City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's 1 o'clock. We're going to start this meeting. If we could all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. All right, next up is public comments. And I'm going to start this out and kind of try to explain the format of this. So this is a working meeting between Broadus and City of South Padre Island to establish some overall roles as to how the project management works with the convention center expansion. So we're going to have a public comment section here, and then we're going to go into our work function, which will be everybody at the table talking and understanding the process. At the end, we'll have a short Q&A at the end just to allow people from the audience to ask a couple of follow-up questions. So we're gonna have the public comments in the beginning, and then a little bit of session at the end. here today to all work on a project that we try to make as best as we can for South Padre Island, and we appreciate everybody's involvement here. So anyway, with that, if there's anyone here who wishes to speak for public comments, where are we doing the public comments at? Podium? Okay, if anyone would like to come up to the podium and make any comments. Okay, hearing none. Yeah, then you can go walk up to the podium like we just said. I'm sorry. Is my mic not on? Oh, okay.

All right.

Well, you are the first and the last.

First and the last. Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for being here today. I think I've been here for the 10th or 12th time speaking about this project in the last three years. And of course, you all know my concerns about this project and the funding of it. I still have serious questions about this project. and the way it's going about. I hope some of those will be answered today. My good friend, the late Ken Meadors, had a lot of questions about this project that I think still haven't been answered regarding the legal aspects of it and the financial aspects of it. These are the two critical things that you tick off when you put an agenda item, any agenda item on the City of South Padre Island's agenda package. I don't think a lot of questions that are financial questions that are being asked recently by our new city councilman, Aaron Hartwell, has been answered to the full. So I think those need to be addressed at some point, and I hope we get some answers tonight. And on the legal side, I feel the same way. I don't have to regurgitate everything that I've said in the last two years. Broadus was brought in. I had lunch with one of you with Ken Meadors. And to kind of look at the invoices, I think over $4 million have already been spent on this project in soft cost. That is a huge amount of money for a small community like ours. Broadus was brought in to look at the invoices and rubber stamp or okay them or whatever you want to call it. They came up and said that everything was fine on those $4 million in expenditures. So I would like to hear some explanation tonight, today, on this workshop, or whatever you'd like to call it, on what we got for that $4 million. Because you guys okayed the invoices. My assumption is that you have a full report that tells us, hey, this is what you paid and this is what you got, and we think all the invoices are fine and they're great. The other aspect of this is on top of the $4 million, of course, that's been spent already, we need some good accounting on that and what we got for our money. I think everybody needs to know that. That still hasn't satisfied ticking that financial box, and that, of course, leads to legal consequences if it's not. We also have a new contract we brought us having okayed and rubber-stamped all the invoices that were paid. You got a new contract for another $3.6 million or $100,000 a month.

But it's 3.6, not six. That's what I said. I'm sorry, it sounded like you said six.

I'm sorry. I'd take that back if I said that, but it's $3.6 million that was signed just about 10 days ago at $100,000 a month, leading to about $500,000 by December. So I really want to know what we're getting for that $100,000 a month. We are a very small community here.

Three minutes.

All right, thank you very much. I think you get the gift of what I'm looking for. All right, thank you.

All right, so there's no other public comments, and we will proceed on to the... One more here.

One more here.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Hello, my name is Teresa Gallegos. I live in Brownsville and the South Padre Island Convention Center is what made me a birder. I was ambivalent about it until I came here one time and I was sold on it. I have to say if the birding is ruined, then first of all, I won't come here because why would I? But also because I would just be angry, and I'm not the only person who would find a better place to bird because we'd be so pissed off. So for financial reasons alone, you need to preserve that plot. I'd like to think you're doing it because you're ethical and moral, but if financial is the only thing that appeals to you, then for financial reasons alone, you should not piss off the birders. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Next up, we'll move to regular agenda, which is 4.1, discussion with Broaddus & Associates regarding the project management related to the Convention Center renovation and annex project. And we will start with A, welcome and introduction. Oscar, if you want to, or.

Actually, Grady Deaton's going to. OK. OK.

Since this is a working meeting and we're trying to build a team here and start learning about each other, I would appreciate it if everybody at the table would spend about a minute, minute and a half, just telling us a little bit about yourself, what you know about construction, what you've done, and then at the end, tell us one thing that you think other people may not know about you. It's an icebreaker. Like I say, we're trying to learn about each other and learn... You know, how we can work together as a team. And I'll start so you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm Dr. Grady Deaton. I have spent most of my life in either construction or maintenance. I have spent a lot of time building things here on South Padre Island. I worked on condominiums down here in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. I was in charge of maintenance for the old Coast Guard station when the Coast Guard gave that to the University of Texas at Brownsville. I've done a lot of work on the water. I worked over at Sun Harbor Marina when it was built. I ran the rebuild for the Brownsville shrimp docks, which is over a linear mile. of industrial strength docks. I did the big extension on the the Pirates Landing Fishing Pier. I helped with the permits and started the construction on the marina over at Puerto del Sol Condos. I've done a lot of work on the water. This may not come as a surprise to people. I've been in construction all my life, like I say, but I am also a United States Coast Guard 50-ton registered captain. Next.

Well, greetings, everybody. My name's Doug . I've been in the construction industry since I was 15. Licensed architect. I have worked on K through 12. Joined UT System in 88, 10 years at MD Anderson Medical Center, 10 years at UTMB Medical Center on Galveston, and then 15 years down here with the Rio Grande Pan American and Brownsville projects at Pan American. So having done this before, I know lots of pitfalls. I know lots of joys. I know lots of terrors that go on with building a facility such as this. Regarding something somebody may not know is originally from West Texas, all my relatives are Bronco riders and rodeo people. Bronco was a surfboard, and my race car was a 22-foot sailing racing boat. I'm a man of the water. I understand how the nature is here. I understand the wildlife and the ecology, and I guarantee I will continue to promote that. All right, thank you.

Hello, folks. My name is Daniel Garza. I'm a construction manager with Broaddus & Associates. I've been working professionally at a school for six years now. My last project prior to moving back to the Valley was a Bayer Scott & White Hospital in Pflugerville, Texas. Prior to that, I was a facilities manager at the Dell Medical Center, managing in-house operations, maintenance, etc., I'm a valley from Rio Grande City originally, so I understand logistics, culture, and workflow that's going to be very important with this project and something to let you all know I'm a certified scuba diver and I got certified here at SPI right off of the jetties.

Good afternoon. My name is Xochitl Ortiz. I've been with Broadus for over a little bit of 20 years. I've been assisting these guys for 20 years in the McAllen Convention Center, the SDC bond programs, the Edinburgh ISD bond programs, and some multifamily apartments. A little bit of doing administrative and document control for Broadus. and a little bit of myself. I don't know if you're aware, my name is, it comes from an Aztec, and it means first flower to blossom.

Xochitl.

I have been in the construction industry since I was 10 years old. We moved here to the island in 1980. My dad was a master electrician, and he was working for DNF, and I was given the job. So I started to put pipe and cool wire at an early age and been in the industry ever since. Worked on Padre Grand, Boardwalk, South Point, other projects here on the island. So it feels good to be back on the island and to work on a project of this caliber. I've worked on live hospitals, live hotels, live universities, live K-12, and so familiar with what it's like to have activity going on and plan around it and use lots of caution as we move forward. I've learned where the honey hole was behind Padre Grand on the second sandbar.

Good afternoon, my name is Kelly DeShawn. I think I've met most of you at the table, but not in the audience. Nice to see everyone here. I am five months or four months now into the Director of Tourism for the Island, and as such, I office out of the Convention Center and am responsible for the Convention Center. I have overseen and my position in both private sector and government several construction works. In Galveston, we built the East Beach Pavilion, and then the office I was, we got it LED certified. Like Doug, down there at the end. I am an avid naturalist as well. And before I ever came, there was a commitment not to take the birding area down. So that's no longer an issue, I hope. And to the contrary, I hope that we're able to beautify the area around the convention center. My family are landscapers. I was also employed at 13 watering buckets on the lot. but it's grown into a passion for landscaping, and so I'm interested to see how we can expand the bird and the butterfly gardens out that way as well. Super excited to be here, and I do want to say, because he's not at the table, that really I'm accompanied here by Joey Rodriguez. I think several of you in Broadus know Joey. He's our facility director and is going to be the man on the spot with us as well. Thanks for coming, Joey.

Try this one.

Oh, something about myself that no one else.

Seek the landscape and got it.

OK, great. Thank you. Didn't expect that.

Randy Smith, city manager. I've been with the city here in a few months, 17 years. over 40 years in municipal service altogether, mostly from law enforcement side and emergency management. But through my course of several cities, I've worked in multiple infrastructure and development projects throughout time. And I'm also an avid scuba diver and a seventh generation Houston Texan. My kids are eighth generation Texans, so we're proud of that too, thank you.

I hope you guys enjoy your lunch. My name is Joe Rodriguez. I've been with the South Carolina Convention Center for 20 plus years now. So I'm looking forward to this project.

Try this.

Well, my name is Lisa Graves, and I've lived on the island 20 plus years, I think. I've got my real estate license in 05. After school, I moved to the island, didn't really know what I wanted to do, fell in love with it, got my real estate license, and I've been here ever since. I don't really know much about construction. I tried to put together a couple of desks, and I failed. That's about as far as my knowledge goes. But I am an avid naturalist. I love animals, birds, plants, wildlife. I'm very, very passionate about that. So I wish I had more time to become a Texas naturalist, but I don't. But I really do enjoy it, so I will make sure and make sure to preserve as much as I can.

My name is Joe Rico. I started working on the island in 1993. I moved here full time in 1997. I am one of the owners of the oldest restaurant on the island. I'm not gonna say the name, but so I know a lot about construction. The building's almost 59 years old. It was a two-bedroom fishing camp when it opened. One of the audience members over there, I know he opened it in 75. I've seen some pretty funny pictures, him and Laura. I built a couple, working on some spec homes, built a hardware store, a couple restaurants on the island. Opened a dozen or so in my career. Excited to be here. This has been going on for a long time. I've served about 26 years on the Special Events Committee, the CVB, the Spring Break Committee. I think I served with Barry for a couple terms. I remember a few table sessions like this talking about the Convention Center over the last 15 or so years. I remember being here two years ago when we picked Gignac. That was one of the firms you recommended. as a designer for this project, which made me really excited, because I saw the passion when we picked them that Mr. Patel saw in Gignac, and he's known a lot of the projects they've done. This wasn't a project I invented, Patrick invented, or this council invented. This started off years ago with Mayor Pinkerton. He got it going. Mayor Patel back in the day, he got this on the venue tax list, and this is a project we have to complete. Scott Joslin was here a couple weeks ago and he said these are your projects, you have to complete them. You can't spend the money on anything else until you complete them. So our goal is to get this done, figure out the best pieces that are gonna get us the best bang for our buck here, the residents and the community, and then move on to some more venue tax projects. That's what we like to do, get projects done and add more amenity value for the residents and the citizens. something you don't know about me. I am a classic car buff. I build classic cars. I can rip a motor apart. I'm building a 10-car garage at my house right now. Love wrenching on cars. So if you get bored one afternoon, give me a call. You can come over and give me a hand. I got all the tools. Don't bring anything. Thank you.

All right, my name's Patrick McNulty, Mayor of South Padre Island. I've been in the development world, construction world, hospitality world for many years. First got here and, well, my parents brought me here when I was one year old. I don't really remember that. And we always came here every year afterwards. And obviously know a lot about construction because I have a construction company. But fun fact, I guess, that nobody knows here is that the first unit we owned on South Padre Island was at Padre Grand. So didn't know you were on that job, and I was probably about four years or five years old. But anyway, thanks for building a great building there. I have lots of fun memories there. Go ahead.

My name is Erin Hartwell. I'm from the area. My family moved to South Padre Island, Port Isabel area in the early 1900s. This room is actually named after my great aunt, Joyce Adams. She was our city secretary here for many, many years, about 20 years. I am an entrepreneur and a water sports professional, and something you probably don't know about me is I'm a classical flutist.

