City Council - Regular Meeting

Tuesday. Tuesday, September 8th. To order, it is about approximately 4.03 p.m. Roll call, please.

Councilor Emond?

Here.

Councilor Rumigo? Here. Councilor Hickman?

Here.

Mayor Kaplan?

Here.

Councilor Hall? Here. Councilor Abertillo-Reyes?

Here.

Councilor Jacoby?

Here. Okay, our first discussion item is upcoming work sessions. They are attached in your packet. Always subject to change. Okay, moving on to item number two. Today we have an update on our city center revitalization project.

Who will be in?

Yes. So this is the team project. Who's revitalizing us? I'm revitalizing you all. So today we're going to be doing an update on what we call our city center activation. So council approved our city center revitalization plan, which includes a large transportation and streetscape improvement that's very much a long-term project. In the meantime, there are certainly some things we can do and start moving along to help improve the city center area. And that's the city center activation plan is a series of short to medium term activities that the city can undertake to help spur and start some revitalization of the area. So we will have several people today presenting on this because this is a group project. The work under city center spans from community development to community engagement to beautification. It's a little bit of everything to reply to all this in area. And that's why we have several city staff who are participating in this project and who will be presenting today.

Who first?

Okay. Well, first is me. I'll kick it to myself. That's okay. I'm going to just do a quick overview of the agenda, and then I'm going to turn it over to Gia to talk about stakeholder mapping. So we're going to talk about six different items under city center activation today. The first is some stakeholder outreach and engagement that was done. Not in your typical town hall format, because we know that brings a limited audience. We really wanted to have some one-on-one conversations with business owners and property owners in the area. It lets them share a bit more information than they would probably be willing to do in a group setting. Also helps us be able to answer any concerns or questions that they might have as well. Again, they might not be comfortable with asking in a typical town hall format. We're going to hear about that. One of the key recommendations out of the city center revitalization plan was to do a branding study. It's called City Center some days, other days it's called Deco District. There's some other names I've heard the people have come up with it. And so we did undertake our branding study in the presentation. You'll see the results of that. We will give an update on the streetscape and transportation improvements. Again, that long-term project, but the work continues on it. Also talk about what we're going to do with regards to the RV dump station that's currently located down the street from the chamber. The upcoming grant program that we're working on developing. And then also the potential for a business association, which city center used to have back in the day. So we'll talk about how we can help spur that along because it's really helpful when you're thinking about the future of a business district. It's not just the city who should be involved in that. We really want the property owners and the business owners to take some ownership and leadership in that as well. And the business association provides that format and structure that allows them to do that. So those are the items that we're going to be talking about today. And first up is Gia and Laura to talk about the really robust, I will say time consuming, but very productive work in engaging stakeholders in individual interviews and some meetings. I'll turn it over to them.

Hello, everybody. I am Gia Jensen, Community Engagement Bilingual Specialist for the City of Newport. We are going to present right now what we did with the city center stakeholder mapping. We built connections with property and business owners. I'm Laura Kimberly.

I'm the Library and City Community Engagement Director. And we're going to talk about what happened in August of 2025, where we began mapping the city center area along Highways 101 and 9th Street. And we want to make sure we mention that Danny Daniels, who was the city manager's intern at the time, was really involved in this process at the time. A huge help. Yeah.

Yeah. We identified property owners and business owners and the key points of contacts for different areas of all this area. We established direct communication with them.

We introduced the city center revitalization projects. We brought the plan out and showed them the plan. The final one. And talked to them about that. We created opportunities for meaningful community engagement.

We ensure stakeholders have accurate information and opportunities to share their feedback.

And when we were looking at all this information, we were able to identify 158 different properties and business owners.

And we successfully connect with 126 of them. Some of these people, we connect with them, but they were not interested in participating in the survey. But we have the connection.

Or they live in the area, or maybe they're the owner, but they don't live in the area. They live outside the area. So you can see how hard that is. And you would try to reach them multiple times. You would never hear back from them. We had 36 interviews in person.

Yes, and we have also, we sent 40 surveys via mail for people who were not living in town, or we don't have any other point of access to them, like no telephone or email or anything like that.

So as far as outreach, we connected with stakeholders through phone calls?

Through mail, email, text messages, and in-person visits.

We had surveys and interviews. So we were listening to the community in September of 2025. So this took place over five weeks.

We conducted interviews and surveys through multiple methods. And one of those was in-person meetings. Those ones were very rich. We have so many history. We had phone interviews, mail surveys, and direct business visits.

And we were trying to create trust so people would be open to sharing their feedback with us about how they felt about this project.

