Economic Development Corp. - Regular Meeting

Okay, we will call to order City of New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation meeting on Thursday, August 13th, 5 p.m. Mr. Packer, will you call roll today?

Yes, I will. Director Hammonds.

Here.

Director Thompson.

Here.

Director Elrod. Here. President Hines. Here.

Approval of minutes. We have the minutes of the June 18th, 26th regular meeting. I'll entertain a motion.

I make a motion to approve as written.

I second.

I have a motion from Director Thompson and a second from Director Elrod. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Minutes pass unanimously. Citizens communication. This is a 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. Yes, ma'am, so 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 none, we will move on. Treasurer's report, Mr. Warner.

Thank you, President Hines, members of the board, those in attendance. Starting with the treasurer's report for the month of August. The latest sales tax information, as you can see from the graph, the last month that we are reflecting here is the month of May. Overall saw an 18.7% increase, but as we've been reporting all fiscal year, that's only part of the story. As we know, we've been onboarding the HD supply sales taxes once again as that partnership revived in November of 2025. So we like to reflect on your treasurer's report kind of the gross collections as well as the net. So while the gross collections were 18.7% when you remove HD supply from that, That's 1.6. And then as a reminder, in the monthly payment that we receive each month from the comptroller, there's a variety of adjustments for prior collections, current collections, and the audit collections. So we like to show the net because sometimes that can be a little bit of a variance. And so that's why you have a second set of figures there. That was still 18.7%, but then 1.4% without AC supply. So still showing some net growth for the month of May. AGAIN AS WE DO EVERY SINGLE MONTH WE UPDATED YOUR REVENUE PROJECTIONS THROUGH FISCAL YEAR THIRTY SO YOU CAN SEE THOSE THERE FOR YOU SALES TAXES OF COURSE BEING THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF REVENUE ALONG WITH INTEREST EARNINGS AND LOAN REPAYMENTS. Current commitments. Again, all expenditures are approved by EDC and City Council. We do our best to project the actual cash flow of those expenditures as many of the initiatives that you are committed to occur over several years and sometimes can shift from one year to the next. So we do our best to try and reflect the year that those dollars are actually going to be outlaid. Again, some expenditures of some of those shifts for the most recent report. You can see we've reclassified the Land O' Lake Dam design contract from quality of life to planning and infrastructure. You can see that we've changed the expenditures for the Green 16 feasibility study. We've actually reduced those to $50,000. The remaining of those costs shifting into fiscal year 27. One of the bigger shifts, the Alamo Colleges Initiative, we shifted that from fiscal year 26 partially to fiscal year 27. So you can see that reflected in the treasurer's report. and then shifted that Union Pacific Railroad project, the work that we're evaluating on Castell, that's been shifted to fiscal year 27, as it had been previously reflected in 26, but having enough confidence now that we know those costs, should they occur, they'll be in fiscal year 27 or later. Again, just a breakdown, we added this to your treasury report a couple months ago and we're gonna continue to do so. Again, this is the time of the fiscal year where you see these projects shift for some of the similar reasons that I just explained, kind of looking at that timing a little bit more at a detailed level and trying to, again, project when those costs are actually going to occur, either this fiscal year or do they need to be pushed out to a latter year. And then finally, this ties together those projected expenditures for fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 30, those revenue projections that we went through earlier through fiscal year 30 and how that impacts your reserves or fund balance. President Hines, happy to take any questions if there are any.

Any questions from the board? Do you mind backing up a couple slides, please? That one, nailed it. I just like to show this one every meeting because it shows what this board is able to do with quality of life projects and supporting our local employers to try to recruit and maintain good jobs for our people that live here and hopefully the next generation to have even better jobs than we have available today. Thank you, Mr. Werner. Item six, presentation, discussion and possible action adopting the 2026 and 2027 fiscal year budget.

Went into a little bit more detail in the treasurer's report. I think that it's a good segue into this item. As you know, every single year we incorporate the proposed budget from the EDC into the overall city budget. As we just went through in the treasurer's report, given that every single expenditure approved by the EDC is approved by the EDC and the city council, of course what you're committed to can change on a monthly basis. It's regularly changing, which is why we do the monthly treasurer's report. so we can reflect those new approved expenditures and they can be again forecasted for you the current year or future years and so what we put in the proposed budget again is very similar to your treasure report it's a point in time of what you're committed to and i say committed meaning what has been approved by the edc and city council and so this is verbatim in the exact exhibits that we put into the overall proposed budget that was actually presented to city council this week on august 11th so again this chart will look familiar to you. We also wanted to include in the proposed budget all of the debt service payments that the EDC is committed to paying on an annual basis, okay? And so next week, next month when we come back to your treasurer's report, actually no, it was reflected here, that $3.5 million for fiscal year 27, again, that ties to the fiscal year 27 payment for debt service. I do want to bring some attention to that last row there. the certificates of obligation series 2026. The city council authorized a notice of intent to move forward with that certificate of obligation still scheduled to be issued later this year and fund later this fiscal year. That is entirely to support the call street drainage and road and pedestrian mobility and the utility conversion project that's been approved. So I just wanted to provide that additional context for y'all. And then again, this is just put into the same kind of fund balance format that every single city fund is incorporated into our proposed budget. So again, the expenditures of $20.8 million, again, tie back to your treasurer's report. Again, just our forecasted projection of the costs that you're currently committed to and how those, again, are forecasted to occur in fiscal year 27. This will shift throughout the year as additional expenditures are approved, and again, costs shift into fiscal year 28 or later. Happy to take any questions, though.

Any questions for Mr. Warner?

Can you back up a slide? The 26 certificate of obligation, what's the size of that?

$9.6 million. Okay. Yeah, 9.6, 9.4, sorry. I think it's 9.4.

And the length of those things?

20 years.

All of them 20?

Yes, sir.

I imagine the more recent ones have probably a little higher interest rate than the ones from 18, 19, and 21. If I remember correctly, when I was on council, you and your staff did a great job of restructuring some debt to take advantage of the lower interest rates. That's correct. Thank you for being stewards of the city money. Any questions? All right, we will open it up to citizens' communication, or citizens' comment, I'm sorry. If you want to speak, please say whether or not you are a resident, non-resident, or live in the ETJ. And I believe we're doing the same as council's five minutes or how? Okay. Try to keep them brief.

