Council - Regular Meeting

He asked for the turning lanes, but they're very, very important to the success of their project and the city, of course. So at this point, I'm going to introduce you to the development team. George, you want to start? Well, let's start the project. Jack is going to take over the project and give you an update of where we stand.

So good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Pleasure to be here this evening. My name is Craig Livingston. I'm the managing partner of Exact Capital. We are, along with Penta Construction, the lead developer in the project. We were privileged to submit to an RFP that the CRA issued about a year ago, and we've been working very closely with members of the city to advance and finalize a development plan. We are now creating our site plan that's going to soon be in with the city for approval. But before I get started, I think I have to first OWE A DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO COMMISSIONER SPIRITUS FOR HIS VISION AND THE WAY THAT HE AND THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE CRA HAVE THOUGHTFULLY PUT FORWARD A VISION AND A PLAN FOR DEVELOPMENT IN RIVERA BEACH WE'VE LOOKED AT IT WE THINK THERE'S TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR TRANSFORMATIVE AND INCLUSIONARY DEVELOPMENT. WHAT I MEAN BY THAT IS WHENEVER WE COME TO A COMMUNITY AND WE START TO DEVELOP, WE LIKE TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE ARE AVID POSSIBILITIES FOR PARTICIPATION BY LOCAL MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY. WE WANT THE LOCAL BUSINESSES to work with us. We want the local suppliers to work with us. We want some of the local residents to be hired by us. And that's the whole objective of doing this type of transformative development. So we are pleased to be in Rivera Beach tonight. We look forward to informing the community about the development plan to come over the next year where we will hope to be in construction sometime next summer. And we look forward to working with you and meeting those of you who we don't already know. Thank you very much. And I'm now going to pass it over to my colleague, Terrence Davis.

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone for your perspective places as you come out and just come and find out what was going on and meet your community. We talk about a redevelopment project. It's about a team and it's about bringing a great partnership together. I do believe this project is just the beginning or just a listening session. It's all about why you're here. What I want to do right now, I want to take the time and just talk about who's on this initial team. When I call your name, just stand, just wave your hand. Right now, we got the exact capital, which is Craig Livingston, the gentleman that just spoke. We also have the Pinter Construction Group. Please stand, please stand, please stand. RDG Architect. which is a local West Palm Beach based company, a local minority company right here in Palm Beach County that's been doing great work here in Riviera for so many years. Also, we have the Riviera Beach Housing Authority executive director and their team and board members. I'd like to take the time. I want to invite Chairman Patrick. Please come up, please. Could you please come and just introduce all your board members, those that are here, and just acknowledge them for us, please?

Good evening, everybody. I'm Chair Patrick for the Riviera Beach Housing Authority. Today, my colleagues that are in attendance is Executive Director John Hurt. We also got Mr. Wells in attendance, and we got Council Jeffrey Jackson in attendance as well. Oh, Commissioner Anderson, I didn't see you. How you doing?

Mayor Lawson, you want to just come to say a few words really quick? Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mayor Douglas Lawson.

You can clap for the baby. Welcome, everybody. Thank you guys for coming out tonight. It's an honor to showcase the greatness that's happening in Riviera Beach. We want to make sure that all of our partners, all of our shareholders, the community advocates could see what the Housing Authority, Exact Capital, and every one of our community members are doing. Our chairman, Troy Patrick, just talked about and introduced the Housing Authority Board, but the Housing Authority is just an arm of the city. It's an extension. Riviera Beach Housing Authority is a partnership with the city of Riviera Beach to develop housing, affordable workforce housing for our community. I WANT TO GIVE A SPECIAL SET OUT TO A FORMER HOUSING AUTHORITY COMMISSIONER, DR. GLENN SPIRIDIS IS HERE AS WELL, A REPRESENTATIVE. AND OUR GOAL TONIGHT IS TO SHOWCASE THESE PARTNERSHIPS, TO MAKE SURE EVERY RESIDENT KNOWS WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE COMMUNITY AND TO DEVELOP IT IN A SAFE, AGGRESSIVE WAY SO THAT WE CAN PROVIDE HOUSING FOR OUR RESIDENTS, BUT MAKE SURE IT'S DONE IN A PROPER FASHION FOR AFFORDABILITY FOR OUR RESIDENTS. SO WITH ALL THE PARTNERS, THANK YOU. THANK YOU, COUNCILMAN TARENT DAVIS, WHO'S BEEN A REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE CITY.