Yeah, some stakeholders initially expressed concern or resistance, large to limited information about the project. Through direct conversations, we were able to provide information, answer questions, and create a stronger understanding of the project and its potential impact on the area.

So we had community meetings where we expanded the conversation, and this took place in January of 2026, where the city manager hosted three community meetings where we were reaching an average of 10 to 12 people per meeting.

Yeah, we reached an approach of 36 new people. These people were not contacted previously in the surveys or... or the other communications that we have. These meetings provided an opportunity to reach stakeholders who were unavailable during the initial outreach. So that was pretty successful.

And it provided additional information about the project. We were able to answer questions and address concerns.

And also we have a connection. They give us their email. They want to be connected and contacted when we have more news and updates on the project. And then the result was more information. Better understanding.

And stronger engagement.

E-newsletter. We are developing an e-newsletter to provide regular updates throughout the city center revitalization process.

The newsletter will share project updates and progress.

Highlight upcoming milestones and next steps.

Provide important information in one accessible place.

Keep property and business owners connected to the process.

They expand communication to the broader community. So you guys can see the image. This is what it could look like. It's very colorful and bright.

Yeah. And this is like an exercise of transparency. Like one of the concerns of our interviews was like they don't know anything until it's done, until it's already, you know, doing the changes. So they were like, when are we going to have all this information? the involvement. They were very excited to be involved in the efforts of beautification. The beautification was one of the keys for them. They want to be involved. They want to have a say on how the area can look.

Quick question on that. Is the newsletter going to be open to everyone or anyone, or is it just targeted toward the people who are in that area?

I think it's going to be targeted.

Yes, it's intended for those who have an interest, ownership, or a stake in the area, though of course anyone, if they just want to know news about the area, can sign up. So it'll be available to anybody, but the target audience is people who have some kind of vested interest.

So sign up will be on the webpage?

Yes. But we haven't launched it yet, so this is still in the works.

And our commitment with the e-newsletter is transparency, communication, and involvement. And we're going to pass the baton to someone else on the team.

Thank you. Do we ask questions at the end, then?

We can do it after each section, because they're different projects. So yeah, let's take questions on this first.

Yeah. So I have a couple questions to tip around. I can't remember the full number that you said, the 180, did you say?

No, 126 were contacted.

And when you contacted them, how did you confirm? I guess I'm wanting to tease that up just a little bit more. Did you have a template of things that you were going through with each of them? You said there was a survey, right? So everyone participated in the survey, or they said, I'm not doing it. I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of the thoroughness of the outreach with folks.

Yeah, we have a script for them, basically the survey. And we tried to, first of all, ask them if they were aware of the project. Some of them asked us to send them first an email with the project, so we did that. And, yeah, most of them were like, or intern, look for the property owners, and then we also look for the business owners. So we call both, because one's the property owner and the other one was the business owner. So some of them are like the same, maybe the same property, but, you know, two different people. And, yeah, we have a mixed response.

We tried scheduling a time where we can meet with them too. And so we try to get that on the calendar as much as we could. And some of them were scheduled far out and some of them were able to meet with us because they weren't going to be in the area. So some of those meetings were like on the phone where we met with them. And then some of them told us to just send them the survey and then they would mail it back to us. And so we put their feedback. And a bigger template. So we had that feedback in there too. And then some people told us they were interested, but then we never heard anything back. And then we'd resend it again, but you never heard anything back.

Yeah. We have like three or four of them travel from Bend and from Ohio to have to meet with us.

So that was like... We got ghosted by a couple people. And then we circled back and went and talked to them again.

Was it mostly businesses, or was it a real mix of residents, like neighbors, to the city center activation area? And my other question is, for the blighted, derelict residents, areas or buildings that are in that city center core. Did you hear from those folks? You know, like we just never see any kind of development. It just feels like it's just kind of getting further and further and further and further in decline.

Yeah. We have... Like, two of those property owners come to the meetings. You know, it was very difficult to reach them, but then in the meetings with Nina, they come by. And I was like, okay, they're here. So yeah, I think that we have a very good response. We also send like a lot of mail and we try to make them engage.

You try calling, leaving voice messages, you send mailers, you call, sometimes show up at their office again multiple times. And we kept telling Nina where we were. We're like, we bumped them again for a third time.

And my last question is, are we soft launching Uptown? Is that what we're doing right now?

We're about to after the next presentation, which is the break and stay.

One question for you, Sam. Or in general, when you're asking about residents there, we're talking about businesses. But who are you? Are we talking about 9th Street now?

But it sounded like you were also including some people who were directly nearby. I thought I caught that they were also talking to residents, right?