Hello. My name is... My name is Oscar Garcia. I'm just hanging out here, just waiting for the popcorn to show up. Actually, I grew up here in the Valley, like many of you all. I got brought over here by my parents and spent a lot of time at Boca Chica. A lot of time when you'd come out here to the beach and roll down the windows and smell the salt air when you were young, and that was my first intro. 7-Eleven hot dogs, you know, four for a dollar kind of thing. That was how we did it back in the day. So I'm a Valley boy, grew up here, was also one of those that left here saying, I'm never coming back. Right, and lo and behold, the Valley has a way of bringing you back. And so I had the great fortune of being able to return with my wife, who wasn't from here, and my children, got to raise my children down here. Had the opportunity to work for a company called Jacobs Engineering, which is one of these massive engineering firms, and got to be able to do a variety of different jobs, work with them. They did horizontal, vertical, space, aviation, planning, you name it, they did it. They did it all, 80,000 worldwide. Then I followed some of my good friends from Jacobs over to Broadus, which is a much smaller firm, right? We're versus 80,000 worldwide. We're a more boutique group, but a really great group. So we have some fantastic talent that's in here. It's really the group in many ways that it's like working for the professors on who taught everybody how to do it, and working with somebody like Dr. Broadus is working for that professor. So it's a really wonderful environment, educational environment, and working with this crew is fantastic. Fun fact, both Grady and I share this auspicious distinction that we are participants, me currently, he formerly at Camille Theater. We participate actively in musicals and the like. And so I followed my son into it to get to know him a little bit better because he wasn't a sporty. And my wife said, well, if you want to get to know your kid, then you're going to have to you know, follow him and do what he loves. And so I did, and then it struck me. And so I've been doing it ever since. So, uh, last show was guys and dolls and we had a blast and, uh, we've got Camelot coming up this season. So, uh, hope to see some of you all there.

And just a last close on that one. Uh, I'm avid hunter. Um,

I love being on the water. I'm not going to say I'm an avid fisherman because I do not like fishing. I know that's sacrosanct here, but I'm not a big fisherman, but I love being on the water. There's nothing like being on the water in the beginning of the day, right? It's just gorgeous, or in the evening as well. I just can't wrap my head around the whole lure of fishing. No pun intended. But it is absolutely, the biggest challenge we have here is growing and developing while keeping what makes South Padre Island and the valley unique and keeping both the ecotourism. So being able to create that dynamic of ecotourism. How do you protect what you're coming out here to see? How do you protect that environment that manifests the birders and brings the birders out, but also provides a place for the birders to stay? So how do you balance that equation between the natural world and the built world? And that's really our biggest challenge as we move forward with this. And that's something that we take very serious because, again, this is my home as it is yours, and we love it, and we want to make sure it's protected as we proceed forward. So thank you.

Thank you all. Learned some interesting things. Got a lot of scuba divers here. That's good. I've done quite a bit myself. Patty, now we are SSI. Wendy, you don't get out of this. You have to tell us about yourself. We know you're going to be a big part of it.

All right, my name is Wendy Delgado. I'm the director of operations here at the city. I've been here for over 20 years. I started here in human resources. I've been learning a lot about public works, sidewalks and streets over the last six or seven years. Something you all don't know about me is I love to garden and I like to cook and I actually like to can. So I'm one of the old, my grandma taught me how to can things. So I can my own marinara sauce, my own sauerkraut and

Thank you. Okay. Item number two, project overview.

Did you want to go through that or no? Go ahead.

Okay. The first thing we're going to look at is what is the owner's vision, goals, and priorities. I've got a big post-it note thing back here, and we want to write those down. So does somebody have good handwriting? You can write down all the responses. This is for the owners. This is for the city council. We want to know what you guys think. want to get out of this project? What's the goal? What's the vision? When you're thinking about your response, I was talking to a lady who facilitates this kind of meeting yesterday. And she suggested that we ask, what kind of headlines do you want to see about this building and about this project five years from now? How do you want to be able to look at this project, and what do you want to see 10 years from now?

Youth sports tourism. I want you to fill the fall. September, October, November, December, January, February, youth sports tourism. Cheer groups, dance groups, basketball tournaments. I want to see Division II basketball in there, the Brazilian Nationals. I want that group to come back and bring their 3,000 kids there. I want to fill the fall months with youth sports and families that will travel. Events, cheer tournaments, dance tournaments, basketball tournaments, taekwondo, anything with families and kids because they will travel in the fall. Kelly's going to do a great job in the spring and the summer in Philly. I'm not worried about that. Falls, that's the sweet spot. That's where we need to hit. We've spent millions and millions of dollars hosting every event known to man in the fall. Very few of them yield a lot of... gold at the end. I've got a couple of marquee ones that do well, but youth sports are what's going to change the layout of the island. Those families will travel. That's why there's $9 billion in convention centers being expanded or built right now in the state of Texas. That's been identified, but youth sports is our future and everybody loves families.

Anybody else?

I mean, I think that, you know, the goal of this is that we know that we need expansion in the exhibit hall in certain areas. We've gotten many associations that have said that we're outgrowing our size, but we also need to do this on a fiscally conservative approach and make sure we get the most bang out of our buck, but also that this facility is something that's still being used in 10 years and 20 years, and I hope, I hope that in 20 years there's another generation here that's talking about how to expand this and make it better and let's figure out how we can continue to grow this wheel.

Five words or less. Venue expansion for now and the future.

And fiscally responsible.

And fiscally responsible.

Most bang for your buck. Don't worry about it. Fiscally responsible is fine. Fiscal? Fiscal.

Fiscal.

F-I-S-C-A-L. F-I-S-C-A-L. Well, I'll follow the fiscally responsible because that's what you guys mostly hear from me. I believe that this project is above what it is that most of our constituents would like to see us spend. And so even looking at a value engineered product, it's... It's too rich for our blood here. So I'd like to not see a headline that says something like South Padre Island follows Conroe, Texas in a bond capacity of a D. So yes, being fiscally responsible is going to be incredibly important, the conversation that follows today. Hopefully, we'll be able to talk about what that looks like and allow our constituents to understand what fiscally responsible in this scenario might encompass for them being the taxpayers. Other goals, I think Kelly had mentioned that we want to... really beautify and expand on the ecotourism around the Convention Center. That may not be something that's encompassed specifically in the Broadus and Gignac projects, but it is something that I think, as a goal, we should all keep in mind that we're going to build upon the ecotourism at the Convention Center as we continue to build out.

And since the council member brought it up, I'm going to follow up on that. I have, of course, as an operator, several things I'd like to see. But in that tenor, we have a lot of public that already utilizes the outside spaces of the building. You've got the birders on one side. You've got the windsurfers on another. And despite the fact that we're creating a park, I suspect we'll continue to see some of those folks out there. So I would like to see a facility that's integrated into the existing public uses that we highlight and embellish those as opposed to make them more difficult to access or make them irrelevant. And within that, Doug, if it could be even more community uses. We've got that area out in front that you guys like to call it the bowl. And some ideas have been brought to me about maybe some food trucks or some other opportunities to allow people. It is one of the only places you can see the sunset if you're not in a bar, excuse me, on that side of the island. And so I think there's several public uses in the areas around us that the facility can help to accommodate community facility uses. Then from an operation standpoint, and I'm sure I'm talking for Joey as well as myself, we need to lower the maintenance on that building. That building is a nightmare to maintain the seals on the windows, way too many windows, the seals on the doors. So think about the seal of the building and the fact that we're trying to air conditioning that thing. If the footprint goes up, already our single largest expense is electricity. Ideally, and I don't know how, feasible this is, I wish we could become a LEED certified building as well. I know the Bird Center is. I don't know what kind of cost that is on top of it, but ideally we would demonstrate our environmental stewardship by having a building that was third party certified to say that it met those criteria. But at least help us to minimize the operational. Anything else on operational?

Well, my main concern also is we're always having to build stuff like in the holiday season for Christmas stuff. So we have trouble storing everything that, you know, if you go back there in our storage area, we have stack and stack of things that we build. So storage is what my main concern. That's what I mean when my guys, that's what I think they bring up, have more storage and stuff and everything. They're coming to send.

And going back to your point, Kelly, so you're talking about more of an integration with other assets that are in that area, the birding center, the Turtles Inc., and the like, so there's a better integration with the convention center and some of the other community assets? Yes.

for two purposes one is because there's existing usages there we already get a lot of people come through the wailing wall is very popular gets a lot of photos but also because the days that the convention center aren't being used it's really nice to have movement around that area and so if it could be a facility that locals went to because they could watch the sunset they could see the birds maybe they're watching the surfers we're internalizing those as opposed to marginalizing them

I want to hit on some goals that I didn't. Patrick mentioned that there are many associations that have expressed the need for this, yet we still don't have a list that many constituents have requested of what those associations and events are that we're missing. So I think that that would be an important goal to check off for those that have asked. We also still don't have a P&L in front of us. of what the maintenance, FF&E, expanded marketing, expanded staff, the cost of what this build-out will eventually cost us otherwise. So I think that those are some goals. And being that I ran a kids camp and been involved in professional sports for a long time, I totally understand the goal of youth sports, and I do back that up. I do believe that there is a future here for that. But there are many ways to skin a cat. So in saying that, I wish that there was an opportunity to have had presented some of those ideas before. But we are here now, and I do support that vision.

We need technology in there. For a convention center, we don't have a lot of technology, and so it would be nice to have screens that come down from the ceilings.

I know in some of our discussions previous to this, you've talked about the air conditioning systems and the roof. I'm going to assume, I know you're working on the AC right now. Would those be part of your goals?

Well, I mean, I think a building that doesn't leak, efficient air conditioning so we don't have to replace the water chiller every six years or five years or four years. I mean, there's obviously lots of upgrades that can be made on a building that will last in this environment that won't rust away. So, yeah, anything that you can do and cut maintenance costs is a huge... huge win in the overall things. I mean, I've seen places where you spend $300,000 a year on maintenance costs and you start wondering, well, is it better just to build something new, you know? And that's... That's one of those things that you've got to figure out, but I think that through a renovation of the entire facility and addressing water leaks and addressing the concord or whatever you want to call it that comes out from the beginning of the building and falls out at the end of the building. I think we have skylights that are leaking and there's other stuff in there that needs to be done. We did do a massive roof replacement over a portion of it, but we are investing $400,000 in HVAC upgrades that we

the final product at the end of the day I think in a previous meeting we talked about a dynamic power upgrade and the importance of that so if we wanted to get into gaming or AI or any tournaments or anything down the road that was technology that's a big part I don't remember which of the dozen meetings or so that was in but I think Oscar brought that up.

Robotics, drone races, all that stuff that we're STEM classes that we're trying to focus people into, they need the technology there in order to have that. With Saronic and SpaceX and everybody else around here, we've got lots of opportunities to capture that in the future. the AI future, I guess, or whatever you want to call it. Definitely not calling it a data center or anything like that. We don't want to get anywhere near that conversation. But, you know, it's definitely needed. I mean, you know, the place was designed before they even knew what the internet was. Yeah, it was, too. Sure enough.

I think one of the things with goals is to also with the preservation is in construction is I've had some of the birding community reach out to me and asking to make sure that that is protected during the construction process fencing and just that really focus on preserving that during during the construction process.

There's numerous things there at the convention center that needs upgrading, like the technology. Even like my fire alarm system for Simplex, the new sensors and everything, they're all outdated. They were recently there like last month, and most of those sensors, they're discontinued. And also, I want to mention also my generator. I have a... massive generator that only powers our emergency lights, I would like to see that generator do more than just emergency lights, say power the administrative office portion of it so when we do have an outage, the front administrative staff can still operate in the front office versus having to relocate to the multimodal or things like that.

I mean, it's crazy that we have like, I'm guessing it's a number, but a 65, 75 kW generator and we're just powering LED lights with it.

Man, I got a 45 kW generator in my house.

