fast fifteen minute blitz through our annual economic benchmark study. I am very happy to answer any questions now. If you have any questions you want to ask offline, you all know where to find me. I'm here at the chamber. But thank you all for taking the time. Any questions?

Thank you, Ms. Scorpey. Great presentation.

Cool. Thank you.

Can you put the QR code up there real quick again?

Yes, absolutely. You want to dive into the full report? Sorry, we have a lot of slides. There we go. Thank you all.

Alright, seeing no other questions appear, I will open it up for public comment. Seeing none, I will close public comment and move on to item nine, executive session. Importance with Texas government code section 551.071, the board reserves the right to retire into executive session. Concerning the items listed on this agenda to consult with its attorney. In addition, the board may convene an executive session on any of the following items with any final action being taken in open session.

A, deliberate issues regarding economic development negotiations according in accordance with section five five one point zero eight seven of the Texas government code one headwaters book amount. With that, Alright. We are back from executive session with no, vote or action taking place. And with that, we are adjourned.