Hi, I'm Debbie Flume. I'm a citizen. I just want to know if we could get a copy of all this. Sure.

What was that? I'm sorry. I missed that.

A copy of all of this that was presented?

Yes. Yeah. We can definitely make sure you get a copy of that. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Flume.

Yeah, so the treasure report is online. This is online as well. And the budget that we just went through is also included in the city's proposed budget document, which is posted online as well. So it's out there a couple places. Thank you, Mr. Warner. Yes, ma'am.

Hello, Angela, citizen of New Braunfels. A question I had on the reference to the certificate of obligations. Is that similar to what we had spoke out previously? So the certificate of obligation, it's like a loan, like you said, a loan of the taxpayer's money that we're giving over to the EDC.

Sales tax, correct.

Sales tax.

Yes.

To the EDC. Okay, so we're giving a loan to the EDC. Aren't, isn't the EDC in its own entity that gets the percentage of the sales tax for all of your expenditures? So why are we doing a certificate of obligation from the taxpayer's money over to the EDC? I would really like you to answer because you are the board that approves all this money and everything that comes about. So I would really like to hear it from y'all, please.

Well, this is why we have staff with finance degrees and finance backgrounds to help us steer us in the right path.

Then why have a board?

Yes, ma'am. So the certificate of obligation, again, the funding source to pay back that debt is the sales taxes that the EDC generates. Correct. And as a reminder, the EDC, separate corporation, also a component unit of the City of New Braunfels. And the administrative contract that you had this evening to consider as well, the city staff acts as your fiscal agent in managing the EDC's financials. And so it's the taxpayer's money. I agree with you, Ms. Keller. It is the taxpayer's money. The sales taxes are the taxpayer's money. And those sales taxes are going to be used to pay the annual debt service on that certificate of obligation. It's a financing strategy for the EDC.

And with that financing strategy, so the EDC has enough money in reserves, we could eliminate all of our debt or a good chunk of it if we thought that was the strategy.

I'd want to go back and confirm the complete outstanding debt of the EDC to answer that question.

Yeah, and I think what's important to point out is this isn't credit card debt. This is debt for assets that we have to help all of our community and keeping our powder dry to be able to do projects such as the park on the northeast side of town. How much money did we spend on that? For Zip Sports Complex? Yes. No, no, the new park. two years ago. Eight million dollars? Eight million dollars. To acquire that? Yes. So there's a trade off. So if we don't have the cash reserves to know what the next project, we don't know what the next opportunity is gonna be, we don't have a way of funding those which benefit the entire.

I do feel confident in saying that if we did not use certificates of obligation, and long-term financing strategies like certificates of obligation, we would not be able to consider the volume of projects that we're currently considering.

Yes, and as an ADC, we get a percentage of sales tax, which is voted on by citizens.

Yes.

This is a Texas right, but based on the Texas law, there's only limited projects that we can do. We can't just put money at any project that blows our way. It has to fit. what the state says we're allowed to spend the EDC funds on. That's correct. Thank you, Mr. Warren.

And I would also say, I know you want to hear from one of us, it's like a mortgage, if you will. I used a financing to buy my house. It wasn't wise for me to use all my cash to buy my house. It was a way to leverage that to do more for my family, and I think that's what we're doing here for our communities.

Is it? My mortgage payment goes down, I don't know about y'all. But anyhow, when I'm looking at this, I'm seeing 25, 26, 27, that our revenue is going down drastically, but yet the expenditures are going up. How are y'all gonna balance that out?

I'm looking at our sales tax increase every year, so I'm not sure.

Okay, this might not be the one, but there was some things I did read on that. So before you.

I'm not sure on the balance is going. But even inching down, the revenue is not.

And where are the reserves for the EDC, your backup funds?

They're right here.

The ending fund balance.

The ending fund balance. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Hello, my name is Bob King, I'm a resident of New Braunfels and I just have a clarification question. You said that these obligation bonds or certificates of obligation are gonna be paid out of sales taxes. So I assume that means they're recourse only to the sales taxes and not guaranteed by the city or secondarily recourse to the taxpayers who pay property taxes in any way, shape or form, is that correct?

That's a very good question. That is a good question. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. King.

Yeah, no, the certificates of obligation are in fact backed by the city's full faith AA credit rating. So if for some reason the EDC were to default on those certificates of obligation and not pay them, the property taxes would be subject to covering that payment. That has never happened. And we certainly would do our best to never let that happen. But no, that is why we do a certificate of obligation, as you referenced earlier, Mr. Hines, to get a lower interest rate. So that those, again, so that these dollars can be extended and we can support more projects.

And we're very fortunate being in New Braunfels that we do have a huge summer flux of people that bring their money from other places and spend it here and generate a lot of sales tax outside dollars. Thank you, sir.

Hey, good to see you again, been a while. David Warmke, District 5. Question for you. Revenue line three others, you have a pattern that's changing drastically. 600 and change in 25, less than 226, and then a million six in 27. Can you explain what other is and why such an erratic pattern?

The majority of that, if not all of that, are loan repayments. And so for fiscal year 27, as it stated in the treasurer's report, that's when a balloon payment from ASA properties is due.

So we have a balloon payment from ASA coming in in 27? Correct. So that's why we have the other spike in revenue? That's correct.

Yes.

Perfect.

Thank you, Mr. Warner.

Mr. Warmke, if you, okay, thank you. I just want to make sure that we're on the mic if you're going to ask more questions.

And what is other again? What is a source of income? I missed that.

That's what I just said.

That's right. The loan. OK. The loan, yeah.

OK, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Seeing no other comments, we will close public comment. I'll entertain a motion from the board. I also move for the approval of the budget.

Second.

I have a motion from Director Hammonds and a second from Director Thompson. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Passes unanimously. Item B, presentation, discussion, and possible action to approve an annual contract with City of New Braunfels for administrative, professional, and asset management services.