Yeah, I mean, or maybe it's 135. I don't know what it is, but it's a big, I got a 27 and it's huge. Yeah, but it's the size of one that you'd see at a condo and they're running elevators and everything else with it and we're just running emergency lights with it. We learned that when we...

when we had that uri storm or even if we have a group in-house you know something happens you know it would be nice to power the whole facility that way we don't have to detour our clients to the lobby or outside or something like that is that a hurricane uh refuge facility it is not it is not i don't believe so

Because we kind of evacuate the island. I just wanted to encourage people to get off the island.

That front foyer area, we're not able, the front foyer area that you come into at the front of the convention center, the hallway, the corridor, It's tall enough for us to be able to put in some of the pieces that people exhibit, boats, cars, RVs, except that we can't get them through the doors. So if we had a way to bring things in from the loading dock all the way into the corridor, that would be helpful. Give us more space.

I think in the conversation about power, it is, since we're just doing... a vision, we should throw solar panels up there. Since we already are into exorbitant costs, you might as well just keep it going a little bit and pipe dream on what that can look like.

Well, I think that goes back to Kelly's recommendation of either taking it down a lead process or a lead-like process. So you don't even necessarily have to go down full lead, but at least you follow that design process where You know, it's nice to go down lead because then you get a bunch of alpha people in the room and they're trying to score as many points as they can from a design team and a construction team and everybody's trying to get their lead points out of it. So it's always a good thing when you have everybody pointing in the same direction trying to get it, you know, lead silver or gold or whatever, right? And again, that's where those conversations come in when you start talking about, okay, let's look at alternative power opportunities and whether it be solar and the like.

Well, it's an investment up front, but then it takes care. of a huge part of the P&L that we don't have, but yeah.

And then it helps on the M&O side and helps on a variety of different things and for resiliency and disaster recovery in that end. So it helps you be resilient to when and if and when storms come and then to get back on your feet quickly once they pass. And so that's something that we'll add to the calculus as we move forward.

yeah and lead certification is it's important because it actually does demonstrate to the world that you're walking the walk right you know you can build to lead standards but if you don't have the certification a lot of people are going to look at you and go well yeah okay they say they did but did they really uh Solar, I used to use solar at Texas State Technical College. We had solar and wind. Solar was by far the better electric generator than wind power. We didn't have the giant 90-foot towers because we're right there at the airport and the FAA wouldn't let us. Didn't want jets running into them. But, yeah, solar is, you know, I don't know if we have all of the incentives to buy anymore, but we'll certainly look into it. More. Mr. Rico, you look like you've got something on your mind.

We've got a couple projects going. One of them, we could potentially work on a community theater at that location. If that doesn't happen, we should have a... You know, a phase two set up here where we can look at adding a community theater to the convention center project. That's something we've talked about for years, but yeah, I think in a phase two, if it didn't happen at another location we've been talking about, that should be, those drawings should be there also for a phase two. We should also, I'm not gonna go here, but you know, originally last year and a half ago, we were talking on ADA bird tower, ADA boardwalks, I'm not going out there but maybe Deborah and Lisa and some of the experts get together and figure out what we could add out there responsibly that everyone would be happy with and we could definitely make that space a lot better. It's pretty rough and we can do better than that. We're a better community than that. We should offer access to all of our amenities for everyone. I'm fine with that, too. I'm not going.

Everybody wants to get a committee and start talking about it?

We have a committee. It's called the Eco-Tourism Committee. Our first meeting is on September 7th, Joe. There you go.

I hadn't seen that.

So one of the things that as you go through the design process that it's always important to keep in mind is as much as you're building for day one of operations is that as you go through the design process, there may be some stuff that you may not be able to afford necessarily for day one. But if you design it into it and you have it maybe structurally built for year one or year two or whatnot, you can then buy those things as you go. A good example is covered parking. Sometimes you have to cut some of that out of the, it's not in this project, but in a former project, cover parking was seen as a way we had to reduce kind of VE down to meet a budget at the cost of a million dollars. but at some point they did want to put in there, right? So we put in all the structural supports, had that designed, put that into place so that when they wanted to come in in year one or year two later, they could accommodate that easily. So some of the thought process as you go through there. To your point, it doesn't have to be a, this is day one opening, this is what we want on day one, but you can also put in the design for year one, year two, year three, so that the design's already baked and you can move forward with additional add-ons as you move forward. So just something to keep in mind.

Yeah, and having electrical conduits, wastewater piping, plumbing piping in place, ready to be tied into for future expansion can save you a fortune later on. You don't have to tear into concrete. You don't have to tear into your slab, your walls. repaint stuff, it's already there, you need a vision for what you want to do down the line, you need to know what you're going to do. But you know, and you can be ready for it. And you can put it in faster down the line. And you can put it in a lot less expensive. You guys keep it up back there. All right. All right. You know, one of these guys that can type with all his fingers. I am impressed. I type with these two. But I've typed a lot of stuff with these two.

I think that that was a really good point to make, Grady, having a vision for what the plans are down the line. At this point, we have about $350,000 out to Huntington Partners on strategy for a convention center in a completely different area of town. we haven't seen those reports and we don't know what that vision looks like. So as we move forward with whatever this looks like, it would be nice to know what the vision of potentially the other spot that we are continuously discussing and having ongoing conversations with with the 100 partners just waiting on that feasibility and study to know what all-encompassing the vision here would be and what we can afford potentially as we look at those other options.

I think, like you said, with the building into, like with the second causeway coming in up there, you know, everything's going to be coming in There's going to be another channel that way, and I think having parking there, ecotourism, a spot where people who are getting off the causeway at the north end will be drawn to for multi-purposes, different reasons, as they come onto the island, and being able to accommodate whatever those needs are as they come up.

That's a good point. Thought about that at all.

There's a lot of opportunity for, you know, growth up there. It's about to explode in the next few years and to stay ahead of the game. What we can offer people coming onto the island.

Anybody else?

Priorities, just transparency. Let's just keep our constituents and everybody that's involved in this aware of what's going on. I appreciate the openness of this meeting, but I think that there's a lot of outstanding questions that the taxpayers who will be paying for this ultimately have still.

Yeah. We're going to talk about transparency in just a second.

Great.

Yeah. Anything else?

If we're going to talk parking, we would love some electric car charging down there on that end of the island. Electric car charging? And your parking?

I'm going to tell my wife to use that.

And you drive it, and you like it. I do. It's so quiet, it bothers me. My 23-year-old truck is really loud. I can't even tell when he's showing up in the driveway. Right.

We'll get it straightened out.

Anything else? Okay, on the agenda then, moving on, the next item is actually high level project scope, budget, and intended outcomes. I'm gonna circle back to that because we're going to talk about drawings, blueprints, and budget items in just a few minutes. So I'm gonna skip down to key success criteria and talk about the advantages of the construction management risk delivery method, okay? One of the best and most important parts of that is, in fact, transparency. The way it works, well, okay, there's transparency in procurement, pricing, and decision making. Basically, all material, equipment, and labor packages are transparent. publicly advertised in bid. That's per state law. Just so you know, Dr. Broadus and the vice president who used to be down here in the valley for Broadus wrote a lot of the legislation that enables alternative design and construction procurement in the state of Texas. So we've got a lot of experience in this. But like I say, subcontracts, materials, labor, all of this has to be advertised. We will shoot for at least three bidders on each one. Our guys, especially Julian down here, know a lot of the local subcontract market. We know a lot of the local people. That's one of the reasons that we all look at the budgets that have been offered by Fulton and think that possibly there's some savings there, because they're using numbers that they get from their people up in the Corpus Christi area. And those numbers are going to be a little bit higher than ours. So we think that there's possibly some decent savings there. But like I say, all of this is based on public participation, public advertisement, and public bid openings. A good contractor, and I believe Fulton is, will actually have pre-bid meetings. They'll invite all of the subcontractors who are going to bid on a specific work package. And they'll bring them in and they'll say, OK, look, guys, here's what we're going to do here. This is what we're bidding, these pages in the drawings, these pages in the specifications. Now, be careful about including this one area right here, because we're putting that in another bid package in another subcontractor package because it makes more sense to have that guy do this specific work so don't carry that in your number and they will make sure that number one there's no double ups where people are bidding and we're awarding subcontracts to two or more people that are doing the same work, OK? We're paying two or more people to do the same work, but only one of them is really going to do it. And number two, you want to make sure that you don't have any gaps where some work was left out and nobody's covering it. Because when that happens, whoever gets chosen to do it is going to come up and try and stick it to you. And these are the things that our company keeps an eye on. Subcontractors and suppliers may be selected based on best value to the owner and not just low price. Low bid is about half the time not really the best value for the owner. It's the guy who forgot the most stuff. But as long as he can get a bond, you have to take him if it's a low bid job. So this kind of job, you can look at, OK, does this guy, he's been in lawsuits constantly for the last 15 years. That's not somebody that we want. He's bounced checks. He's done all kinds of horrible things. Here's another guy, and he will get the job done. He's got a great reputation. The prices are very close to being comparable, and we think we'd be better off using him. That's a decision that will be made in a roundtable, in cooperation and communication with the rest of the team.

Who's the team?

Well, that's what we're going to in number three.

Who writes the big packages?

Do what?

Who writes the bid packages?

The contractor, the CMAR, will write the bid packages based on the plans and specifications. So they will say, OK, look, we need somebody to come in and do metal stud framing. And they'll invite people. publicly advertise and invite bids to come in for metal stud framing. They will make sure that anything that has to do with that, providing materials, screws, layout, if you have to hire a guy to come in and snap the lines and tell us where the walls are going to be and all of that, they'll make sure that all of that is covered. But yeah, that's done. The bid packages are written by the contractor.

By Fulton?

Yes, by Fulton in this case.

Thank you.

Okay, and the next item that I want to get to is really important to answering a lot of the questions that will be asked about budgets. The AE, that's the architect and the engineer, the CMAR, which is the contractor, the owner, which is y'all, and the owner's representative, which is us, will work together. We work collaboratively to design a scope and a budget, schedule and quality expectations. What you have is everybody is aiming at a specific target. This lets you guys tell the contractor, okay, look, the contractor and the architect, we like, we're about to present several options for this building. You can tell them, well, we like this option, but we think the price that's currently associated with it is a little high. So we would like to see if you can cut the price by 10%, which I think is doable for this project. And they will sit down together. The architect will say, well, OK, how about if we design it this way? The contractor says, well, no, those materials have gone up. But here's another way to achieve this design with materials that are just as good, but they're more commonly available and less expensive right now. So it puts you guys in the position of being able to say, this is how much we'd like to spend on this. The contractor will tell you if it's not realistic. The other part about this, which I mentioned just a few minutes ago, it is all open bid. So there's no hidden buddy system or anything like that. It's an open bid. The public can come to the bid openings, all of that kind of thing. You'll know if there's an issue with bids. But you will also know that these are low market bids right now. Okay, we'll get, like I say, we'll come back in a bit to high-level project scope, budget, and intended outcomes. Coming to another question that was just asked, item number three, roles and responsibilities. We need to clarify, okay, we know who the owner's representative is, and that's us on this side of the table. Who will... be representing the city in this process?

It'd be the city manager's office. So it'd either be Randy or Wendy or however they define it.

Because I'm going to take that.

Who hires the TMR?

Do what?

Who hires the team?

Okay, so again, all right, thank you. We've got to make sure that we kind of keep this to the table. But the CMAR was hired over a year and a half ago, and it's Fulton.

Fulton.

Fulton. F-U-L-T-O-N. Thank you, sir. And I'm making up a year and a half. It could be 24 months. It could be 16 months. I'm just saying that. But that's who it is.

It's Fulton.

The city of South Potter Allen hired the CMAR. Their job is to manage the CAMR, the architect, the project in general with all the moving parts, and then direct their conversation to one person, one entity here, which we're gonna use as a city manager's office to correlate all the, funnel all the city side obligations and questions, and then that becomes your distribution point.

