Economic Development Corp. - Regular Meeting

Corporation meeting on September 15th, 2026 at 5 p.m. Can I get a roll call?

Don Austin.

Here.

Kristen Cardin.

Here.

Tara Thompson.

Here.

Larry Hammonds.

Here. President Hines. Here. Thank you, Mr. Packer. Approval of the minutes. Approval of the August 13, 2026 regular meeting minutes. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. I have a motion from Director Cardin and a second from Director Austin. All those in favor? Aye. And the minutes are approved unanimously. Item four, citizens communication. This is a time for citizens to address this board on issues and items of concerns not on this agenda. There will be no board action at this time.

David Warmke, District 5. I've got some brief comments for you, and they'll probably make all of you uncomfortable, but they're a view that I've been looking at for a while and honing. We just went through a budget process, $120 million for general fund. The property tax amount of that is about $30 million. If you look at funds diverted from the general fund through TERS and through 4B, TERS is about 2.6 million, and that's property tax dollars, and TERS and 4B is about 12 million sales tax dollars. You add those up, that's $15 million. That is 50% of the property tax that we collect each year. So if we didn't divert anything, our property tax rate, instead of being 41 cents, would be 20. It's a very large amount of money that y'all are handling, and it's growing. Sales tax is growing at a bigger and bigger percent of the city income. I had an annual report and an application for funding the city of Payne for services last night at city council. 26th annual report, incomplete, sloppy. There are a couple items on there, airport forgiveness, property transfer to Worth and Associates with no dollars amount on there. There's no dollars total ever added up. It's just sort of a general things thrown together. It's very incomplete. Performance numbers, there's a performance numbers in the back from 2024. not from 2025. So that was given as justification for y'all's contract for services with the city, $460,000 roughly. For an organization that's moving $12 million as a nonprofit, that is an incredibly good number. That's 4%. Most nonprofits, Charity Navigators rates the effective good nonprofit as having 20% or less. That's an incredibly small number. And I think that number really needs to be justified. And I think you really need to look at trimming your stake. And I think 50% of sales tax would be a good place to start out. He'll do some things that are good, and it's mostly private income, some for public. But 100% openness in reporting. Y'all's reporting is very sloppy, very hard to really find the bottom line. And that appears to be intentional. There appears to be no reason something would slide through that bad. And then when it comes to justifying the real impact of what y'all do. We need a real report that's not smoke and mirrors. And that's probably almost impossible to do. But you really need to justify where you're spending some of the money. Like the airport forgiveness thing was just seemingly unneeded. You know, funds that have been spent before on Brontex, two and a half million dollars for a sound system. seemingly way excessive compared to what our real needs are. Thank you for listening. God bless you.

Thank you, Mr. Warren. Any others for citizens' communication? Seeing none, we will close citizens' communication. Treasurer's report. Mr. Warner.

President Hines, members of the board. Let's start off as we typically do with the latest sales tax data. As you can see, the June numbers were quite positive. Overall sales tax growth of 28.8%. However, we have several months left to go where we're gonna report kind of the gross figures as well as net of HD supply. So when comparing current to current, well, let me back up a little bit, but 28.8% growth overall, removing AT Supply 11.3% of the overall payment. And then as you know, every month the Comptroller makes a variety of adjustments to that payment. So we kind of look at the current to current figures. That's the second set of numbers in your report. So that's 29.4% when comparing current to current, but then 11.6% without HD supply. So very strong growth for what is one of the most important months of the year, all right? seasonal sales tax considerations, certainly for the months of June and July. So these are two very important months. Speaking of those July figures, while not reflected in the graph, I do have some information to report. Again, current to current, July numbers were up 32.4%, and net of HD supply, 7.3%. So again, very strong growth for, I would say, really our two most important months of the fiscal year as it relates to sales taxes. Again, as we do every single month, your revenue projections are updated through fiscal year 2030 and included there on the screen for you. Again, every single month, our finance team coordinates with the economic and community development team, make sure that we are capturing your current commitments and the projected outlay of those commitments from fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 2030. As a reminder, how we define a current commitment is any expenditure that has been approved by the EDC and city council, right? not necessarily any projects that are under consideration. So it's true commitments that have been approved by city council and the EDC. And your report includes some of the adjustments that were made due to timing considerations. as we now include in your report every single month. This shows you your project by project projected expenditures. Again, we take a very conservative approach on that. I referred earlier to the discussion that our finance and economic and community development team have. Again, they don't shift those expenditures to the next fiscal year until they have absolute certainty. Again, so towards the end of this fiscal year, which is coming up here in the next couple weeks, continue to have those conversations and make those adjustments on your subsequent treasury reports. And again, this graph really ties together your revenues, your expenditures, and your changes in fund balance. As you're evaluating expenditures this evening, what I always say is good to refer to this graph specifically in your current commitment slide as it gives you an idea of how that could affect your future capacity. But again, once and if it's officially approved by the EDC and the city council, it'll be reflected in the report. With that, President Hines, I'll pause for any questions.

I just wanted, wondering if you could go back to that slide that showed all of our current projects, this one right here. I just wanna bring to light how many quality of life projects are available that we've worked on, at least in my tenure here for the last eight years, if I'm not mistaken, as well as our workforce support, planning and infrastructure, that aren't necessarily going to the private sector. So I just wanted to point those out.

Thank you for that. Any other comments or questions? Thank you, Mr. Werner. All right. Now, excuse me. We will go on to individual items. Presentation and discussion on the proposed expenditure to support the Comal River Master Plan.

