Economic Development Corp. - Regular Meeting

Please call roll.

President Hines? Here. Director Thompson? Here. Director Austin? Here. Director Campos?

Here. Thank you. Approval of the 04/16/2026 regular meeting minutes.

I've had a chance to review the minutes.

I'll move to approve.

Second.

Got a motion from director Austin and a second from director Campos. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Minutes are approved. Unforced 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. Mr. Holster, how are you sir?

I'm doing great.

How are you all doing?

Just so it's in the record, I tried to enter the door. Two two people from the city tried to, if they stepped through, they couldn't get the door open. And it, no one was sure there was having me. And I said, well, maybe I'd look at the date wrong. So y'all might wanna look at that. That's a new standard for an open door policy.

I think there was an issue, but I think Steph has that resolved and the doors are open.

Oh yeah, they are now but I don't know how many people walked away, probably not many. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Seeing no other citizens communication, we move on to the treasurer Report. Mr. Warner.

Thank you, President Hine, members of the board. Will be a quick presentation for you this evening because as you know, we did not have any additional approved expenditures from our meeting last month to today. But let's go ahead and dive into sales taxes a little bit. When we compare the March of last year, March '26 to March '25, as you can tell there from the graph, again, significant overall growth, 26.1%. Again, as a reminder, we expect that with HD Supply coming online again for fiscal year twenty six for the first time in several years.

So it's important to look at the net, right? So when you take the HD Supply cost out of it and isolate to current activity, total collections increased by 9.2%. When you refine it even further and remove all of the comptroller's monthly adjustments that they make to that payment for audit collections current or future and past submissions by businesses, it's 8.7%. So still very strong growth for sales taxes. When you look at the last five months of the fiscal year, because in month of October, we were actually down slightly, but really since November, we've been on a really good trend for sales taxes averaging around 7.4%.

And so again, really pleased with what we've seen halfway through the fiscal year for fiscal year twenty twenty six as it relates to sales taxes. Again, it's minimal changes to the five year outlook for revenues based on the March sales taxes being incorporated into that. As we discussed, no changes to your Treasurer's report from last month for projected expenditures as there's been no new expenditures approved and no material shift in the outlay for all commitments that have been approved from fiscal year twenty six through fiscal year thirty. As a reminder, just for some additional transparency in a project by project outlook, this is gonna be an appendix. It's gonna be in your treasury report every month from now on so you can see, at least for the current fiscal year, what you're projected to spend by project and by strategic priority that you all have adopted.

And so that's here for you in your Treasurer's Report and on the slide. And again, this $19,900,000 ties back to the fiscal year twenty six in the previous slide. And as we always do, not only as we end get towards of the fiscal year, that's when our teams really start shifting costs based on kind of, again, most recently updated projection for outlay. So again, don't be shocked as we get towards August and September to see some of those costs maybe shift from fiscal year twenty six to fiscal year twenty seven, so on and so forth. And with that, that's all I have.

So going go back to that slide. Huge part of these projects are infrastructure quality of life projects that are huge benefit to our citizens based on tax dollars that come in a lot from the outside community.

It's

great to see this. Would agree with that. Any questions?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. Item six, presentation and discussion on possible expenditure of additional construction costs for the Castel Avenue phase one, Coal Street drainage improvement projects. Mr. Ford.

Thank you, President Hines. Directors Gary Ford, Director of Transportation Construction Services. I want to present the latest update on the Coal Street Drainage Improvements. Again, the primary focus of this project is drainage improvement. It's really to identify and place the trunk system to address some flooding issues for the downtown area for the Castel project, but also a number of right of way projects as well.

In addition to is improving cost rate and enhancing the pedestrian walkway safety and comfort on that end. The map that you see here is kind of existing storm flooding. So during the heavy rain event, pretty much Castel is the street right away is underwater. So then this will help facilitate and get that out, not only for Castel but for the downtown area and even areas upstream. On the project timeline, again, we started this process back in 2022 with the completion of the master plan, identified the project through the 2023 bond process, but it was also identified as a top ranked priority for the EDC.