THANK YOU. Next, I want to acknowledge ECF Engineering, Mr. Jeff Barrett. They've been doing great work in Palm Beach County for the last 30 plus years. Did I announce Dwayne Randolph Construction already? Mr. Randolph, please stand up. Stay up, stay up, stay up, stay up, stay up. So Mr. Randolph is a local minority company that built from the ground up here in Palm Beach County. And when you have projects that come to cities, the question is always, are we ready? Mr. Randolph is an example, just like many others that we will continue to introduce to you, showing that we're not only ready, We are capable, and we continue to growing and lasting for over 30 years. Thank you, Mr. Randolph. I want to next call up Mr. Randall Granberry, RDG Development Group. And Mr. Jamal, please, Mr. Granberry, please come up and introduce Mr. Jamal and yourself.

GOOD EVENING, EVERYBODY. RANDALL GRANBERRY, I'VE BEEN IN THE COMMUNITY, NOT LIVED, BUT WORKED IN THE COMMUNITY FOR SOME TIME WITH SUN COAST HIGH SCHOOL WHEN I WAS A PROJECT MANAGER AND LAND PLANNER FOR THE SCHOOL DISTRICT WITH THIS MARINA ITSELF WHEN TONY BROWN WAS THE CRA DIRECTOR AND WE WERE THE MINORITY PARTNER WITH SONG AND ASSOCIATES. WE DID the site plan design, landscape design, and engineering design. And I'm glad to be a part of this project with Exact Capital and Penta Group for giving us the opportunity to participate in this project. So thank you guys for that. So I just want to introduce my team, Christina Matthews. She does all the IT work. the AI development, and Jamal Bivens. Jamal Bivens is actually out of the D.C. area. We're doing other projects outside of Florida. And I want to welcome him to Riviera Beach and thank him for all the things that he's doing right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Granberry. Next, I also want to acknowledge, I don't know if they're here or not, is the gentleman for the reentry program. Are they here? River Beach Reentry. That's another partner we're going to use. And also, please stand as part of our local labor union. Apprentices, could you all please stand that are here? Our local laborers. And apprentices, just stand up. Once again, Thank you so much. And once again, what's important is that we want to show that we have people that are currently working in jobs across Palm Beach County and even South Florida that come up through a Qualified Certified Apprentice Program. And I want to make sure that I continue to work with this wonderful development team to be intentional about what we want to do, right? And we're going to take our time and really focus on having sessions like this to gather information, to talk about how we're going to execute this type of plan, right? To make sure we build local as best way we can, as local as we can, with as much love as we can, and give out a great product. Just want to make sure I don't miss anyone. The structure engineer. That's... McNamara? Are they here? He's okay. He's away. Okay. Okay. He's at work. Okay. Thank you. Also local. Also, I want to thank the River Beach CRA for being a partner and the city of River Beach for being such a wonderful partner. And if there's anyone else I left out of this conversation, please wave your hand and I apologize if I don't have you on this slide. Is there anyone I didn't miss? Okay, before we move on, I'll say thank you to our counselor person, Dr. Glenn Spiritus, for coming up with the idea to make sure we get out in front of this to assure that we get locals hired as well as myself. So I will then now take a step back and just allow that we go to the next slide. So why are you here? So if you got your phones out, please scan on this barcode this will allow us to to track and gather as much information as possible about how do you feel about riviera beach development housing this project putting people to work whatever it is how you feel it's not my our job to tell you how you feel our job is just gather the information and make sure when we come back we let you know that we heard your voice So we're going to leave this slide up for a little while to make sure that everyone can take a picture, just scan it and gather that in your system so we can start real-time logging this information up because Ms. Christina is going to do a wonderful job to make sure that we keep all this stuff in access. And while we're here, I want to acknowledge one of our port commissioners just walked in the room, Dr. DeAndre Poole. Thank you, Dr. Poole, for coming in.