Good evening, Board. I'm Scott McClun. I'm the Assistant Director of Transportation and Construction Services. Here tonight to just give a presentation, hopefully get some discussion and direction from you all about a potential project that we could look at pursuing. So that project is the Comel River Master Plan. So as is common in presentations to you all, linking this back to your strategic priorities, this project was specifically listed under priority three, enhancing sense of place. But it definitely applies to priorities two and four. So we have those all three circled. And as we go through, I think you'll see how it connects in with all three of those priorities. So again, this is linking out of the strategic priorities. This is a specifically mentioned project in the strategic priority report that you all worked on over the last year. So this project is kind of broadly scoped at this point, which is why we're bringing it So it's really looking to see, as it states there, what we can do to have sustainable recreation, so maintaining what recreation we have right now in the Comal River. We want to do that safely. We want to have it be an enhancement to the quality of life, which fits within your strategic priorities, improving infrastructure, and then also being a steward of what we have here in the Comal River here in New Braunfels. So when we're looking at the Comal River, again, as part of this master plan, it's really a broad approach. So as we're looking at it and talking internally, it's really kind of a system that works together. So there's many departments, so parks and public works through the river division, operate the river, work together on operating the parks that are adjacent to the river area. Police and fire obviously help uh in that operation as well responding to emergencies um in tcs uh we we help with the ada components which we'll talk about some of those as well so as we look at uh this uh we think it's best to look at as a system that it ultimately get ties into other systems that the city has and so that's part of the city's effort as it's spelled out in the city's strategic plan to approach problems or maybe not problems, things like this, systems like this from a collective approach. And so as we were putting this together, we had TCS in the room, Parks in the room, ECD in the room talking about what this project could be. And so trying to use those cross-departmental teams because ultimately this is much more than just some work in the Comal River. And so coming up with a coordinated plan that can maximize the study. So I'm going to go through five plan priorities. And so, like I said, open to discussion on if these meet all of the same priorities that you all have. But these are the ones that we came up with from a staff level of what this Comal River Master Plan could look like. And so the first priority is continuous public realm improvements, which is kind of simply put as the improvements outside of the river. And so thinking about improvements to the parks, so Heman Island, Prince Psalms, the Tube Chute Park, So those parks have facilities that are aging. There's restrooms that need to be replaced. You can see the center picture, there's accessibility issues with accessible routes from the parking down to the river areas, parking in general in the park, how is that done? And so, but also looking at trails, other enhancements that tie into some of the other planned priorities that could be there. And so looking at, again, kind of outside the river in the park areas as a potential priority for the project. So the second one is maybe the most obvious one is improvements in the actual river itself. And so this is an area that's been studied a little bit more than some of the other areas that we'll talk about tonight. So there was a Como River improvements project that was completed just a few years ago that looked at really from Hinman Island down to the San Antonio Bridge. and looking to see what could be done at the tube chute area and then also the Weir Dam. And so I have those graphics. How can we change the flow by making modifications to the dam? How does that affect and give us the flexibility to adjust the flow in the tube chute itself? But then also at the Weir Dam, changing to maybe a more natural looking weir structure that still holds back the water as it's designed to do, but makes it a more friendly user experience, makes it a little bit more aesthetically pleasing. And so that's the rendering on the right side. But then also looking at things like accessible entry and exit points. So you all, a couple years ago, invested in redoing the last Tubers exit. So a component of that was we have an accessible exit out of the river now. To get into the river, we don't have a good accessible entrance. That could go for multiple points as well. So giving access points for users that maybe want to get in at Himon Island, but they don't want to go down the tube chute. So giving a good access point out, or the same as the Weir Dam. And so the other component in the river that we've talked about assessing is the river walls. So again, as infrastructure exists, that's a harsh environment. That's just infrastructure that we need to look at to make sure that those walls are stable along the banks so that then we're not having any failures there. And then finally, the emergency response. So making sure that there's good paths, both tying in the last priority and this one, to get emergency response into the river as needed. So the third priority is stronger connection to downtown and adjacent districts. So this one, we created this map. The EDC has been involved in almost every one of these projects that's shown on this map, but this map is intended to show the connectivity that we're trying to promote in the core downtown area. So these are sidewalk projects, trail projects, but those are all kind of central around downtown. We're trying to enhance the connectivity out to other areas that are a little further out through some of these projects. But ultimately, we think that the area around the Comal River around Prince Holmes, Hinman Island, the Tube Shoot area, could create easy linkages to improvements that we're hoping to do at some point on Castell or just downtown in general. The West End that you all are working on investing in, even Land O' Park, Wurst Fest, there's lots of things going on around there. And so how can we plan out how people would get from one of these destinations down to the Comal River area? The fourth one is really trying to have a goal and a priority to make the Comal River area a year-round attraction. And so obviously, if you go down there on a Saturday in June, it looks very different than a Saturday in January. And that's because mostly what it's focused on is the tubing recreation, which is obviously nothing wrong with that. We're also not fully utilizing the asset of the Comal River going right by our downtown, which we feel like is an opportunity to add things to the park area. So utilizing Hinman Island, Prince Psalms, there's lots of area that the city already has control over in the area for passive recreation. If someone is attending events like I have posted here, that there's a way for them to go also walk down to the river and enjoy a trail, or if it's opportunities for art, that type of thing, but really making it more of a year-round attraction, really, to coincide with many of the events that the city has that are outside of the tubing system. tubing season, it really makes it a more fully utilized asset for the city. And then the final priority that we identified as we were going through was really reinforcing the identity and branding of the river, that there's no doubt that New Braunfels is known for, the Comal River is known for tubing recreation. And that's not a bad thing. And that's something that we can reinforce that this is a picture of through the shoot and all those people. This is the first year that we had to ticket that event because it's so popular. So there's no doubt that there's a brand to be had around the Comel River. And part of looking at this master plan and looking at what enhancements can be made both in the river, in the parks around there, and then linking to downtown and other areas is reinforcing that brand, maybe expanding what that brand looks like to people, again, for more of a year-round thing when they think of the river, but also what they think of when they think of potentially aging infrastructure, which is what we we do have some aging infrastructure infrastructure out there and so getting a plan to to enhance those things helps with the identity and brand of how the city feels about this asset and So, again, these are our ideas and concepts about what this master plan could look like. But based on feedback tonight that we get, our next steps would be developing a request for qualifications to get a professional services firm in to help us do this master plan. And so we have to identify those requirements. Scope elements, which is really derived out of those priorities that we just talked about. Defining the deliverables, and so oftentimes on these master plans we have the deliverable in mind that we want. So whether that's how we want cost estimates, or if we want it in phasing, or if we want it items grouped together in some other way, and so that's something that we can define. Defining the project limits, so like I said, it's kind of a broad subject if we're talking about the Como River system as a whole, but generally what we're kind of focusing on is similar to Those Komal River improvements that were done previously, ending at the San Antonio Bridge and going upstream from there. That's generally the river limits, but all of Prince Holmes Park or him and island or the tube shoot park and then and then beyond from there um is really up to the direction that we receive um and then obviously the the project timeline of of establishing that what are the goals that you'll have to get this um get this completed uh obviously within reason there's big this will be a big effort and so making sure that we have time to to go through there and um get that established but then After we have that, find a consultant, get a scope and fee, then we would be coming back to you all to approve the funding in some future meetings. So with that, happy to answer questions or take feedback on what you all think about the project.