Mr. Jewell. Thank you, Chairman Hines, Jeff Jewell, Economic and Community Development Director. As you all know, the Economic Development Corporation maintains an annual services contract with the City of New Braunfels for administrative support and professional services in support of the Economic Development Corporation. In addition to what Jared mentioned, the city acts as the EDC's fiscal agent, but it also provides a wide variety of professional services, such as the contract development and management, managing the EDC's payables and receivables, undertaking contract compliance and auditing. as well as physical impact analysis, as well as the required reporting record keeping agendas and minutes. The annual contract also pays for having this meeting this evening, for example, for making sure the lights are on, making sure our police officers that are here tonight are also compensated. In reality, there's a wide variety of city departments that support the work of the Economic Development Corporation, such as our department, the city attorney's office, transportation construction services, planning development services, finance, and the city manager's office. And as the EDC has expanded its investments into capital projects in the community, those services have definitely increased, especially in transportation and construction services. Just a little bit of highlights, as of July 31st, 2026, we have moved 16 items through the EDC's approval process for funding of $9.8 million. You can see the chart on the right shows where the bulk of those expenditures have been invested by the adopted categories such as workforce support, planning infrastructure, business recruitment and expansion. So I wanna talk about some things that we accomplished in 2026 under the services agreement. We went through a strategic planning process through last summer and into this last fall. And you all adopted a series of investment areas, priority areas, and identified a series of projects that you would all continue to fund as we developed those projects and brought those forward for consideration. There was also, we felt an inadequate presence of the Economic Development Corporation's information about it online. So we went through and really overhauled the entire webpage for the Economic Development Corporation and detailed really the project expenditures going back as far as 2004. A couple years ago, we received the Transparency Star from the Texas Comptroller for Economic Development. We're one of only 32 cities in the state with that award. We continue to undertake the compliance audits and those audits for 2025 are currently underway and we'll have those complete in the next couple of months. We do finish projects. You all have undertaken a lot of investments in the community, but we wanted to kind of point to some highlights that were completed in fiscal year 2026, such as the opening of the Zipp Family Sports Park, the Land O'Lake Dam construction, as well as citywide pet improvements. And there were some projects that were kind of wrapping up at the beginning of this fiscal year, the end of last fiscal year, which was those four additional projects. So the contract amount. Oh, I'll get to that in one second. I got a couple more things. There's a significant focus on downtown efforts in our department and throughout the entire community. There's a lot of infrastructure planning projects that are underway, such as the downtown right-way pedestrian improvements. They're in West San Antonio street improvements that are currently under design and will be constructed here in the next few months. We obviously manage the downtown managed parking program. and oversee the reinvestment of those proceeds to the benefit of downtown. We've got projects underway to replace and enhance the street trees throughout downtown. We're undertaking a curb management study and policy in our downtown about the use of curb space. There's actually a public meeting next week about that, next Tuesday evening. As well as we oversee the administration of the downtown TERS, which is our downtown-focused TERS that makes investments both in small businesses in downtown as well as supporting future infrastructure projects. There's also a handful of other projects that are underway. We've talked about the Castile Avenue phase one, call street drainage project. That was a project, a $9.76 million project that the city staff through the services contract oversaw really from feasibility through design. And now we'll be overseeing the construction of that project that we'll be breaking down in the next couple of months. We've talked about the National Airport, but we also provide support services for projects that are enhancing the airport as an economic and transportation asset in the community, but also overseeing investments that the EDC has made in the airport as well. The annual contract is in the amount of $455,386. This amount is the same as last year and reflects no changes to that contract. And with that, I'll answer any questions.

I just had a comment with our increased costs everywhere. That's nice to see that there's no increase there.

How long we have a contract like this in place?

There's been a services contract that goes back at least to before 2010, I think. But as the investments of the EDC have increased in those capital projects especially, that contract has expanded to include those additional costs that the city is bearing to oversee those projects.

Any further questions? Okay, we will open it up to public input.

David Warmke again, District 5. Just a question for y'all. EDC has no employees. Everything is contracted with the city. Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

Correct. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other people that are contracted aside from the city for like administrative services and things, or it's just the city?

I guess not.

Are there any other people aside from the city that are contracted for administrative services and things like that?

There's nobody else that's, there's no other entities for administrative and professional services, but the EDC does maintain a contract with the Chamber of Commerce for marketing and recruitment services.

Okay, thank you.

Bob King, resident. Can I go back, I just have a clarification question about one of the very first slides in Mr. Jewell's packet, the one that had the pie chart. That's the one. I guess the question I have because it's so dominated by planning and infrastructure is is there a breakout for how much of that 74.7% are expenditures paid on behalf of project applicants rather than remedial infrastructure fixes that I would say benefit the entire city or are not recoverable through a developer? I have a sense that a significant amount of that is paid on behalf of a developer in an incentive package, but I could be wrong. I'm just asking the question, please.

I don't know if Mr. Drew has that broken out, but I will tell you in my time being involved, we've been very adamant that development will pay for itself, and I've seen it time and time again, and our fees have continued to grow to show that.

I think that any expenditures that accrue strictly to private parties are classified under business recruitment and expansion. The planning and infrastructure, I think, includes things like the Castell Avenue Coal Street project, the Kohlenberg Road expansion project, et cetera. Large community projects.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. King.

Jim Holster, District 3. Could we go to the last slide in the presentation? It went by real quick. I just probably have a general question. Okay, the Workforce Study Partnership with Seguin, EDC, RWEA. Is that anything to do with the college?

No, it's not. No, it's a workforce partnership with the Seguin EDC and the Regional Workforce Education Alliance, which is the joint higher ed task force, basically, that the city of New Braunfels and Seguin maintain. So there's a... It's a partnership with Texas State and the ISDs.

I got to serve on that board for several years. It's pretty neat. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I got to serve on that board for a couple years, and I believe Director Thompson currently serves on that board.

So there's no movement yet on the college over there? No, sir.

It's just a regional effort to combine our forces.

But that was my only question about that. Oh, and I want to point out one other thing. You probably don't get this very often except for Mr. Hammonds. I'm one of the people that voted for this, giving y'all that revenue. Now, my wife canceled out my vote, but it did pass. Thank you.

