Economic Development Corporation - Regular Meeting

All right, do we have any public comments or announcements or anything from the board this morning? So we'll move on to number four, approve the consent agenda. I would accept a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion carries. So we'll move right on to regular agenda. 5.1, discussion and possible action to approve of a sod improvement grant for 1313 Padre Boulevard in the amount of $12,700. And we have not to go here. Morning. Good morning.

Thank you for having us back. Should we turn this on? the overhead yeah it should just maybe the guys will turn it on for you all right so we are here for the facade grant uh this is the covered deck we're here to apply for um we were here last month with the same plans uh We want to install the galvanized roof over the existing deck. We did add electrical, and we're going to add light fixtures outside. So it is a little more than we applied for last month. So the total is $25,400.

Jenna, since this is public, would you introduce yourself?

So sorry. Yes, I'm Jenna Galane. I'm Brianna Scanlon.

Is that microphone on? Is it off to anybody else?

Can y'all hear me? Yeah. Just be a little closer.

Just as a refresher, you were here last month. We asked some questions about form compliance and things like that to your plan. Can you update us on what you found on that? Sure. Yeah, the building inspector said that everything would be approved and the galvanized roof was fine. Right. Yeah, so just for the record, they were here last month. We had some questions about form compliance because it was a galvanized roof. We asked you to go back and confirm that part and come back. Yes. Correct.

Okay, you ready?

Any questions? You have any other questions? Yeah.

Okay. Want to make a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the facade grant for Nautico. I'll second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, congratulations, you guys. Thank you. It's looking great.

Nice. So much. Very nice. Extra steps. Great job. Keep it up.

All right, we'll move right on to 5.2, presentation and discussion by Greg Wengkamp and Edgewater Resources and Phillip Hanley with ERGIS on the SPI Marine Park. Gail, do you want to introduce these guys?

Well, I think you guys probably should know Greg and Phil by now. They've been here many times in the past five years when we started our first feasibility study. Greg is with Edgewater Resources out of Michigan. He is our I could name many titles for you, Greg, like project manager or whatever you wanna call yourself, but you definitely had this up. And Phil, Phil Hanley, he's with ERGIS, he is our environmentalist, very important part of this project. So go ahead, introduce yourself.

Thank you, y'all hear me okay? Very good. Again, Greg Wykamp with Edgewater Resources, been really fortunate to be working with you for the last five years or so on this project. and we're making some tremendous progress and want to provide some updates for you today. And some quick summary stuff because I know there's a lot of questions that have been asked and we've been working on this for a while. So the process began with a physical feasibility analysis and a market analysis several years ago about where's the best place to put a deep water marina. And no surprise, all the easy places to put a marina were already full. That's just how that works right now. And so we evaluated a lot of different sites and we landed on two possible sites, which was what we call the Causeway site, just south of the Causeway and another offshore at Sea Ranch. And you may recall we looked at both of those sites and we settled in on the Causeway site and have been proceeding with the concept refinement process and preliminary engineering. And so the preliminary engineering process was really one that sort of proves out all of the assumptions that we made during the initial concept in the feasibility study and the master plan. Pushing that forward is a very complicated process. This is a big, complicated project. And Phil and his team have been helping us tremendously on evaluating the environmental impacts. And it's always interesting. You look at a project like this, you look at a site like that, and like, oh, it's this beautiful, pristine native habitat. And that's really not the case. It's been impacted greatly by the road construction and dredging and things over the years, and we're actually improving the quality environment that's out there when we're done with this project. We're solving some problems, some water quality issues that are happening out there. Some, Phil can go into this in a ton of detail, but you'll see areas where, you can even see on this photo, areas where the mangroves have not filled in for various reasons, and those are from basically flooding conditions and backwater conditions, so. we've gone through an alternatives analysis process where we really, we have to sort of go through into what's called the joint permit application, which was just submitted about a month ago. And in preparing that application, We do an alternative analysis, which really puts us through an incredibly rigorous process of testing against ourselves, saying, is this the best approach? And we actually modified the plans along the way to reduce environmental impacts. And we've actually, in the process, saved about $7.5 million, reduced the budget by being able to change how we're doing mitigation. So that process of evaluation has been going on, and it's leading us into a more environmentally sound project that actually costs less money, which is what we're always trying to do. So that application was submitted. We're in the review process now. The permit review process is gonna take at least 12 to 18, maybe 24 months. It's a long process. It's with the Corps and about 27 other agencies. We'll be going through that. And of course.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just got a notice from some people that are watching online, and evidently that mic is not loud enough. If you could get closer, maybe that would help.