We will... it will all come down You know, like I said, the University of Texas, where any faculty member pretty much assumes that they know more about anything. They will automatically assume that the maintenance staff have all of this to take care of their every desire. I need electricity over here and IT

Brady, so we're having a problem IT wise of them being able to hear you in the world outside of this room. Is there a way you can bring that over here and then or to the podium over there? And or no, because it's going to be these mics. If we could move a mic and we just need to get a microphone for you to.

I'll sit here and talk.

I just wanted to draw that one graphic. Yeah, no, I understand. I'm saying that whenever we're talking, if we can do it into the mic, because there are people that aren't here that are watching this or will be watching it later, or that mic there, if we want to do it and draw, that mic there is live as well. So if you want to move that board over there or wherever, we're just making sure we've got everybody wherever they might be watching this hearing stuff.

What happens in the event that we have a city manager retiring right in the middle of a project?

Then they assign it to the next person.

So it will be the new city manager that knows nothing about this project?

Well, okay. So first of all. Randy is the city manager. He's the head administrator. He, I'm sure, will include somebody else in the process with him so that there's duplicacy and everybody is aware of what's going on in the office. I don't know many people in the city that hold everything into one box. But that's why I said the city manager's office and Randy Smith is our city manager.

And if I can add to that, there's a continuity amongst the program managers like us. We maintain the records, decisions made to date, so that it goes on. Anybody coming in new has got access to everything that's happened to that point. And really quickly, I do want to make one point.

I'm sorry to interrupt. unless anybody else in this room knows something that I don't know I have not been given a notice that Randy's leaving so and I apologize that we're trying to somehow put that there so anyway but no one here has received notice that he's planning on leaving so he might after this meeting because you know we put this on his plate but I have not received that notice or the council has not received notice so

Yeah, succession is an important question. Doug and I, I'm the senior project manager. He's the project manager. He and I will be working very closely together. If something should happen to me or to Doug, either one of us can step into the other's shoes, and this project will continue very smoothly. And I'm sure the same thing will happen with Mr. Smith's office. He's not sitting there in a desk in a vacuum. There are other people who will know. I've stepped into some pretty interesting positions where I didn't know everything at first, but if you have a good staff, if you inherit a good staff, you can learn it all and your staff can help you get through it. And of course we would help the next city manager get through it too. So all authorizations, approvals, and change directives must flow through the city's designated point of contact. Thank you, Randy. All change directives, this is really important, must be issued in writing and signed by the designated authority before implementation. Thank you. It's important for the city to understand this so that they know they can't just go out and talk to a carpenter and say, move this door over to this wall. It's even more important for the contractor to know this. I don't know how many times I've gotten to close to the end of a project, contractor shows up and says, oh, by the way, here's a change order for all this extra work I had to do. It's like, what? Well, yeah, you know, because this person came over and said he needed to move a door and this teacher said they needed to do this and so we did all this extra work. And my typical response to them is we appreciate the donation. We are a 501c3 and you did work without authorization and you're eating it. And the contractor, I will make sure that they understand this. It sounds harsh, but it's really, really important. Because if you don't enforce these things, you lose control and pretty soon your contractors are walking all over you. And look, until I was 40, I worked on the contractor's side of the house. I didn't start working for the owner until literally I was 40 years old. And I got hired then, Because the guy that hired me asked, he said, we're trying to hire either an architect or an engineer, and you're neither one. Why should we hire you? And I said, because I've been a contractor, and I know what they're going to try and get away with. And they hired me. And I never look back. Working on this side of the table is a lot more fun. We're going to turn it over to item number four, project scope and deliverables. And Doug, it's yours.

Before we get there, just backing up on the roles and responsibilities and being determined that the city manager will be the point of contact. And this is a large project. large budget item that will encompass potentially all of the money that we have. I request that communication does involve, gets relayed to the rest of the city council.

That's Randy's job is to relay it to city council.

Just making sure that I can go on record saying that I am requesting that this communication does go out to all the city council members. Thank you.

Wendy, how do we get to the slideshow? I think you can pull it up. There it is. You're on, man.

Talk about drawings. Oh, here we go.

Here's a click. Let's see if we can achieve Nirvana here. So you need a young guy to operate anything.

Computer samples.

No, I'm okay.

Those in attendance, roll it through. Project overview. OK, good. Keep going. Here we go. Aerial view of the current Convention Center. North is to the right. West is straight up in this diagram. So we're all familiar with the circled road. You can see the current coiling wall there on the left, and then the green area just to the left.

I apologize. Could you go to the microphone and state that one more time?

One more time. Okay, so the existing facility, north to the left, west is at the top. You can see where the wailing wall is. That area of dark green, that's the current area that the birding environmental ecotourism people are very concerned about. Firecracker plants blooming right now, the birds and butterflies. Hummingbirds are in there thickly. I invite everybody to go by there and hang out this afternoon. There's a water feature in there. The water's not flowing. Can we get some water going on that? Anyway, so again, existing facility. All right, let's move to the next slide then. OK, history of it. This gives you some background as to how long this facility's been together, 1992. A little diagram of all the spaces and areas and so forth. We're roughly 92,000 square feet with one exhibit hall and a handful of breakout rooms. OK, next slide. With this slide, we're looking at the indication where the wetland diagram has changed slightly. So there on the southwest corner of the site, we've actually gained usable land. The barrier, the diagram shows it has moved out a little bit. But otherwise, the native habitat, native ground Footprint stays the same. OK, roll the saw. OK. Went too far. There we go. There's been several versions since we changed this thing. OK, this is option C. So this is the latest, most advanced option we've got. The orange area at the bottom, that's the new exhibit hall. As you look upward, there in yellow are meeting rooms. The long piece at the upper right, that's the ballroom. And now that can be subdivided into three smaller sections also. And just to the west of the facility, that's three more breakout areas. There's a formula from the Convention Center Bureau that you hold about 30% of your exhibit space area you need to have in breakout area. OK, this diagram solves that ratio. What's called the ballroom, that subdivides, and then that meets that equation. So all right, let me back up to option B. OK, this is option A. This is the least disruptive. We only add the exhibit hall. And the breakout areas basically are staying the same. CHRIS JERRAMSEN. Exhibit hall and storage and . CHRIS JERRAMSEN. Correct, exhibit hall and storage. All right, so this. CHRIS JERRAMSEN.

Five new bathrooms.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN. Now, the difficulty here is that you are now under the 30% recommendation from from the national agency that describes all that.

But if you're going after sports, you don't need all the breakout rooms, correct?

Again, there we get into the detail of program and the guidance for the facility. What do you expect or what are you driving for? What can you get? Yeah, what you can get. Right now, the program is full. Ms. Kelly provided me a calendar into what, 2029? 2030. Into 2030. And this place is booked every weekend. I mean, we're full.

Every weekend, but not every week.

Well, weekends are where we get the kids out of school and so on and so on. So it's... It's gonna be a challenge getting this built.

And actually if I could just add on to that. The biggest piece of business we do is actually government business and so that ratio of 30% meeting rooms to the larger exhibit space I think will be important to hold as long as we can because the highest number of bookings that we have right now is from government institutions that use both the exhibit hall and the meeting rooms.

Right, and the other big convention is the nursing convention. I've been to the AIA, the Architects Convention down here, which is very popular. It's actually people come here rather than go to the one in Fort Worth. Okay, let's see if we can move on.

I'm going to stand over here and point because we've got a little confusion. Okay, this would be the new.

That's a new exhibit hall. Yes, ma'am.

That's new. Okay. And where is CEPM?

Where is what? That's the full program. See if we can get it to go back. There's B. There's A. That's the least.

So A is just the expansion of the exhibit hall and renovation of the facility.

Right.

And then there's some additional back of house space, storage, and all that. And then there are five new bathrooms that get added between the exhibit hall areas and the concourse.

Okay.

And then there's a little bit of additional office lobby right there on the concourse. And importantly. Right above the green circle.

Okay, and importantly, it's not seen as mechanical and electrical upgrades that are very needed.

Yes.

Then the next one. I think she's trying to understand what the differences are.

In B, we've added this ballroom.

You see it? Those are the meeting area.

To the north of the existing meeting rooms on the north side of the convention center. So toggle back to A real quick. And then toggle to B real quick.

There you go.

See, there you go. That's what's being added there. And then if we go to C, we are adding those three additional meeting rooms there to the west.

B, 5B.

OK. And then toggle back to B again real quick. So you can see the only thing that changes is go to C is adding these additional meeting rooms on the west side of the building.

Correct. Yes.

Yes, you can get two basketball courts in there. I think you can get six or eight volleyball courts in there. I don't even know when you get to wrestling or chess or any of that stuff.

Breakout rooms and meetings and the like.

Once you start getting into AIA, you start getting into, you have your annual or your biannual county judges and those types of conferences and the like. Now with SpaceX and Saronic and some of these other entities, the energy sector started moving in here. The meetings room really become a more desirable spot for some of those conventions, and the breakout rooms become viable there. So being able to have the exhibit hall plus the meeting space ratio hitting those spots then becomes the ideal. I mean, it hits that sweet spot for the exhibit hall ratio to meeting room.

print it okay so on the website we have all sorts of proposals that have been there all of this is on the website and then after this meeting we will have this this whole slideshow or powerpoint or whatever you want to call it that will be put on the website as well if you just go to the front page of mysbi.org you scroll down one of the big screens you see there is convention center And there is tons of documentation tons of presentations.

But I really love this one.

That one on there as well. And they'll all be labeled with dates and all that fun stuff. Because that's how that how the website's been built. Thank you.

These are all taken from presentations that have been made before.

by budget act and the design team prior and the like.

And you compiled them and created this great thing.

Right, we just went through the different options as you went through there. And then the construction manager at risk, Fulton, provided pricing against option A, option B, and option C. So that the city council then has that, as the owner, has that decision point to be able to say, okay, this is what option A costs, option B costs, option C costs. Let's make our decisions based on that. Thank you. And again, they're as of 60% DD. So it's still early in the design phase. So it's still a rough number. As you proceed forward, that number gets tighter and more rough. As you get closer to the end, then that's where we get into where the city council really kind of determines, okay, this is our price point that we need to hit. And that's where we get... more aggressive as your representatives and drive that price to hit that price point. So trying to get you everything you want programmatically and then try to hit that price point. And then you determine, hey, we can't hit it.

right so what are the things that we're going to have to pull out of the scope that they get lost not get lost but get pulled out so we can hit that price point in a second phase like you know the beauty the beauty of this again is you go back to slide b real quick and then you go back to slide c you could just take that portion that's if you plan for all the meps and everything to be ready for when we decide to add that little portion there then boom you can pull the trigger and say hey let's do this if we don't want to do it now we'll do it let's plan on doing it in two years but let's leave all the infrastructure there to get to it to to be able to build it and it doesn't interfere with anything else now go to slide a and then go back to B. It's kind of like, boom, that meeting area ballroom, that is also, as long as you plan for the infrastructure to get there, and there's some other stuff there, the generator and the generators over the right. But anyway, there's some stuff, as long as you plan for it, then you can phase it if it doesn't get into our right economic number that we're trying to fit into a box at this point in time. That we don't know what it is, because we're only at 60% design design DDs, which means that we don't have full construction plans where someone can go build this off of because we're in this design development stage to where we can try to cut down and get the best value for our dollar and get us all the needs that we want and we identify as best we can.

How long do you think a return on investment will be?

Well, the last convention, when we started this convention, we're a center where I think we're at 40 years of it, I believe. I think it started construction in 92. Yeah, so we're at 35 years, and so we're hoping that this will take us into the next 35 years and do that. Convention centers do not make money. on their operation level where they make money is by providing filling up hotel rooms and providing people to be here and providing people to be here fills up the restaurants and restaurants are part of quality life and it's a whole circle we are a tourism community we have no other industry and if we want nice new restaurants and we want to grow and to become a better place, we have to grow, and the only option we have is through tourism. And so your quality, your investment in the convention center facility, while no one ever expects one to break even, what you hope is that your sales tax grows, your hot grows, the quality, and you get a Starbucks around the corner. You get this because there's movement, and you've created a more... full-time community versus seasonal. And all of that relates to each other. And that's how your investment grows is because you have invested in bringing more people here, which is the only industry on South Padre Island.