Well, thank you, sir. We appreciate your vote. I think the CDC, long before I was on it, was able to do, has done and will continue a lot of great projects for our community. Yes, ma'am.

Hi, Laurie Rowe, resident. Just a quick question on clarifying. Mr. King had asked about the percentage. The land that the city purchases, is that within that 74% or is that outside of, is that part of the other percentage? If you can go back to that slide, maybe.

Shannon, can you go back to that?

Yeah, that's a classification of expenditures that have occurred this year. I'm not sure about how that would be classified.

So for example, we've got the MBU building that was purchased for 4.5 million, 4.6 million. Would that have classified into planning and infrastructure, or would that have been business and recruitment and expansion?

Well, since it's, well, it's not reflected in here because that was done at least a couple of years ago. It would be held in a, and probably in planning and infrastructure until it was transferred, if it transferred to a private party.

Okay.

So that's, if it would still be retained by the city, then it would be categorized not necessarily as a business recruitment expansion incentive.

Because that becomes an incentive.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Seeing no others, we will close public comment. We'll entertain a motion from the board.

Make a motion. Approve the services contract. I'll second.

I have a motion from Director Elrod and a second from Director Hammond. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Passes unanimously. Item C, discussion of possible action to reschedule the September 2026 New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation board meeting. Sorry, I can't speak this evening. So community events, I know we need to look at other dates.

Thank you.

Personally, both those dates are pretty tough for me, but I can probably work. I'm going to need a little bit of time to rework some stuff, and I guess we need some input from other people as well. I can do either one. That's fine. Okay. And the... Okay, can I get back with you? Do we have to have an answer this evening?

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, let's do that just because I need to rework my schedule a little bit because I'd like to be here. Okay. Item D, presentation and discussion on a proposed project expenditure of the acquisition of 6.7 acres on Green Road. Mr. Jewell.

Thank you. Jeff Jewell, Economic and Community Development Director. What we're going to be talking about tonight is the proposal to acquire some property adjacent to existing owned economic development corporation property that we commonly referred to as Green 16. The Green 16 property is this property that's highlighted in the red salmon pink color. And then the property that we're discussing tonight for a potential acquisition is the property of the five parcels that are highlighted, that are encircled, squared out, I guess, by the dark rectangle there, and then in a tan color. But we're gonna be discussing the property, a little bit of context and history around it, why the properties advance the strategic development process that has been in discussion by this board really for years now. Acquisition of the property does not mean approval of a development plan. I'll talk about that. But first, I kinda wanted to talk about a little bit of the background objectives and proposed next steps. The acquisition of the additional parcels that is being discussed tonight, from our perspective, fulfills three out of the four priorities that the Economic Development Corporation adopted through its last strategic planning process. It makes thoughtful investments in planning and infrastructure. Any future projects there can truly enhance the New Braunfels Quality of Life sense of place, as well as offer significant platform for continued economic development opportunities. If you look to the various strategic plans that are really focused on our economic development efforts, Confluence, which is the kind of community-based economic development strategic plan, talks about executing proactive land use and development strategies. Because while other communities must stimulate growth, New Braunfels is afforded the opportunity to guide and steer the growth that is coming to it. And so really what this means is that if new developments are gonna come online, that they should align with the community's vision and be thoughtful and that the community can take a little bit of a more proactive effort in guiding that development versus taking necessarily what the market will deliver. In the strategic plan from 2024, the city's particular, it talks about supporting confluence and helping to ensure that the community continues to support targeted industries and increases the diversity of job opportunities. And again, talking about, again, in our own strategic plan about the incentivizing mixed use developments in targeted locations to create a built environment with integrated housing, commercial centers and opportunities for improved activity. Now, when we talk about strategic development, what that means is that that's when the public sector, the community, has a say beyond what traditional entitlement processes and existing codes and rules about the future direction of a property's development and what ultimately becomes of it. New Braunfels is in a unique place in this particular instance. and I'll talk about how the property was acquired and what the opportunities are going forward. But I kind of wanted to outline some of the benefits and outline, I think, in pretty clear terms what the opportunities and the options for the Economic Development Corporation are. This board has been in a process in collaboration with the city council to talk about the future of what these sites mean for the community. And so by going through a strategic development process, the city, the EDCs retain the ability to negotiate design and public benefits that it may wanna see. There's an opportunity for public engagement and for the public to influence the outcomes of the project. The city also retains leverage during negotiations when it has a particular vision and has ownership. It is potentially longer and more complex versus kind of the other option, which is the options on the right, which is a conventional property sale, which is a legitimate, completely legitimate policy option, but it does have those trade-offs. Just a little bit of background and history about this project in particular. The property that's being pointed at by this arrow here, which is the original Green 16 property, was acquired on behalf of HD Supply for a planned expansion that they had communicated that they were interested in pursuing. 10 years ago and even still today, the fiscal impact of HD supply in this community was significant enough at the time to pursue acquisition of the site. Keeping them in the community, they provide a significant amount of the community sales tax revenue. So keeping them in the community and having an option for them to expand on site was kind of determined to be in the best interests. And so the site was locked up and controlled by the EDC to allow and to accommodate for any future expansion for HD supply. Years passed, COVID happened, some administrative sales tax rules at the state changed. HD Supply went through various acquisitions, spinoffs, etc. They ultimately decided that they would not be physically expanding their footprint anymore. So at that time, the EDC and the city council really had a choice. Okay, what do you do with this property? What do you do with the 16 acres? Do you sell it? You could put it out on the market. It's platted right now probably as an RV park. That was what the previous use was gonna be before the EDC acquired it. So you can put it back on the market and sell it and see what happens, or you can direct its development for the community's benefit. Well, the EDC and city council chose the latter. which was how can we create a vision for the future of the property and how can it benefit New Braunfels? Because it was recognized at the time that the opportunity was unique given its location and its size. It needed to be high value that aligned with New Braunfels' character. It should probably have a job creation focus as well as community amenities. So in those conversations between the EDC and the city council, three general concepts emerged. These were kind of, we characterized them basically as visitation, creativity, and local focus. Different proposed uses that could maybe work there. They were just kind of planning level exercises that looked at kind of the macro context in New Braunfels and said these could be what the opportunities are. So in the summer of 2024, the planning project kind of moved into its second phase to say, okay, if you were gonna start to do any of these proposed uses, how could you fit them? What are the financial feasibility options of them, and how would it continue to work? During that process, it identified the addition of those five adjacent parcels to expand flexibility and opportunity for the project going forward. Last May, the EDC approved expenditure to enter into a purchase contract for the front parcels for a nine month period. In the fall of 2025, the EDC solicited qualifications and concept proposals of certain development teams. That project and the solicitation was put on pause for two reasons. One, the city and the EDC needed to resolve this potential acquisition question of the adjacent property, which materially affects the overall potential for the project in the way that it's gonna be planned. And also we recognize that before advancing towards a meaningful development proposal, that there needed to be a public process to kind of further test, refine, and get buy-in around whatever potential project was gonna be there in the future. The purchase contract that was entered into last May is for $4.6 million. This is supported by an appraisal that was undertaken in March of last year that suggested an appraised value of 4.37. The EDC's approved $100,000 that has been held in escrow while this feasibility period has been underway. And so really there are three options that you all are discussing, which is you can cancel the contract and not move forward with the acquisition of the property. You can exercise, you have one more extension that would take the purchase decision out to January of 2027, or you could initiate the purchase. Initiating the purchase of course means coming back at a future meeting with a public hearing, postings and then a recommendation to the city council who would then consider that at a later date. But optionality has value. The land acquisition preserves and expands an opportunity that has been identified. The city has a strategic interest, we think, in however this property is going to be developed. So if the city's gonna undertake a process to refine and mold the, and meaningfully respond to public input about the future of the property, having additional land as identified in these five acres lets the city do that. So what's next? The immediate next step is the acquisition of adjacent parcels. So if directed, there would be a public hearing discussion in September, whenever that September meeting ends up being scheduled, with city council action slated for October. If the acquisition moves forward, then we would move forward with an exclusive negotiation agreement, probably in the fall sometime. This is an agreement that grants a prospective buyer, in this case, a development group the exclusive right to purchase or lease a property for the specified period of time but it establishes expectations around due diligence public engagement other responsibilities and then at some point we're thinking maybe the spring of 2027 there would be an actual development plan that would be proposed with timelines and commitments moving forward So again, just to wrap, you all can extend the feasibility period to January 2027. You can end the contract or move towards acquisition in September with city council action in October. With that, I'll answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Jewell. So obviously we're not, just to reiterate, we are not voting on this this evening. We are just saying the next step we would like to take and then a vote will happen later and then it'll go to council for two readings before it's actually approved because we are an advisory board to council. Questions from the board?