We'll try that.

Thank you, Greg.

Did I just turn, is that better? I'll try to do this, how's that? Very good. All right, so, let me get this mouse over here. So of course, another part of the process is continuing on the grant funding side, so we're helping facilitate how do you pay to build this whole thing, and we'll go into that in some detail today, and we'll talk about the public-private process, public-private partnership process. So just reminding everybody, what are we doing here? What's the goal? Why are we trying to do this? We're creating public elements that make the waterfront accessible to everybody in this community. A lot of us that own boats, we've grown up boating, we don't even think about the fact that really less than five to 10% of the residents in a community like this have the opportunity to get out on the water at any given time. This isn't a marina, this isn't a project that's about building a marina for the wealthy people. It's about leveraging the fact that those folks are out there and can pay to fund a marina. We can use that as an economic catalyst to build public infrastructure, which is what we've talked about here. So we want to obviously minimize our impacts to the environmental features wherever possible. but also creating protection of the shoreline for the community, expanding access to the water for everyone through low-cost boating rentals, and creating public access, more habitat for the fish and the sea turtles and everything else and the birds. And then you're basically just building a functional marina that's going to support and facilitate the fishing tournaments and the local boating community as well. Obviously, the fishing tournaments are a huge economic driver for this community. and creating better transient access is gonna allow places for people to come visit South Padre Island from other areas, which right now it's very difficult to find that place. So public access, community access to the water for everybody again would be paddlecraft rentals, paddlecraft access, birding, ecotourism, fishing, environmental education, boat clubs. A boat club is basically you join a club and it allows you at a very low cost to get access to boats and different kinds of boats. It's a great way to introduce people to boating, and make that safer. Also first responder mooring and emergency transfer facility. You have to have a place if there's a rescue on the water, how do you get them off the water into an ambulance and to where they need to be. So all of those things are incorporated into this project. We did a marina market analysis. We looked at public and private marinas throughout this whole area up to Port Aransas and Corpus Christi. We looked at the top seven most relevant facilities and four of those seven were 100% occupied with two Two of the remaining three were very high occupancy. Many had waiting lists, but how do you have a waiting list if you have occupancy? Because you have the wrong size slips. You don't have big enough slips for the boats that are out there. So all the marinas adjacent to our proposed site are full with waiting lists as well. So the target market, of course, is offshore fishing vessels and supporting the fishing tournaments, deep water vessels, transient vessels of all sizes, transits, again, as a visitor, somebody coming from another place to be here, and enjoy either the fishing tournaments or just come to town. And then also looking at future opportunities to use this as sort of a community resource, the notion of a ferry service between SpaceX, Boca Chica, and South Padre and Port Isabel, linking these communities by water. God forbid something happens with the causeway again, but this could be an opportunity to make that connection if need be. Of course, research vessels and cruise ship access, and that we wouldn't build this big enough for a cruise ship to moor here, but their tenders They could more someplace and use this facility with attenders to bring people to the community. So the existing marinas are no longer code compliant, lack of adequate power, and there's just no room for expansion. I think that's not a big secret to anybody who's boating in the community. It's just insufficient capacity for the fishing tournaments is probably one of the biggest issues. And of course, there's no dedicated transient slips. So boating has been growing incredibly in the last five years. We have coastal population is projected to double the inland growth population over the next five years. There's been a huge growth, 17% growth in boats purchased since 2014 and a 5% growth in marina capacity. So what does that tell you? That people are buying three times more boats than we're actually building capacity for them and that's a big driver of demand. So how does that translate to Texas and South Padre Island? In just the last five years, since we started this project, since we started this project, annual Texas impacts have grown 153% from 7.7 billion to almost 12 billion in the last five years. That's just in Texas. Jobs have increased 147%. 2.4 billion in new engine boat and trailer sales since 2023. and a 2% net decrease in the total number of registered boats. So how does that all add up? Well, what that means is the boats are getting bigger. People are getting bigger boats. There's a slightly smaller number of boats, but they're bigger, and that's exactly the boats we're trying to service here. In particular, a good portion of the boats that you see out there are under 26 feet and wouldn't be in a marina, but the growth is in the boats that need the marina services, which is what we're proposing to do. So here's just some stats. Those stats are all from the National Marine Manufacturers Association data. It's a big national entity that provides this impartial data. So that's where it comes from. If anybody wants to back check my numbers. So just in your congressional district in South Padre Island, jobs have increased 138%. and economic impacts grew from 145 million to 194 million, so 50 million increase in annual impacts in the last five years since we started this project just in York Congressional District. When you look at, 27, Port A and Corpus Christi, it's grown 161%. Why do I talk about those? Why is that relevant to us? Some of the boaters who would prefer to be here are up there because they don't have an option down here. And so some of those boaters, not that we wanna steal from our friends in Port A, but the customers would prefer to be here, they just don't have an option. And there's those numbers again. So feel free to fact check. Obviously, with the fishing tournaments, huge, huge numbers. We don't have anything close to the ability to support these in the way that people would like to, so we can do a lot with that. That's one of the big drivers of our demand here. And then the advantages, of course, are proximity to the Gulf. One of the things that drives voting demand is convenience, right? We don't want to have to go all the way up the channel, and it's quite a long ways to get up through the ICW and then up the back channel there. So supporting all the existing growth in these businesses. Economic impacts, huge impacts, job creation just of this operation. And again, this is from the Association of Marine Industries Economic Impact Calculator. And so that's also data that can be accessed if someone's interested. So thinking about the alternatives analysis and thinking about it, we of course looked at a lot of different opportunities and different ways to build the marina on the site. It's a little fuzzy, my apologies. Not sure why it's so fuzzy. And then this is the conceptual site plan that we've arrived at and that we used as the basis for the development of our joint permit application. We have been continuing to evolve this. I'll show you a slide a little bit later. We actually have been able to reduce the size of these islands, which is good for a number of reasons, but primarily because it saved us about $7.5 million. And we'll talk about how we got there. But basically, the overview of the proposed project is I want you to think of this as South Padre Island Marine Park. The marina itself is an economic catalyst. that creates the opportunity for us to do the rest of this. So in order to make that work, this is a project that would never happen if it was just a private project, because there's no way to economically cover the cost of these outer breakwaters to create the harbor. So this is exactly the kind of project A public private partnership that economic development focuses on so government support municipal support for the construction of the breakwaters is creating the South by drilling marine park. Which is, which is for the Community it's also going to help fund this public peer access to get everybody in the Community out here. To kayak rentals and boat club rentals to be able to get out and fish and do the things they want to do with these islands. And that is a public park, public spaces for folks to be. And that creates the opportunity for the private sector to fund a marina. Without the breakwaters, the marina's not viable. Without the marina, it's less likely that we'd have the ability to fund the rest of this. the ability to then build some upland development elements. And we'll go into great detail on how we've minimized the environmental impacts of that. Most of this brown area that you see here is see-through decking that's over and above the wetlands and how that works. And then we have the public parking infrastructure and utilities. And I'll go into the funding strategies of a public-private partnership later in the presentation. But that's the quick overview is parking access, dry stack, which if you're not familiar with that, that's basically a building where the boats are stored inside the building and then launched and they come out here, typically smaller boats. Shops and restaurants, a public of Village Green here, the Marine Park Village Green area, which would be places where the fishing tournaments, the weigh-ins and all those festivals would happen. And then of course, marina services and so forth.