In 'twenty three, the design was approved for funding, and then we amended the scope to include underground conversions. And this is really the first underground conversion working with our partner, NBU, in the city and in the downtown area. So this is really kind of setting the stage for all our improvements moving forward. And then in February, EDC approved initial construction funding at 60% design, and that's actually the presentation that you have in the packet there is from 2024, so this is an updated presentation. But really, that allowed us to move forward to work with our utility providers to move forward with the design.

So again, we knew at that point, it was based on 60% design and based on the ultimate 100% design and then the bid price would be coming back to adjust that price. We did, we get that out to bid. And in April 2026, we received qualified bids. We selected one and we're negotiating the fee that we're proposing tonight. Regarding the drainage improvements itself, full roadway reconstruction, underground storm drain system.

As you see in this graphic here, we have a 10 foot by eight foot drainage box that's really going to provide the trunk drainage system for the entire East side of the downtown area. So again, that's the main component of that. In addition, working with working with NBU, they could be doing full water and sewer utility replacements, upgrading that accordingly and then enhanced landscaping and trees, following kind of that enhanced downtown streetscape that we want to see. And then the big bulk of it is the underground electric communication. So we have a proposed duct bank that's going be going under on the side of the road.

That way, all utilities are in that duck bank and removing or minimizing overhead utilities. Regarding the funding, again, EDC funded design. The construction funding was set at 7,200,000 We're coming to EDC with additional construction costs at 2,400,000 Again, a couple of factors. Number one, project refinement through 100% design. So as we've gotten the details, utility coordination identified those additional costs.

The other part, too, that there's a lot of constraints and complexity with this project. With fitting in an eight foot or 10 foot by eight foot box and maintaining access to business, communicating that, again, it's very complex for a contractor to get in there versus an isolated roadway project. So that's one of the factors in the additional cost. And then construction cost escalation. I think we've seen gas prices.

We're seeing inflation creep back up in a lot of our projects. So again, the contractor is kind of building some of that in with some of the uncertainty of project funding. And then finally, construction administration. So this does include having our designer on board to review any requests for information, any design changes and so forth. So our schedule is to secure funding here for construction, get that approved by the MBU Board and move forward, and then begin construction in the fall of twenty twenty six. And with that, I'll be able to answer any questions.

Well,

we'll be seeing this again, but it's like 33%. I'm in construction, I'm just making a comment. Unfortunately I'm not very shocked by that. We're seeing it in every aspect of the business. We do a lot of utility work too.

So you for that feedback.

Okay,

so you'll be bringing this back on an agenda item soon?

Yes. Perfect. President Hines, if I can add just some context and some additional detail on the financing strategy for this project because we kind of take a proactive approach to reflecting the original $7,200,000 request in your treasurer's report. That has been approved by this board and the city council already. So what we've built into your treasurer's report and if you look at it on page three, you'll see your debt service increases by about $555,000 from fiscal year twenty six to fiscal year twenty seven.

That's entirely driven by the commitment for this project assuming a certificate of obligation to be issued as we've done in the past. So the city council would authorize a certificate of obligation and the EDC would support that debt service entirely. So that size that $7,200,000 If this board gives staff direction to support the additional cost that Mr. Ford was referencing, we would recommend just sizing that certificate of obligation to the approximate $9,000,000 And so for level of materiality, that means increasing the debt service from $550,000 increasing it basically another 150,000 to $200,000 annually, just based on the actual rate that we would get when we go to market. So your basic, I could have just said you're looking at another 150,000 to $200,000 annually added to your treasurer's report.

That's the impact of this decision.

You for that context Mr. Warner. Additional questions? Thank you, Mr. Ford.

Item B, presentation discussion on a proposed expenditure to sport generator Development and Local Innovation Accelerator Project. Chris Packer.

Hey, good evening. We've seen this presentation before. We've also discussed in workshop. And so Robert with Generator is here and he's gonna both kind of present the some information as a reminder. But I also asked him to dig into what programs like this can look like on, like, different time horizons.