So Patrick, have you thought about investing the same money in ecotourism?

Yes, I believe ecotourism is another investment area. But it still carries the word tourism. And that's what I'm talking about. This is a tourism project.

Convention tiers, of which was stated earlier, that about every other city in the state of Texas has invested in. And now we somehow are going to compete for it, knowing that we have lots of other obstacles in front of that. That's not the debate today. And while I have the floor, let's talk about 60% DD. We were at 100% DD. And we paid a consultant up to 100% of both the schematic design and the design development phase. That was the $4 million that Mr. Patel was mentioning.

And – No, that's not true, actually. I said the 60% DD is the pricing that – This pricing is at 60% DD. The pricing that Fulton provided was against 60% DD. It's not what – Yeah, we are at 100% DD. So Janak provided 100%. Our pricing is 60%.

The pricing was against – Can I just clarify that, Patrick, since it's brought up? Yeah.

I don't need to be yelled at, Patrick. Yes, you were very much yelling at me. I'm sorry for yelling back, but that's enough. I just want to clarify a point here.

And Joe, good try. The reason why we had Jignac. About saying that I was okay with Jignac.

And the reason why we had Jignac.

Let me tell you why. All right, so Joe, good try again. Let me finish, let me finish. Would you like for me to finish? Or are you just gonna keep on interrupting like you've been doing for the last three years? All right, let me finish. We paid Jignac, and these guys know that. They were at the table, $2 million guys. Before the $4 million, we have $2 million paid to Jignac already, and they have a full set of plans of all this stuff. The city of South Padre Island is in possession of a full set of plans that we paid $2 million for. And Jignac did the drawings. So it would make sense to have Jignac bring that to the table first before we spend another $4 million. That's why we have Jignac, because we already spent $2 million, guys. This is a lot of money, a lot of money. If this was coming out of your property tax money, you would be raising hell. I guarantee you that. So that answers that question. Good try, though. Now, next thing is that since we already have a full set of plans, yeah, we're at 100% completed set of plans. And that's the starting point. And Broadus was at the table at that time. They know about it. We don't need to pay for this all over again before we look at the old plans. And maybe all it needs... It's a little bit of changing on those plans. Because nothing's changed at the convention center. It's the same footprint. We have paid for this already, guys. Hence, we have those guys. There's a thought process here. And there is a deliberate reason. And the idea is to save money and have efficiency in your product. You have to have that in construction.

That's why we're here today is to start talking about savings.

But I'm just clarifying a point, Patrick. And you know what I'm talking about. And you know that too, Joe.

I don't know what you're talking about.

So Oscar, can you explain to me then in this Gignac receipt that I'm holding right here, it says 100% of schematic design and design development that we paid to Gnack for these plans. This is what you were hired to present to the county and say all of this is good and done and we agree that all of this was done.

So yes, Gnack had, before we were hired, Gnack had already presented 100% DDs to the city council. But not construction plans. The Fulton, what I'm saying is Fulton's pricing that they provided.

No, not CDs. I never said CDs. I said schematic and design. I understand.

I'm just for the audience to understand. Yes. So they had provided 100% DDs up until that point. Right. We were brought on. I think that was presented sometime in May of 25 or sometime, some of that time. We weren't brought on until October later in that year. That's when it was presented to the county, and that's where things kind of got a little sideways with the county, right? Because of the encroachment on the old growth and the like. The pricing, what I wanted to clarify is the pricing that you have in front of you is based on 60% DDs by Fulton. So yes, Genac provided 100% DDs, but the pricing was against the 60% phase provided by Fulton. So if we had Fulton come back and do, once these options are done or whatever, even if they can- That's because they weren't involved from the beginning of the process.

Is that correct?

No, they were pricing out the 60% DDs while Genac was getting up to 100%.

Right, and so they went through the VE process. They went through that process of pricing it at 60%, And then, so as you go through your CMAR process, they estimate it at 60%, so you get a price. Then you realize, okay, this price is a little high, so we need to adjust. And so once you deliver your 100% DDs, then that price is now adjusted and acceptable to the owner, right? So now you've adjusted it down to, I believe that was just under $100 million at that point.

Isn't that backwards? Aren't you supposed to start with the project manager that helps you find what your scope is supposed to be so that you don't let an architect set loose with plans?

In a perfect world, I would say yes.

We just haven't heard any accountability for that $4 million and where that went.

And their contract is paid at 7% based off whatever we decide to build.

That was under your management, Patrick. So you should maybe take some accountability for that. Right.

And if this ends up being a $60 million project, NAC's working for free at this point. So anyway, let's get back to our agenda, please.

Good. Continue on with the drawings. OK.

All right, so we kind of did a brief review of the three options that we've been looking at. There's A, B, and C, differing levels of completion. A is a stop gap, something we need to do to get space. B adds a little more scope, a little more viability to it. C gets us up to full speed. OK, so this is the discussion, then, that we need to follow up on and make a determination of where do we want to go from here. That's the hot question on the table. What do we do from here?

What's the cost?

Well, I think that we need to, you know, now that we're talking about this and we need to get moving into the next discussion and then we as council will be able to take all this input and then send direction at a council meeting of which way we would like to go. So, but that's part of the reason we're hiring you all and we're here.

One where the aerial view.

Well, yeah, I want to look at the ones that show the outline of that one right there.

Okay, from the previous aerial, this one's rotated 90 degrees, so north is now the top. You're going to need to get back over there to that mic there, I'm sorry.

Okay, so this slide is rotated, north is at the top, west is to the left. the red line that's working your way around the building, that's the current footprint of the option C. And I want to point out one thing for everybody who's worried about environmentalism.

This footprint does not encroach into the so-called old growth area at all. It does not encroach into the big circle at all. We have been instructed to Leave those areas alone, because it is important to the ecotourism industry. And a lot of people are paying close attention to this. So we're not getting into those. We will protect them. during construction and nothing new will be built in those areas.

So all these design options as presented are within that footprint and that's what was eventually presented to the county and that's where the county then agreed to continue to support the project. You Grady.

Okay Grady.

Okay, all right. Budget and financial controls. Can you, Xochitl, take us to the slide that shows the three? Thank you.

I need to get up here and see that. If you want to stand over there by that podium, it's on the computer screen there, and there's a microphone there.

Okay. Looking at this screen, we see Now, I'll remind everyone that the original pricing for this project came out at, what, 128 million, Oscar? It was a lot more money than anybody wanted to even think about spending. So a lot of cost savings efforts were put into place, and they came up with option A, option B, and option C. You have looked at the... some of the differences between those three options. We'll look at option A, the total price. Now this is, and it shows what they're billing, general conditions, permit, insurance, and fees, and a 7% design development contingency. then they increase that contingency. And I want to make this clear. A contingency is money that is built into the contracts, like a betterment fund, a lot of people call it. It's money that's built into the contract that can be spent on either Depending on what type of contingency it is, if it's an owner contingency, it's built on additional scope that the owner would like to add. Move the door from over here to over here after the room's already built. They want to upgrade the IT infrastructure. And so we've got some money there. The contractor's contingency is typically used for surprises. They found something underground that nobody knew was there. And so they need some money in there to take care of that. Now, there's a difference between a contingency expenditure and a change order. The contingency expenditure is already built into the budget and into the contract. It does not have to go to a full city council meeting and say, we're going to change the amount of the contract, either increase it or decrease it by this contingency amount. And that's important. You don't want to be coming up to the city council every month saying, well, I need two grand to do something. So it's already built into the contract. It does not change the amount of the contract and typically in my experience the true change order that changes the amount of the contract and therefore has to be voted on and approved by the City Council is usually a deductive change order returning unused contingencies to the owner at the end of the project. A lot of projects, there is no, or there is only very little contingency to be returned to the owner because the owner says, okay, look, we've got $5 million left. We've got some upgrades that we didn't think we could afford when we signed the contract and approved the guaranteed maximum price, but now we've got some extra. Let's do these things. So we dropped down from $120-some-odd million to option A. is now priced at $84,688,123. Option B is at $89,744,323. And option C, with MEP as designed, is $92,019,613. I got an email from the CMR this morning, and he said they feel that their numbers are still good.

Grady, can I ask a question? And I don't want to interrupt you, but I want to be able to ask questions as it's relevant, because we've already moved on from the contingency. You had specified that there were two types of contingencies, that there was a contractor's contingency or an owner's. Which one do we have?

Yeah, right now we've got a construction contingency.

Because he's just built it in. We haven't agreed to a contingency.

Right.

Just so that I understand as I can be more informed to make a decision.

Right now they're carrying a construction contingency. And most of that, they increased it, as you'll see, from 7% to 12%. And that is designed to cover inflation because the market right now is very volatile. My advice would be to carry both. I would put some in for you guys to add things if you feel that you need to, and then you leave some in for the contractor. Now, these will get tightened up as we move along. The plans become more developed, the contractor gets better pricing, and we know more and more and more how good the numbers are. There's also another, it's not really a contingency, but it affects the contingencies. As the contractor bids the work packages, the labor subcontracts, materials, equipment, et cetera, they're carrying a number in here for plumbing, and they say our plumbing number is a million dollars. Then they get the plumbing bids, and it comes in at $800,000. The $200,000 difference will go into the contractor's contingency. The reason it does is because the steel number, which was also $1 million, came in at $1.2 million. And so they will use, it's not fair to take the money when they save it and make them eat it when the project, another bid package is high. So those numbers, the buyout numbers will stay in the contractor's contingency. And we'll get reports on this every month when they turn in their application for payment. All of this is updated. We'll all see, every time we open bids for any work package, we'll see where the numbers are, what the numbers came in compared to their buyout estimate, and we'll upgrade all this. Now, when we get to 100% CDs, they buy out all of the subcontracts. At that point, in my experience, there's usually money left in buyout because the contractors will carry, look, they're gonna carry some extra. If they give you a guaranteed maximum price before the drawings are complete, they're gonna carry some extra, anybody would. They have to cover themselves. So if there's any money left, at that point, We can start talking to the contractor and go, OK, listen, there's some buyout savings here. We'd like to spend some of that on some upgrades. And the contractor may say, well, you know, I mean, can we wait until we get out of the ground? So in case we find, I don't know, an underground spring or a bunch of pipes that we didn't know that were there or something, they'll have some money to take care of it. But a lot of times I have seen contractor contingency and buyout savings turned over to the owner well before the end of the contract. And that's what we'll hope for in this case. So anyway, these are the numbers that we're looking at right now. One of the things that we're going to want to do is put MEP numbers back in. Joey's been having a lot of problems with the air conditioning. They have gotten, what, seven new rooftop units? on order and those will be installed?

Yes, sir, they're getting installed today. They're working on the cooling tower and then this week they're gonna start replacing the saving units.

Okay, but as the design is getting finished, The architect didn't know that George was going to have seven new rooftop units, one thing. So they're going to have to come in and make sure that their design accommodates and takes into consideration the new equipment that he just bought. And then we'll make sure that what the additional HVAC equipment that's going to have to be put in will to cover the expansion, we'll also work together with that to bring us to a good working entire system. Anyway, so yeah, the 60% DD came in at 98 grand. They have done considerable value engineering and gotten it down to 92. My own feeling is we could probably take that down I think another 10%. That'll take some work with our team, with the contractor, with the design team, and you. Yes, sir.

But you said they got the 98 down to the 92, but that included the $14 million for the theater.

It includes the $14 million for the theater.

I don't know if it's 14. Well, on the 60%, it was 14%. fix something under a line through 681 234 option C I don't know I can't read that so So.

Oh yeah, theater and office relocation. So it's stuff that was taking place in that existing area on the south side of the building, and that total is 11,417,117. Because they were going to do some footprint changes for the administrative and office area.