Of the section C, that's there already because it was dug out years ago. Yes, sir. Are you gonna have to dig out any more in that or is it really ready to go?

Phil will go into that in some detail. So one of the biggest impacts that we need to avoid is impacts to the seagrasses.

And we have like a .07 acres, it's a tiny tiny, .38.

So a very small amount. So you're right, that channel that you see there is an existing channel. It was built, I think it was in the 40s or 50s. And that was where originally before the causeway people would come in. So we're taking advantage of that existing channel. Phil and his team did a tremendous amount of research and documentation of the location of seagrass and habitat features. And we've designed this to minimize it as much as possible, those impacts.

The parking area.

The parking area. Phil, why don't you get in. Phil's going to get into this in a minute. We'll cover all that. So we definitely have impacts to mangroves, and that's part with the mitigation of the islands. So there's a, of that. So one of the things that we were fortunately, we had a GEM meeting, a joint evaluation meeting in the spring. And when you do projects of this complexity, you go to the, you do a GEM meeting, or in other states, it's called the preliminary application meeting, where you basically sit down and go, here's the big idea, guys. Talk to us. Before we just send you all the paperwork, and you're a bit blind, we wanna, that's essentially what I'm doing today, explain the why, what are we doing and what's the vision. We have never had a more positive response in a meeting like that. That's not the same thing as saying they're gonna issue the permit, but there's coded language. This is gonna be a real challenge. That means, what are you doing? Boy, this is, there's some impacts. This is gonna be a, we're gonna have to really work hard to understand how this is gonna work. We left this meeting and the conversation was, we're really excited about this project. That just doesn't happen. And that's a tribute to the vision, but a large tribute to Phil and his relationships with those folks and understanding what we're trying to do. We understand that impacting seagrasses and all the other things is a big deal, and we've done everything we possibly can to mitigate it. And I'm gonna show you some examples of.

