Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Thank you all very much for coming. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Commissioner Flowers will give the invocation followed by commissioner Nowicki who will do the pledge.

If you are able to stand, please do so. Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Take a deep breath. It's gonna be okay. I promise. Dear heavenly father, we just thank and praise you for allowing us to be in your presence on today. We thank you for traveling grace and arrival's mercy.

We ask that for our family members that are back home that you keep them under your covenant care. For those of us that are serving in leadership positions, Lord God, we ask that you just keep us with an open mind and with a heart of love, filled with integrity and peace from within. For those individuals that are here on this evening, we are thankful that you have given them a voice such that they can be heard. We ask right now that we remain as respectful as we can with one another. We understand that this topic is one that does bring out a lot of emotions.

But we know that in you, with you, and through you, that there is always a path where we can treat each other with righteousness and respect. We are thankful and grateful for the staff who've been about the business all day today, but thought it not robbery to show up and support us on this evening. For those who are not present and desire to be here, Lord God, we ask that you keep them in their covenant prayer. For those that are sick and shut in and especially those who are fighting overseas, we ask that you just use your angels of protection to let them know that they have never been forgotten. We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus Christ who sits high and looks low, who is the author and finisher of our faith, and who loves us, each and every one, one and all.

Let every heart say amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I'd like to recognize some very special folks that are with us, this evening, from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, sergeant Campbell, corporal Thornton, deputy Winick, who's a Red Sox fan unfortunately, deputy McSweeney, deputy Manley, and deputy Blackman. Thank you all very much. Oh, I forgot deputy McSweeney is also a Red Sox fan. Yeah.

Go Yankees.

Thank you all very much. I'm Vice Chair Chris Lottbala. I represent Clearwater on the Pinellas County Commission and I thank my colleagues for putting together this town hall and I have the privilege of chairing this important meeting. I will I would like to start by going around the dais and having all my colleagues introduce themselves, and we'll start with commissioner Nowicki.

Hey. Good afternoon. Thank you everybody for coming out and spending your Wednesday afternoon and evening with us. And County Commissioner Vince Nowicki, District three at large.

Hi. Kathleen Peters, County Commission District six. Thank you.

Dave Eggers, County Commission District four. It's the north end of the county, and thank you all for coming out tonight. Look forward to listening and hearing from you.

Good evening again. Doctor Renee Flowers, Pinellas County Commissioner representing District 7, single member district, which takes up most of the southern part of our county.

Good evening. Chris Shear, Pinellas County Commission District one. I'm countywide, and I'm I'm very pleased to see somebody if you come out tonight to share your ideas because I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Ashley Pavolonia, the board reporter, from the clerk of the circuit court and comptroller's office.

Tonight is the first step in a long process that we first talked about a couple years ago, and there will be several opportunities for the public to weigh in. You may not see a lot of back and forth between commissioners because tonight is about you. We have talked about this issue with our administrator through one on ones and as a body and will continue to do so continuing on Tuesday during our regular board meeting. My main role for tonight though is please no audience outbursts. This includes clapping.

It takes away from time from your neighbor, but feel free to use jazz hands as that will be encouraged. This town hall, though, is about our county property and what we will be doing with our county property as we will be moving to Ulmerton in '19. This county project represents 25 acres and 17 properties in what will be the largest redevelopment in Clearwater's history. So please keep your comments to that. I am committed and we are committed to hearing everyone who wants to speak, speak tonight.

But if you get upset with me, remember again, my name is commissioner Dave Eggers from commission district four. With that, we're gonna have a staff presentation from our assistant county administrator, Blaine Williams in CBRE.

Thank you, commissioner. Good evening, county commissioners, state legislators, judges, city council members, city and county staff, and the residents of our community. My name is Blaine Williams, I'm assistant county administrator for Pinellas County. And I'm sorry I have my back to y'all. Our hope is that you will hear some meaningful context on our proposed path forward, and we hear equally meaningful feedback from you tonight. Providing that context for you are three representatives of CBRE

who have

been instrumental in advising the county on this matter. Mike McShea is an executive vice president and national co leader of CBRE state and local government practice and will share some background on CBRE's experience. Robert Shaw is a managing partner with Crawford Cook Management and is Pinellas County's owners rep owners representative on the new campus project. Engaged since the beginning, Robert will cover where we where have we been. And finally, CBRE, Leanne Corst is an executive vice president responsible for the Southeast Region government practice.

She has been the lead on the Pinellas engagement from the very beginning, and she will be sharing where we are today and where we are headed, including information about the request for negotiations process. But before they begin, let me share a proposed a proposed process developed by the consultant staff and attorneys that we will be discussing at the May 5 board of county commissioners meeting. Now we're gonna share parts of this proposed process tonight, but I wanna be clear that the commission has not agreed to this process yet, and they always have the prerogative to change things. So we're sharing with you in full transparency the best of our current thinking, but certainly don't wanna preempt the duly elected representatives of the public or set wrong expectations tonight. So please understand it's a proposed process.

And Leanne will cover this, but I wanna go ahead and hit the highlighted parts of the of the process that speak to, we think, many of the concerns we have heard. First, this will be a competitive process. We propose to ask the developers for their feedback on different transaction structures, such as fee simple or lease approach. Only qualified developmental development entities will be shortlisted. We propose to negotiate with the shortlisted developers on these terms.

So multiple developers will be negotiating with simultaneously to produce multiple responses which will be presented to the commission. Okay? They will be shared with the commission and the public, and we expect this to happen in the early part of twenty twenty seven. So there's no imminent decision right now. We propose that the shortlisted firms present to the commission in a public meeting so the public can see what these responses are.

And we propose that following that meeting, there would be another town hall where the developers would actually present to the assembled public and perhaps even man some stations where the public can go and ask them questions individually about their specific proposals. And then a final commission meeting after the commission had the benefit of hearing the public feedback from that second town hall in the future, where the commission would deliberate their choices in a public meeting and select the final award the engagement to a developer, and then further due diligence would occur after that. So that is a process that we think is transparent, it's iterative, we're understanding and learning from the developers about what they're willing to do and how they're willing to do it. And all of this will be done in full public view once we have received those responses and negotiations and hand it to the commission. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Mike to begin the presentation.