So I'm just trying to understand. I don't have this sheet in front of me.

Okay. There's nothing in that blank for any of option A, B, or C. The theater's been completely removed from all of these numbers and pricing. is what it looks like, correct?

Yes, the theater's been taken out.

Right, well, when you said it got from 98 down to 92, but we removed 11 million from the theater, there's still fluff in there, in my opinion, because you took an $11 million product, but price went up, but also I don't know how much the contingency went up, and that's what we're trying to figure out.

Yeah, the contingency went up about 2.6 million. By the time you get to option C, it's 3.4 million.

All right, so that went up on top of the seven. On top of the seven, right. That's where, you're trying to reconcile this in your head.

And then the MEP package was reintroduced. So it was removed out of the VE, the VE process. It was reintroduced in this one, so that's being carried in.

So in the 92, we've increased the... The 92 is for A, B, and C. Right. Or C, I'm sorry, for C. Which includes A, which includes B. It's 92 million, and that includes a roughly 10 million and change contingency, because you increased the contingency by three, and the original contingency was seven. And then it adds back the MEPs that we had removed at 60% DD budget, which was somewhere around... off quickly $6 million, plus or minus. And I think that's it, six. So he has brought it down. It's just I'm trying to get to the math on this.

Here's Fulton's September 24th of last year, their Convention Center summary, and that's the one that brings it in at $427,898. Right, but then there's another budget out there. Yeah, we've got some more. This... We have some more details that show what they have included in their VE list, so you'll know. This, I included this slide right here just so everybody can see the type of detail that went into Fulton's numbers. They're actually looking and diving fairly deeply into this to give us, the best estimate that they can provide. Okay, these are the accepted VE items, starting at a total of $122,139,416. I'm not going to read through every one of them, but these were apparently presented to the city.

And these were all at 60% DDs. DDs, yes, sir.

And so they have, I mean, they're still, they're showing $295,000 to reduce the height of the theater. We took the theater completely out a little later. Reduce theater size a half a million. Things like that that are actually going to, they're gonna take the whole theater out so the whole process is gonna drop a lot. But this is the kind of thought that's going into it in conjunction with the city staff and you uh taking a look and and seeing what do we have that we can get rid of what do we have that we really need uh is there a way to make it less expensive excuse me hold on if there's people talking and i don't know where they're talking i can't see it but if they are could they could please go outside because we can it's echoing up here and

My tendonitis is starting to hit, and it makes it really difficult to hear. So if we want to have side conversations in the audience, please go outside.

And just getting back to basics, the intent is you're building a convention center. The goal was, okay, what is the purpose of the convention center? What are the initial goals and intent of the programming? Was increased exhibit hall, increased meeting room. So as you start prioritizing what are our priority needs, then we went back to basics, right? These are the things you need to be able to move forward. So when we started looking at some of the items that were VE'd, well, you definitely want a new roof and exterior envelope for this new building. You're gonna spend this money. You really wanna make sure That is protected from exterior and right you also want to make sure that you know joey's not having to deal with you know reuse and old old equipment right you want to make sure you have good mechanical equipment so that this project and this facility can operate optimally at least for the next generation right so you want to be able to put something into service that will because. You all live on the island. You know how things don't survive out here very well. So in spite of it being new, it'll take a beating. So you want to put the best product out there for maximum durability and lifespan, right? And again, you've also provided some additional parameters around what else you're looking for in that opening visioning statement, right? Lowering M&O costs and the like as we move forward. So that'll make its way back into design as we work with the design team led by Janak. just making sure that we're almost coming full circle on the thought process as we came in and started looking at some of the decisions that were made as you went through there, the conversations we got to have with key stakeholders, and just kind of looking at this project as a whole, trying to get you all I wanna say step back a little bit. So as you look at this as a city, as you look at this as a county, the county will not have, the city will have an asset like this. This is gonna be, Cameron County doesn't have an asset, will not have an asset like an option C asset. Hidalgo County has one in McAllen, but Cameron County does not have anything on part of this. The other one that's closer to this is Corpus Christi. And Randy gave a good comment about, I believe it was a police officer, police chief's conference and being able to host that type of an event here, right? And that's the type of asset that you're looking to build in this place, be able to make it competitive because we know what is coming. You know what's happening just south of here with SpaceX. You know what's happening at the Port of Brownsville. You know the like. So as much as youth sports is going to be able to tie up the exhibit hall and TIFF and all these other programs, those meeting rooms are going to be equally important to be able to shoulder those fall months and those spring months when you're not carrying everything else because it's going to be multipurpose. And the outside of the building. A site is also going to be important for making it useful just outside of that. Right now, we're still just inside the building trying to make it, you know, we're trying to meet all the programmatic requirements of it and get past that before we get outside and making sure that it connects with all the other neighboring assets and hotels and the like that will be served by this facility. So I'll get off my box.

One thing. Yes, ma'am.

I was simply going to ask, I know that you had passed out some worksheets that showed maybe taking out some of the curtain windows.

That's me. So those types of, that's not them. This is just food for thought for us after they, you know, in the process when we start talking about things. Great.

So those savings aren't in this proposal?

Not in that at all. Potential savings are not in that at all. Great, thank you.

Right, and there's other stuff that our team has looked at, and we'll bring all this back once we start meeting with the architect and the contractor, and our own Broaddus & Associates estimating department. We'll all sit down, probably for two or three days, go through the plans and say, okay, what can we do to bring this budget down? It would help. This is a big hint. It would help if we had a target budget to give them and a target scope to give them. And that's one of the things that I'm hoping we will give you enough information to make that decision at your next meeting. One thing I do want to mention about infrastructure, specifically HVAC and the roof. not want to spend $80 or $90 million and five years later have people sitting there screaming at you in a meeting, OK, why did we spend all this money and the air conditioner still doesn't work and the roof still leaks? OK, it's not a nice place to be. Fix the problems while we're doing the work. It'll never be cheaper. It'll never be easier. And your clients will never be any happier.

OK. Are those items that are shown on this VE sheet or not?

What's that?

The items that you just mentioned, are they included right now in the VE sheet, or have they been extracted from the VE and added to the?

Yes, they have been extracted from.

Okay, that's what I wanted to know.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. The chart in here, the other chart that you have that had the A, B, and C, you added them back in, right? HVAC and electrical and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So they might be on this sheet, but they've been added back in on the previous slide that you showed. Right.

I do want to say, you know, there's been a lot of information flying around. There have been a lot of versions of different information that's been handed out. We really need to sit down. with y'all's approval, and hopefully, like I say, a target scope and a target budget, and sit down with the contractor and the design team, our estimators, and our team, and say, okay, look, where are we exactly? Let's get it hammered down to the best we can.

Oh, I agree. But I am also a firm believer of what you said, is that we're not going to skimp on electrical, not going to skimp on HVAC, and surely we're not going to skimp on the roof.

Yeah.

and we're gonna use the existing roof that we replaced a couple years ago to the best that we can, but we wanna make sure that we have a watertight building.

Exactly, and that goes back to your ideas about getting rid of the curtain walls and the glass walls and all that. Those are hard to keep watertight. They're really expensive to clean. I never liked them. They're pretty. I'm not gonna lie about it. It drives your air conditioning costs sky high. Ah, OK. Timeline and milestones. There are some things that we need to know as we start the process. The first thing, SPICC, Doug mentioned this, the convention center is booked. pretty heavily over the next several years. One of our goals will be to manage the project so that you don't have to turn away customers that have already signed up. That's gonna take some work. I'm not gonna deny that. Part of this, I think, can be done The new part of the exhibit hall can be built three sections, but we leave the existing outside wall in place. And we leave that in place until all of the work in the existing exhibit hall has been done, because there are bathrooms that are being added there. We tear up the concrete, we tie into the concrete, we tie into the pipes that have been laid while we were building the three bathrooms in the new exhibit hall. We get all of that work done, and then we shut the job down for four or five days, whatever it's gonna take, work around the clock, tear out that middle wall, and then you're in business. It's hard to do, but I mean, it can be done. We find a place where there is not a lot of, there's, you know, we find a time where there's just a little bit of business or hopefully no business and then we do the work.

Are the bathrooms that you talked about, which exhibit are they in, A, B, or C? All of them.

they're in all of them yeah they're adding bathrooms and if you look in the floor plan here all these are bathrooms yes right you see the five yes yeah these five gray squares i'm sorry five five yeah right

There's two new ones in the existing exhibit hall that we're going to have to tear a lot of concrete out in order to put them in.

Possibly. Possibly. Possibly.

Yeah. I think it's, we've asked Ray why they're adding so many bathrooms. And number one, you get sporting events and people are watching it and drinking beer. And number two, it's a code issue. If you increase the size of your, if you increase the ability of the facility to hold more people, then you have to have more bathrooms.

I agree. But you might not have to put them there.

Good point.

And that is a very hard place to put them. You could add bathrooms on the opposite side of the, or right there next door to the meeting rooms on the west side. You could add bathrooms there and not add just those two. There's stuff that you can do to where it's not that painful to add and not that expensive to add. And that's one of those things that we'll be talking about at some point in time about trying to come up with the most efficient way of adding that you do have the the the current exhibit hall has been serviced with the two existing bathrooms that are there right so adding those two in that location might not be the most efficient place for them or you know there's stuff to talk about i'm not saying i'm right or wrong i'm just trying to throw out ideas that i you know that we can talk about to hopefully save some money

Yeah, and this is...

But still get a good quality product.

Right, and these are the kind of things that we'll spend several days talking over with the architect and the contractor and our estimators.

Okay.

So, yeah, we're going to have to work out a way to... build without shutting your business down, and that's gonna take a lot of work. We might be able to, to an early work package that was discussed beforehand, we know no matter what, you're gonna build the exhibit hall. You start on the exhibit hall now and you get a jumpstart on everything else. That way you can get the new exhibit hall in place, start tearing the old one apart, doing all the work that has to be done there while you're using the new one to service your existing commitments. dependencies and long lead decisions, and then there's access and temporary facilities. We may need to, we thought about it and said we may need to actually have temporary toilets needed during the main exhibit hall renovation, but I think if we put the new toilets in with the new exhibit hall expansion, then we can get away without doing that. Communication and reporting protocols. We have talked about one SPI contact and one B&A contact, and I got a feeling that Randy and I are gonna get to know each other real well over the next few years. We will need to set a meeting frequency and format. That will include meetings with this group and meetings with the contractor. And those are things that I think we need to work on at our pre-construction and partnering meeting, which I will hope would happen either late next week or possibly sometime during the 26th, 27th, or 28th of this month. Those are good times for a partnering facilitator that we know that we've worked with before. And she's available on those days. Working channels, emails, Teams chats, text, on-site owner, architect, coordination meetings, It shows here. Email, I use a lot of email. I like to be able to keep track of it, keep a good record. Teams chats, sure, they're great. Video conferences are wonderful. If we have a lot of people like we do on this job that are from the Corpus Christi area. Text, we'll send text. I would prefer to use email, but it's up to you. You want to text me, I'll answer you. And then OAC meetings, that'll be set by the contractor. We're hoping to hold those on Wednesdays. One thing I will mention, our company developed quite a while ago, over 20 years ago, a project management software called Owner Insight. And we will use that specifically to put all of our daily reports, financial reports, all of that tracking. You guys will be trained how to use it. It's very simple. I can use it. If I can use it, you can use it. Trust me. And you'll be able to log on and look at, okay, here's what happened last week. Construction reports are going every day. Here is where we stand with all of the pay applications so far. Here's how much the percentage of complete. Here's contingency expenditures. Everything will be logged in this, and you guys can get on there and take a look at it. and keep up with how the project is going whenever you want to.

That information, you know, one step further, that information can be made available through Ural's website as well to the public. So depending on how much information you want to put out there, that's something they can also be added. So we can take, you know, that data and put it out there.