We're making the decision tonight to either extend or make the purchase.

We're giving direction. We're not voting, correct? Thank you.

I mean, I think it's, are we giving our opinions now? Yeah, absolutely. We're going to have a public comment first. We get so few opportunities like this. You know, we've already made such an investment, and obviously the land we already own is worth way more than what we bought it for. To me, this protects that initial investment because it just rounds out the property from a real estate perspective, adds to what we're already doing, and we have a lot more control over what happens. So, I mean, I'm for it.

I agree and that only adds value to what we currently have.

I agree with you. We're lucky that I think none of us here were on the EDC at that time when that land was purchased and the equity there is probably significant so that it was a great investment and I think adding to it will be very good. I mean, if the other option is put it on the market and someone comes and puts an RV park in, I mean, that's, I don't think any of the neighbors would appreciate that. I think there's other communities that do a lot of land banking for development, for incentivizing businesses, not development. And New Braunfels just hasn't had the land to do that. And I think this is something where the city with citizens input can control what's actually developed there and not just a developer, what's gonna make him the most money.

Yeah, I have a little concern about being a real estate investor here or developer. But I do think if we, I think we can have some control over what happens and maybe be a better neighbor for the neighbors that are there. So I certainly think we should extend And I do question Mr. Jewell, so it could be an RV park now, right? If that land were just to be sold. What's its own, what other uses could that be as is? What we currently own?

Property is currently zoned C1B zoning. It has a particular zoning ordinance on it today. It has a pretty wide variety of uses that are attached to both the Green 16 property and the adjacent five parcels.

Is the adjacent parcel zone the same?

Yes. Yes, yeah, they're the same zoning.

When we do get ready to sell this, we can deed restrict it. Yeah, that's part of us having more control.

And actually we've done that with the NBU property downtown. NBU came to the city many years ago and said, maybe it was another building, but there's an overlay over it so it controls what can be developed there. So something, a development overlay can be done to restrict what can be done there.

Yeah, I think we set the parameters of what we want it to look like.

Hopefully council does.

Yes, we make a recommendation to council and they do. Well, I just think we have some more work to do and we should extend the option period.

Extend or move forward with it and send it to council.

I don't think I'd recommend buying it at this moment. I think I would, isn't one of the options to extend the option period?

Yes, the board has one more extension that would take it through the beginning of 2027.

I'd be in favor of moving forward with the purchase and presenting it and voting on it next month and sending it to council for their approval. So extend it and then vote that one. When is the current option period up?

It ends October 22nd. October 22nd.

So September meeting, if we're not ready to move, we could do the extension at that point.

That is true. You all just would need to make a decision about what to do by probably that special call or September meeting in order to meet the deadline.

I'm fine with extending it. I think I'd be fine with moving forward to purchase it, but. And then we'll have probably a fuller meeting next time. The money for the extension goes towards the purchase price, correct?

Yes.

So we're not throwing money.

Oh, no, wait. I think for these extensions, no. No, the extensions are $5,000 per 90 days, and they do not get applied to the purchase price.

Okay, so we're not talking large or something money.

Yeah. Okay, so we go to September meeting, I think is the consensus?

I think so. I mean, mentioned extension yet, but I think if we can, in September, if we can get, if we can move forward with the purchase in September and send it to council, and if it's not ready, then I don't know why it wouldn't be, then we could extend it at that point. We've been talking about this for a while and we can move the ball forward here instead of just kicking the can again.

What action are we taking tonight?

You're all providing direction around what to do next.

We're not voting on whether we want to move forward with the purchase.

No.