Alright. Good evening, commissioners. And, mister Burton, I wanna thank you all. You know, we are, very privileged to be here tonight to tell you a little bit about our experience of some of the transactions and what CBRE represents and how we think we can assist you in this process. So I was asked to tell you a little bit about the CBRE organization and what we can do to maybe support you in terms of some of your peer groups around the state.

So as as I start here, CBRE, for those of you that don't know, is the largest commercial real estate company in the world. You know, we have a 155,000 employees around the planet, 500 offices globally. Why is that important? Well, it's important because of a couple things. You all have asked that we consider or help you to consider a mixed use development downtown.

The reason that is important is we have subject matter experts in virtually every kind of real estate proposal that you might receive as this comes in in the next months, you know, as as the proposals are received. That includes, you know, food and beverage, sport and leisure, retail, housing, all of the kinds of uses that, you know, you might consider as you go through this process. We have the experts that can help us analyze the proposals that are received and actually make sure that you are able to get what you have bargained for throughout this very transformational project and process. It's also important because we think that as a result of our size and our scale, we're gonna get the opportunity to meet with and talk to some of the best developers in the world. Okay?

They're not just local developers. Of course, we will be talking to them. But we're gonna have the opportune opportunity to see the best and the brightest from really anywhere in The United States and perhaps around the planet. Having said that, CBRE, has a very significant presence here in Florida. You know, today, we have 1,700 employees and 11 offices. We've been in the state of Florida for fifty years. Importantly, we've been in the Metro Tampa area for thirty years. And with us today is Kelly Matheson. She's in the back of the room. She lives here.

She is actually our partner, our local partner here. But why we think this is important is because we are, in fact, part of your community today, and we have been for a long time. Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about the practice that I lead with Leanne around The United States. We you can see from the map here, we support all kinds of city, county, and state governments all across The United States today. You know, we have a very, very significant presence here in Florida.

But, you know, it started this is I I think it's somewhat interesting. It started when we helped the city and state of New York redevelop or to consider redevelopment of Lower Manhattan after the nine eleven project or the massacre there. And then it's expanded today that we are advising city counties all across The United States, Broward County, Pompano Beach, Hollywood, and many others. And we're gonna talk about that in just a moment. But it is important that you all know that we understand government.

We know how to support you and help answer some of the very complicated questions that you might consider as you go through this evaluation process. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit now about some of the projects that I think are important. Just a couple of very diverse, very different types of projects. The first one is Gwinnett County, Georgia. It's a mall redevelopment in just outside of Georgia.

We are today supporting the city of Hollywood, Florida and the redevelopment of a beachfront parcel. We're doing transit oriented development in the city of San Diego, is along the beach, 11 different stations. But the one I wanted to talk about is the city of Pompano Beach, Florida. There are very many similarities between what Pompano Beach is attempting to do there and what you all are going to be doing here. In Pompano, they have you know, it's a beachfront community.

You know, they've got a barrier island. And because of that, what you see is they wanted to create a new downtown that will create a sense of place for their entire community. Today, we are representing them on the redevelopment of about 70 acres of land, 121 parcels. And it's a it will be a transformational project for them in the coming years. It will be, like I said, a transformational opportunity, a new sense of place in redeveloping their downtown.

So that's gonna conclude my remarks. I'd like to introduce now Robert Shaw. Robert has been our business partner for nearly ten years. He's an owner's representative for the for the county, and he is a construction and development expert. I'd like to call Robert to the

stand. Thank

you, Mike, and good evening, commissioners. Just wanted to take a few minutes to walk you through where we've been in the past regarding this process. So a few bullet points to go through. This slide is a slide we presented in August 2023, which outlined the challenges and the opportunities we saw with this opportunity. Challenges were citizen access with the buildings being located in Downtown Clearwater, which was not centrally located to the population, occupying 14 different buildings in Downtown Clearwater.

They were becoming functionally obsolete. There are end of of useful life issues, and there was also a large estimated amount of deferred maintenance that needed to be completed. So along with the challenges, we listed what the opportunities would be to move to a new location. And those included function, improving citizen service access by locating a new campus somewhere more centrally located, the obvious efficiencies of moving into more efficient space both in in size and in operating costs, and then also avoiding avoiding the cost of the upgrades needed for the buildings downtown. So that led us to a study to find the actual weighted average population of Pinellas County.

And as it turned out, the results were US 19 in Almerton. So that informed the real estate search. And that took a couple of months. Kelly worked on that diligently, and that produced the property at ICOT in Almerton, a 21 acre site that was a previous car lot, which looked like the ideal location for us to move to very close to the weighted center population. So that property was purchased in December, I think December of of of that year, and we've been moving forward since.

But one more slide I have for where we've been is also a slide we presented in August 2023, and it highlighted our goals for Downtown Clearwater. And that included activating downtown, enhancing the quality of life for the citizens, providing some economic development opportunities through investment, jobs, attracting new new residents, new jobs, new opportunities. Also, providing for tourists and resident amenities. And we thought there's an opportunity there for the tourists to also spend some time in Downtown Clearwater. And then, obviously, the long term economic development that this revitalization will bring to Downtown Clearwater. So those that's where we've been.

Leanne?

So as you can see from Robert's remarks in the top of that slide, we've been working on and considering the benefits to Downtown Clearwater now for more than three years, which leads us to where we are today. And obviously, today is a very important day in the process, and it's evident by the number of folks that are attending tonight and with us. And as Blayne said, the process will take many months to ensure that it's deliberate and that we achieve the project goals, which is what we want to hear from you all tonight about. And so, this page has four very high level goals and their summary. In actual request for negotiations that we issue to solicit developers, there are a lot of other project goals and items that we want to make sure that the development achieves.

Most important and top of the list is activation. So at a very high level, we want to make sure that the developer solicitation is transparent and competitive. You're going to hear those words a lot. And Blaine said them just a little while ago. It's imperative that we seek a qualified and experienced developer, so one that has the financial capacity to perform, but also the experience.