Yeah, we have a mix of people who were renting, living there, and not so the property owners.

Some of them who are the property owners were like, They don't reside here, so then we have to reach out to where they were. And some of those are like they're in Portland. They're just other places. So we'd have to reach out to them and try to get feedback from them about what was going on and then have to send them the whole project summary and hope that they're going to respond back to you and then send it again to them to get feedback or call and then try to connect with somebody to get feedback.

Sounds like a very, very exhaustive approach.

We tackled it. It was a lot of work, huh? Yeah, it was a whole lot of work.

A lot of work. letting people know we care.

You got to know a lot of people in the neighborhood, which was good, too.

And I think I was very surprised that most of the people who have the resistance at the beginning, they were like, they thought that it was just the couplet project. And they were resistant to it. And once we talked with them and we explained what all the project was, they were like, oh, OK. And they wanted to participate. So it was like a success.

And I think they thought it was going to happen like right away too. Like, and I think there was a misconception about that too, that this was happening like right away. So then you have to explain, no, no, no, it's not happening right away. Like you still have some time and you can be involved in this. And then, so you, yeah, you can have buy-in in the whole process. So I think that was good too.

We learned a lot. Yeah. We have fun, too. As an example of one thing we learned when we had the stakeholder meetings, we got some feedback on, you know, because we're asking really, I would say, sometimes challenging questions of them. What's your plan with your property? What do you want to do with your business? I mean, those are very difficult, vulnerable things for a business owner to talk about. And so some of the feedback you'll see later is reflected in how we're designing the grant program. Because the idea was let's get some feedback initially of what would people be interested in and what would they actually use. What grant program would our businesses and property owners and city center actually use? And that helped us design what the grant program looks like. So that feedback, like you mentioned, built that trust and the relationship that we needed and is helping us inform what our next steps are.

Any other questions?

Thank you. Thank you. That was great. Thanks very much.

And now to soft launch uptown, we have Willow, who was our project manager on the branding study. All right. Hi, everyone.