Any discussion from the board?

I was just going to say this is, I mean, obviously I've been familiar with this project for a long time. It's been done in phases, but we've had a lot of feedback from the community over things like our Fowl Street Bridge project or our river parking or, I mean, even going back to the Kanban days, there's been concerns in and around people either wanting to have more access to the river and then us also being able to maintain it and keep it safe for everybody. And so I think this is going to be a really good solution to meet both needs.

Just to be clear, you're gonna go out, RFQ with consultants and then come back with the fee and scope? Yeah. And probably what would happen from there is list of projects and then figure out how to phase them, because obviously we don't want them to do them during summer, so this could be a multi-year process.

Yes, yes, certainly. So yeah, so this initial master plan would just be getting that large view plan. And so then that's, like I said, getting into the deliverables. Do we want them to, at the end of this, have a phased approach that says, you know, this is the master plan. We want it broken into phases. four chunks. We can do that by, like I said, kind of project type. So if we want to do all the work in the river, that's priority one or phase one. Or the other thing is that we could set dollar amounts. So if we want to say, we want it in $10 million chunks, that type of thing. And so those are the things we can work through with the consultant once we get further along. But yes, the next step would be if you all provide us a direction to move forward, we can move forward with getting the RFQ put together to get a consultant selected and then we would kind of go through our normal approval process, give you all an update, get approval on the contracts and the expenditure moving forward from there.

I'd like to make sure that we look at safety issues because there have been times when we've had to tell people that's enough, we can't put more people in the river. And so I think that's a big priority for us. We want to maintain and appreciate what we have here, and so that it'll be available for people in the future.

And I think we kind of started that with the last tubers exit. That was like kind of the beginning of this whole movement. And I think it was done beautifully. Yeah, I think it's gonna if we follow on that same track, it's gonna be a good thing.

And that's part of the benefit of why we have the kind of larger city team is that some of those things like the underwater landing that we did at the last Subaru's exit was an operational thing that was brought up by the team that is in the water on those Saturdays in July when it's crazy. And they say, you know, what would really help is if we had this longer lead out into the river so people actually can get in. get out of their tubes safely on firm ground. And so yeah, it's definitely something we can get together with the group on what can be done to make the whole operation safer.

Speaking of safety, I'm sure they'd have a big look at the tube chute. There's some improvements to how that flows that might make that safer.

Yeah, so like I said, that was a big focus on the previous Como River improvements. And so definitely that project, or with this effort, we wouldn't be starting from scratch. We would be building off of that. And so that was definitely a big consideration. And really, when they were looking at the flows, it was really more of a recommendation to modify how the dams dam works and how much water we can let through the dam to control that flow through the tube chute, more so than the tube chute geometry and flow itself was more of being able to get staff to be able to control the flow through the dam a little bit better and control that flow. But yeah, it's definitely an area of focus.

Do you have what you need from us?

I think so, yeah.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. McClendon. Item B, presentation update on Mayfair Community Development. Mr. Jewell.

Thank you, President Hines. Jeff Jewell, Economic and Community Development Director with the city. As you all know, Mayfair is a master-planned mixed-use development in the city's ETJ. The city entered into a development agreement with them a few years ago, and since then that's been amended a couple of times. We wanted to offer them the opportunity to come and present to you all about the project's continued progress and future investments that they will be making. And so BJ Jones, the CFO for South Star, who is the lead developer on the project, is here to present for you all and answer any questions you all may have. BJ?