We want to make sure that they're providing us with examples of other projects that they've delivered that are similar mixed use and of a similar complexity. The third line there is holding the developer accountable. So, they're going to provide proposals And what we want to make sure that we achieve through legal controls and protections is that they deliver what they say they're going to deliver, both in the short term and long term, and that they continue to operate in that capacity. And last but not least is, you know, the benefit of those activated uses is the county and the city tax base expansion along with the various new amenities downtown. And with that, I'll move to the Clearwater 2045 alignment.

And many of you may have participated in the stakeholder feedback that the city collected along the way. The left hand column of this page shows the various activities that the city undertook to achieve the Clearwater 2045 plan, a lot of great activities. And then the middle to right side of that same page shows how the RFN goals that we're putting forth in draft form at this point in time achieve five out of six of those chapters. The 2045 plan has six chapters. The only one that we don't address is support services, and that's because those are services provided by the city.

But plan implementation is the last item, and that's what we're doing tonight. It's intergovernmental coordination. And in this case, the city and the county have been collaborating a lot on those goals and to make sure that we're aligned with what the citizens said was important in '20 in the 2045 plan. So where we're going, this is an outline of some of the important components of the request for negotiation structure. We will market it nationally to solicit qualified respondents.

We'll want to, as Blayne said and I said earlier, we'll want to make sure that they have the experiential and the financial capacity to perform. That includes looking at financial statements, sources of debt and equity, etcetera. We also want to know that what they're proposing is compatible with the RFN's development goals and vision. And that includes understanding the uses, the densities, their operating plan post award, and the phasing timeline. The phasing timeline is really important because it's not all likely to be built at one time.

It'll be phased in over time based on how the market absorbs the various uses. And so then the last bucket there on that page specifies ninety days to respond. That is we've been asked if that's enough time. And it is typical of a project like this to allow ninety days for developers to respond. Those projects that Mike spoke about earlier or that were on that previous slide all had a ninety day response time.

And there's a deadline to respond to make sure that there's a level playing field, and we get all the responses at the same time. After that, there will be seven several months of evaluations. There'll be a board recommendation, public meetings, and negotiations of the binding legal agreements. There we go. So the timeline, this kind of a process for a complicated project doesn't happen overnight.

It's a deliberate process. There are a lot of steps and milestones. We have some of those listed on this page. But under each of those items, there's a lot of work that goes into them. So, you know, after we release the RFN, which is at the board's discretion, the board will give us direction on when they're ready for us to release that.

Right now, this timeline contemplates mid June, but that's subject to change based on board direction. So we'll release the RFN. I talked about the response time of ninety days. Once the proposals are in, we'll we'll analyze them with teams of experts in construction and financial analysis. And then we'll go through a negotiating process and bring back those proposals to the board.

And the board will hear public presentations. Blaine mentioned that earlier, but I think it bears repeating. That will be a public meeting, and the board will hear those presentations from the qualified respondents. From there, in a public meeting, the board will award the project. But before that, we're going to hold a second town hall. So proposals will come in. The board will hear oral presentations. Second town hall will occur. And then the board will award the project. And the final negotiated legal agreements will be brought back to the board again in a public meeting for final approval.

Importantly, on this page is the box in the bottom. After the project is awarded, there's another period of time where developers will have to go through property due diligence and predevelopment activities, which generally take anywhere from twelve to twenty four months. If they want any variances from the city zoning, that would occur during that time as well. So we're looking at award probably sometime this time around this time next year. And then the legal agreements and the negotiation will take a period of time.

So again, we're looking at a lengthy and deliberate process here. So that concludes our presentation and our remarks. I'm gonna turn it over to Dave Connor, who will share more about how to provide feedback tonight. And we look forward to seeing you at the next town hall.

Commissioner Flowers? Just a a comment. Some individuals in the audience may not know some of the abbreviations that we use like RFN or whatnot. So if you don't mind, if if it's okay, can you say what a request for negotiation?

Yes, ma'am. Happy.

And then what it means in that way, anyone here who doesn't understand will

Absolutely. So it's a it's a request for negotiations as the or it's the procurement process that government goes through to make sure there's a very competitive process, but it's very specified. And, you know, from a from a procurement standpoint, it's also flexible enough to have some discussion and negotiations. So it is the competitive procurement that the county will issue. RFN stands for request for negotiation. You're welcome.

Yes, ma'am. Eve?

I also just wanted to mention that Robert, Shaw and I will be in the the room just outside here in the event anyone wants to ask us questions or talk more about what we what we presented on.

Alright. Good evening again, everyone. My name is David Conner. I'm the director of communications. Thank you for coming. When you walked in, you've probably found on your seat four little circular dots. And what we're going to ask of you tonight is to share which of those four goals that Leanne talked through. Which of those is the most important for you? It may be all four. You could put one dot on each on each goal, or you may feel really strongly about one over the other. Those goals are displayed on poster boards right outside in the foyer where you came in. You don't have to do that right now. You can do it on your way out. If you are one of the 163 people watching this meeting online, hello? You can do that as well at pennellis.gov/moving.

There's a survey on there where you can do the same thing. There's also a board out there that's just blank because we realize we can't read everybody's mind. So if there's another goal that you haven't heard that is really important for you, you can grab one of the sticky notes outside, write it on there, and put it on that board. My staff will transcribe all of those goals. We will provide a report to the commissioners and also to to any potential developers.

As we go in next to the comment period, I'll just remind you too, if you if you would like to speak, please fill out the form that is on your chair. If you're out in the in the foyer, there's a form on your chair there as well, and pass it to one of the folks in a blue shirt. You can just hold it up over your head, we'll come grab it from you, either Corey or or Brian over there. If you don't wanna speak, you can write on that form and drop it off at the desk on your way out. Or again, you can do that online at our survey, is at pennellis.gov/moving, or the the QR code on the bottom of your page takes you there as well. Thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing you throughout this engagement process.

Thank you. This process, we have worked with the as you heard, we've worked with the city of Clearwater on Spanning the last couple years and and gotten their input. And we have several members of the Clearwater government here that I wanted to recognize. Our mayor Bruce Rector is here, as well as council members Mike Menino, Lina Teshada, and David Albritton who are here, as well as the city manager, Jennifer Poirier, is here, and I saw the assistant city manager, Al Battle, who is here. And I also wanted to recognize our county administrator who usually sits with us, he's sitting in the back, Barry Burton, who's also joining joining us this evening.