All right. Yeah, so as part of the larger city center revitalization plan, it specifically calls for the idea of creating a unified identity. So in order to achieve this goal, essentially in the activation plan that we as internal staff work with, we decided to undergo a branding study for the area. Prior to me stepping on, actually, the city put out an RFP for the branding study. So some of the goals in that were to instill a sense of pride and cohesion for the area, create an achievable implementation plan, develop a comprehensive branding and engagement campaign, which clarifies and standardizes the image, visually of city center, and then to provide a visual identity that distinguishes the city center as a unique and vibrant district, since we have a few of those in our community already. From the RFP, we ended up receiving quite a bit of responses, which was kind of exciting to dig through, but we ended up landing on a company called Civic Brand. So just to give you some background on who our consultants are, Civic Brand is a place-based consultant with experience in place branding, engagement, place making, and destination marketing as well. So their founder, Ryan Short, is actually an author of a book called The Civic Brand, The Power and Responsibility of Place. And in this book, he really hopes to reframe the idea of branding from not just promoting an area, but to help shape a community. So their focus is really kind of on economic impact, how does this support the health identity inclusion of residents, and then kind of the cultural resilience for the area for the future. So the process was long. I think I was a little naive to how long a branding setting was going to take. So we started back in October. That was kind of our kickoff from October to December. We met with Civic Brand. We as Uncity staff, so the project team that you see here, met with Civic Brand many times to kind of align on project goals. get our timeline down, and during this time, Civic Brand ended up building out a public engagement process as well as a project website. I don't know if this website is accessible anymore. As of last week, it was. I tried to click on it today, and it wouldn't load for me. I'm not really sure, but there was a website that we did refer people to, and it was brandingcitycenternewport.com. So then we moved into research and engagement. So during this phase, they came actually here to Newport, and the route that they took, they landed in Portland, they cut over to 101, they drove down the coastline stopping at some of our benchmark communities, they actually continued south to Florence and checked out some stuff down there. They came back to us, we did a meeting with our team, and then I took them on a walk from Nye Beach, Bayfront, City Center, And the reason for that, the reason for seeing all the other districts was for them to better understand the differences of these districts, but also like, how do they overlap? What is their interaction? How are they similar to each other? Which was really eye-opening, I think, for our whole team to have them kind of process with us on the go. And then, well, while we were doing this, and they eventually went out on their own after I walked them around, but they were doing pop-up engagement with our residents, business owners, and visitors. So someone might be walking by, and they would just ask them a question about how they were engaging with the space, which was kind of cool to see. And then before and after the trip, they conducted digital engagement and research. So this included direct interviews, virtual focus groups, and an online survey, which I will walk you through. So the branding survey, this was to better understand how the community perceived city center or the DECO district or whatever names they utilize. So we were trying to identify some qualities, improvements, and experiences from residents and businesses. So this wasn't just specific to those who are in this area. We really wanted to hear from our community at large. But I did do targeted outreach. I canvassed city center multiple times. We also talked about it in those community events that we had. The survey ran from mid-December to early February, and we received 254 responses. And we ended up kind of finding out that there's a significant gap between, which I think we already know, the current perception of city center and what the community aspires it to be. So words such as dirty, rundown, empty, outdated, neglected, things that I think we all use, came up over and over again. But additionally, on top of that, we also saw the word potential as one of the most used words. So the outcome of that, what we took away and what the consultant took away is that when being asked to envision the future, even though people see it as this dilapidated area currently, they also understand that there is a world in which it can be vibrant, it can be welcoming, it can be clean and walkable and inviting, which was exciting to be able to engage with people on that. But at the same time, the community also made it clear that they didn't want revitalization to mean erasing history. So they wanted that historic character of the area. And so in this, we also started to realize that people were seeing this area not just as one space, and they were kind of experiencing it as two separate place types. So we moved into this idea of branding the core. So I know that there's a map up here. There's lines on it. It is a little bit arbitrary. But the reason that I kind of zoned into this, because if we go back to the other slide real quick, you'll see we were kind of looking at a larger area. So when we were asking people about it, we were kind of looking at not quite to the bridge, but the area that includes the hospital all the way kind of to the 20 intersection. And then we started to realize that people were interacting with these spaces differently. So we kind of were seeing two place types come out of this. So instead of trying to brand the whole city center area, we started to look at what we called internally the core, which is kind of the high density use area. And I think moving forward in the future, high density area might change for this area. It might expand beyond the current boundaries that I'm showing you right now, but we were really just trying to hone into the areas that both visitors and locals are using in multiple different ways. So part of the process here for virtual focus groups was we started to realize this, that people were experiencing it differently. So the consultant ended up creating some options of what they thought would be a good idea for a brand. And then we kind of went into some more targeted outreach to have further conversations with the business owners, the people in the area, because our first survey was really the community at large, like how do we see this area? So we wanted to hone in and really make sure we were hearing from the people who work, live, you know, experience city center on the daily. And so using the feedback from individual interviews with these folks along with the broader community survey, we developed initial branding concepts and then the concepts were shared with those who work, live, own property, or operate a business within City Center. So we had two virtual focus groups, both in June. We had three to five people attend both of them, so not a large amount, but once again, this was very targeted outreach to City Center. We sent emails, we canvassed in person, and so it was kind of an opt-in situation. From that, the consultant ended up coming up with the concept of Uptown with this logo. And so to walk you through it, Uptown, the name itself, is something that was able to be able to look backwards and forwards. So a lot of people who were interacting with this area actually used the word Uptown. So like my family calls it this or, you know, like referring to the Uptown bar at one point and things like that. So it was something that people were able to cling to as a historical significance, but it has the ability to move forward and not necessarily be attached to an era or a style like the deco district was. So then moving into the logo, when this was first shown to us, we were like, oh, there's clouds, there's sun rays. It's cute, and they ended up walking us through it. I don't have the actual city logo on me anywhere, but if you are to look at the city logo right now, the clouds that you're seeing in that are actually the bridge. That's the outline of the bridge. They really wanted to make sure that when people were interacting with this, they were able to see the elements that they're seeing in the area. So that was really important that the arches were there from the bridge. And then the sun rays are just, they're just elements that kind of nod to that art deco heritage. So that was where that came from. I think that's all from me, yeah.

That concludes the branding study portion and our soft launch of Uptown. Do you want to take any questions on this before we move to the next segment?

Is the brand and the branding being really focused on branding that core as, what about the rest? Yeah, great question.

And I'm not challenging that core notion. No, no, no. I think that could being able to be more pinpointy is...

Yeah, that's a great question. And so something that I meant to say, sorry, when we were going through the place types and kind of zoning in on that core was another reason why the colors are very similar to the city logo was because we wanted it to be a cohesive brand, right? So I think... Internally, we kind of refer to the larger area as city center, and I think that's kind of what we're moving forward with. If we're referring to this large area, it's city center. But when we're really talking about a district that we're trying to build, that we have a facade grant for, that we have all of these elements going into it, we're referring to uptown, to that high-density usage that visitors and locals are both going to be using, that our restaurants and coffee shops are in. And so the reason that the colors are similar is so that we can kind of have that cohesion, right? Like the city logo can be on city hall or over by the hospital, and yet the core district, the uptown area, can have the same colors and interact with that logo. So that was kind of the thought there.