Like what does one look like at a one year maturity, two, five, ten, those types of things. But I just want to make a couple of comments on how I think about this opportunity. New Braunfels has history of entrepreneurs making a significant difference both on the culture and the wealth and the experience of this community in a lot of areas. This board has invested in the Spark Small Business Center for many years in a row, which to me provides that like core business counseling. If you're at point zero and you know you need to get a little further down the road, Spark can get you there.

What Generator is to me is it's a program to identify the entrepreneurs, founders, and companies that have the ability to grow quickly and meaningfully. And it's a proven method of identifying those companies. So that's not sophistication we have to build. It's a proven method of spending time in a five person cohort with each of those companies with expertise. And then it's a proven platform to attract funding that's necessary for these companies to grow.

So to me, when you add that all up, a really good opportunity to identify 10 companies a year that, first of all, have been identified by experts, have been invested in with time and energy, and that have the potential to receive greater funding to scale their business. So Robert can provide more detail. I'm happy to come back at the end with any questions, but I'll turn it over to Robert.

Okay,

so do I click through? Apologies. First, good evening. It's a pleasure to be back in town. I was here in January if you remember and I just want to say the same thing I said last time. Thank you for your service to the community. As a former economic development professional, I understand the commitment you're taking to your community and away from your own family and the one you love that you'd be with that night. So just thank you. It does mean a lot to people who are in cities. I'm just down the road from y'all.

I say y'all too much but just because I went to Abilene Christian but I live in Houston with my family. So I'm happy to be back in town. I won't belabor through some of these unless you really want me to as I presented these back in January but really what we're looking to do is really catalyze something in the community and really start to grow investment as an EDC board, investment into the community is very important. Job creation, capital investment and how do we generate more sales tax. That's how we can continue to do quality of life projects to make citizens within the community have a better experience as they live here and choose to stay.

And so as we look through this, we did take the hard look at the comparables early on thanks to the chamber and the EDC and some information that was provided to us. And it's really kind of the thing I like to say what really matters is it's not a lack of the talent or ambition, it's just a lack of capacity startups and having industry experts that have helped identify flush those out to bring those new monies into the community to create the jobs, create the investment create the sales tax back into the community. I'm going to skip through those because I know we've talked about them before. I just want to remind you who we are a little bit. We're a startup accelerator that has one easy core mission to be the best partner for a community to invest in its best and its brightest.

That is a very localized kind of economic development term that we started many years ago. We still stay true to who we are and we do believe this is our core. We were founded thirteen years ago, almost fourteen by two lawyers in Madison, Wisconsin and Milwaukee, Wisconsin who were tired of watching the best startups from Madison leave to the West Coast. That was pretty simple. They said, what if we can do something to help keep them in our town, create jobs in our town, create economic vitality in our town?

They raised a small fund and for five years they invested just locally in startups inside their own community. The maturation of the story, the state of Wisconsin came to them and said, how can we accelerate that within our state? We said, we don't know. The state can't invest in startups and so they asked, could we create a non dilutive accelerator that is essentially a contract services where they can pay for services for the community to see what that economic input would be. We started that program about nine years ago.

It's called our G beta program. So we still run our investment accelerator where we do invest, we raise a fund. Now we have the pre accelerator non dilutives. These are the ones that are growing all over the country and I'll show you a little bit more about that here in a second. We do have a corporate innovation network.

We have a skills accelerator. If you guys remember last time I was here I said this is probably my favorite because we're actually working with individuals in rural communities to upscale and reskill them for the most in demand jobs on LinkedIn and we're working in partnership with Microsoft to do We do have an art and a music accelerator and the whole reason for that goes back to the first slide of our mission. If we're going to be the best partner for a community then we should have a product line for every community. Not every community wants this, communities want art, music and so we run an art accelerator with a gallery in Milwaukee. We work with Capital Records and Motown Records on the music side.