Thank you all very much for being here. And and it's on my notes. Alright. Just checking. I did not mention that during our introductions, we have an important birthday coming up next month.

Mister commissioner Dave Eggers, June 2. Right?

Correct.

Yeah. But it's not.

It's gonna be a big month. He's our oldest commissioner. But we are also joined by our state representative, Kim Burfield, who is here, who represents Clearwater. And, if you'd like to give some remarks, you are recognized. And then we will have public comment.

Well, thank you very much. It is always a pleasure to be back home in comparison to Tallahassee. I'd like to thank you, vice chairman and commissioners, for having us here this evening. You know, growing up in this community, I have always appreciated the balance that we have struck. If you think about it, it's one where we have one foot that is anchored in the character of the past and the other enthusiastically moving forward to what will be revealed as our future.

As a state representative for the city of Clearwater, I have heard community concerns about the 30 properties in Clearwater that you are looking at vacating, and I appreciate that you have a truly difficult decision ahead of you. But after listening to the residents and their concerns, I would strongly encourage you to contemplate how your decision will actually affect the future generations before you proceed. These buildings and parcels, I can tell you, are not merely land and perspective redevelopment sites. They are integral parts of Clearwater's narrative. They reflect years of public use, local heritage, and the evolving character of downtown as witnessed by many of these individuals here in the room.

Once a property is sold and redeveloped, the chance of preservation is often permanently lost. So the decision made as you move forward will define the appearance and the atmosphere of downtown for generations. For me, this moment is truly definitive. It's a deliberate action. While redevelopment investments are essential as we know for our downtown, it remains equally important to consider strategies that will retain a degree of public control over these properties.

Maintaining ownership and leasing these properties rather than opting for outright sale enables not only the county, but also the county and the city to collaborate to guide future developments. This approach will allow for adaptive flexibility as the community's priorities shift. It safeguards long term public interest, and it creates opportunities to preserve historic elements alongside responsible development. The county's objectives include revitalizing an active downtown, fostering a workable mixed use environment, and promoting economic growth for all residents. These intentions can be recognized.

I thank you for your consideration in the long term impact beyond just a financial transaction. So as you move forward, I would encourage you as somebody who has watched the evolution of this city to think about what it will look like and the impacts it will have as you make your decision. Thank you very much.

Thank you for those who did the jazz hands, and please no clapping. Alison Dolan followed by Mike Mastrosario. Allison, there you are. And also, you will have two and a half minutes, not two minutes. Okay.

It's kinda hard to go after Kim, but, you know, I'll try.

Yes, ma'am.

I come here as the vice chair of the historic preservation board. And part of what we wanted to discuss was the fact that we have a role in when you develop these properties, especially the historic courthouse because it's nationally recognized, designated, and it's locally designated. So doing projects on those properties alone is gonna be, you know, we need to watch out for that because it's gonna go under certain certain criteria like secretary of, interiors. There's also a lot of tax credits we want to make sure that are are brought up. This area here is an occupation is a you can get the federal tax credit of 20%.

There's also the I forgot the name of it now. Just one second. Occupational wait. Secretary of state standards and the over and and it's also in a federally located land that we can also get other tax credits for. And also what doing the as sort preservation also allows the buildings to remain, but there's so many things you can do with them without actually tearing them down. But we'd also like to be involved in the process of this with the RFP, with everything like that. And because we are mandated by the county to look at all historic properties, we wanna make sure the historic preservation board is part of that process. Okay?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much for being here. Mike Mastrosario followed by Polar Vesso de la Cruz.

Thank you for allowing us to speak. Thank you for all the work that you do. One of the questions I had, I heard, and it's not a question, I'm just gonna put it out there for information. I was under the impression that the county already had all the money they needed to do the new new project that they're moving to. It's always nice to have more money coming in, but I don't think you entered into that situation where you're going to buy something there and do a new one with on the if come if you sell or lease this property.

So I don't know if this has much to do with it. As far as the county coffers, yes. And we just gave a lot of money to affiliates, which I believe in. We do a lot of things, but I think you are good stewards, and you are gonna build that whether or not you leased or sold this property. So that's one thing I wanted to get out of the way. The second thing is I want to thank Kim Burfield. She did a great job, much more than I would be able to do. But I agree with every one of her statements. And I think that talking with a lot of you is I I feel like there is a lot of that commonality. I also want to thank you, miss Flowers, for your prayer.

It means a lot to me. So thank you very much. We would not be in this room tonight if it wasn't for an animal in our city. It's an organization called Scientology. That is the reason that we're sitting here with a problem. Usually, this would be a win win situation for the city and the county. But a lot of these people are here because they do not want our heritage erased by an organization that has both the money and the right kind of architects to do whatever they want to do. Currently, right now, they are doing a project on Cleveland Street, Cleveland Street Alliance, which is great. It's always in the dark. They don't come out and say Scientology is doing this.

If you go to the building they just put up, it says the good life. Well, good life is just Scientology with a well, you can't when you have a pig and you put lipstick on, it's still a pig. So the good life is not some great thing that most people think the city of Clearwater is behind, and it's not. It's Scientology. So please, when you're making these ideas and your thoughts and what's going forward in many years to come, know that we serve one God, Jesus Christ, and not a God that is not known or a person that they serve.

And it is a cult and we need to make sure that we make sure we leave all our properties going forward in our control. You have the control and that's the best place to be. And it sounds like we'll get more money in the end if we do that too. So thank you.

Jazz hands, please. Valar Veso de la Cruz followed by Brooke Skibbs.

Hi. Well, my name is Valar. It's my first time being at one of these. I am was born I'm so sorry. My name is Belar.

I was born and raised here in Clearwater, Florida. I came here because I heard there were a lot of plans for the future of the city of Clearwater, and I just wanted to voice my concern about downtown. A lot of Clearwater, downtown specifically, is not as alive as the other downtowns in the area, and that is specifically do certain organizations who take up the space of very valuable properties. So I just hope to whoever is in charge of making those decisions of our future, because I really do plan on living here for the rest of my life. I'm very thankful for being here and being a part of this community.