Thanks, Jeff, appreciate it. Thank you, Board, for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name's BJ Jones. I'm the Chief Financial Officer at South Star. Mayfair is our crown jewel project. Like you said, in the ETJ, Jason, Tennessee, and New Braunfels, we have a total of 1,900 acres on either side of I-35. Right now, we're developing on the east side with plans to move east to west eventually over the years. We like to say that Mayfair, we're building a town within a town. So we have all different kinds of land use types, residential, for sale, for rent, commercial, retail, restaurant, mixed use, schools, and parks. and in the Agreements that Jeff was referring to we have both the development agreement and then we also have the DDCD which is the Development and design control document that all of the development inside of Mayfair is governed by that we work with the city on for things like sidewalk widths and parks and Inside of the DDCD. There is a strict outline of acreage of parks what type of parks, community parks, pocket parks, et cetera, that we are committed to delivering as the population of Mayfair is built out and as the rooftops come in. So wanna talk a little bit about that. We've got a blank page. Here's an aerial of Mayfair as it existed May 2026. This is a couple months old now. You can see in the foreground, that's Costco, opened this spring, right around this time, May of 2026. So they're about three months in now. Further north, you can see the village at Mayfair, which is a rental product. There's $106. 70-some units in there. Those are for rent units, and then just north of that is a new section that we just opened up with D.R. Horton as the builder. There's 192 lots in that section as well. Further north, you can see the existing community or the existing residential sections that are almost completely built out just to the north of that, and then further north is Mayfair Elementary and then Major Middle School, which is under construction and will be open 2027. So here are some of the statistics I just mentioned. 1,900 total acres, 4,000 total homes. That includes multifamily and single family, like I said, for sale and for rent. 1,456 lots are currently developed or under construction or design right now. There's 35 plus miles of trails throughout Mayfair. That's both on the east side and the west side of 35. with 300 total acres of parks, 2 million square foot of commercial space, 2,000 estimated new jobs in the two schools that I mentioned. So community update. Mayfair Elementary opened last year, so they're in year two. They have a gradual ramp up, I think to around 700 students will eventually be there. Last year they were around 250, and I think they're gradually stepping up. And then major middle school, Kamala S.D. Middle School will open next year. They are under construction right now. They are breezing through. Will definitely be open before next fall. And we're excited for that. It's an impressive facility there. And then I've also listed early childhood prep school. That is a parcel that we sold last year for early childhood slash daycare facility. That parcel is right adjacent to Fairway Park, which is our first public park that we opened in spring of last year also. This was a big summer for us as far as Midtown Mayfair, which is sort of our central hub of commercial and also resident amenities. We opened Midtown Swim Club in July, so that is fully open as of about a month and a half ago. And Celebration Hall, which you can see the picture of below, is opening a pavilion with restrooms. Those restrooms will be open to the public in this summer. connected to our adjacent trail system that goes through the Greenbelt and connects the residential and also the schools and will eventually be 35 plus miles of trails all throughout Mayfair. We have three new parks in design in addition to Fairway Park, which is our first park that we'll talk about here in a minute. A residential we mentioned, eight total builders now. Costco is open. We've sold several other commercial parcels. Last year, we have several under contract that will close before the end of the year this year. Mostly retail and restaurant. I mentioned the early childhood also was part of that. Future retail, dining, gas station along 35 is part of that also. In addition to Costco, we're starting to see other commercial properties spring up. Those commercial properties are sales tax generators, and in the strategic partnership agreement that the EDC has with Comal Wid No. 3, which encompasses all of Mayfair, there is a sales tax sharing provision in there that as these commercial parcels start to come online, a portion of that comes back to the to the WID for approved projects and we think that parks is a great use of those funds both for enhancements to current parks that we're planning on doing and also maintenance operation of those parks into the future Let's see infrastructure promenade trail is just to the east of Costco that will eventually be one of the major north south roads that runs through the east side of Mayfair will connect all the way up to Mayfair Parkway. Mayfair Parkway phase one is under construction right now. You can see it really well coming south on 35. headed towards New Braunfels. That connects 35 Furnage Road to Guthrie, which is the existing north-south road that connects all of these current residential areas. This is the Mayfair Promise. So for every home sold in Mayfair, we are committed to making a donation to the following three entities, Komal Education Foundation, New Braunfels Parks Foundation, and Headwaters of Komal. And so far, we're tens of thousands in donations so far and will be hundreds of thousands throughout the life of Mayfair. All right, so amenities, parks, and open space. Here is a map of our current active phase one trails. You can see Fairway Park, which is off 35. That park is currently open as of last spring. You can see the walking trail that connects this parking lot there to the south that extends all the way back and connects with Parcel E6, which is that residential section you see adjacent. Also currently under development is phase one of the trail that runs through the Greenbelt. You can see between Midtown Mayfair, Mayfair Elementary and the future middle school. So that will be key in connecting the residential areas there to the east, both to Midtown and some of the commercial centers and also to the schools. Let's see. We've got sidewalks, three-mile off-street bike loop to allow safe access to schools, parks, and retail. You can see it there, but there's multi-use purposes for those trails. That's a 10-foot-wide sidewalk, so you can easily have strollers and bikes and walkers all in parallel there, and that runs a three-mile loop up Guthrie Trail, down Mayfair Parkway, and then eventually down Promenade to complete the loop. This is Midtown Mayfair Phase 1. This is where we've been doing a lot of work, like I mentioned, over the summer. You can see the Midtown Swim Club, which is a private amenity for Mayfair residents, and then Celebration Hall, which is the open-air pavilion with the public restrooms that's connected to the trail system with parking. In the middle there, we've got Crescent Park, which right now is open space. We held our last Mayfest there. It was our third Mayfest that we've done, which is a... Sort of a festival that's open to the public. We have music, we have vendors, food trucks, bouncies, that sort of thing. Very successful. We've had, I think, 2,500 people show up this year to that. And then to the south there, that is a two-story building that we're working on now that will house our welcome center and also cafe. The cafe is open to the public. We have identified an operator for the Welcome Cafe. It's Ali's Market, which is out of San Marcos. We couldn't be more excited. We think they're a perfect fit for us. They have coffee, they have breakfast, they have limited fresh produce. So excited for them to come in. Like I said, that's open to the public as well. In the future, we'll have additional commercial pads and possibly another private amenity there. But this is sort of the network and the central part of Mayfair that is all, like I said, trail connected and bike path connected. And we think it's a gathering place for not just Mayfair residents, but for any of our visitors to any of our parks that are open to the public. So parks for everyone, I mentioned the DDCD which outlines the 300 acres of public parks. The three major public parks community parks are Fairway Park, Mayfair Park, and Prairie Park. Fairway Park was the first, Prairie Park to the south in the southeastern corner will be the second, and then eventually as we push east, Mayfair Park will be the third of those to be developed. 16 acres of greenbelt is complete. You can see that in the middle adjacent to the school. And we like to think that every home is within a five minute walk of park space. We have shorter block lengths that have pedestrian cut throughs that connect to the trails also and to the multi-use paths. So easy to walk, easy to bike, either by trail or sidewalk to any of the three community parks. Fairway Park, as I mentioned, opened last spring. There's an 18-hole disc golf course there. And if I can elaborate on that a little bit, there's actually nine shorter holes, nine longer holes. If your kids are anything like mine, they get bored after about three holes. So the shorter holes are a big hit with the kids, and then the longer holes sort of follow the path to the north to connect to Mayfair Parkway. We also have a bike pump track with the repair station and air pump. That's popular with every kid I've ever met. A lot of fun. Play escape, walking trail, like I mentioned, within a short walk of Mayfair Elementary. We are going to be working on phase two starting at the end of this year. We're in design currently, and we'll have a future slide on this too that we'll be able to supplement what's already there with more shade, covered pavilion, and a permanent restroom facility. Right now we have a restroom trailer on site. Another blank. All right, so here are some of the future public amenity concepts. This is Fairway Park phase two that I just mentioned. Restrooms covered shade structure connected to the existing playground. And you can see the layout there. It's adjacent to the parking lot and the pump track is there off to the west. Mayfair Dog Park, we're excited about this one. This one is actually adjacent to a major north-south trail that we have running all the way through Mayfair. It's a 200-foot easement that we have LCRA power lines running through, but we're also going to have a full connected path that connects the park's residential areas, like I mentioned. Mayfair Dog Park, starting in design. Again, we'll start construction probably around the end of the year on this one. Mayfair Pocket Park, I think we have a total of seven pocket parks on the east side alone. All of these parks that I'm mentioning here will eventually be deeded over to the district. We will be supplementing obviously with construction costs, but also with the operation and maintenance until we can get the sales tax generation up and running, and we think that that will help, especially on the operations and maintenance side of all of these parks. Here's a concept for our future Crescent Park. This is in the middle of Midtown Mayfair. I mentioned Mayfest. We think music could be a component here, so we're looking at possibly doing a band shell, some natural playscapes, natural areas here. We'll have the pool adjacent here also with the pavilion and also the inside air-conditioned cafe. So we think we're excited about that one, excited to hold public events here, and this will be open to the public as a public park. And then Prairie Park, which I mentioned is our second community park. This is a much larger facility. We're planning certainly pickleball courts, basketball, tennis courts. We are really interested in doing an accessible type playground here. Again, some natural playscapes, but you can see Prairie Village playground. We have a really interesting concept. for doing sort of a natural playscape that has sort of miniature versions of New Braunfels landmarks on that. So again, it's just in the concept phase, but we're excited about that one. Here's a general cost overview. A lot of these are Rough budgets, but total spend of 18 and a half million between now and 2031 on some of these parks that I mentioned, and then we have Mayfair Park and Future Parks in this number as well. This is on top of the about two and a half million that we've spent to date between Fairway Park and Crescent Park at Midtown Mayfair now. So the SPA agreement. As I mentioned, there's provision in the SPA agreement for type B revenues. 40% or 50% ramps up gradually to be diverted back to the WID. Right now, the only sales check generator that we have at Mayfair is Costco. We will have several more coming on soon. Like I mentioned, the strip retail, quick service, the C store, that will be going vertical here within the next few months, certainly open in 27. Prep school and then some of the commercial adjacent to Costco is currently in leasing and permitting right now. So we anticipate by the end of 27, we'll have a good handful between the cafe and those that I just mentioned of sales checks generators. There is a provision in the SPA agreement that I think it's once four businesses are active, that's when the state of Texas starts reporting that revenue to the EDC and to the city. And so once that happens, we're interested in sitting down with the city and with the EDC to start talking about some of those potential projects and park enhancements. Here is a projection of sales tax generated from Costco to the EDC by year. You can see right now it represents 100%. There's 22 total acres in the Costco parcel. Eventually, there'll be 277 acres of total commercial built out at Mayfair, even though it's... 7 or 8% of the total acreage. It will represent 30%, we think, of the total sales tax just because on a per acre basis, Costco is such a strong sales tax generator compared to some of the other possible uses. So looking at $75,000 or $100,000 in the next few years and then eventually ramping up to $150,000, $200,000 in the out years. This is just a graph of total projected sales tax to the EDC. Now, this is a projection on a projection on a projection, so no promises here, but just to get an idea of the numbers that we're talking about in the next eight to 10 years here, we think that there will be 500,000 to 700,000 in total sales tax generation coming back to the EDC that can be shared with the district. That's all I've got. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any questions, comments from the board?