Where that lands us today, we are the biggest accelerator in the Midwest. We started in the Midwest. Midwest. We are very proud of that. We're one of the largest investment firms in the Midwest as well. What's kind of fun about it is we're also one of the largest in the world and yet we still don't operate in those major markets like California, New York Boston. So we've proven our model works outside of those major hubs. We take a lot of pride in that from a company perspective as our biggest competitors operate in those markets. Anyone that knows NPS scores, I won't belabor this, we're very proud of an 88 NPS score. I wish most of my grades would have came back at 88 when I was in college.

My parents would have been so upset. But what that tells us is a lot of people want to recommend us when they go through our program. They give back and they get re involved in our program and we take a lot of pride in that. Where we sit today, this is my favorite slide, it is growing massively. We're still Midwest based mainly. We're in 39 states. We're in 50 cities and we're in nine countries. We still do not operate in San Francisco, LA. We don't operate in Milan. We don't operate in London.

We're in places like Amilioromonia, Italy. We're in Lincoln, Nebraska, Huntsville, Alabama and we're outperforming accelerators on the West Coast and the East Coast. Some numbers and I'll get through these pretty quick because I know you guys have seen them. Four forty cohorts, so this is a little different than the last time we saw because the cohorts are constantly running. 2,100 startups, it's now over 3,000,000,000 financing those companies have raised and they've created more than 15,000 jobs locally within the community.

The one thing to always keep in mind and this goes back to the comments just made, all of these startups are pre revenue and pre investment. So when they're creating 15,000 jobs that is net new jobs that did not exist and they had not raised any money. So that $3,000,000,000 is new cash flow into the communities in which we work in. We work with a lot of universities. We have a lot of corporate partners. Our numbers speak for themselves. We kind of just look for the best ideas regardless of race, place and gender. The one I always like to point out is 39% of our startup are female founded. The United States average is 2.3. We also have an eighty eight percent survival rate.

The U. S. Average is 20%. I think it's because we just find good ideas and we invest resources into those good ideas and it seems to work out pretty well for us. And you can see on the bottom 92% of those startups are outside those major tech hubs while the rest of the world is looking at 20%. So it's something we take a lot of pride in kind of being that Midwest charm. So the G beta program is what we've proposed here. It's the 10 startups identified by our industry experts. We've been doing it for thirteen years. We run mentor swarms.

So we'll leverage our national network of 6,000 mentors but we'll also bring mentors in from the community. We'll work with the local SBDC as well as we do in many communities to share mentors and access opportunity together to really help the programs expand. They'll do biweekly meetings. This goes to that niche meeting. When you're talking about we have a cash flow problem because our cohort sizes are small, we're actually working on the cash flow problem for the startup, not just kind of generic education and I think I used this example last time if you all remember, Abel and Christian, I was in constitutional law my senior year with three people and the professor looked at me and said, Well, if you don't do the work and I thought, I'm in trouble.

I have friends that went to bigger schools. Their senior year they were sitting in classes with a thousand people and they were able to skate through. I should have went that route, I went the other route. That's kind of how our program works. You're in there rolling up your sleeves with the professor but the program manager to really get the work done. The lunch and learns, they are open to the public. That is something we added. That's the benefit of hiring someone that was in economic development for many years. I kind of said what can we do more in the community? Investor swarms, they're pitching a dozen investors during every cohort.

The whole goal is shots on goal. We want them to raise money, create jobs in the community. We do the community showcase. This is the fun one where we ask the board to come, we ask the mayors, ask everyone to come and do a celebration of the community of what is actually happening there. It's also really nice for the public to see what is happening in the community.

I'll skip over the timeline as you have it and previously seen it. Couple of things that we do as part of our requirement and our commitment to the community. Once again, we have kind of the website going, we hire an employee full time locally so that person will be based here. We will also do networking events in partnership with the chamber, the EDC, the city and others to make sure that the community is continuing to be cultivated. Just realized it was down here as well.

We will also occupy space in the community so we will have an office. That is a commitment we make. We will do the lunch and learn series that's open to the public. We'll receive applications, we'll accelerate those startups. One thing that is on here is the open office hours as well and that is anyone from the community can come talk to our program manager at any time.