I just hope you guys really think about our future generations and your future family, children, grandchildren. And, yeah, that's I think that's pretty much all I wanna say. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here. Brooks Gibbs followed by Robert Holsinger.

I wanna thank miss Kim Burfield for that excellent presentation. That really captured the heart of a lot of the citizens here in Clearwater. I've talked to thousands of them over the last year. You know, for the love of Clearwater, don't sell the land. Lease it for the love of Clearwater because we have a very unique situation in this town and we're tired of losing land to one property owner.

You know, but I know you're not equipped to make that decision to prefer a lease because for some reason our county administrator, although he was directed to work with CBRE to develop a lease pro form a for the downtown Clearwater properties, he didn't do it. He didn't do do what you said. It was on November, like, I think thirteenth, actually, 2025. If you go back to that commission meeting, three commissioners directed him to do this and he didn't. He's clearly not interested, it seems, to be in leasing.

And it seems like he squirms every time he's brought up. And it's it's too bad because that's sus as my kids might say. So I have to do the pro form a for you. Okay? I'm a bit my kids will call me I know it's offensive, but they call me a math tard because I'm not very good at math.

My wife does the finances, but I got some CEO friends and I've had hours of conversation with them and this is basically what they're telling me. If you sell it for $80,000,000, which is what you hope, the land's gone forever, no future revenue, no control, missed fifty years of value growth. The reality is 80,000,000 doesn't even end up what you get. Because if you have to rent the property back at about 5 to $7,000,000 per year, that's going to eat into it about 30,000,000. You'll net 50,000,000.

Or if they even give you rent free, you know, money that or land that's not making money or money that's not being receiving interest is not great money. It's dead money. So you only get 50,000,000 either way. But if you go to a lease option, the public land stays public. You've got private development on leased land and you have multiple streams of income like upfront cash. They could actually pay you $40,000,000 just for a revenue advance. You you service the debt. A dollar saved is a a dollar earned. You get property taxes. You get the ground lease. It's a difference between 50,000,000 and 700,000,000. I don't know. Screenshot that YouTube. Share it around. I think it's true.

Thank you for being here. Jazz hands, please. Robert Holsinger, and next is Doreen Caudel.

Good evening. My name is Bob Holsinger. Not a half, but a Holsinger. I've lived in Clearwater for twenty six years, and I've seen, unfortunately, Clearwater become more and more under the stranglehold, if you will, of Scientology. There have been a lot of talk has been a lot of talk about reimagining Clearwater, But it seems in the long run, these projects end up changing somewhat of the outward appearance of Clearwater, but the vibe in downtown Clearwater remains the same.

It feels like we're still under the specter of Scientology. So on that note, to sell these valuable properties, I think we all know what's gonna happen. The buyer is going to be one entity. It's going to be Scientology, and the story that we've been through for many years will just continue to repeat itself. So I urge you commissioners to keep We The People at your heart and close to your heart and decide not to sell the properties, but to lease them.

Thank you. Doreen Caudel followed by David Glenn junior.

Good evening. And commission I wanna say representative. Commissioner Latvala, thank you so much for having this town hall. And representative Kim Burfield has brought tears to my eyes. She actually said the things that I actually wanted to say, along with Brooks, as far as doing his what do you call that? Accounting Tard? We've to talk about that. Different word. We had to come up with a different acronym. As a matter of

fact,

Representative Flowers in the acronym side of things. There's one thing that I believe this application is leaving out, that is TOD. And how many here in this room can raise their hand to what the acronym TOD means? Kathleen, city or the administrator. And that is transit oriented development.

And what I'd like to point out this evening, and I and I want to thank the city of Clearwater for being here. Just a little bit of a background for those of you that may not know who I am. I've lived here since the 70s. I actually served on the Community Development Board from 2006 to 2012, representing and approving all of the beach development by the basis of the mayor then, Brian Unc, Sr, with Beach by Design. And then, from 2012 to 2018, I served on the City of Clearwater Council.

And at that time, I was also serving on all of the transit boards throughout our region and the state. And I actually still work closely with a lot of them, because I'm also a general contractor in multiple states, and I've owned my own commercial general contracting business here in Clearwater since 2001, along with my husband who's here tonight that has a very extensive background as well in development. And in also, you know, the visions and the dreams of what we have. And as a matter of fact, some of you can probably search my name and see things like gondolas, monorails, and vertiports. In fact, we talked about that last Tuesday with the director of TPA, which is Tampa Airport.

And Kathleen gave a nice question to him about vertiports and passenger drones. So, with all that said, I'd like to see excitement going forward. I would like to see the collaboration of the City of Clearwater and the County Commission working together to lease the dirt to developers, much like they do in other large cities like Chicago, and Boston, and New York, and Miami, and in Saint Pete. And, you know, with that, I just think that there is a new day coming, and I do believe that. And I want to say, Commissioner Flowers, thank you so much for your prayer. It definitely moved everybody here in the room, and thank you so much.

Thank you. David Glenn Junior followed by Marcus, Eddie.

Good evening. My name is David Glenn Junior, and I work as a registered Florida architect here in Pinellas County. I probably share some of the same views as everybody else that the county commission should really look at this and not sell these properties, keep them within your inventory, and lease them out. There's some you have a lot of opportunities to develop these properties for the good of Pinellas County, things that we're missing. The courthouse site and the big property the big parcels that are there, we're missing a convention center in Pinellas County.

You could definitely do a multilevel convention space, retail entertainment, on-site hotel. Of course, it would have spectacular views of the downtown area and the waterfront. And definitely provide a connection to the Clearwater to the Clearwater Waterfront and Coachman Park. The other properties that are over by Chestnut, between Chestnut and Druid along MLK, these are ideal locations for affordable housing. You could reserve, you know, have some kind of partnership to reserve these buildings for affordable housing that for people that make 80% AMI to 50% AMI.

And the advantage of that is if you develop those other parcels, this might draw in people that could live there and work in downtown. So you keep these people off of the roads. They could walk to work essentially. The other thing is to think about a location for a train station, you know, with public transportation and the train is coming to Pinellas County. And the end of that line is not Tampa.