I just appreciate that. That was a very comprehensive update coming from CFOs, not typical always, but you did a great job and it's great to see the impact. I can see that you thought that through on how it impacts us too. Thanks so much.

Great job. Appreciate it. There's only 14 of us, so we all do a little of everything.

I just want to echo what he said, that there's a lot of great community assets that are being built out there, so thank you for that. Those parks will be a big benefit for that area of town, not just your community, but those in the surrounding areas.

Absolutely, appreciate it. And we look forward to coming back and giving you continual updates as we get further along on some of these.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Item C, discussion and proposed amendment to the contract between the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation and 210 South Castell LLC. Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, President Heinz. Tonight's item is a discussion only. We are, based on the feedback from tonight, we would plan to put this on a future EDC agenda for consideration. Just a little bit about this project and the background. We're talking about the two and a half acres at 210 South Castile that was the producer's co-op feed and supply for nearly 75 years when the co-op Moved out of that project, moved out of that property, new owners purchased the site with plans to rehab it into a mixed use development with public marketplace, retail, food, and civic gathering spaces. The EDC and city council previously approved an incentive for this project to address the public components of the site. more downtown gathering space, public use space in the downtown area. And so that four and a half million dollars is actually broken up in a two-part grant that was, once the project was constructed, they would get a certain amount and then based on sales taxes that were generated, that would be delivered over a period of time. Obviously, the project has not proceeded beyond the initial demolition, and so the project sponsors are requesting an extension to the performance deadlines that are in that contract. The agreement established specific improvements that were to be completed by the end of this year, and so the proposed amendment is a five-year extension performance deadline. So it would basically move everything to be done to 2031. I can let them talk. There are representatives from the development group here, including increasing costs of capital and construction, tenancy challenges, as well as project redesigns that have lengthened the design and permitting process. I want to make clear that no incentives have been paid to the project yet. It's a perform-then-pay incentive, so there's been nothing delivered to the company, and so we would recommend an extension of the deadlines to complete the project as was originally envisioned. And with that, I'll answer any questions. And I also invite the project sponsors or owners want to speak to any questions that the board may have.