I like it. It's uptown and city center.

Yeah.

Makes some sense. And because it is a defined, and you can do some things with it.

Any other questions?

Yeah. If there's an uptown. Yeah. Yes, great question. So that was something that we also went back and forth with. So prior to this, or while we were going through the survey, both this survey and then also the survey that you guys know we ran for the SDMP, the word downtown is used very loosely, very loosely. I think a lot of our visitors and locals alike kind of use the idea of downtown downtown as defining an area that they don't know how to define, right? That has high use. I don't know if I'm the one to be defining where downtown is, but we can define where uptown is and maybe the rest will follow. I don't know, Nina, do you have any thoughts on that?

No, I would agree. It's interesting in the Sustainable Destination Management Plan Survey, visitors were referring to Bayfront as downtown. Yeah. Right?

This is why I keep smiling is because a friend of mine, we have an argument, like a longstanding argument, and he calls the Bayfront downtown. And I'm like, it is not downtown. So do not let that spread.

I'm like, well, is that we're not planning to name any area? No, but we certainly have heard that. And downtown was a consideration, but it felt like that didn't match what this core area is. It's something different.

Yeah, I think it just felt very generic, you know, and we don't. we don't want our core area to feel generic. So we kind of like Uptown, it kind of kept that vibe, allowed it to be flexible to nod to the past, but also allows us to move forward with whatever happens with the revitalization plan.

Yeah, thank you for the interesting report. I know we still have some more to go here, but I would like to ask about the homeless situation. When you talked to the business owners and people who lived in the area, did you get any comments on that? Did you get any suggestions? Did you get any suggestions about making a priority of a public restroom, which I have been advocating for as a start to rebuilding the core area?

Yeah, we certainly have heard both in this process, and I'll say outside this process, the impacts of homelessness on this area is substantial. One of the challenges we face is that the services are centered in this area. So the warming shelter, the church that provides meals, there is a restroom at the parking lot that's available, and then also City Hall is a public facility as well. It has become a popular area because of the services that are provided in this space. And that is a challenge that we face is the services being set in that space will continue to encourage that population to be there because that's where they can find things that they need. So it definitely is an ongoing challenge. And I will say there's no easy solution. And then semicolon, we will be talking about the need for more resources to address homelessness in next year's budget. We don't have the resources right now as city staff. So we're putting together a plan that's going to be coming before you. It will cost more money, certainly. So we will be looking at the public safety fee, which we've talked about in the seven-year financial plan. But our resources are stretched so thin right now that it's really quite difficult. So it's a really complex issue. There is no easy solution, unfortunately. But like I said, we will be bringing forward some recommendations on what to do next. And it certainly is something that needs to be addressed if we want Uptown to be a thriving and vibrant district.

I certainly appreciate the complexity. I just wondered what response you got from the people who are in that area.

I'll speak to the branding portion specifically. I did attend a few of the meetings they had, but not even remotely close to however many they sat through. So for the branding study, I didn't hear a whole lot about it, but mostly because the focus wasn't in on that, at least for the individual interviews or sitting down with them to show the branding. In the actual survey reports, there was a lot of information about the homelessness and how it contributes to the feeling or how people interact with the area. I don't think that there were a lot of solutions put forth. So I don't think it's necessarily helpful to go through those. But I do think we all even recognize that it's there and that it's happening and that we need to come up with solutions for it. But I don't know.

Do you guys have anything to add to that? Well, yeah.

The people that we interviewed in the area, like the owner of the dance studio, she had a lot of feedback about what was going on in her area.

So we didn't try to solve any. We just took the feedback regarding the process and we shared that as part of this process about what was going on in their area and shared those concerns with the rest of the group and with Nina about what they were seeing and concerns they had along with this. But they definitely had concerns where the location is with where the day shelter or where the shelter is right now or the placement is with it. Especially with the dance studio when the girls get out or the kids get out, the dance classes get out. When it's dark. And with dark and with safety, especially when it gets darker earlier. So they had shared that and that was all feedback that was shared and that we had shared along with this.

But that was... Yeah, people from the area, they asked us like, hey, can you guys relocate all these services?

And we were like, oh, this is not... That was nothing we could promise, but that was something we noted that we had documented in like the other areas. So we tried to be really thorough with all that feedback when we were hearing that.

I want to keep us moving here because I'm hopeful that as the county government hopefully reemerges as something that we can work with, it really is the county who has sort of the major responsibility for the kinds of services that will change. Yeah.