Greg, quick question. You may be getting to this in a minute, but do you have any idea on timeline now that you've had that initial meeting? Are you gonna get to that?

So the permit application review timeline is, I'd say it's 12 to 24 months. The fact that we kind of got a three-month head start encourages me that we might be a little bit on the shorter end of that, so.

Thanks.

So looking at how this all came to be, we're basically building structures over water as opposed to filling everything. Those are the kinds of deals. We of course are filling where the parking lot is and so forth. So just as the precedent study, I want you to understand what this is going to look like. It's going to be beautiful. This is an existing project that my partner designed in Fort Pierce, Florida. And this is when we talk about these habitat islands. All of this habitat in these islands you see were constructed, and they're designed very specifically to create very particular habitats for target species. In this case, it was in the Intercoastal Waterway in Florida. We're obviously targeting species that are appropriate here, but it'll be a similar look and feel. And this is kind of the character I want you to visualize as when you're coming over the causeway. This would be sort of the gateway at that point. So I'm gonna turn it over to Phil and he's gonna explain the environmental conditions and how we address them and so forth.

We've now been working on this particular site since July of last year when we first came under contract with EDC and with Edgewater Resources.

Darla, is there somebody that can, I'm getting covered up with people that are saying they cannot hear what they're saying on the live stream.

I know I am too.

Is there something they can do to turn that microphone up? Or does he just need to hold it closer?

Those guys can hear you right now. Great. So let's see what they, I don't know.

Until they come in to try to fix it, can you just speak louder?

I don't think there's any volume on these things, but let's see.

Okay, I'll try to talk a little louder. Yeah.

Yell, yell, Phil.

When we took this project on last year, one of the things that we did was to do a preliminary site assessment. That included looking at all of the mangrove areas as well as the seagrass beds. And as Greg mentioned, one of the things that makes this project feasible is that existing boat channel that is right here. Whoever dug that did us a big favor, because without that, this project would be much more difficult to get a permit for. So that's going in our favor. One of the things that you need to keep in mind, and I know there's been some comments floating around that, these mangroves in here and this mangrove forest area in here, I've heard the terms used, is pristine. Well, it's not pristine. If you want to see pristine, go north of town where there's no development. That's pristine. This area right here does have its share of problems. And during this last 13 months that we've been out there, we have discovered areas of it where mangroves are not growing, specifically in this area right in here. We have an eight-acre area in here where they're sparse to no cover. with mangroves. When we got to looking at those conditions and why it's happening, that's when we raised the red flag earlier this year and said, hey, we need to do further studies. So the funding was provided by the ADC and the additional time, so we did. And when we went out there, we found out that these conditions out there were stagnant, that the water comes in, but it does not flow back out. And so we actually set in a series of tide gauges, one right up by the road and one here in the boat channel. When we did, we found out that this whole area in here is what we call a perched system. A tide comes in when it's real high, and it fills up with water. But when the tide goes back down, the water doesn't go back out. So at about the one foot level, this area in here stays permanently inundated. And when you get to looking at habitat for mangroves, they cannot tolerate being permanently inundated. That's why you have these big bare areas. Now, out here along the edges here, there's a whole series of natural runnels. And those runnels allow for the water to come in and allow for the water to go back out. But somewhere in here along this back edge, right in here, it has become blocked. And so this whole area in here has degraded. And we're actually seeing a decline in one year of the Pangrove coverage out there. So we looked very carefully at this area. We looked at these areas here up by the road where the AEP right-of-way is. AEP, when they go in there to do their maintenance, they put down these wooden mats. Those wooden mats have had a pretty good impact in there. Now, they're allowed to do that under a permit that they received from the Corps of Engineers, but it's a known damage. So when we got to looking and working with Greg and their team, we said, okay, let's try to position these impacts, these unavoidable impacts like the parking area. Okay, let's try to position those in areas where they've been degraded. So we spent, like I said, we spent the last 13 months out there doing on the ground readings. We're also using drones on this particular project. And we found a real benefit to using the drones and helping us get the big picture. But you also have to put boots on the ground and take measurements like you see in these photographs. You can see these bare areas in in here. These are the what we're talking about These are areas where you're not getting good water circulation The reason for that is is man-made impacts As soon as they put Padre Boulevard in you cut this mangrove forest off from its natural upland connection So it does not get a freshwater inflow which it would normally do and the high dune system and it's not being filtered through grasses and stuff like that so it is cut off it's also suffering from the fact that as water comes in and does not go back out the sediment transfers are off now okay we found heavy sediment loading in several areas So as you can see in this number one image right here, you see that big barrier area. This is the area that we were talking about right in here. And this is the area that has been cut off from its natural tidal flow. And here you can look and see this is where the boat channel comes in right here. This was the... a result of our surveys. Unfortunately, this site is the two tracks of land that this will be on. It's 100% wetlands. There are no uplands. The only uplands are right up along the edge of the road. So we did an extensive survey of what's in there. We identified all the vegetation groups. We did an extensive inventory of the seagrass meadows. We have all three seagrasses growing out there. And so with this inventory, when we get to looking at the impacts, we now know how to offset those impacts. And this is a bathymetric and topographical map of the surveys. Okay, Greg, I'm gonna let you take over the design.