You can put it on a non-editable website.

you know, time portal and here you go. But we can make it also look pretty because, you know, dealing with spreadsheets and the like is just not real consumable and so you can actually put it out there, we can put timelines and whatnot, just at least some key metrics that you can measure so people can look on it and understand where we are in the process and where we are in construction and so forth so that they have a better idea of how the project is progressing.

Risk identification and early concerns. Our two big risks are, number one, we need to know what the budget is, and schedule, keeping your building running while you're making money with it. Those are going to be the two things that are hard to do. We will undoubtedly identify more risks and concerns when we have our pre-construction and partnering meeting, hopefully, like I say, the 26th, 27th, or 28th of this month. And those will be, look, that meeting, let me just tell you a little bit about that meeting. It will be very similar to this one with more stakeholders. We'll have the design team, we'll have the contractor, we'll probably have reps from the county. But the agenda and the things that we cover will be very similar to what we're looking at now. Do I get paid more for getting us out early? No. Questions and answers and open discussion. Immediate tasks, owners and due dates, I would like for you guys to decide if you can. Doesn't necessarily have to be now, but somebody, either Wendy or Randy, let me know when you wanna have the next meeting. Is there, when it comes to assigned immediate tasks, owners and due dates, is there anything y'all would like for us to handle? We'd like to hear.

You mentioned that you had a project coordinator that can you provide those dates to Wendy so that she can filter that out so we can try to find out. I mean, I'm assuming that the meetings will be in this structure for- It will be in this structure, but it will last most of the day.

The first part of the meeting is actually a team building exercise.

Our- Well, but Randy's our point of contact, right? So he's the one building the team. And we know that he's done a lot of that on the police side of life, so he'll be an expert at it already.

We're going to consider this the entire project. Yeah, I know. Except we're missing the Genac team and we're missing Colton and the like.

If I may ask one question, how long do you think this construction is going to take?

For the record, because it wasn't brought to the mic, there was a question about how long the estimated construction would be. And I guess that's kind of an open question, depending if we decide to do A, B, or C. So I guess give the short window on A and the long window on C. But the most interrupted part would be the A construction.

Yes.

Because B and C wouldn't involve any shutting down of the facility. Really. I mean, because it's all...

Yeah, B and C have outlying areas that are added to the facility. A involves tearing up concrete, putting in new restrooms, and things like that. So it will be, and I'm going to say that A is going to take 20 months, between 20 and 24 months. And adding in B and C would put another, it would stretch that to probably 2 and 1 half years.

But you look at two and a half. work here, and I haven't seen what the interim cost of the project would be during the construction phase. And that's a big part, insurance, interest payments. I estimate on $100 million, that'll be at least somewhere around 11%, 12%. And then the loss of revenue, we're gonna shut the place down and you've got stuff booked there. All the hotels will have to not then have those rooms available. So I'm just gonna try, I'm trying to say, is Broaddus gonna provide us that information? Because we haven't seen anything from this side Are you all working on that too? Or how is that going to work, folks? Because I estimate that's going to be about maybe some $10 to $12 million in loss of revenue to the city during construction, interim cost of maybe $10 to $12 million. So whatever money that you have saved up right now in a little budget, that needs to be for that. My assumption is that the cash on hand would be used for that. And that money cannot be spoken for and would have to borrow or bond about $100 million. That's the way I see it.

So our intent and our direction was to conduct construction without impacting the function of the convention center. That's not possible.

You know that, Oscar.

That's not possible. Well, we just talked about it earlier, that the only time that we will have that run-in will probably be about a week, but we'll get a better idea of if any downtime comes in, we'll look for... the most, I want to say the minimal ways, and you're right. I mean, we build hospitals, we build like, and it's an active hospital next to a brand new wing, and you have to bring it online. No, no, no, what I'm saying is we're in the practice of building hospitals, and so you have an active hospital next to a brand new wing that you're having to bring online. You still have to bring it online. You have to connect them, and you have to make them work, right? And so in this case right now, like we're doing at Fort Worth right now, we're having to build on and expand their convention center. We were tasked to be able to do so without interrupting services. So we worked hand in glove with their operators to be able to make sure that we minimize any downtime at all.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because Austin is going through the same thing, and they have a substantial reduction in revenues.

Austin tore down their convention center without having a permit to build a new, and then they got sued, so they tore down their convention center and then they didn't have one.

The reason why I bring that up is when you're doing construction, there will be a contraction of revenues. and an increase in interest expense. This is reasonable, guys. This is part of construction.

There's interim interest for sure.

So I didn't see that on the budget line. So we're looking at more like $125 million project here, not just what the numbers that you are furnishing here today. That's all I'm saying, guys. We've just got to be ready for this. And the folks, they've got to be ready to services bond at some point, which I'm pretty sure they're going to have to.

From my notes, I believe that we collect around $12 million a year in hot tax and another $2.5 million a year in venue tax. So that's the whole $15 million, call it. That would make the assumption that to lose that $15 million, we would have to be completely shut down on South Padre Island 100% of the year. But yes, interim costs, I think that right now for a 25-year note, we're looking at... five point six five percent interest and uh well patrick what i'm asking yeah i know and so that's part of that and of course you can do some which you can do you know when you sell a bond you can put that money into a higher earning interest account to offset some of that that expense as you're spending, because you're going to get all the money.

I know all that.

There's also other people here that haven't heard that, and there's people listening, so I'm trying to explain that to everybody. But yes, you do have interim construction costs, and once we decide on a, we haven't decided which direction we want to go, I am personally – I am at the $60 million number maxed out in my head, but I don't know if that's realistic or not or whatever. But we have to then build in all the other contingencies that go with it, like when we sell the bonds. Let's say we sell a $30 million bond. The bond in that bond number, we might only get $28 million of that proceeds because they're going to require $2 million to be set up for interest reserve or payment reserves or whatever it might be. And so, you know, it's chicken and egg. You've got to get to a number, and then you've got to figure out, okay, well, this is what the effects would be, and then let's build this and make sure that this all fits into a box. that explains kind of how the thought process is, but we have to have a construction number to then, and then we have to have a really good construction plan to know what our offsets are of when we're gonna be closing facilities or what needs to be done, and how we can thread the needle, for sure.

Yeah, and that's exactly what I've mentioned several times in this presentation.

But Grady, who is it that's building that P&L that we spoke about?

I think we have to get to the construction numbers, and then once we have the construction numbers, then we build in what the cost is, and then we say, okay, well, this is what our opportunity cost is.

We have designs, and we know what they cost.

We don't know what they cost.

Yes, we do. You couldn't have gone to Cameron County and presented these if you didn't have price and plans.

Did you say there's not 10% probably at least in any of these numbers?

I feel that there's a 10% savings in it.

Great, then let's go high on our P&O. All I'm asking for is a P&O, okay? And I'm asking who is in charge of doing that? Will Broaddus build that out or is that something that we're doing internally?

I understand a profit and loss, what she's asking for to be. If we're going to build over the next three years, what is the business that we intend that we can get in, and what is the business that we're going to lose?

Yes, and what is the maintenance that will occur with any of these options? If we have an A, B, and C option that we're vetting, then we should have an A, B, and C P&L that we're also vetting alongside it. including what the marketing for that would be, what the expectations for staff and maintenance and growth of sales team and things like this along with it. All of those are expenditures that we need to know up front and are things that we can qualify before we have a GMP on any of these options. Absolutely before we have any of these options because we know what it potentially looks like. And then after we have that P&L and we can assess next to the bond capacity and what it is that we're going to pay up front to even get the bond on a $6 million bond, we're looking at $5 million down. So that takes 60. So... You know, there are costs that we know exist even when we're looking at the potential of the bond capacity that we can put together and put our pen to the paper. And those are the things that we continually ask for. Those are the lost event report that nobody has ever seen. You know, those are the things we continually ask for. We want to see those things. And it's not just me. I am the voice of my constituents that have asked for this over the last three years. And I think everybody's just kind of fed up with the fact that we're not getting those answers. It's been delayed, it's been postponed, and it's not completely on Broadus because there's been other consultants involved in the feasibility and projection of this project. But we need to see those things. I think that we are spinning wheels and we're bleeding money as we continue to get to this GMP number that's going to potentially take months to get to. And I understand that there is a process to that, but we really need to put our heads down and focus on what it is that we have right in front of us. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, our facilities, of course, are managed by Johnson Controls, which is a utility-type company. They produced for us, and I'm not sure when, projections on the utility demand and what the opportunities for growth are. I've just found this in the last couple of weeks. I haven't dissected it yet, but happy to share it.

The Johnson feasibility?

And it identifies what utilities, because those are such a high portion of what we pay over there at the convention center, would be for the expanded footprint. They include personnel as well. And then they make some estimates about business, but I'd really like to vet that part of it. But in so much as the utilities, I think part of that is done. And if Broadus hasn't seen it, I'd be happy to share it with you.

But that was done in 2023, right? That was 2023 when we were going off of different 100% design development plans.

So we can work with Kelly and her team and our team to come up with the M&O, the M&O cost as you move forward with your different options. And then Kelly can give you her P&L side from their operations from running the convention center, right? But we can help walk through the different scenarios of the different design scenarios with the design team, with us, and work through an M&O, you know, uh-huh and just to clarify give you guys a better more informed kind of decision to be able to come off it right so you have a better idea because as you grow the building as you know you're going to grow the building it's going to cost a little bit more but you make the right decisions to be able to try to make it more efficient and so forth try to do more with less right and use tech to be able to do more with less not necessarily adding more people and whatnot but try to do more as you go into that design with less but The intent and the goal is it is going to cost more. It's going to be a bigger facility. It is going to cost more to operate. So we just need to be able to give you a better idea of what that cost is going to be.

And hopefully the revenue should go up, too, on the facility, because currently we're giving away the facility for free. 90% of the time or 80% of the time or whatever it is and now when you have a nice we're giving away the facility now because we know that it's an older facility and it doesn't have the pizzazz and it doesn't have this and that and whatever when you have a new facility you get to start charging for being able to use it

Not to mention the fact that your ROI, as you pointed out, comes from hotel rooms. So even though you're expanding a convention center and expanding this amount of capacity for convention tiers, we're not expanding our hotel rooms at this point, which means that the maximum growth that we have Are we there yet?

The county has put out an RFP for building a resort hotel across the street from the convention center. Second one. Okay. Well, third one. They rejected the last one, I guess. Nitin wasn't very happy about it.

Well, these are a lot of variables that we are betting on at the moment, not to mention the fact that this would take all of the money in all of our coffers to be able to get to the capacity in which we need to even have any amount of money to consider the throwing at the potential for Marina or another museum of some type or whatever that may look like. We have other venue tax projects that that we just simply wouldn't be able to afford. And we haven't even spoke about parking as we build out and take over the existing parking lot that we have at the convention center. So there's still so many outstanding questions. And I actually have some questions about the design, and I don't know if we're going

This is a question and answer session.

Yeah, I had, okay, so I passed out this and some of the notes that we've had from various meetings. And I'm just throwing these out there as ideas to possibly save some money because we've talked about this at various meetings and various stages. You go to page one, they talk about looking at the overhang. That overhang looks like it's, you know, 25, 30 feet long. I don't know if we can get it up there because I don't know if this is on.