They can schedule thirty minutes to come sit down and ask about their company, ask about their program or just ask about venture capital in general understanding how that works. Just a quick example of kind of what our ecosystem programming looks like. It's one of our Colorado programs, lots of office hours, lots of community events, really just trying to get the community engaged and catalyzed around something is really our goal here. We do have resources for those alumni well after because we want them to know just because you're not inside the program and maybe you're in our non dilutive accelerator doesn't mean we're going to forget about you because we want to see those numbers continue to compound. And so we do lunch and learns, we do lightning rounds where they meet with investors.

We just did one actually right now is taking place in Detroit. I just flew in from Detroit. Have 150 startups meeting with corporations in Detroit right now for opportunity to get pilot projects and get investment and these are startups from anywhere around the country that flew in to Detroit to go meet with corporate innovation network and our investor network. We also do those virtual. We've kind of walked through this with the 10 companies per year.

Our goal is in year one, we see 20 new jobs, in year two, we see 50 new jobs, year three ninety new jobs into the community. It's really a compounding effect because we are taking people pre seed, pre funding, pre revenue. So you see a really big compounding effect as we go on. And I did add some slides which I'm really excited to present tonight. I noticed one thing that was wrong on this slide.

I changed all the numbers but I forgot to change November is actually April 25 or twenty sixth excuse me and May 25 is actually March 26. It's a three month in a row. So May 26 is correct but you can see why the numbers compound. One thing we're very open about is transparency. So this is typically a screenshot I take from our co founder who posts this on LinkedIn every month.

This is our G beta program. So you can see our statistics since the inception of our program. They've gone on to raise more than a billion dollars now inside of our non dilutive program which is the one we work with the government agencies on. So we're really excited about that. You can see the 7,000 plus jobs locally in those communities. We're really, really excited about our numbers. So some numbers that are new that this is something I wanted to bring before the board so you can see kind of what our impact looks like at a near term, long term and kind of how programming goes. So this is Round Rock. It's one of the competitor cities or benchmark cities I guess would be a better term. We've won one cohort there.

It just started this year. Cohort was I think ended in February or March. So keep in mind it's very fresh. All pre seed companies, pre revenue. The five companies have now added 46 jobs to Round Rock Texas.

They've raised $600,000 coming out of that cohort already. One particular individual, she has raised I want to say 300,000 plus, she now has a lease inside the same building we are inside Round Rock, so it's in Round Rock Leasing's building and she has added employees into that building. And so when you think of the economic output and the economic impact to the city, now you have sales tax, property tax and new employment all happening within that community. And so based on the investment that the EDC, the chamber made in our programming. Huntsville, Alabama, I am really bad at Alabama.

I'm developing a little bit of a draw since I've lived in Texas for so long. We started this program in 2021. We've run nine cohorts, 50 companies have been served. They've created two forty two jobs in Huntsville, Alabama. They've gone on to raise $14,000,000 in funding.

It's pretty impressive in Huntsville, Alabama. That particular program adds some things back to the state and to the city so they can see some numbers different. That's why you can see what the actual economic impact is. So when we were talking about kind of the economic impact of a project into a community, dollars 25,000,000 of economic impact on their investment into our program. And so the output kind of speaks for itself of what it does when you really think through kind of that long term vision.

The Gulf Coast, this is Mobile. They just didn't want to call it Mobile. So it's still there but it's called Gulf Coast. 2024 is when it started five cohorts, 25 companies, 113 jobs and $9 plus million raised with an economic input or output of $14,000,000 once again. When locals invest in locals, the economic output to your community is so much more tremendous.

A lot of other groups what they do is they like to say we'll bring them into your community but what happens? It's kind of like going to college. Eventually you go home. I didn't live in Abilene too long after I graduated, I went back. So if an accelerator is looking at bringing people into your community, typically what they'll do at the end is go back home when the services are over. They have a house, they have family, they have something. Because the way our program is all about localized, the input and the output actually stays within the community which is important to us. Distillery Labs is Illinois. So just kind of show you in every market, they operate a little different. Some markets do a little bit stronger in numbers, some do a little bit weaker in numbers, just depends on where you are, this is a really small town kind of in Illinois.