Thank you, sir.

Any other elected officials? No one here yet? Okay, okay. Mayor, anyone else here, Mayor? Are you back there? Oh, also, please stand up. Mr. Leroy Kelson. He's a Housing Authority board member. Thank you, Mr. Kelson, for coming out. I'm sure we get some more board members that are staggering as they do come in. Is it okay if we go to the next slide, if everyone had a chance to scan that?

Oh, Commissioner Bennett.

Please stand, please stand, please stand. Another housing authority board member, thank you for coming out tonight and thank you for being supportive in everything that we do as a team. Newly elected, newly appointed, thank you so much. Next we have Rick, our architect.

TD, WE'LL HAVE YOU BACK REAL SOON. THANK YOU. I'M REALLY EXCITED. THIS IS A GREAT TEAM. A LOT OF LOCAL PLAYERS WE WORKED WITH BEFORE AND WE'RE REALLY LOOKING FORWARD. THANK YOU, CRAIG. THANK YOU, GEORGE. IT'S AN HONOR TO WORK WITH YOU GUYS AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO THE SUCCESS. AND WE WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU A COUPLE OF THINGS OF WHAT WE'RE PLANNING TO DO HERE WITH THIS GREAT PROJECT. WHY THIS PROJECT IS HAPPENING We're going to show you our vision, some of our renderings. It's still a work in progress. That's why we wanted to come out. Craig said, let's come out early in the process, show you our work, get your input, and put it into the drawings as we go forward. It's not only about housing and bringing activity to what I like to call Maine and Maine. That's really what Broadway is. and Blue Heron Arm, Main Street and Main Street, right? Every town has that. This has been an intersection that's been underutilized for many, many years, and we want to change that. So we'll show you some of the public realm ideas. Our team, we're going to show you, you've met our team already, our planning and our schedule. We want to get our approvals, hopefully by the end of the year, finish our construction plans early next year, and start construction middle of next summer and be ready late 2028. And we're going to show you how to stay connected and participate if you have a local business, if you want to work with the team. And we're going to show you the benefits to the community at large and also the workforce opportunities. Next slide, please. Why are we here? The CRA, after trying many times, in fact, I think I was on two other teams prior and they just fizzled out. The Thursday charm, Glenn, you remember we actually did renderings for that bank building, right? We did beautiful renderings to fix it up, and it just didn't make economic sense. So the Thursday charm, as Craig said, we're here at the invitation of the CRA in 2024, and we're at that point. As I said just a moment ago, it is a downtown cornerstone. You know, that's not a bad word, downtown. That's what makes cities thrive. You know, you go down to Delray Beach, they have a thriving downtown. I was telling Greg, who is from New York, he should go down to Boynton Beach, watch their downtown, their CRA, right? They're creating a downtown. We know West Palm Beach, the huge success story. And now it's Riviera Beach's time. So we're here because of that belief. And that's what we do for 40 years. We love working in downtown areas and creating cornerstones. Quality housing. There's a need for that market. You hear a lot of complaints that everything is too expensive, right? Or everything is too low. We're going to be right in the middle there. We're going to take care of the middle, which is the missing middle, as they call it sometimes with the quality housing and retail. You're going to see some renderings, just a little floor plans. We're going to have multiple shops, small shops because we want is variety. We want to have a lot of spaces, unique shops. We can have as many as eight or ten shops, which would be fantastic. to bring that corner back to activity in downtown Vero Beach.

Next slide, please.