It's definitely gonna be Clearwater Beach coming through Gateway, down to Saint Pete, and through all the diagonally through all the communities from Leomin to Pinellas Park to Seminole to Largo to Clearwater and Clearwater Beach. So to preserve some kind of parcel or a land swap for that in the coming future, it's coming, so it's time to get on board with that. By the county controlling these parcels, you're also gonna control additional development on other properties in downtown. You have vacant properties, dilapidated properties that for every dollar of development that you're gonna do in downtown, you're gonna bring in additional development to feed on that. And whether that's additional housing, retail, grocery stores, restaurants, and more, which are gonna activate the downtown even more than it is.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here. Marcus Eddie followed by, Michael Jones.

I'll bend down. Thank you, commissioners. I I I will tell you I've had the pleasure of speaking with just about every one of you personally and getting to know you, and and you have quite a job ahead of you. But it's a cautionary tale that I think should be shared. I remember years ago reading the book Swim with the Sharks.

Anybody read that by Harvey McKay many years ago? It talks about how we position ourselves before a sale or a purchase. And it's not particularly here, but in general, I think you're swimming with sharks and barracudas. And by maintaining control of these properties in the form of leasing, you're giving your city options. You're giving the county options permanently because we are landlocked.

We're the densest population in Florida. There's only kinda one way street there. Don't give up control and power of these areas. And you can do I think the gentleman who had the little pro form a sheet here was very nice. I think that modeling needs to be looked at. And in today's world, we can model those numbers very easily, and I really urge you to look at doing proper pro formas of leasing the land in the various land uses, and that gives you adaptability over the years. Thank you so much, and God bless you all.

Thank you for being here. Michael Jones followed by Mark Bunker.

Hi. Thanks. Thank you. Hi. My name is Michael Jones and I'm a resident of Clearwater. I grew up here, born in 1988, born and raised. One place I never went was downtown except for passing through on my bike. And, I want to acknowledge I appreciate the development that you're trying to do, the economic growth and the long term planning. And I also want to acknowledge that Clearwater does have established venues like Ruth Decker Hall, Bay Care Sound, and the Capitol Theater. Those are valuable cultural assets.

But I want to highlight an important distinction. Those are performance venues, not everyday creative spaces. And what I believe isn't currently missing in Downtown Clearwater are accessible ongoing environments where artists, creatives, and community members can regularly gather, collaborate, and express themselves. I I, for one, went on to be on cruise ships, go to Broadway, Las Vegas, and to production shows. And thank God for a few teachers at Dunedin High School that helped me, and Mama J.

Henson at Arts for Life Academy that really pushed me into the arts and inspired me. After traveling the world and the places I've been to, one thing that Clearwater doesn't have is places where we can go and have fun. There's places at the beach, don't get me wrong, to wash your sorrows away if you can find parking. But in general, if you can't go dance, if you can't take your loved one not just to see a show, but just to go dance and have a good time, is there something really to do in our city? So as you do try to develop downtown, I question what there truly is for the community, for not just, us young people, but older people as well.

It's very important that we consider that as we try to develop this place into something that attracts more people but gives the residents here something that they don't have to drive down to Downtown St. Petersburg to go to or even just across over to Dunedin. Clearwater, it has untapped potential, and I am excited to see what happens next.

Thank you very much for being here. Mark Bunker followed by Christine Cangellaris.

I'm Mark Bunker, and I wanted to start by thanking commissioner LaVala for writing a letter in support of leasing the properties instead of selling. I think that's incredibly important. Scientology has billions in the bank to buy anything with a Shell organization. We've seen that over the years, how they purchased everything with cash and have left those buildings empty for years. I I I'd also wanna point out that I was on the council for for four years, from '20 to to '24, and we made great strides in redeveloping downtown despite Scientology.

We revamped Coachmen Park. The BayCare Sound Amphitheater has turned the place into a destination. And we've got 400 apartments going up with retail that Scientology won't control along with a boutique hotel. So we made progress, but the city knew. We talked about this all the time behind the scenes that the only way we have a solid footprint to continue developing downtown is to have the county properties, out of Scientology's hands.

So, anything we can do to to accomplish that is important. I'd also like to point out that Scientology, besides being secretive, is is often very deceptive. We've got the Cleveland Street Alliance, and they produce these beautiful videos talking about all the partners involved in redeveloping downtown. The one partner that they never mention is the Church of Scientology, which is the entity behind the entire thing. And just recently, there was a video released about the grand opening of the the GoodLife Center.

They had thousands of people in the streets applauding the opening of this little center. However, those are Scientologists there. It wasn't the public, but they released this video of ecstatic people applauding as this little storefront is opened to make it look like the citizens of Clearwater are so damn excited to see what they've got coming. And, you know, they just have to be honest.

Christine, Cangellaris followed by Charles Zaider. Thank you for being here.

Hi. My name is Christine Cangellaris, I live in Clearwater, Florida. And, I want to be honest. There's a real concern in this community about large portions of downtown being controlled by a single interest. And unfortunately, Scientologists are our neighbors. So I think it's very important that for whatever happens here, we need to prioritize accessibility, we need to prioritize local businesses, and consistent everyday use because nothing is worse than a boring downtown. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Charles Zider followed by Joseph Suk.

My name is Charles Zadar. I'm the executive director of the MAPS Museum. It stands for the Museum of Archaeology, Paleontology, and Science. We are looking for a new location for our museum. We're in Pasco County currently. We've been there about six years. Our MOU is expiring, and so we're actively looking for a place that has to be kind of timely. Not necessarily something in a a three year plan, two year, three year plan, but something more immediate. We are looking to lease. We don't have deep pockets, but with the city's assistance, we would love to or the county's assistance as well.

And we are talking with your folks in the CRA. We've been talking with Allison and some folks with Pinellas real estate division. So we are just a little bit on us. We are one of we have some of the largest natural history museums, or less natural history collections in the South Southeastern US. We we process we work with kids in the, Bright Futures programs, the USF interns.

We have, large collections that we have 7,000 artifacts from Central And South America, collections from Africa, from Egypt, from Greece and Rome. We also have, 600 objects from shipwrecks, which we think would be of real interest to, folks, get them off the beach and into a museum. We also have, natural history, collections, including global butterfly collection, invertebrate collection, so shells and things that people might be interested in as well. So we are looking to try to make this transition pretty quickly. And so we are looking to lease.