It's either cancel it, extend, or proceed to purchase. I mean, I guess let's extend and then September meeting. Yeah, because if we do an extension, then we'll have till January. That's correct. And then we can move it to October and then November. If we approve it in October, then it'll go to council in November.

That's correct.

Correct.

All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jewell. Item seven, advisory team report. Presentation and discussion on the quarterly advisory report.

Public comment.

No.

Did we do public comment?

We typically do not do public comment unless we're voting on an item, but if we have somebody who would like to speak, that's... We did not make an official vote, no ma'am. By all means, let's have a couple people talk. I'll open it up for public comment.

Tiffany Kelly, District 4 resident. I live very close to Green 16. So this item is very near to my heart. I've done some research. And the city would be paying $686,000 per acre. And I believe that the current negotiation was done in, what, 2024?

2025.

2025. We all know that our land value has gone down slightly from what it was during the boom years. We're still in the boom years, but we're waning a little bit on those boom years. So I would ask for consideration to be, could we go back and renegotiate that price? with the sellers before we make that extension? Because the market has changed in the last 12, 18 months, and can we take advantage and have a little bit of a cost savings there?

That's something to consider. I will say typically commercial real estate, and Director Elrod can correct me on this, is not on a project like this, in-city isn't looking at per acre. It's more of linear foot frontage.

Is that correct? So, and we've, I'm sure we've had MAI appraised, but... The appraisal's done. It's set. I would say from 25 to 26, it's been pretty stable. I don't know. I mean, from what I'm seeing, it's been pretty stable since we negotiated the price.

I mean, based on what I've researched, it looks to be about 30% over market from some of the initial, you know,

Yeah.

So I would just ask that the EDC would take a deeper dive on this and look at how we can possibly save some money.

Are you in favor of what we're doing?

I am. Especially after I bought in 24. So I am in favor of it, especially after hearing that it was an RV park. I'm like, oh, my Lord. So I'm grateful for the city for acquiring the first parcel of of that for the expansion of HD Supply. But now, we're in a position to repurpose that HD Supply buffer land there, and also these almost seven acres there. I know there are two residents on that, on those, seven acres, roughly. So, you know, those would be rezoned, of course, and probably already are as commercial. But I just think if there's room for negotiation, why just go in and say, okay, we negotiated last year. Why not try to get a little bit better deal for the citizens?

I agree with you. We can ask our real estate... staff member to look into that, but also we are under contract, so that may, it might be a tough sell there, because there is currently a contract in place, but I will definitely have staff look into that.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Thank you for letting us come up. Quick question and then an observation. Is that, let's see, it looked like about five or six individual pieces. Is it one property owner or is it several?

It's a couple of different property owners, but they're all related and represented by one representative.

Are they individuals or LLCs? They're individuals. Individuals, okay. We've had this land for 10 years, invested money in it, I don't know how much, that's not in money that could be turned for city services. It's taken off the tax rolls, and to me, it is not a very good use of money. because we don't like RV parks and we think something better needs to be there. I don't understand this level of planning. To me, it just makes absolutely no sense. If somebody's gonna put something in there that won't pass zoning or whatever, then we have a process for that. But I think this is going above and beyond what makes sense. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Just the original purchase price of the 16 acres was three and a half million dollars. Three and a half million dollars back in 2016.

The property had an ag exemption before, so it really wasn't generating any property tax revenue. And then once we get a project on board, then it will be back on the rolls at a much higher value, is that correct? And that was one of the objectives of trying to see that the property was developed in a way that was beneficial to the community. And as we know, and worth reiterating, commercial development tends to pay much higher property tax and subsidizes residential with a far less burden on city services.

Mr. King. Yeah, I'm agnostic to what gets built in green by private funds. I'm kind of agnostic in general to what the private market wants to do with their own properties. As long as there aren't horrific consequences for the next door neighbor, I wouldn't want to have somebody build a jackhammer plant right next to my house. Most people wouldn't. But apart from those kind of things, I think the people who own things ought to be able to do what they want to do with it. Where I do have a problem is when the government gets involved and starts making determinations. So I think what Jeff just said was that we spent $3.5 million 10 years ago thinking that we were going to, I don't know if the answer was flip it, sell it, or invest it.

The original plan was HD Supply was going to expand there.

They were gonna pay us back for?

Well, it was gonna be an incentive to HD Supply, because they would have increased our sales tax revenue with them, which they are our highest sales tax payer in the city.

Okay, so our return on that investment would have been higher sales taxes? Correct. Okay, but that didn't work out. In business retention, yes. Right, that didn't work out. So as a result, we've had $3.5 million on the books as a non, as what, I'm a former banker, what we would call a non-performing asset. And now we're gonna one of the reasons we're gonna spend four point six million more is to protect our three point five Which is a it's called the dry hole fallacy in the oil and gas business, right? so You know pouring good money after bad. I'm not saying this is gonna be a loss I'm sure it's you know over ten years property values have gone up and I'm concerned about though whether we are setting the precedent that the city of New Braunfels has a significant amount of its capital, of its taxpayer money invested in land speculation. And this isn't the only place where we're doing it. And I know you want to say, well, it's only the property taxes. But we just saw that the debts of the EDC are backed up by the full faith and credit of the city. So it really is the taxpayers. If we're going to drain our fund by another $4.6 million, okay, that won't be available to pay back those loans, that increases the risk to the taxpayers. So I think you have to consider the risk to the taxpayers of the city getting this involved in land speculative deals, and that's my only point. Thank you.

Debbie Flume, back in 1995, this was originally sold to the voters to increase the sales tax by this percentage, that it was gonna fix our streets and our drainage. And that's not what's happening. Why would you purchase this land at 4.6 million if it only appraised at 4.3 million? It's a question.

When the city goes out to acquire properties, it does typically, well, it'll always have an appraisal and tries to strike an agreement within a reasonable value of what the appraised price has. So we felt that 4.6 relative to 4.37 was within those reasonable amounts.

So the appraisal's an independent... opinion of the value at that time. And if you were to get another one a couple months later, you would assume it's gonna be different.

It's gonna be different. It's gonna be different if we have it done today. Perfect.