What is the project at this point? We have two buildings. The easterly building will be 18 stories, 180, 190 units. And the westerly building will be eight stories, and that'll have 90 units. The Westerly building is being set aside for senior housing. I love that. I've done three senior housing projects and they're just such a pleasure to build. You know, seniors should have a decent place where they can live and where they can walk to activities. There's a public store. just a block and a half away. You know, why can't they, there are shops up and down Blue Heron at that location and up and down Broadway. Seniors don't want to get in cars, right? I can't wait for the day I don't have to get in a car anymore. And I try to walk as much as I can in my neighborhood too. 9,000 square feet in those eight to 10 shops. It depends on as we move forward with it. And it matters because of the reinvestment that we're bringing into the downtown with the Penta Group, with the partnership with the Housing Authority, with RGD, and with Craig's Group, too, having everybody working together to bring broader local participation into this project. This is where it's happening. This is a site plan. As you can see, it's actually one long block to the Intracoastal or what you might call two city blocks to the water. That's a very short walk. That's no reason. It's the gateway to Singer Island or Singer Island coming here to downtown Riviera Beach at the intersection with Blue Heron. Next slide, thank you. This is the ground floor plan. This is what happens at the ground floor. Everything is laid out as the commissioner mentioned in a new urban fashion, in urban renewal fashion, not in a suburban layout. So the parking is hidden. The ramps, the garages are in the back of the buildings. And then on the front of the buildings are the lobbies. We lit up 24 seven, the shops. We have seven shops proposed on the easterly building. And we're going to have four or maybe even five shops on the Westerly building on the eight story building. These are some night shots and a day shot of the same proposal. As you can see, beautifully lit up at night. It's going to be a firefly, right? So we can get people to come to the buildings and enjoy the visibility of the buildings. It feels like it could be, you know, anywhere USA that has a downtown, right? These are very important buildings to all the other buildings at the city. As Glenn mentioned, $2 billion worth of improvements. You're way on your way. Even Lake Park has built a couple of high rises. And so there's this opportunity, this real opportunity of building a downtown all the way down to the bridge, the bridge coming up over the Port of Palm Beach. And then am I bringing this back now to UTD or yes, I think so.

Thank you, Rick. So we talk about how the team is organized, right? So when you look at the top of the chart, you will see exact capital. When you look at the project leadership team, the Penta Group, and the Riviera Beach Housing Authority. So when we look at the top of that chart, and when you see Riviera Beach Housing Authority, you see your entity that's a part of you as a city in perpetuity. This is probably the first project that I'm aware of in the North County of Palm Beach County, where the city has participated on a high rise downtown area with this development. So it's a very unique opportunity with no matter how things are going, where the locals get to participate and not get priced out of a project. And that's very important that I share that chart. Then you look at the construction project management team, which is R.E.G. Architects, which is Mr. Rick Gonzalez, who you met before, who just presented, R.E.G., R.D.G. Development Group, which is Christina, Mr. Granberry, Mr. Jamal, and the wonderful Randolph Construction. So now you got a local construction team that's teaming up with someone that's coming out from out of town to be intentional in the very beginning stages of identifying talent. And so we want to encourage other developers when they come to Rivian Beach to do what this group has done. When you look at the engineering consultants, ECF Engineering, they've been doing business for a long time. You look at, I got my glasses. You got Grid Engineering and Magmer Engineering. Thank you. Hey, I just celebrated 50. Okay. And ECF is headquartered right on the border of Riviera Beach, right in Magonia Park, West Palm Beach, right around that 43rd Street area. So as you can see this organization chart, how this team is structured is very unique. And I want to thank the Housing Authority and its board, Exact Capital, and PENTA for for sticking with their team from the very beginning all the way through. This doesn't always happen. A lot of times we come to a project and once things start going a certain way, all of a sudden you see locals disappearing. I tell you now, you have my word. If that started to happen, I would come back and say I was wrong. That can't happen, right? With the intention, right? A lot of people doing what they're supposed to be doing. Let me just be clear on that. But I cannot stand before you in the community that I love so much and talk about local participation and watch some people do the right thing and get mistreated. I won't do that. Next. The people behind the project, we will then allow. We want to do that. Be intentional. Now we can keep going through the slide because I'll be talking about some of the same people. Okay. So board of commissioners. So when we look at the board of commissioners, we talk about Mr. Patrick, the chairman, he talked about the entire housing authority board prior with Jeff Jackson and others. The City Council members, Mayor Lawson has spoken, Kashama Miller-Anderson, Commissioner Lanier, Commissioner Panier-Davis, and Vice Chair Dr. Glenn Spiritus, as well as Chairman Bruce Guyton. Next slide.