2021, they've run seven cohorts, 34 companies, 96 jobs. I always get nervous that the numbers don't add up, $3,500,000 in follow on funding. So basically just kind of showing we can help raise money anywhere in America to us, it doesn't matter because it's the product, it's our network on a global scale and investors trust us. So when we bring startups into the community, investors trust that we know what we're doing over those thirteen years. And then this one is just one of those kind of from a wow factor.

This is actually Madison, Wisconsin. So I said we created this program because somebody asked us to. So this is the first program we ever had. It's still running. So twenty nineteen, 20 cohorts, 101 companies have been through that program, five ninety three jobs but they have gone on to raise $218,000,000 in Madison, Wisconsin.

It's pretty neat from an economic development perspective to see what can happen when the community does invest in local startups. And so kind of just wanted to give you a little bit of a view of kind of what happens just a couple months in, Round Rock that was really impressive as I looked across our portfolio, kind of Huntsville Huntsville as you can see a few years in which I know for you guys is a city that you look at from a comparables perspective too where you can see that output look like. I will be honest, Texas is a much stronger market for start ups and venture capital than Alabama. So I can only imagine what we can do in this area and I think that's why you're seeing the numbers out of Round Rock already. And then kind of the real long term of something that just this program just keeps going.

I don't know how to better say that and keep working with the EDC on the state and the local level there. So if there's any questions, I know I kind of went through it quick but I didn't want to make you guys have to walk through the entire presentation again.

How long do you think it takes to identify five startups that look like they would benefit and get traction or grow roots?

We take typically about two to three months in that cycle on the recruitment side. We do a lot of office hours, we try to meet as many founders, go to as many events, really kind of boots on the ground. I always call it the old kind of like grassroots canvassing like you would do in politics, we do the same thing. We get on the ground, we meet everyone. It takes about two to three months and that's why we have the two cycles that happen every year. So we kind of basically recruit, do the cohort, reset, recruit, do the cohort, reset and it kind of gives us that flow through the year.

Okay, the only other question I had, you have a lot of dilutive versus non dilutive terms in here. It looks like most of the funds end up being dilutive. So I'm assuming at some point the investments are in exchange for interest in the company. But the program, the starting point is really helping get some leverage. It doesn't involve equity. Is that a requirement? How does that work I guess?

Absolutely. So our contract for program is non dilutive. We're not investing in the startups. The city, the community, the EDC, the chamber is making the investment in the startups with our programming. So we don't take money, we don't give them money. That would be very disgenuine. I think I said that the last time I was here. So when they come into our program, it's free of charge to them, not dilutive. When they're getting diluted through that process, it's when they're raising money with outside capital from venture capitalists, etcetera. And that could be all sorts of different terms.

If we have an investment accelerator, we're kind of the national standard of it's usually about $100,000 7.5% equity but that's an investment accelerator. So in this one all that dilution is coming because they took outside capital into their company.

Yeah, that makes sense. In other words we're paid for the services, the company is not paying for it, they're not exchanging debt or equity for it in the initial term and they can raise money in exchange for it.

And then they get the kind of stamp of generator and all of that which really helps them raise.

I understand the dilutive portion, how is the non dilutive calculated, how does that money come in?

Yes, we actually help a lot of our startups with grants and if we find grants that come through, we have a pretty large team that deals with grants on our own side. We have some federal grants, etcetera. We work with universities on NSF and stuff like that. And so when we find grants that come across, we put them into a channel with all of our alumni and say this might be a great opportunity for you. And so we're really trying to help them just find funding. A lot of non dilutive comes when you see like med device or life sciences, sustainability because there's a lot of funding flowing through that on the federal side. And so when we see something like that, we put it out into a channel.

Thank you. Any additional questions? Same as the last one, this will be coming back for an action item I assume soon. Perfect. Thank you very much, sir.

Thank you.

Thank for coming. We move on to seven, public hearing discussion and possible action to approve an expenditure of up to $405,000 for the final design of Ampo citywide pedestrian improvements phase two pursuant to 505.152 of the Texas Local Government Code. Yes,

sir. And the item that will be presented on tonight is priority two, planning and infrastructure regarding the EDC strategic priorities. This one is the MPO, citywide pedestrian phase two. This is a project that was recently awarded to us in the MPO call earlier last year. And in total, we received almost $56,000,000 with the program.