Just a minute ago.

all right so you know there's the you know the overhang looks like that's pretty extreme i know it's part of a design deal not sure what the cost is on that i couldn't tell if there were skylights in the ceiling uh or the roof and then if there is then you know it to going back to our curtain wall and wall structures and stuff uh and cleaning and glass you know the idea we need to really look at is making this a waterproof facility and eliminating a lot a lot of the glass that we have uh there was concerns about birds flying into it well if we get rid of the glass and we get rid and then that gets rid of the bird proofing of the glass and that saves a lot of money uh i mentioned um You carry some stuff around on design, you can still get it. Those central restrooms, like we talked about, that's gonna be very, Difficult to add in during a construction phase and still keeping the facility open. Probably might be better to find some different ways of doing it. And if you look, you go on that same slide up there where there's an arrow and it says five. I think that's like a glass and close. Maybe we look at stopping that walkway since we're not really adding any product back there and we just renovate the south side of the convention center and bring it up to par on an interior decorating and mechanical and electrical side, but we cut back on that glazing on that side to save some money. mentioned you know skylights um the glass glass is a big number i mean we had eight million dollars in the budget for glass and it's expensive to maintain too very expensive to maintain and it and it jumps your air conditioning bill yes yes on your note patrick when because we're trying to need to find a place to put these restrooms rather than right there and then to bring up Kelly's point is that we need doorways wide enough to bring a car out or a boat out or whatever it might be, and so we need to, you know, we start putting restrooms, stacking them up in that process, then, you know, that makes that harder to do. So, you know, just some things that we've talked about over the last three or four years that, you know, and then we hit pause, and Now we're in the process of possibly unpausing. We get to the right number and that sort of thing. And that's just some of the things that were brought up on it. So anyway, I just kind of made some notes on Saturday night because I didn't go out to experience the fun. And I'm glad I didn't because, unfortunately, Barry got stuck trying to get home. And I didn't have that problem. So I was happy about that. Anyway.

Yeah, I did send your emails over to the contractor, and they took a look at it and said, yes, there are savings here. I didn't get them until the day before yesterday.

But yeah, because I only send them to Wendy and Randy because I don't, my point of communication is through the city manager's office and I contact you all directly.

Yeah, so when I got them, it was yesterday when the contractor got them. Well, when I got them Sunday, the contractor got them Monday. They have not had a chance to really put a pencil to it, but their estimator did tell me, yes, there are savings here.

And Wendy didn't need to send them on Sunday. She could have sent them on Monday. But anyway, but thank you. I just kind of wanted to get that out there.

Good.

May I ask some questions about the design? Thank you. What are you calling it, the call-out four?

Is that a, you've called it something else.

The new meeting concourse is what you're calling it.

Well, it's Fulton, I think, calling it.

Okay, this goes behind the convention center. It currently is a sidewalk that is not covered right next to the birding area in that southwest corner. What's the purpose of that? And I'm looking at Kelly because I'm wondering if it was something that you thought was needed or if it was something that was already there and

I haven't impacted onto the design at all except to say less windows please.

It came from the design team and they feel that right now that's kind of an unfriendly area. It's directly facing west. It's not well protected, it's not well shaded, and it doesn't help much. So we're looking at, especially if you put in the ballroom, that would make a really nice

You're talking about the east side or the south side or the north side?

No, the west side. You're talking about the west side?

Southwest side. Southwest side. So the top left portion where that yellow line draws across the top, that is technically, or today, sorry, that is an outdoor sidewalk that is not covered. You're talking about enclosing that and making that a concourse for these meeting rooms.

So what their process is, if you look at the light blue where it – scales in there on that picture and you've got the light blue what they're talking about what the proposal is is to make that a new concourse glassed in and make that the entrance side to those meeting rooms and then make the existing hallway that separates let's say the the kitchen and the exhibit hall from those meeting rooms, they're actually proposing to close that off and make that back of the house operation so that people can get from the kitchen or from storage or whatever.

That's on a completely different side of the building.

Right here.

I know, but I'm talking about the other side of the building.

Well, you said Southwest. Well, that was what I said was eliminating it. We just need a shade. We don't need to air condition that. Just create some sort of shade.

I was just trying to understand why it was there, what the thought process was of designing it so that it was inclusive and indoors. That was my question.

But if you go to option C, did you show option C? There you go.

So if you look at option C.

But it's glass, and glass facing the bay is extremely hot. It doesn't have to be glass. It's proposed glass right now.

Yes, take that. That's the birding area. Glass is not our friend out there. Also, it looks like you've added... And correct me if I'm wrong, two meeting rooms where there was bathrooms, like where our current bathrooms are in the convention center, is that right? Those are now turning into meeting rooms? No, the two bathrooms stay there.

Yeah, they stay in the same place.

The one in blue, that's the bathroom. Thank you for that clarification.

But the number three is basically eliminating the current CBB offices, making that a lobby.

No, number three is taking that parking area that's out in front of the offices and making that a lobby and keeping the offices the way they are.

I see. Okay, so it's just enclosing kind of that front area where the parking is. Where those cars are parking and stuff.

And then you can enclose the wailing wall and make that part of a design feature inside the lobby in there. And that actually would help protect the wailing wall for much longer on at least the inside section.

Was there anything done to the kitchen?

Yeah, there's a $800,000 line on it.

Is that in option A?

Well, it's in the renovation.

Of the 25 million renovations, it's inclusive of that. Can we also have a breakdown of those numbers, like the 25 million for renovations, and there was 22 million on the exhibit hall, right?

some of these numbers to be in construction divisions, whether they be one through 16 or one through 50, depending on what you want to use. I'm old school, so I stay in the 16s because I don't want to count that high and deal with the blank ones and whatever. I don't know why they changed it in 2024, but whatever. I think that's a process that we get to as you start scaling in and creating more and more of what the final product we want to be.

Well, the numbers that I had was 25 in renovations. This number looks like 39 million in renovations. That went up.

No, the big sheet here is the 60%, and then you have another sheet that's 100% that you have that nobody else has at the table. And so that's what one of the comments is, is there has been so much discussion and numbers thrown out here and there and wherever that we need to get down to what we think this really is and consolidate all of these numbers here. Because as we were talking earlier today, at 92, and if you take 10% off that, that gets you down to 86. And then if you subtract 10 million from the contingencies, that's 76. And we just got to get down to what a real number is in regards to A, B, and C. And now we have the project manager here to help consolidate all of that.

It's all inextricably related. You have to sit down and talk about design and budget at the same time. You know, how much is this going to cost?

Why aren't we doing that?

This is why we're having a meeting today. We hardly spoke about budget. That's what we're trying to get at.

They're getting their wants, and then we're going to vote on what we, if we want to give them a budget number, and then their job is to go in and start hacking at the numbers with the contractor, with the architect. and start trying to get us into a ballpark because i think everybody agrees in this room that we're not going to spend 100 million dollars and you know i my my magic number is much less than 100 million dollars it's you know and i'm hopeful for it i mean you know i i have some It's hard for me to imagine that a 25,000 square foot gymnasium type exhibit hall type room should cost $800 a square foot. And I know that there's back of the house and there's storage and there's site work. And we have a million dollars in for glass or $8 million in for glass. And we just need to start figuring out what we can get. And the biggest thing is, and I agree with everybody who said it, is that we want a watertight structure that's energy efficient and provides the least amount of continual maintenance that we have on the existing facility today.

So Patrick, I just have one point I want to make. You kept on mentioning contingency a couple of times.

Because they've mentioned it. Because the contingency grew from 7% to 12%.

I'm doing a building in Brownsville. And just the steel went up by $3.5 million. I can show you the numbers. So my point is that you have a 7% to 12% contingency

That's conservative?

Yeah, I got an email from the contractor this morning talking about the price is still going up. And they still feel that when they built their budget back in October, they projected cost increases through the end of 2026. That are outside of the contingency.

So you better have a really, really good contingency. And I think 7% to 12% is somewhat insufficient.

We're taking donations. Mayor, are we still taking questions from the?

Yeah, we could ask a couple questions.

Okay.

I have two questions about the design that haven't really been addressed clearly, at least to me. You can pull up any of the plans, A, B, or C. Can I?

I'm sorry?

Okay, the circle area, I understand that's going to be left intact and maybe even improved, correct?

Yes.

Okay, what you haven't mentioned is the area To the south of that.

That's not being touched.

None of that area between.

Outside of that red line on that building there, if you look.

Yeah, it's hard to see.

Nothing is going beyond that.

Okay, so that area, because that's a great birding area.

Yeah, no, that's the area where the broken fountain is.

Okay, yes, yes. Okay, I thought you were talking about the circle. All right. Okay, that's one thing, because people are going to ask me, I'm representing, so I'm going to go back and say, no, that will be kept. The other question is, will the public bathroom still be there?

We're not touching the bathroom. So we'll still have the public bathrooms.

Okay, we got the bushes, because we don't want to use the bushes for public bathrooms. The bushes will stay and the bathrooms. Okay, that's it.

Thank you. Actually, those bathrooms need major improvements.

They're better than nothing.

So when does the budget conversation occur?

We'll have a... They kind of know what our ideas are at this point in time. They need to have a meeting with the contractor and the architect, start trying to figure out ideas of where we can save, and then we talked about getting a list of dates when this coordinator can come here.

Yeah, the coordinator can come.

And we can have this conversation with the contractor of risk, the CMAR Fulton, Janak, Rubiano Associates, which is the engineering group, us, and Broadus. And I'm thinking like the 27th, I think that was the date.

Yeah, she's available the 26th, the 27th, or the 28th of this month.

And I was, I mean, I'm thinking the 27th, call it, do that, and whatever, and... but you all will then be working with Fulton and Janak to start kind of coming up with ideas of where we can save and what fluffs there and ideas, and then that way it's a more productive meeting because they can say, hey, well, we've looked at this, this, and this, and this is where we're starting to get here, but we get to have that whole conversation. We'll have to add two more picnic tables to the room or whatever, or three more or whatever, We might have to take up the exhibit hall with a number of people that might be involved in it. But we'll need to work out that space and do that. I guess we'll probably go into the executive office.

Yeah, it'll be a bigger meeting.

So did you say that $60 million is what you want to cap this on, or are you –

That's what numbers in my head, but I can't speak for council. I can't speak for the CMAR. I can't speak for Broadus. I just have numbers in my head. I was talking to you, so yeah. I mean, that's kind of in my head, yeah.

How much do you think this brought? Let's just say we're working off of $70 million. If we did this in 2020, what would it have costed? I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Let's say we approved, there was, let's say the budget came in at 70 for this project right now. If we did this in 2020, what would it have costed? How much has it increased?

Well, I mean, since 2020, it's gone up a lot.

I mean, he's asking how much construction's gone up. 10%, 20%, 30%. 50%.

I would say at least 50. Could have did it for 35 in 2020?

So instead of hiring a convention center director.

I'd have to do some serious research to tell you that. But I can tell you this. It's cost a lot more to build it now than it did five years ago.

You think it'll go down in the next five years?

In two years. I think it'll go up as much.

You don't think it'll go up as much? Is that what you said? Yeah.

But it's going to go up. One last question. I'm going to put you on the spot. I can't find it in my notes. There was... With the new uplands they found in the survey, there's an additional 47 spots being added. I know there's some being subtracted, but the new uplands on the southeast lot, there was an addition of 25 spots, parking spots. And then the north lot, there was also an addition? There are.

They're showing on this. See the light yellow? That's increasing that north parking lot. Yeah, 40-something, 50 light.

So that red line out there? No, that's the building.

Yeah, the red line is the building. The yellow line right above it is the site and parking and driveway. Correct.

Could you show me additional spots on the southeast lot, please? Bottom right.

Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. What I was saying is the... You were making the point that we could have done that for less back then, but instead you all made the decision to hire a CBB director as your project manager and made a big mistake doing that.

Well, first of all, in 2020 it was still Ed Kahn that was the CBB director. It was Blake where you spent $4 million on consultants. We've also saved $4 million. Diesel's through the roof and whatever. I'm glad I don't have a diesel truck.

So the annual escalation just in general is about 5% to 6%. So if you were to just run that on an annual basis, what would cost you to build, say, a cost of construction? No. say if it costs 75 million to build it, now in 2020, it would probably cost 55 million, right? So it's a $20 million delta. But again, every year, it's gonna go up. It's not gonna ever get cheaper. And that's where, what we talked about, you look for ways to build in abilities to grow in phases so that you assume costs now that you may not necessarily have to use on day one, but you can then add pieces to it as phases move forward, right? So you can build it that.

Thank you. All right.

It was a fun meeting. Look to see you all again. Appreciate the conversation. Appreciate everybody's involvement in it. And let's hope that we'll keep working to get the best product for South Padre Island at the best dollar amount if we can. Thank you. All right, thanks.

Do we need an official adjournment?

We are adjourned.