Doing the homework first.

Next, we will have Mr. Dwayne, not Dwayne, Randall Granberry. We got these R's on our team, Randolph and Randall. That's a good team.

I'm not that tall, okay? I need, well, not glasses, just angle, you know what I mean? Well, I'm going to speak directly. Christine, I want you to go back to the aerial slide. Aerial. There we go. So I know we're talking about this as the Gateway Project, but I really see it as a former planner for the city of West Palm Beach and back in those days and looking at US-1 and how really dilapidated us one was from top to bottom and how development has occurred along us one from jupiter all the way to boca and i see this project as one of the links and this is that link of a development project that's going to connect all of these projects from so when you do that that scenic drive from Boca Raton, I've did it before. Not wanting to get on 95 or get on the Turnpike. And to Jupiter, this is what you're going to see. You know what I mean? And every city has this iconic site. And I believe this would be one of Riviera Beach, one of Riviera Beach iconic sites. So go back to the slide. OF COURSE, ME DOING THE ENTITLEMENTS AND WHAT THAT MEANS GOING THROUGH THE PROCESS OF PLANNING AND HOPEFULLY DR. SPIRITUS IS GOING TO KIND OF PUSH THAT PROCESS ALONG AND WE'RE GOING TO MEET EVERY STANDARD THAT'S POSSIBLE TO MEET WITH REGARDS TO THIS DEVELOPMENT. Rick and I are going to kind of make the donuts with making sure the traffic works, making sure the site works, making sure the site drains. Next. So that process consists of we're doing a community meeting. I don't know if we're going to have another community meeting along these times. So we're going to have two more community meetings that we just heard. And then we're going to have some public meetings with the planning and zoning board, where we're going to present our official site plan, our review of the project, and then go forward with the project at city council. Now this project is located in the CRA, which is part of the CRA design district. And we intend to rezone the property based on a ordinance that the city created some time ago to spur redevelopment along this corridor and along the CRA, and then get this project approved. Next slide.

Wow. Good evening, everyone. Good to see a good turnout for you to come see this great development opportunity that we have. One of the good things about this public-private partnership, and I call it a public-private partnership because the Riviera Beach Housing Authority has the opportunity to participate and ensure that we have the opportunity to serve the middle and lower income families in our community. Developers come and they all want to build market rate housing. Oftentimes, it's the middle income and the lower income families that are left out of the process. That being our mission at the Riviera Beach Housing Authority, we get the opportunity to partner with developers, not only on this project, but other projects to ensure that all incomes across the board, all families have an opportunity to enjoy the type of housing that we're building here in Riviera Beach. As you can see, this is one of our first outreaches. We're as a part of the team is going to ensure that we have full participation. We've been fortunate enough to build another project in the city and we did very well with local participation in that project. Some of the members on this team was on that team. And so we're going to ensure there's engagement across the board. Now, as you can see, there's two buildings. One is going to be a workforce housing market rate building, the 18-story. And the 8-story building we're designing to be a senior building. And then that building is going to serve senior families up to 80% AMI. That means that those seniors that are retiring in our community will have an opportunity to enjoy some of the housing that's being designed and constructed as the city grows and more opportunities come. So we can ensure that there's full participation across the board. In that, you can also see that we're designing retail spaces. We're going to be sure that we'll have retail spaces available to the smaller businesses in our community. Hopefully, we're going to be able to structure acceptable rent structures so those emerging small businesses in the community will have an opportunity to have front street office space. So we're looking forward to this partnership. The Riviera Beach Housing Authority THIS EVENING WE HAVE MANY OF OUR COMMISSIONERS, COMMISSIONER ANDERSON, COMMISSIONER JACKSON, COMMISSIONER BENNETT, CHAIR PATRICK, ALL OF THOSE MEMBERS ARE COMMITTED TO ENSURE THAT THE HOUSING AUTHORITY MEETS THE STANDARD IN PARTICIPATING IN THIS PROJECT. SO I THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING OUT. WE'LL BE AROUND. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OF US, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK.