So this is a little over $4,000,000 or actually a $5,000,000 $4,000,000 project that we're receiving federal funding. So the project scope is sidewalk and shared use path improvements citywide, three locations. The first one is Peach Plum And Grape on the West End, and this is an extension of sidewalk infrastructure that we've completed with San Antonio Street and then extending to the railroad tracks, and then ultimately, that will reach HEB soccer fields. The next one is Hans Drive. That's a critical shared use path connection from the sidewalk and bike lanes that we have on Green, carrying that through across the loop to Fair Lane.

That way, we have what we consider a low stress network to get back into downtown to Green in that area there. And then finally, Avery Parkway. This is a shared use path or a sidewalk segment adjacent to the school out there and adjacent to the drainage channel. So again, this really makes completions. So what we're looking for tonight is final design for 405000 Dollars We'll continue through that final design and then come back at a later date for the actual construction match.

So you can see we anticipate receiving a little over $4,000,000 for the construction. The contract, we're looking to award that here this month, get that under design. The let date is in 2028. But as soon as we have that project available, if we can accelerate that to the NPO, we'd like to get those projects up and running and going. And then we'll secure the funding at the 20% construction match at that time. So with that, I'll be able to answer any questions.

Any questions? I think this is being all the leverage of Zample funds is huge benefit for our community. The fact that we can put in 1.5 and get almost $6,000,000 worth of infrastructure improvements is fantastic. Hearing. It's been a little while since we've had one.

Anybody from the public would like to address this item? Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. I have a motion from Director Campos and a second from Director Austin. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? It passes unanimously. Item B, public hearing discussion and possible action to approve an expenditure of up to $700,000 for the construction of Ampo citywide pedestrian improvements phase one pursuant to 505.152 of the Texas Local Government Code.

And again, this is item is meeting priority two on the NBC or EDC strategic priorities regarding planning and infrastructure. And this is phase one, so we received this award a few years ago, but now we're ready to go into construction. So this one again is looking at five key areas around town. The first one is completing an enhanced intersection, shared use path across Alvis Lane to support kids getting to school in that area there and connecting neighborhoods in and around the Crisas Santa Rosa Hospital area on Union, completing some sidewalk gaps. Number three is around Herman Island.

Right now, we have kind of decomposed granite. So it's, again, getting that to concrete, continuing that all the way from the railroad tracks to the park and then continuing the sidewalk network along San Antonio Street up to Union, correcting some sidewalk issues there on Klein there behind the Walgreens getting to Fisher Park and tying that into TxDOT improvements that are coming in later this year and then finally, completing some sidewalk and bicycle gaps on Oak Run Parkway near Honors Creek. So again, strategic projects to fill in gaps and address some safety concerns and improve pedestrian safety. EDC funded final design a few years ago, completed that. Now we're into construction.

So the request is for the 20% construction match in contingency and then a construction administration at the cost that you see there. And then this is ready to let, so it's been through the tech stop process, the federal process. We're looking to construct, get a contractor on board in June and likely start this project later this summer. These are sidewalk projects. They're challenging, but they're relatively quick to install. With that, I'd be able to answer any questions.

Any questions? I'm excited to not have the crushed granite get my shoes walking.

Especially during this time when we're getting some rain, so it's good.

Yes. We will open this up to public comment. Please state your name and whether or not you're a city resident.

Jim Host, a resident. I was looking at the map, but it doesn't matter, just my comment. As you know, the city set up a public, actually the housing authority to set up a public facilities funding mechanism and they're going to authorize an apartment complex on 3371801 to be specific. Presentation at their meeting, they said this would be ideal because kids could get over to Lamar, the new school that used to be over here on the other side of town, but it's over there. If you're out on Loop 337, there really is no way that you can get cut across to that school.