And we I live in Pinellas, so my heart's kind of in Pinellas. My my son grew up in Pinellas Schools. So we I'd love to try to work with you folks, but a little bit more immediate to try to create a new home for the museum. There's been a lot of press, recently by the Tampa Bay Times and the different news channels about it. So if you just Google Maps Museum, which stands for the Museum of Archaeology, Paleontology, and Science. And we also have a dig. If anybody wants to go to Panama with us in June, it'd be a good birthday present

for you.

We are open to the public for paying to go on dinosaur digs and our archaeological dig in Panama. Not Panama City, Panama the country.

Do you allow elderly to go on the digs?

He's gonna be on his hands and knees digging in the dirt for a long long time. So if you can handle that, we would love to have you.

He just trying to waver.

Alright. Thank you, folks. But please help us because we'd love to to be in your community. Thank you.

Missioner Starkey and Jack Mariano, we did not tell this man to come here. That is Pasco County. You know she will get us. Yeah.

Joseph Suk followed by Jessica Andahar or Andajar.

Good evening, county commission. I'm coming to you tonight as a resident of Dunedin, next town over from Clearwater. And tonight, I'm gonna talk to you about how it's important to not please do not sell these properties. I think it's important to lease them. And we need to find a I'd first of all find a developer who's experts and knows what they're doing and does not have any ties to the Church of Scientology.

There should be a background done on that. The Church of Scientology, as you know, the entity controls 80% of Downtown Clearwater. That is why now it is now dead. I go to every other downtown in the area, whether it be Dunning, Safety Harbor, Tarpon Springs, Downtown Saint Pete's alive. It's but it's like, well, all all sorts of stuff goes on down there.

But I go to Downtown Clearwater, it's just dead. And that's because it's creepy down there. I think a lot of people get that vibe. And that's nothing against Scientologists or I'm nothing against Scientologists individually, but I have a problem with why should one group have control over this whole city of that supposed to be for the city of the people, not just one entity. And I realized that they have there's not much you could really do about them just owning probably, but I don't I think we need to make sure that the property that is available does not continue to go to just one entity.

And I think it's really important that we check to make sure that or not really check to make sure that we have strong safeguards to what what's gonna be put here. And I've heard a lot of great ideas about what should be put in these properties. It could be like convention centers, hotels, parks. There's a lot of things you could do with these properties. They're beautiful properties too. It's a beautiful city, beautiful area. And I'm I'm really hopeful. I should be excited. I think most people should be excited about what we can do with these properties. I'm really hopeful that you do your time.

The time spent doing our due diligence on do our research about what what's best used for this property and what could get the most value out of it. And is most beneficial to the community as a whole, not just Clearwater, but Pinellas County, people from out out of state, even if in the state. I wanna make people wanna come here. We want people to come here. And to be able to do that, we need to make sure that things thank you for your time.

Thank you. Jessica Andajar? Andujar, I I apologize. Remember, my name is Dave Eggers. Start.

You pull that down.

I said my time started already. Okay. Hello. I'm Jessica Andohar. I'm not usually the one who speaks in my family, so I apologize.

I'm very

nervous. As a downtown business manager, I want to thank you for this town hall, as well as Kim for her words because it's what our citizens truly feel. Our business is a fun and vibrant dueling piano bar called the Nash Keys. Come visit. We'd love to see you all. And we have fought tooth and nail to have one of the only science Scientology businesses here. And a lot of people here from the city know that we have fought for a long time. And we will continue to fight and we will continue because we love our business and we love it here in Clearwater. We just want to see more of it. People come, they visit our place, and then they say, where else can we go?

What else can we do? And there's nothing else. We don't want just beautiful buildings that are empty. We need more working businesses. We need more people. We need more entertainment. We need more actual things that are going on. Having the county control the development downtown will give us small businesses the courage to keep our place open. More businesses that are open are just gonna help us. More places for people to go.

People don't just wanna come travel far to go to one place, spend a couple hours. They wanna be able to, you know, bar hop, go to different restaurants, go to different things. Please don't give up anymore of Clearwater's properties, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Amy, Dill I apologize. Amy, Dildore. Amy, who just signed in to speak. And if you can say your last name for the

It's pretty phonetic. Amy Dilde.

Oh, I apologize.

It might have been my writing, actually. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for allowing us to speak. I'm Amy Dilde. I'm here on behalf of the Clearwater Bar Association, and we would really just like to reiterate the opinion offered by the historical preservation society that we are concerned that the historic courthouse does be preserved in this process.

Of course, we understand it's complicated. And, you know, the developers will do what they need to do, and they will have plans. If the courthouse maybe could be repurposed or has to be repurposed, our next plea to the commission would just be to consider preserving the courthouse the, Courtroom Number 1. That courtroom, we are still using. I don't know how much the public realizes that, but the Clearwater Bar Foundation uses that on an annual basis to educate, elementary students throughout Pinellas County just on the judicial process.

We hold what's called the Goldilocks trial, where we have people in costumes and the students themselves are the jury so that it just exposes them to the judicial process. So for those reasons, we would really like the commission to consider what doing what they can to find a developer who's interested in helping preserve that very important cultural history of Clearwater.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak who has not spoken? I think there's a lot of Tampa Bay Lightning fans that decided to come tonight. Alright. Does the board have any comments? Commissioner Flowers.

Thank you, mister chair. Again, I wanna thank each and every one of you for coming out on this evening. This is a town hall meeting. It's for us to hear from you. We've received a number I know I have received a number of emails. I've had a a few conversations with persons, so I appreciate your complete honesty. For those who spoke this evening, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to do so. I just wanted to share a couple of things. The first is, for any of you that have worked with anything relative to historic designations, once a building has been designated historic, there is a process that you have to go through. You cannot just demolish that building.

And I know when I've presented my comments, I've talked about the desire particularly for the law library portion that is over there because of its sincere meaning, to me for something that we did over there by acknowledging attorney Fred G. Minnis and the work that he did throughout the community. So I just kinda wanted to share that information. There is a process, and it is a lengthy process. And to demolish anything that has been designated historic is very, very costly.