They're able to as well. Staff is recommending the extension because there's at this point, there's been no, there's been no money. There's no, there's no downside in extending.

That is correct. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

And it may be probably in here, but maybe you could just help us. There needs to be some ad valorem tax benchmarks hit at points in order to receive any incentives, right? Can you?

No, sir, it's not tied to the ad valorem, it's tied to construction and completion of the improvements. The ad valorem reference in the document is referencing that they would not protest values that were above that amount. So it's kind of not really germane to the question of whether the extension could be granted. Those would necessarily change. We do think that those particular values, we would need to re-look at them in any kind of proposed amendment that would come in front of y'all. Likely for an increase.

Thank you. I'm gonna hear from the...

My name is Mike Myers. I'm part of the investment group. I don't really have much to add over what Mr. Jewell said, but certainly I'm willing to do my best to answer any questions you might have if you need an explanation on the delay or why we're seeking the extension or anything along those lines.

That'd be great. Yeah, if you have a quick synopsis of delays, that'd be great.

Sure. So this agreement, the original issue was brought before this board. In late 2024, our contract was signed in March of 2025, so 18 months ago. And at that time, there was great enthusiasm for completing this project very quickly. But there were delays from many different directions. We had what we thought would be an anchor tenant lined up, ready to go. That did not materialize. There has been a general softening. The ownership group that has this property also owns several other downtown properties. And we have seen a softening, kind of inexplicably, in our ability to attract new tenants to all of the locations that we have. It's hard to explain because the economy seems to be thriving, our growth still seems to be there, our labor market continues to have certain shortage. So I don't know why our tenants have not been as freely forthcoming as we have experienced in the past. We continue to do all types of improvements on our downtown properties. You've seen the brickwork go in on Henney Hardware. You see it on the downtown antique mall. You see the improvements made to what I call Chase Bank. That's 110 San Antonio. So we continue to make the improvements. We still have enthusiasm for all of these projects. But we did see a softening in the tenant base. We have seen some increase in costs, construction costs. And then there's just been some other issues. The reason we're asking for... So anyway, that's the... kind of the core of the reason why we weren't able to get this done as rapidly as possible. Like I said, this was an aggressive schedule. The agreement signed in March of 25 and a prospective completion date in this December, December of 26. So that's, what about a 21-month period start to finish that we had hoped for. We're asking for the five years, not because we think it'll take five years. We're hoping to go ahead and attract the anchor tenants and move forward with the construction, but we don't wanna have to do this again. Five years seems to be more than enough time to get all of our necessities in place and finish the construction that we envision. We have also had a little bit of a delay because we had to go through and essentially redesign the public market. That's taken longer. That marketplace will be just shy of 13,000 square feet. We kind of need that much space, floor space or more, to make this what we believe will be viable. So we wound up having to do a lot of redesign, move a lot of our storage into a mezzanine, which will make this like a one and a half story instead of just a very tall one story. That's taken some time and it's all added up. We're hoping it'll come together quickly and that's why we have come here asking you for the extension now. So hopefully we can get into it pretty quick. And like I said, I don't think it'll take the full five years, but just to be on the safe side, that's what we wanted to put into the agreement.

Thank you. Any questions from the board?

If we do agree to the five-year term, would you come back on a regular basis to give us updates?

Sure, that's no problem. I always like talking about what we've got going on because it's very interesting to me. I think this is a particularly interesting project and we'll take it from there.

Yeah, look forward to seeing what you do with that property. That's going to be a nice redevelopment there, so looking forward to it.

I hope so. It's very low density. It provides public space. Part of what we talked about in the original application was moving some or all of Farmer's Market out of Krause's parking lot into this space because it'll be much larger. I think Farmer's Market has the capacity to expand. So it... There is a lot of reason for the enthusiasm, and there is a lot of reason for the optimism, and it's very interesting.

I think it'll be a big win for our community, so thank you.

I hope so, thank you.

Mr. Jewell, you're just looking for direction. Are we voting on it?

No, there's no action proposed tonight. We would propose to bring it out back at the next EDC meeting.

Thank you.

Any other comments? Since there's not African, we typically don't have citizens communication, but seeing one, we'll entertain Ms. King for a comment on this.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Committee. My name's Julie King, and I'm a resident. And let me just start out by saying I actually like the concept of adaptive reuse. I actually read the letter that was submitted to you on September 9th, Chairman. I think the person who spoke before me gave a pretty good summary of what's going on. I have a question and a comment. I mean I understand the 4.5 million grant and in that letter it said that part of the reason for the grant was public infrastructure and the donation of 2.4 acres of the total project for this gathering space and restrooms. I found it interesting, a second comment in that letter saying no developer maximizing returns would make a donation like that, which I thought was kind of unusual. I thought the whole public-private partnership assumed that that, it sounded like it was a big, you know, sacrifice, and I understand it was part of the project. And here's my question. In addition to the 4.5 million, was the delay in any way due to the fact that we're about to start this Coal Street drainage project, which by my count, and I could be off, has got almost $10 million in EDC money over two different approaches that's been approved by city council. It's my understanding that this project is only the first phase, but obviously when completed will provide infrastructure, not only to the co-op marketplace, but to the larger lower Castell improvement plan. So my question to, and so that's a comment. And then my final comment is normally when a contract is extended and you're going to be asking for one in green shortly on the agenda, isn't there some consideration on a modest amount that would normally be part of the negotiations for extending a contract for five years to tie up that property? Thank you very much.

I'll address the Coal Street project. I can't speak for developers, but I don't think the Coal Street project even touches this property, and that is mostly moving water, and then we added on underground utilities with the hopes of future projects downtown adding on utilities.

And if I'm not mistaken, under our treasurer's report, we have the Coal Street drainage design and construction at $128,000. For design, correct.