WHILE WE WAIT NEXT, I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ACKNOWLEDGE COMMISSIONER MILLER-ANDERSON HAS ARRIVED IN THE ROOM. THANK YOU FOR SHOWING UP AND COMING OUT. AND WE'RE GOING TO WISH YOU WELL AS YOU GET READY FOR YOUR NEW SCHOOL YEAR. ONE OF THE THINGS AS WE MOVE ON, I WANT TO MAKE SURE BEFORE WE TALK ABOUT GETTING INVOLVED, WHEN YOU LOOK AT A SENIOR BUILDING LIKE THIS, RIGHT, WHAT MAKES IT SO UNIQUE, THE CRA IS RIGHT NOW TALKING ABOUT A TROLLEY SYSTEM. you know, when you start talking about traffic and reduction in traction and that's being implemented, this building is going to benefit from that trolley system that they're working on this study. And as forward thinking like that, I do believe in conjunction, it makes it a lot easier when you start running a trolley from the VA to the beach, to the port, just all these different entities that we have in this region. So we want to look at it as a major community benefit is having somewhere where we can keep our mothers and our fathers in our neighborhoods. Because a lot of times they want to reduce, sell, but they still want to stay in the neighborhood and be around their friends that they grew up with or they work with. So this allows that to happen when they sell or transition to a smaller space to stay in their own communities. I want to make sure that we acknowledge that. Next, we have Mr. John Apple.

Good evening, everybody. At first, I would be remiss not to open up by just giving a little shout-out, birthday shout-out to Mr. John Hurt, whose birthday is going to be next week, so I just want to give a little round of applause to Mr. Hurt. Mr. Hurt's a cancer like my pop, and my pop's birthday is today, so I just want him to feel like a certain kind of homecoming. Oh, he is? Well, all right. We got a lot of cancers in the house today. Well, this feels like a homecoming for me because, as I was remarking to two of my colleagues, I came down here the last time when I was a kid, visiting my auntie up at the Harbor Lake Towers for Easter holiday season. She had a restaurant not too far around here. But this is an important day for us. It's an important day for the Penta team and the development team. And we really thank everybody for giving us the opportunity to speak this evening. But I thought I'd start with the question to the larger group. By a show of hands, how many folks in the room recycle? Right. Okay. Now, how many folks like to recycle dollars in their community? By a show of hands. I have more hands. I have more hands than that. Well, that's indeed what we're trying to do here with the creation of the many jobs that were expected from the project that will be generated by these two place-based projects. I do want to just re-acknowledge our principal, George Raptis, who's here with the Penta Group. Also, our other partner, Chris Vilas, who couldn't be here today, sends his regards to the team. We also have Saeed Ajay and Kazem Moghadam, who are with our construction team. Why don't you gentlemen take a stand up again for say hello to the audience. We toured the site earlier today and they were asking me, when do we start a construction? And we need to get this project in the ground sooner than later. And that's what tonight's about. And plus we have a lot of laborers and people from the apprenticeship program, Sam Lewis, who are here as well. Thank you for your participation, your energy tonight. To tell you a little bit about us, Penta, we're a family business. We've been around for about 34 years and we were started by Chris and his father, who was a family of five. That's why it's named Penta. And we are 34 years and growing. We started in the New York metro region and now we're expanding it to the Florida region. And this is our really our first opportunity to kind of BE INVOLVED IN THE LOCAL GEOGRAPHY OF RIVERA BEACH IN THIS COMMUNITY AND THANKFULLY WE HAVE MR. RANDOLPH AND DUANE RANDOLPH AND OTHERS WHO WE THIS IS LIKE CRITICAL FOR ESTABLISHING THE PARTNERSHIPS THAT WE NEED TO REALLY MAKE A MEANINGFUL STRIDES AND THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS THAT WE NEED TO MAKE THIS PROJECT GENERATE WHAT WE HOPE IT WILL IN TERMS OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY I'm just looking at the slide to see what. So folks, what we're trying to do is forge partnerships with local programs. So we ensure that the jobs that are created are lasting, not just through construction, but through operations as well. And so we're going to be partnering as much as we can. And that's the only way we're going to be successful in tracking that progress and reporting back to the community, not just after the project is being built, but also after it's being completed and in operations. That's where we really are able to judge the impact of the project. But before we do all that, we have to pre-qualify folks. So I do want to stress that in the back of the room, we left a QR code. I don't know if folks saw it, but I have it here. And we ask that if you are interested and you are a laborer or a workforce development, somebody who has a workforce development connection, and you were trying to get enlisted into our contractor pool, this is probably the easiest way to do it quickly. Once you scan this QR code, the information is going to be uploaded and sent to our central office, and we will essentially get in touch with you. So when it comes to bidding time, we make certain to get in touch with you first and foremost before the opportunity goes out to bid, essentially. So that's one great way to stay in connection with us. I also want to say that we are hoping that we can get into the ground sometime in next year and that once the project is in the ground, we're talking about Yeah, 22, 24 months to get the projects to completion state. We hope that both projects can be synchronized in such a way that they'll be built at the same time. So we just have to line up the financing and the financing execution just the right way. I spoke ahead of myself. So there is the QR code. So for the folks in the orange shirts, anybody who's interested and who knows somebody who wants to be connected to this project and the economic benefits of the workforce that will be allowed through these projects, please feel free to scan this information. I also left my cards out in the back as well. We have a sign-in sheet, so we'll be staying in touch with folks that way. We also will have a general email for general inquiries. Some folks were asking about volunteers, so there's a way to stay in touch with us as well through info at riviera-gateway.com. There's going to be many ways to stay in touch with us. And of course, as I think was Randall said, we're going to be coming back here a couple more times, not just the beginning of next year, but hopefully just before ground is broken. Yep. So I talked about the interest list, spreading the word. Okay. Any initial questions? Well, we're going to go into the Q&A in a moment. I just want to make sure there's anything else we're covering here. Maybe next slide. So maybe Craig, if you want to close this out or Terrence. Yeah. Okay. Really quick.