So, just know that I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, I I want that building to remain. And they can put offices in there or whatever. I don't know, but I want that building to remain. I also wanted to just make a correction. There has been a lot of conversation about bringing the BrightLine train to Pinellas County. Very expensive because you have to cross water either way you go to get it here. So, there are plans for BrightLine to come to Tampa. So it would route itself from Tampa to Orlando and then heading south. But for the gentleman that was speaking, I just wanted to share that information. I would love for BrightLine to come here.

I wrote it, and it is fabulous, and it gets you there quickly. But that is a a costly, endeavor. I also wanted to share that another person, I think it was the first or second speaker, he was talking about whether or not the county has all of the money that it needs irrespective of the sale or lease of the properties. That's not correct, and we don't even know how much this is going to cost. No.

There you go. Yeah. We haven't received anything yet as it relates to cost. And if you have been watching the news or watching the ticker tape like I have, the cost for supplies are through the roof, cost for labor, because there's it's a boom here. And so there is competition for labor and skilled and specified labor.

So we don't even know exactly how much this building is going to cost. But whatever happens, I think it's being a good financial steward when you look at utilizing funds you have to help offset much like we would do in our homes. We would use what we set aside for that project to help offset the cost, and that way whatever other financial considerations we have to make, they won't be so impactful. And I think with all that's going on, in our world and even in the state of Florida, we're all trying to look after our pennies. And we certainly wanna look after our pennies on behalf of you all as our constituents and certainly as our taxpayers, the taxpayers.

So, again, I just wanna thank you all for coming. I wanna thank CBRE for their presentation. We've seen it a few times. I believe we will be having another one of these where you'll also have an opportunity to share anything that you may not have shared on this evening. But I wanna thank you for your due diligence. I wanna thank you for your passion. I wanna thank you for your civility, and I wanna thank you for the true, honest, and engaging comments and information that you provided us here this evening. Thank you all very much. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you. Chair Eggers?

I'll say ditto to what she said. Thank you, Commissioner. Appreciate that. There was a few comments that were made by some of you that I think were telling the energy, fun activities in downtown are missing. Small regular businesses that allow people to just come down and mingle and participate.

You know, we I will commend the city of Clearwater on some I think it was something about 2045 plan and some of the work that's happened, some of the cultural advances that have been happening in downtown is exciting and wonderful, and I'm glad to see that. And I'm also glad to see the energy and the hope that for for even better downtown. So for me, it was great to hear from you. I've been hearing a lot from folks in the community, and it's great to hear from you as well. Just be patient with us, and the process will be a little bit lengthy.

We wanna make sure we're doing the right thing along the way, making the right steps. But they will be open and transparent, so you all will hear and see what we're hearing and seeing. Maybe not the same moment in time, but you'll hear and see what we're what we're going through. The the money comment certainly is real. The we whatever that amount is gonna be, we're going to bond that money over time.

But we don't have the cash to buy the buildings that we're gonna be moving the campus to. So there's a down payment piece, and that's been the conversation about the sales side of property so that we can minimize that cost to our taxpayers around the county. But that doesn't mean we're there yet. I mean, we're gonna be looking at these developers for their leasing knowledge and what that means for us from a cash standpoint today and going into the future. So hang in there with us as we go through this process, and I really appreciate, again, all of you coming out. Continue sharing your feelings and thoughts with us. Thank you, mister chair.

Commissioner Nowicki.

Thank you, commissioner Watanbala. Just one quick question for the audience. Raise your hand if you'd like

to see the property leased. Hold it up. Alrighty. Thank you. I yield back. Thank

you very much. Okay. There I've had the honor of well, I wanted to start out by thanking each and every one of y'all for being here and thank you to the staff for for working tonight. I asked Barry to give y'all extra time off and he agreed to it, so make sure that he sticks to that. And thank you to the the officials from Clearwater for being here.

I've had the honor of representing Clearwater in different capacities since 2014. And there's been a couple times, couple, I guess, moments since that time that have stuck out to me. And one of the, I guess, significant moments was 02/14/2018. And that was a day that commissioner Peters and I were spending together in Tallahassee. We were on the floor of the Florida House. You were elected then. Right? In in the House. Oh, okay. Well, I was there.

She was here. But I was in the House. And that day was the day of the Parkland tragedy. And Oh, you're in Tallahassee? Okay.

Well, anyways, that was the day of the massacre in Parkland. And right after that, we met students from Parkland, teachers. Because of my role as different leadership capacities in education, I had the honor of meeting parents of kids who were murdered that day, some of which are still friends of mine. And so throughout the years, I've always looked back at that moment and waited different decisions based on that because nothing is ever gonna compare unless, heaven forbid, we have a tragedy in Pinellas. Nothing will ever compare to that day.

And and I'm not comparing this vote to that because this is nothing compared to the tragedy that those people faced in Broward County that day, kissing their kids goodbye and never seeing them again. But I say that because the this vote is pretty important. And it's not important because I'm a county commissioner. This is important because I live in Clearwater. And there will be a day that comes that I'm no longer a politician and I'm no longer representing Clearwater in government.

But I will still when that day comes and I'm retired, I will still live in Clearwater because this is one of the most beautiful places to live. All you have to do is drive over the bridge and see why people come here to vacation. We live in paradise. And so this is an important issue because this is where I live. And this is gonna be this is something that I wanna be proud of.

And and I appreciate y'all being here and I appreciate you giving your input. And this is gonna be a slow process and it's a slow process for a reason because we wanna have public input. And and and we wanna be deliberative and and and we're not just gonna make rash decisions. There's been no decisions that have been made. We continue to have meetings almost on a weekly basis, one on one with either our county administrator or other staff members or with CBRE because we want to get this right.

And I think I can speak for my colleagues in that regard because there's not a single person up here that's just gonna willy nilly, you know, vote for something. Because as in terms of service on the county commission, this is one of the most important votes that I will take on the county commission. Know, voting for a stadium is nothing compared to voting for the future of the city that I live in. And so with that, I thank each and every one of you all for being here. I hope you continue to give us your input because we read it.

Even if you want to tell us how awful we are, continue to do that. My email is deaggerspanellis dot gov. So with that, thank you all very much for being here. Have a good night.