You'd have to walk all the way down. I don't think people wanna send their kids all the way down there, down to River Road, loop back around, get up. So the presentation was incorrect over at the housing authority saying that kids could get across there. So I don't know in your long term planning if there's some way that you can do sidewalks or a crosswalk. It'd be pretty dangerous across the Loop 337, but I just want to bring that to to your attention. If you look at it, you'll see what I'm talking about. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Alsford. Seeing no others, we will close public comment. I hear a motion.

Make a

motion to approve the expenditures 700,000 for the construction of the ample sidewalk citywide pedestrian improvement phase one.

I'll

second. I have a motion from director Thompson Thompson and a second from director Campos. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Passes unanimously. Item C, public hearing discussion and possible action to forgive the New Braunfels National Airport loan remaining balance of $644,770 pursuant to 501.103 of the Texas Local Government Code. Mr. Jewell.

Thank you President Hines. Members of the Board, Jeff Jewell, Economic and Community Development Director for the city. The airport is a local and regional economic driver. It connects businesses, residents, visitors to New Braun really to the world. And also supports numerous aviation related businesses.

We've talked about the economic impact of the airport that was actually completed in 2018, but we're actually looking forward to get receiving an update. But back in 2018, the airports have significantly grown since. It's about $28,000,000 in local economic impact and supported close to 200 jobs in the community. One of the really key drivers that's continued to help and support the airport was a strategic decision by the airport, the EDC, the city and the rest of the stakeholders involved to extend a taxiway as well as install necessary infrastructure, water, wastewater and electricity in order to create space for new corporate hangar development. And so in late twenty fifteen, the EDC authorized $2,400,000 This is completely funded by the EDC at the time.

And that project really was completed in late twenty nineteen, early twenty twenty. That was provided as a $1,200,000 grant and then the other rest of it was installed as a ten year amortizing loan at 3%. The extension, I don't necessarily mean that just because something correlates that it's necessary causal. The airport had this taxiway extension done and then the fuel sales increased and significantly improved the financial position of the airport. Those two things kind of happened simultaneously.

This is a big reason why was the extension of this taxiway. You can see kind of in this, this is the history of fuel sales, which is a general measure of ABA activity at the airport. But you can see a significant increase after some of those three new hangars that were developed that has led to increased based aircraft as well as an increase obviously in fuel sales. And there are at least two other hangars in predevelopment discussions today. But ultimately this potential action tonight is about strengthening the financial position of the airport.

For given the $645,000 loan balance would provide the airport with critical cash flow to support future infrastructure projects. The airport is an enterprise fund, which means that it does sustain its operational needs with services and goods that it delivers. But when it comes to larger capital items, we do tend to look for local, state and federal dollars to help assist in that. For example, point 5,000,000 grant from the FAA to complete preliminary conceptual design on a new air traffic control tower. So those are the kinds of larger infrastructure projects that we do look for external funding for.

But the item tonight would go ahead and if approved would relieve the airport of having to make that continuing debt service payment end through of 2031. With that, I'll answer any questions.

I move we that we approve the request.

I'll second that motion.

I have

a motion motion from Director Campos and a second from Director Austin to approve. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? It passes unanimously.

Executive session. In accordance with the 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 in the executive session on any of the following items with any final action being taken open session. A, deliberate the purchase exchange lease or value of real property in accordance with section 551.072 Texas Government Code one, New Braunfels Sports Complex Lot 3 Block 1, SS 14.62 ACS and New Braunfels Sports Complex Lot 2, Block 1, three point four five acres. B, deliberate issues regarding economic development negotiations accordance with Section 551.087 of the Texas Government Code one, Generator two, Green sixteen three, Project Shoot four, Project Thread five, Project Icon six, Project Casa seven, Project Hammer and C, Deli pending contemplated litigation settlement of offer in matters concerning privilege and unprivileged client information deemed confidential by Rule 1.05 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct in accordance with Section 551.71 of the Texas government code specifically one Lefco USA Inc.

And we will adjourn the executive session at 05:58PM. Alright. Okay. We are back from executive session where no action or votes have taken and we will adjourn this meeting at 06:30.