I want Mr. Bullard, please come forward. Mr. Bullard is a part of our city's reentry program and the representative from laborers is going to speak. It's kind of tell them about the program, about the apprentices. So Mr. Bullard is the executive director of a reentry program. And he can tell you more about what it is that our program here in the community does. And then he'll pass the microphone to these two gentlemen.

We've been here since 2007. So we work with men and women that are leaving incarceration and coming back to our community. And so we look for opportunities to provide them with skills, employment opportunities, transitional housing, therapy, case management, an entire set of things that we look to kind of move them to the next phase in their life. And so part of what we're doing here, we want to get involved in the project because we have a lot of men and women that do this type of work, that do labor, and we're looking at how we can connect them, because they're right there in the community, and they're looking for jobs, they're looking for opportunities to kind of enhance themselves. So we've been partnering with a lot of these agencies over the years, and we've been trying to look forward to kind of being involved in this project as we look to connect with these communities that are coming up right here in that background. Thank you. Makes sense.

Check, check, check, check, mic check, mic check. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for allowing us the opportunity, Terrence and the board and the community. My name is Louis Font, Vice President of Laborers Local 1652. I'm also the organizing director for the local. And I'm just here to say that the folks that are members of the community, members of Local 1652 are the exact type of folks that we want to be able to place on these jobs. We have a certified bona fide apprenticeship program by the state of Florida that we are able to get folks trained up, getting the skill set that they need to be able to get these type of jobs where we're able to have medical insurance, benefits for our family, a pension and a path to a career. I am also a returning citizen to society many years ago. And if it wasn't for the laborers union, who knows where I'd be right now, but it probably wouldn't be here in front of you guys. So appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. I'm Samuel Dawson. I've been in the labor since 2000. And what the labor's produced for me as a guy that came in that didn't know anything. I got a son that's 22. He's getting ready to have his BA in structural engineering. I got a daughter. She just graduated with her BA in criminal justice. She's going to be a police in Vero Beach. And all I really want to say is, you know, quality work, safe work, first time, perfect. Nobody's perfect, but you want safe, injury-free, Look at the union. Union jobs is the most safest jobs I ever worked on. Ever. All I'm asking you guys is help us help you. Hire 1652.