We just listened. We took the feedback and we wrote it down.

Right. No, because we're not going to stop.

That's all we were doing.

Great. I want to keep us moving. Okay.

We're going to make a pivot to an update on where we are with the long-term streetscape and transportation improvements that were approved in the city center revitalization plan. And Derek and Anna have that update. And then they'll go right into an updated plan on the RV services. Okay.

All right, Derek Tokos, community development. We've got Anna Ikea here, our urban renewal project manager, and we want to cover a few items here real quick. First gets at the actual hard infrastructure improvements we're going to need to make in the city center area to kind of change how it functions and get it to function a little bit better for and general mobility. And so what we have is that we have the plans in place that identify the priority improvements. And now what we're doing is we're moving into what we call a 30% design. And so the scope of the project, and I want to be real clear about this, is not just the couplet, the short couplet. But it also extends north to pick up the intersection of US 20 Not only when we're tackling big projects like this do we want to tackle as much as we reasonably think we can do, because it's a big lift to do this in the first place, but also we are working with the state agencies better flow on the highway system. And the couplet does that, but the improvements to 20, that 20-101 intersection, do that as well. And if we compare the two, that makes us more competitive when it comes to pulling in state and federal money to match up with urban mill resources. And so you may recall, we haven't talked about 20 and 101 that often. But the big change there would be a new southbound left turn lane from 101 onto 20. And then that would be extended down 20 a bit so the vehicles would change that would be part of that. So we have the 30% design RFP is on the street. Proposals are due September 22nd. Our objective is to get this back in front of you for your November 2nd meeting. So you might ask, what's in a 30% design? So really, this is where we are going to be investing a fair amount of resources into survey work to identify the specific alignment that will contain all of the planned improvements. So in some areas, that may mean that we're going to need to acquire right away. So we're going to learn just how much right away we need, where it's located, get legal descriptions, begin to engage those property owners on what it's going to take to acquire that right away. We're going to be working on ADA curb rent locations. We're going to be looking at utility conflicts. Those types of things as well are part of a 30% design. And we also, this is where we're going to be developing a preliminary construction cost estimate that we will be using as we continue to work with state and federal partners on pulling the full funding package together. As the mayor knows, we've already been doing some of that work in terms of getting the funding lined up. through the Cascade West Area Commission on Transportation. That's a mouthful. So we have been successful in getting that listed as one of the top two priorities for our area, and it should be worked into the state or Oregon Department of Transportation's capital improvement plan for the next 10 years. Again, as was previously discussed, we are not looking at this happening overnight. We're really looking at trying to position this for construction in the early 2030s, and that lines up reasonably well with the state's planning process too. So even though we're in a constrained funding environment at the state, you know, federal level relative to transportation, they still have funds that they would otherwise dedicate to payment rehab and stuff like that. So this starts to give them, they know that they'll start to need to squirrel those funds away, safety funds, bike bed funds, payment rehab funds, and that adds up as a potential match. So, Anna, do you have anything else to add on this one?

Yeah, for the RFP that's out, we've had quite a bit of interest so far. The last time I checked, there were probably about 15 different firms that had downloaded the RFP from the Oregon Vice website. And we've also had several emails from people just asking questions and asking for clarifications on that RFP. So I think we'll likely have a pretty good... response to that RFP. So we should have some good choices in terms of engineering firms.

Can I just get a quick question on, I know that before there was talk about the couplet and 9th Avenue not necessarily being ready to handle the volume of truck traffic through the Kedlums 101. Will this design Address that and say okay. Yes, you can do it or say no we can't is that the place where they're going to determine that yeah Well excellent question.

Thank you. What this will do is give us a better understanding in the pavement condition in the condition of the The area within the corridor to support that type of traffic Our expectation, it's not a matter of whether or not 9th Street can handle truck traffic. It is what needs to be done to 9th Street so they can handle truck traffic. And so this will, you know, we'll be doing a number of borings up and down the alignment so we have a better understanding of what the roadbed looks like and all that.

So give us a kind of a cost guide, maybe it'll be within budget or over budget or it'll be cheaper than we thought kind of thing.

That's where we come up with the initial preliminary cost estimate. So you're going to have a pretty heavy contingency, and you would expect that over time that's going to tighten up a bit. I will also add that this particular design will take a hard look, and we framed it in the RFP on the Bastap and the relocation of that from where it's at now because it really won't work with how the couplet comes in, shifting that to the north. So this 30% design is going to pick that up. as well, and we'll have some public outreach, but again, this is a 30% design survey exercise. So, you know, there'll be some public outreach, but it's going to be kind of fairly targeted to the design components at this point.