Well, that still makes no sense, but if you paid 3.5 million for 16 acres and you're saying they could put an RV park on there, I don't think anybody in their right mind would do that because the numbers wouldn't pan out.

I've heard RV parks are cash cows.

Well, but the land value is very high. They just built a super nice one in Rockport. It's fabulous. But they didn't pay near this for the land. And to be honest, I'd rather see the super nice RV park that they have down there, over there, instead of a convention center. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Swim.

Sorry, President. Just really quick. I heard you say that this would be the community input, that there would be community input because you wanted to do what the community wants. How is a community able to input when we don't know what you're going to do with it already? You guys have said that you had intentions. So there obviously is something planned without community input.

There's nothing planned.

Well, we saw there was the visitation.

Let me kind of clarify on that. There is a preferred concept for that site, but that is much different than a plan. And so the idea was work on the concepts, bring it, and present those once you knew whether you controlled the parcels or not, and let the public provide its input on that and what the future of that site could look like. But there is no development plan right now. It's just ideas around what can be done. And ideas are just those things on paper, but you have to go through a lot of feasibility and due diligence in order to make that thing a reality.

Okay, and I hear you saying that, but we've also seen a lot of the infrastructure building for future plans that the community hasn't had input in. So I'm just questioning whether that's going to happen in this case as well.

Which specifically are you saying?

Castell.

South Castell? There was a lot of public input back on that in 2017.

Right, but you've got a very different, we've seen the growth of the community over the years, and if you look at Facebook or if you go to meetings, you're hearing different opinions. Has the community been pooled to see whether that's still what they desired?

Well, if there's any advancement of the Castell project, I would think that we would go back out with, new and updated concepts just because that plan at this point, yeah, you're right, is eight years old from a public input perspective. But there's really been no movement on development of the sites. The only movement that has been is been making drainage and street upgrades.

Yeah, there's been no movement on that project, as Mr. Jewell said, so there's been nothing happening behind the scenes, as people might allude to, but it's at Fragmire currently.

That's because you hear the comments, and even tonight I've heard it kind of contradict, and so that's why I posed the question, because just the phrasing, it sounds as if there is some intentions.

I'll be sure to be more clear with our communication. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. All right, seeing no others, we will close public comment. And then we move on to item seven, advisory team report. Presentation and discussion of quarterly advisory report. Mr. Packer.