so i just want to say thank you guys for sharing your story as many stories are like that or why we're here today a lot of times you fight against things but it's all about who you're fighting for what you're fighting for and having a collaboration is so important but thank you guys for coming out next we got mr craig livingston gonna close us out

All right, so ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for attending tonight. I have to say I'm very pleasantly surprised by the amount of support and participation tonight. When we look to develop in new communities, we look to do it like this, very inclusively. So we want to thank the visionaries at the CRA again for having the foresight and the wherewithal to issue the RFE. I want to thank my partners at the Housing Authority, Your leadership in the community and what you've developed has really created the cornerstone for allowing us to take this next step into development right here on Blue Heron and Broadway. I want to thank my partners at the Pender Group for traveling here. We've been successful collaborating in New York and in other markets, but we're bringing our expertise here. I want to thank REG for their vision and their design. I want to thank all the team members, but most of all, Riviera Beach, I want to thank you all. Because you guys are showing up for yourselves. And as John asked about earlier, how many people are interested in recycling dollars in their community? Because what I hope, I think I see in the audience, are there any plumbers here? Any people out of the plumbing trade? Raise your hand. Painters? Carpenters? Electricians? Okay, well, what we want to do is to make sure that next time someone's in front of you Given a speech like this, there's a whole handful of plumbers, a whole handful of electricians, a whole handful of carpenters, and we want to make sure that everyone is participating economically in this project in your community. We want to see some of you guys grow your revenues. We want to make some millionaires. We want to make some multimillionaires. We want to see people from Riviera Beach participate in this $300 million development that we're doing. And we want you guys to rise with us. So again, thank you so much for coming. A round of applause for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.

Fred, I just want to really talk to you as the developers. These people are here, but they're not looking for a 22-month job. They're looking for a full time life job. We know that your group does development throughout Atlanta. You're all over Georgia. You're all over New York. You're all over Florida now. I know you're expanding. We just want to make sure that you keep these employees As your employees, when you go from Riviera Beach to other communities, they should be part of your team for a long, long time. This should not be just a short term, you know, laborers job. And by the way, the laborers, I know I spoke to you guys about two and a half years ago. I as a developer myself, I most of my development was union based. uh workers and i'm glad that you're going to be able to participate in this project so just all please not everybody knows how to scan by the way craig so you have people here that might want to just hand you their cards and and talk to you maybe you can make a list for them as well we want everyone to stick around and meet the development team and introduce yourselves let them know what you're interested in i think it's a great opportunity for you to be right up front with the development team face to face. So thank you all for coming tonight and please stay around and talk to the developers. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you. All right. So we're going to leave the barcode up for those that want to scan, but they're going to hang around for a while. Okay. Do anybody got any questions before we allow you guys to kind of mingle and talk with the development team? Because we want to hang around for a while so you guys can have some real one-on-one conversations. You might not want to have everyone hearing what you want to talk about. But I want to say thank you to the CRA for allowing us to use this room today. I want to say thank you to every and each and every person that's in this room that came out to share and just listen to what's going on. Like we say, this is an information meeting. We're not saying what we're going to do right away, but we're saying we have a plan. And our plan has great intentions.

And that plan is asking you to participate in it, right?

A lot of times, chief projects come before the community. It's like, wow, when did this happen? No, we're going to say, hey, let's walk through this project together. And if we're going to stumble, we're going to stumble together. But if we're going to succeed and celebrate, we're going to celebrate together. Like I said, thank you, thank you, thank you. If there's any other staff members that we left out, anyone from the city that we did not recognize or the CRA, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to hang around for a while, so please, please have some conversations with the team and get to know them one-on-one. Thank you so much.

Go ahead. Just really quick, so I went to the Slido and some responses that we got already. Words that mean yes, participation, I'm a resident of the city, learn, information, interaction, inclusion, people, connection. So just wanted to give you a little real-time update what you're saying out there. So thank you.

Oh, there it is. Okay.

Thank you, Christina.

All right.

Thank you.