Oh, and does this design cover the left turn onto 20 from 101? Yes. The left turn from 101 on to 20. Right, 101 on to 20. And is that expanding the one that's already there? No, putting another one in. Sort of behind Starbucks or something like that?

So you'd have to widen it out a little bit. So that's why there's going to be some right-of-way that's going to need to be taken.

And that was identified when we did the transportation system plan as a likely outcome, and we need to acquire some right-of-way to make it work.

This will give us a very specific idea of how much and exactly where. OK, I'm going to take this one, and then Anna's going to take the next one. So enhancing RV service, we have an opportunity to do that. The existing RV dump station or service station, convenience station, I guess maybe you could call it that, which is located by the Chamber of Commerce and the Armory will need to be relocated for these types of improvements to be made. So it's an opportunity for us to kind of modernize that convenience and design it in a manner that works a little bit better for users. And so what we've been doing is we are in active conversations with a private property owner to lease a small portion of their property. And if it doesn't work out with this property owner, we're going to be pivoting to other property owners. But what we're trying to do is kind of pair the RV convenience station with other complimentary type of services that are provided by a private party. It could be paired with, say, a grocery store. It could be paired with a convenience store. It could be paired with a gas station. You know, other, you know, where if somebody's got an RV and they need to use the dump station or convenience station. They can go in there and they can do something else as well. They can get fuel or they can go in and buy bread and milk or whatever. So that's kind of what we're looking at here. The city, under this type of arrangement, we would acquire either a lease or a public use easement. That's to be determined and negotiated. It would be connected to public sewer systems. We're looking for locations that can be connected to the sewer system at reasonable cost. And the city would retain oversight and meet its obligations on this kind of setup. Next slide. This is from a location where Nika had recently visited, Banff. But a reason I use this photo is it shows the concept. So what we're talking about here is a self-contained setup that would actually be a fee-for-use structure. So it wouldn't be something where somebody could just drive up and dump whatever they want to into the convenience station. There would be a modest fee for them to access it and utilize it. And that would also have a modest fee that would be for water, air, and then we would likely have some trash service there that would be set up in... It's not likely to be a nuisance issue. Having a modest fee helps with maintenance costs over time, but it also helps with nuisance-type stuff. So, you know, people just going there because they know they can dump stuff and dumping it. It helps with that somewhat. So that's the concept, and that's kind of what it would look like. It's not a real big footprint, and what we would be looking to do with any private partner is to kind of get it situated in a location that doesn't really impede area that would be difficult for them. It'd be like on the side where it could complement what their existing private enterprise is. And is this still on 101? Yeah, ideally we want it on 101 where we have good visibility.

You mentioned the armory. I remember a couple of years ago when I first came on, there was talk about trying to acquire that. But do you think that's probably dead with the current federal government?

This is a longer-term play. That's a slow slog. But we have had conversations with the Oregon Military Department, and they're at least receptive to what that could look like. And so we're taking baby steps in that direction.

It's still not off the table. It's a possibility. Right. Okay. That's good news.

Next up. Beginning now. Grant programs.

Okay. So as I mentioned, we got some feedback when we did our stakeholder interviews and meetings about our potential grant programs and we heard two things one is we heard from several property owners well they're interested in doing something different with the property but they don't know what or how to do it so that's why we've added the redevelopment assistance grant the other thing we heard is cool we would be interested in a facade improvement grant but we don't know what we would propose to do for our facade improvement we need some help So how we're moving forward with this is instead of the city writing a grant program, putting it out on the street and waiting for a response, we decided we need a partner who can actually work with the property owners and businesses who has experience in economic development, has experience in managing these grants, to not just administer it, but actually work with the property owners and business owners to come up with plans. And we would still be the awarding agency. So at the end of the day, it's our grant program in terms of accountability and funding that is budgeted for out of the Urban Renewal District, but that we'd have this third party help make sure that our businesses and property owners are preparing plans that are in alignment with the branding study and really make sense to help further the district. Again, we're going to have two separate grant programs instead of one. We are still developing a plan for that. So I don't have a full scope for you tonight. That is what we're working on right now with the Economic Development Alliance of Lincoln County is exactly what this looks like. But we will make sure that the grant programs are in alignment with the new branding as well as the new renderings, which we're going to talk about next. Because the branding helps define what we want the core to be in terms of a visual, a logo, a name. But we want to translate that from just that into, so what does that mean to the buildings? How would the buildings look different? How does the area look different if it's uptown?