Mr. Jewell, you have your, go ahead.

I can address the second part of Ms. King's questions. We haven't worked out the final terms of that amendment. I think we would look for some kind of consideration in terms of either higher values or some other kind of consideration from the developer, but we haven't worked out that contract amendment yet.

And that'll be included with the extension?

Yes. Perfect.

To part A of the public comment, no. This delay has nothing to do with other projects that the City of New Braunfels might be contemplating. These were all due to circumstances within the confines of this project, including the failure of the core tenant, the design changes, and the other things referenced in the letter. As far as additional consideration for the delay, we are gonna talk with Mr. Jewell going forward. There will have to be a modification to the contract. But let me stress that no money's been paid. We haven't received anything. So I don't know what kind of extraction anybody would be looking for if it is a, change to the valuation of the project. We have a lot of rules and regulations in place in the state of Texas and how the appraisal district has to appraise properties. Nobody's looking to avoid any of those by any stretch.

Thank you, Mr. Marsh. You have your direction, Mr. Jewell? Okay, moving on. Item E, discussion and possible action to exercise the third and final extension of the feasibility period identified in the first amendment of the purchase contract between Mildred V. Bartles.

President Hines, no, this is the five-year lease with the City of New Braunfels.

I did miss one, I crossed one out early, I'm sorry. D, presentation and possible action to approve a five-year lease with the City of New Braunfels for trail and park access.

President Hines, directors, good evening. My name is Jeff Bransford. I'm the assistant director of the Parks and Recreation Department. And I'm before you this evening to give a brief update on where we are with the Northwest Park property and to seek your approval for a lease agreement with the city of New Braunfels to provide for public access to Northwest Park. You might recall that the EDC assisted the city with the purchase of this property in 2024. This is about 130 acres, which is located on the northwest part of town near the intersection of Conrads Lane and FM 1102. This was of interest to the city and I believe it was of interest to the EDC because this is an area of New Braunfels that has experienced rapid growth over the last several decades, really, without many parks being provided to those residents. It was identified in our 2017 Parks and Recreation System Master Plan as an area of the city that needed parkland. And so when the opportunity became available to purchase this land, the city approached the EDC with this opportunity. It's the Raw property and the Hahn property, which are noted on the map, which comprise that 130 acres. But this image also shows how it connects to neighboring residential and Alligator Creek. Since 2024, when the EDC closed on this property, the city has been taking steps to master plan the park, to plan for it at a conceptual level, to plan for future improvements, and also to evaluate what would be needed to provide primitive public access to the public as soon as the next few months in 2026. And what I like to show with this image is where Northwest Park falls on the Alligator Creek corridor and how it connects to the broader residential area. You can see Northwest Park there. This is actually a draft sign that we would put at the trailhead for Northwest Park. You can see the you are here orange dot along Conrad's Lane. And the brown lines represent the first version, primitive version of our nature trails that we would provide to the public. It would connect The Gray Line to the existing Alligator Creek Corridor through the Sunflower Ridge development. They're actually building a two-acre trailhead park as we speak, which should be open within the next few months. And then to the Alligator Creek West property, which we cut the ribbon on last year. So in all, about five miles of trail within this network of parks. And again, I'm before you this evening to ask for, I'm sorry, I have one more image just to show you a little bit more about what life is like there at Northwest Park. It's a mix of woodlands and fields and meadows, and it has a lot of potential areas. for not only recreational access as it is now, but future development because about half of the property is agricultural fields, which are great as it is right now, but it lends itself to some recreational development in the future. So again, I'm before you this evening to ask really for an administrative step for the EDC and the city to execute a lease agreement of a period of five years. so that the city has a formal version of land control that we can put the public on the property for primitive public access. And with that, Mr. President, I'll stand for questions.

Any questions from the board? I really commend staff. This is a great idea to be able to allow the residents to use the park before it's fully ready. So I think this is a great step for our citizens.

Mr. Hines, if I could add something to what Jeff had said. The plan is also, I think in the next couple of months where the plan, we've been working on a 12 to 18 month master planning process for the Northwest Park. Instead of bringing that forward to present kind of what the final results of that master plan, that's been a really long community-based planning process of what the future vision for that park looks like. So I think that we have that on the slate for y'all's agenda in the next couple of months.

Sort of like the Mayfair parks. It's great for that end of town to have a lot of outdoor space to use. Long overdue. You need action on this? Mr. Jewell? Yes, we do. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I have a motion from Director Cardinick and a second from Director Campos. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? I didn't open up to citizens community. I didn't open up for citizens communication, so we'll back step just a second. We'll strike that out, I apologize. I got a little ahead of myself there. Since we will be voting on this item, if anybody from the community would like to speak on this item, please step forward. Seeing none, now we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. And it passes unanimously. Item E. Discussion and possible action to exercise the third and final extension of the feasibility period identified in the first amendment of the purchase contract between Mildred B. Bartels, Gerald D. Voges, and the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation.

Thank you. At the last meeting, you all provided us direction to place both of these courses of action on the agenda for consideration. So I do want to point out that they are kind of mutually exclusive. So if one course of action is decided on, we don't need to take up the other one. But first I'll talk about the extension a little bit, just a little bit about this project. You all entered into a purchase contract for this 6.7 acres back in 2025. 100,000 approved EDC funds has been held in escrow, both for feasibility work. And so we talked about last time that there's really kind of three options to pursue on this project. You either cancel it, you exercise the final extension, or you go ahead and initiate the purchase. As you know, the future is to work on planned development out there at some point, and so We have committed to a public process that, deciding on what the future of that project will be. So in the next couple of months, if the, well, regardless of what the action is tonight, really within the next couple of months, we plan to start some public hearings and engagement on what the future of those 16 acres that the EDC owns, as well as the additional seven acres that are under contract. And with that, I'll answer any questions.

Well, there's a short time frame. I think we have to execute the extension because, but it still carries a very short time frame. So do you think we can workshop this quick enough before that expires and we're sitting here having the same discussion or?