Good evening, board. So I'm gonna present a report a little bit more of an editorial version of our advisory report this quarter. As a reminder, this advisory report is something that is a component of the Chamber's contract with the EDC and the city. We provide this report to city council. We also provide it to other partners that fund our work, such as Comal County. I want to start by kind of pausing a bit to talk about what I view as what we're trying to accomplish. Jeff mentioned earlier when he was discussing a project that the tremendous privilege we have to guide things in a strategic way. With growth, you have choice. With growth, you have choice on shape. With the project you just discussed, there's options for both you, city council, the community, and others to see where that goes. And for us, it always starts at trying to align community economy and development Community and economy without development means nothing gets done. Development without the other two means it doesn't reflect things that benefit people, either residents, people that want a job, or businesses. So that guides how we focus on this, and our plan has six strategic priorities. We are greatly appreciative of y'all's funding to get this done. So what I want to do is kind of go through some activity over the last quarter under each of those six priorities. And today I'm gonna weave a little bit in and out on projects and initiatives that y'all directly fund and other things that may be tangential that I think are really helpful for understanding the work being done and I'll try to be clear when it's something that you're not funding. So in terms of jobs, you'll see here that a big focus of ours is that we need more high quality, high paying, high skilled jobs that align with the skill set of our residents. One data point that I like to use, I believe the time gap was 2014 to 2019. The percentage of our population with a bachelor's degree increased by 10% during that five year time period. And so we've been laser-focused on high-skill, high-wage jobs. The discussion about HD supply I think is, well, I think there's two trends at play there, why they're not expanding their facilities. I do think that remote workforce and all of those things has certainly allowed them to grow and contribute more to sales tax without growing the facility. But I also think that back office jobs aren't as much of a match for our community as they may have been when that facility was originally built. So that's why we focus on the high scale. That does not always mean you need a PhD. That could mean advanced manufacturing or any of those things. So in the last quarter we received 81, well actually I'm gonna pause before I say that. We met with 17 local companies through our business retention efforts. Those are exhaustive two-hour meetings where we're asking them how the workforce is going. We're seeing what issues we can help them solve because we know that we're going to create more jobs with our existing companies. So that's always the foundation. In terms of recruitment, we received 81 job creation leads last quarter 84 of those were in manufacturing that's been a trend of the last several years of those 81 leads 19 of those became projects that we work on for us a project is defined as a follow-up conversation i want to spend a little bit of time going through why we disqualify a lead Oftentimes we wanna qualify for a LEED, but maybe we don't have the real estate that allows us to do so. But just as often we disqualify a LEED because it doesn't meet the community's wishes or needs. I'll give you a prime example of that. If we get a LEED that's an extremely high water user, we don't take it to the next step. We know that living on a fault line with limited access to aquifers mean we're just not the right fit for a certain type of industry. But we did qualify almost 25% of those leads in the quarter. Our second priority is competitive office and industrial spaces. I think it's important to note that this always falls in line with the jobs you're trying to recruit. So in the last quarter we commissioned a site readiness project where we're taking five sites and we're trying to establish what the critical path is to get the the appropriate utilities and other infrastructure so those sites can be competitive for the jobs that match the skill sets of our residents. So that was a project we funded and commissioned this last quarter. Workforce, very proud of a lot of the items we're doing in workforce. I'll list a couple of the things that happened last quarter. We hired a program director for our Early Matters New Braunfels. That's a childcare initiative that the city funds partially. We completed a job fair at the food bank with 160 job seekers and 22 employers. We also completed a regional job fair with 212 seekers and 34 employers. One thing I do want to point out is that the Braunfels Foundation Trust is a foundation affiliate of the Chamber. This is all private fundraising. No city resources go to this, but we did award $5,500, $2,500 scholarships for people to go to two-year technical programs. So that's $137,500 committed to filling those jobs of the future. So very proud of the work of the Braunfels Foundation Trust. Our, I'm going to go a little out of order. Our improved mobility and transportation options, this is a, the work y'all do funding incremental important projects is so critical. So just recently TxDOT released what's called their 10-year unified transportation plan. And despite my opinion that State Highway 46 should have been in that 10-year plan, it was not. State Highway 46 is, I can't think of a more important project, but it's really not one project. It's a corridor of connected projects. involving more than New Braunfels, involving more than Seguin, both counties. And so we've convened a State Highway 46 task force. We do have Councilmember Mike Capizzi serves on that task force. We've also had other council participation in that group. They had a meeting this last week with Brendan Wheeler, who's chair of AMPO, and he shared some things that I think are really important to consider. TxDOT should be providing environmental clearance for several components of this project later in the year, but there's also all of these really complicated air quality conformity with the federal government. I say this not to even pretend like I know what I'm talking about, but I say this to say that when you've got an over billion dollar, over 10 year project that's critical to the economy, people getting to jobs, schools, it is really complicated. And if we expect the tech stock gods to drop a billion dollar project just because we're nice guys, I think we're gonna be misled. So the things the city is doing, including studying a river crossing, you've seen the projects at Seguin's ETJ, those connectivity over to, I think it's 121, a lot of traffic cones, but all of those projects are critically important to get State Highway 46 in a position that it can be funded. So, you know, Brendan with AMPO encouraged us to continue doing the work we're doing, to continue being directly knowledgeable, to continue on all cities and all counties pursuing projects that make that project more fundable. And so it's complicated, it's our top priority. Related to that, we're creating a lot of data-driven briefing materials and you can expect us to be extremely active at the Capitol next year. Sometimes progress comes and well, one good thing and one funny thing to me, The good thing is that Senator Campbell in the last few months has been extremely clear that her top priority for her district from TxDOT is State Highway 46 between I-35 and I-10. I think that didn't come with a big check, but that comes with momentum. I did also hear that an event in San Antonio, San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz-Jones accidentally advocated for State Highway 46, but we'll take it. So we're grateful to the Mayor of San Antonio as well. I do wanna say that we're hosting city leadership. We've purchased a table at the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, has a state of TxDOT district luncheon on September 18th. We also recently held a couple of events focused on TxDOT leadership. But what you can count on with us is we're gonna keep pounding the drum. There's a million very important transportation projects. State Highway 46 is at the top, and expensive and important. Okay, so moving on to support the success of startups, we're looking forward to the opportunity to discuss the generator proposal with council next month. Ultimately, there's a lot of paths to support entrepreneurs in this community. SPARC's done a good job at providing that open access, no barriers to entry business counseling. We're big advocates for that project. Council has a choice on whether that's the path they want to pursue. At the chamber, we are planning to launch soon an online academy for small business. We're doing several things in addition to that with the vision that New Braunfels is the best place to start and continually operate a business in the community. Finally, on this issue of land use, this can be a little bit abstract sometime, but back to this point of being at a tremendous opportunity as a community nurture the right projects that add the right value one of the things we're doing at the capital next year is we're we're funding a lobbyist contract to get what's called a qualified hotel project designation so that should the convention center redevelop with the hotel adjacent to it at a later date that would allow state hotel occupancy and sales tax dollars to be invested and not local dollars so So we think that's a good thing that gives the city financial flexibility should that be something that happens in the future. Finally, we did have a great luncheon recently. It was our State of Education. And if any of you were able to attend, we're grateful for your attendance. Representative Schoolcraft joined us and he provided an update on last year's legislative session. But specifically as it relates to education and more specifically as it relates to the task force on governance and early childhood education and care. This task force was created through House Bill CEP 117, which Schoolcraft authored and was also sponsored by our Senator Donna Campbell. It's encouraging to see that our local delegation is taking leadership roles on issues that will shape the future of our community. Childcare is very important. You may also know that Senator Campbell was recently appointed chair of the Senate Education Committee. She was unable to attend, but she did send her The director of the Senate Education Committee, Steven Santoyo, provided remarks. We also heard an update from both Dr. Arterbury and Dr. Chapman on the great things happening in public education. So I will pause there and answer any questions about any of the work being done. I hope you, thanks for indulging me, kind of broadening this and being a little more specific today.

Mr. Packer, any questions? Okay, and so you're gonna move on to your advisory report next?

No, this was my advisory report. Okay. Certainly if there's any questions on economic indicators or any of those things that I didn't cover, happy to answer them.

The only question I have is, you play a part in this and maybe staff will chime in as well. for punishment and watched some of the council meeting a couple weeks ago and a lady had asked about why we do code names for our projects. I've been on council, I've been on the EDC for a few years now. Can we talk about why we, that specifically why we do code names on projects?

Well, so I mentioned that we get leads and we convert them to projects and we name them at that time. Often you may be competing against 500 other communities. You don't really ever know. In order to gain traction in those discussions, they need to trust that you can have a conversation and confidence.

And this is allowed by state law?

This is protected by state law. Additionally, and you guys have seen these projects, sometimes we meet with you or council and it does not sound like a good project and we go back and we tell them that. So sometimes those things stop in their tracks.

That happens more than the other way.

Yeah, I think ultimately, and the reason the state protects this is because they know that If Texas is going to be a state that attracts the right investment, that generates the right jobs in the future, business needs to be confident that they can go through those early diligent phases in an environment of trust. So no decisions get made, no financial offers get finalized without that project becoming public at that time.

The one that pops in my mind is Lefkoe. We had a code name for that. I already can't remember what it was. We were talking about executive session. And by the way, in executive session, we have city attorney making sure that we do not veer in areas that we're not supposed to veer. It has to be on the agenda. But then once it comes up here for the public vote, that's when the name is released. We don't vote with code names. It is who we are partnering with.

Correct. And when you guys signed up for this, you took training that told you the penalties for doing otherwise.

Yes. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Okay. On to good segue right into executive session. In accordance 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 in accordance with section 551.087 of the Texas government code. One, green 16. Two, project shoot. Three, project thread. Four, project CASA. Five, project Sherpa. And we will adjourn into executive session at 619. Okay, we are back from executive session at 6.50 p.m. with no action or vote taking place. And with that, we are adjourned.