So over to Anna. Yeah, so for the conceptual renderings, we are in the process of issuing a task order right now to one of our consultants of record, an architectural firm. And they will be putting together some renderings. We're looking at having them do some renderings for two areas for potential facade improvements. And then two areas for full redevelopment plans to see what that could potentially look like. And so they'll be working. We've provided them, of course, with all the information on the city center revitalization plan, form-based code. And so it will all be done within those parameters. Like I mentioned, we're looking at two different types of renderings. One would be facade improvements and one would be full redevelopment. We're looking at getting some 3D renderings so we can really get an idea of what these will look like. of the city, the council, business owners, residents of the city, just to kind of visualize what this area could look like potentially. And we chose an architectural firm because they can help us really look at estimating things like potential housing units that could be in these spaces, commercial spaces, preserving parking at the same time, working with a firm who can actually look at those types of numbers, kind of realistically look at what could be built there. what that could accommodate. And this example site shown up here is entirely owned by the city, so that's one of the areas we're going to look at some mixed-use redevelopment. It gives us a little more flexibility since we own that site. Can I just clarify?

Because I think earlier designs, we'd also looked at the street between Pig and Pancake and the school district where that block starts. There would be sideway parking. There could then be a street fair that is cordoned off, and that there would be housing in there. So I just want to be clear that there's going to be more housing. other than maybe this one block. That's, I think, what we were all on board with earlier.

Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, we have limits in terms of just how many sites we can have an architect do renderings on. This is one. The other one is actually over where the agency's already acquired property and has had discussions about other potential sites. So there will be two that you have a chance to look at, both of which are focused mostly on kind of that multi-story mixed-use space But that's not the only type of housing that can happen within the city center area. Whether or not those result in actual redevelopment projects on those properties, it gives you, as a council, an opportunity to think about possibilities at these other locations. But it also serves a very important purpose in that it helps others who are looking to develop or redevelop their properties in their entirety a good sense of what their possibilities are for their properties. And that's why you have the two full redevelopment options and then you have the two facade improvement ones. The two facade are looking at kind of a street block where the businesses aren't looking to do a full redevelopment, but they are looking to kind of dress up and improve their existing properties. And so it will show them some concepts for what they can do in that context.

Are you able to say what the actual places that would be a full redevelopment are? Or they're still kind of like ending?

Sure. They haven't finished the renderings yet. But one is this one, and the other one is the one that involves the school district and adjacent properties, and the one that the agency picked up, and the one that the agency already owns that's vacant online. So kind of a portion of that block would be the other that they're looking at.

Okay, we got one more area to cover. Almost there. And that is the City Center Business Association. I already mentioned this one earlier, but we would like to support eventually the creation of one. This probably is a little bit further down the line, but again, we think it's really important that the business community has some ownership and some say in what the future of their district looks like. And he has done a ton of research on other business associations and has some recommendations on how we can move forward with one. So when the time comes, we will be looking to move forward with this as well. And I believe that is our last item. There's a lot to the city center activation. I'd just like to thank the team. As you can tell, this is a lot of time and effort. But this project is really critical. And so I'm thankful for all of them. And the work's going to continue. We just got started.

That's exciting. to latch onto, and there's great work being done here. So thank you all.

Thank you. Can I just say one thing?

I live like a block, or half a block, basically, I think, off of what is the uptown area. And I'm not on my beach. And I think I'd always thought that I was in this quadrant, right? Because we've seen different maps and I'm kind of like, where am I, right? And I didn't get any communication around this. Now, I get it that I'm not in that, like the way that you were drawing the maps today, right? But I still feel like we're so close to this. It does feel like a courtesy to read in those just right on the margins residents. And I'm not saying that as a counselor. I'm saying that as a resident. this would be good for me to be looked in on. Because I'm in Abbey and Southwest 6, right, basically? And Abbey is the street. It's where it's going to start to become that couplet. So it just feels like an area that would be impacted.

Thank you all. At this time. So at this time, the City Council will close the open portion of the meeting and move into executive session after reading the authorization and rules for tonight's executive session. City Council will convene an executive session pursuant to ORS 192.6602F to consider information or records that are exempt by law from public inspection and ORS 192.6602H to consult with Council concerning the legal rights and duties of a public body with regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed. Under ORS 192.6604, members of the media may report that an executive session was held under the specific statutory authority stated. However, they may not disclose any specific information discussed during the executive session. No decisions will be made during the executive session. Council members and staff are reminded that all discussions during the executive session are confidential and must not be disclosed outside of this session. At this time, we respectfully request that members of the audience exit the room. Following the executive session, the meeting will be adjourned.

Okay, you guys are going to have to talk in a second while I get out here.

Okay?