Yes, this particular extension goes to the, really to the middle of October. The third extension, or I'm sorry, the, yeah, the right, the third extension goes till January 20th. We anticipate having an exclusive negotiation agreement that will outline the responsibilities of both parties, both the EDC and the proposed developer for the site to go through that engagement process so that both parties can ultimately make a decision about what the future of the project ends up being, whether the EDC ends up closing on the property or whether that developer ends up moving forward with the project that ultimately comes out of that process. So we plan to have and get those meetings going in the next couple of months on the future of the property.

And those meetings will be public? Yes, sir. Where the neighbors, you know, it's revealed what these options could be and what their thoughts are about that development.

Yes, sir.

Excuse me, has this been presented to council outside of executive session or has it just been an executive session item?

There were some workshops with council a few years ago. I'm not quite sure about the history about whether it's been presented outside of executive session in the last year. I don't believe it has been. It's been discussed with the city council and executive session as well as with council members.

Yeah, well, as this board is appointed by council, I'd like to get some direction from council. I don't know if we need to have a workshop with council directly or have a presentation to council and they give direction publicly. That way we can kind of know where to take this. I think I'm in favor of the extension to button everything up, not necessarily purchase property if it's not going to pass anyway. Okay.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. That's kind of what I was getting at is I think we need direction. There's been a lot of changes on this board since this was originally contemplated, let alone council.

Okay.

Agreed.

All right. And we will open up for public comment.

Good evening. Thank you, Chairman Hines and board. My name is Tiffany Kelly, and I am a resident of Green Courtyard, which is very near this property. Over the last few months, I've done quite a bit of research on the Green 16, the original 16 acres that were purchased previously in 2016. But ironically, 16 just keeps coming up around this property. I think at the time in 2016 that the Economic Development Corporation and the city made the appropriate choice with the possibility of HD Supplies expansion. I think it was the right decision at the time with the information to purchase that property. And I understand with that property, you need this other property, even though, as I said in last month's meeting, I've researched and the purchase price is overvalued based on current market price. My... Suggestion, recommendation is a lot has changed in the last 10 years since that very prudent decision was made to secure that property based upon the future expansion of HD supply. Since then, the Texas Comptroller changed the rules New Braunfels lost a very good provider of sales tax revenue, which went to the great benefit of the citizens of New Braunfels. So now we have this 16 acres, plus we're looking at adding these additional six, seven acres. In my opinion, it's good money going after bad. I would challenge, we heard from the gentleman, the CFO with the co-op investment company, we're seeing a softening in the downtown commercial demand. I would challenge the EDC and the city to not go forward with this additional purchase and also consider putting that original 16 acres back on the market and just getting out of there. As a nearby resident, I do hope to see that land developed. I just don't think it's the right move for our city. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Kelly.

David Wormke, District 5. You know, I have seen this come up many times. A couple years ago, I saw this come up, I guess, when we were initially wanting to put down $100,000, and there were like four pie-in-the-sky different development scenarios that you have today tied to this agenda. Nothing's happened in that amount of time. You have 16 acres that I think y'all paid $3.5 million for. Mr. Jewell told me last time. that you have six acres here and the valuation is 4.6 million. That land y'all bought for 3.5 I'm sure is appreciated. It's been sitting off the tax books. If you could sell this land for 10, $15,000, get those funds back in the general fund where they can be used for city purposes That would be a really good thing, because that's about a year of diversion of money that we have now coming out between TERS and 4B. And then it'll also be back on the tax rolls. I know now it's ag, but it's going to be developed. But, you know, y'all been hanging on to this and hanging on to this and hoping to find something new. There's a time to just pull the plug, put it on the market, sell it, throw some money, and do something that will make y'all look good. Thank you.

Seeing no other comment, we will close citizens communication. I'll entertain a motion from the board.

I do want to say just one thing. I agree with some of that. I think we ought to find a way to not own that property. But I also think we ought to do it in such a way that it's compatible with the neighbors. And if there was a way to consolidate those tracts I felt it was worth the time spent to try to flesh that out. But my greatest goal here is that we do something that's compatible. I mean, I think we can look at that zoning. I don't think all the uses permitted there would be that compatible with that neighborhood. So, I mean, there's some good intentions at work here, and I just wanna say that. What's the current zoning of that?

It's a mix of different zonings. I don't have it directly in front of me right now. Just a comment to some of the public comment. A few years ago when this project was being discussed, there's really just two decisions, which was A, put it back on the market for the highest and best use and extract the most high sale that you can get, or direct the project's development for community and economic development benefit. And so the council at the time, as well as the EDC at the time, said, yeah, we'd like to go down this direction. That's really what started the planning process. The process that we're proposing is is the more difficult process. The easiest thing from a staff perspective is to put it out on the market and be done with the project. And just whatever gets sold and developed is what happens there. So it's worth having the conversation with council. We have spoken with council. But if we can get a public workshop with council in the next month or so to discuss the future of the property, we would appreciate that. because the avenue that we're proposing is a lot more difficult than just putting the market, just putting the property out for market and just whatever develops, develops.

Which some of the neighbors probably, some of those options on there in those zoning probably would not be advantageous for the neighbors.

I can't speak to what people would view as advantageous or not.

Personal opinion, yes. Any other questions or comments?

Do I hear a motion? I would so move that we extend our contract while we pursue some of the things Mr. Jewell just mentioned. I'll second that.

So I have a motion from Director Hammond and a second from Director Austin for the extension. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? Passes unanimously. And with that, item F is not needed. So we will move on to 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 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, Project IRIS. Two, Project SHUTE. Three, Project THREAD. Four, Project ICON. Five, Project KNIGHT. Six, Project LOTUS. Seven, Project Bruce Wayne. Eight, Project SHERPA. And with that, we are adjourned and we take position. Okay, we are back from executive session at 6.30 p.m. with no action taking place and no action needed. And with that, we are adjourned.