So we looked at the hurricane tracks, of course, and the design considerations. As we dive into this, a tremendous amount of physical investment or analysis of the physical conditions, including wave climate assessment. And what you're seeing here is a model. Obviously, the more densely packed the triangles are is the more dense of our study area, which, of course, is where our site is. And we looked at the tidal considerations. and all these different features that are gonna guide the design of the plans. So that led us to these strategies about exactly how this works. So for example, one of the things that we don't wanna do is have the way that these islands are shaped create sediment trap issues or sedimentation issues that are gonna require dredging. We actually have the ability to shape these, to use Venturi effects to move sediments and create currents to put things where we want them and keep them away from the places we don't want them. So we can go into that in more detail if people are interested. But generally again, showing how this works, most of the structures that you see here are gonna be elevated structures over top of the mangrove marsh. We've done shading structures and shading studies. This area here is some of that maintenance areas for, we focus the parking areas under the power lines for those reasons as Phil explained. And then looking at the way the marina works, we've got the ability to bring in boats through several channels. We've got what's long, flexible broadside that'll accommodate boats of any size, but then a series of other slips in here. There'll be a mixture of fixed docks out here and floating docks out here, all protected by the breakwaters. And then looking at different elements in terms of dredging and things like that. All of those materials will be used to construct the island so we're not removing materials off-site, for example. So these are the different impacts on the different features. And like I said, we've gone through that in some detail with the agencies. And again, this is the part that they're gonna be reviewing. So this is just some sections of the way the islands work. So you've got higher outer structures that are gonna protect from the waves. And then you've got these mangrove forests that we're creating out here. Similarly, the smaller islands and then looking at the way this works. So all of them, any water that lands on the parking lot will go through filtration strips to prevent any of the contamination from here to get into the mangroves. And then that's led us into the permitting process. So, as I mentioned, the permit process is large and complicated. We've completed the site planning in the Marina layout. wetland delineations and surveys, hydrodynamics and water circulation analysis. The rental design, as Phil was talking about, we're actually going to fix the environmental problems that are out there now and use that as part of our mitigation process. We've done the preliminary design of the breakwaters and the quantification of those impacts. And what's going on now is we're demonstrating compliance with Section 404. And when you're in the, In this permitting land, 404 is one of the driving factors. So we're documenting that we're avoiding and minimizing impacts. The strategy is avoid, minimize, mitigate. It's like reduce, reuse, recycle. Everybody focuses on recycling. But what we need to do is you want to reduce through use first. So we need to avoid impacts first, which we're demonstrating we're doing. We're gonna minimize the impacts that we can't avoid, and then we mitigate those as well. So that's what we've been doing, and that's the process that's being reviewed by the agencies right now. It's not enough to show that our proposed design is feasible. We have to demonstrate there's not a practicable alternative that would have less impact on what we're doing. So certainly the project was practicable, and what we learned at the GEM is that they were very supportive of our approach, that there's not a less impactful way. We have actually managed to reduce some of those impacts, So this is one of the drawings, and if you wanna see the reports, there's several reports. The alternatives analysis itself is about 450 pages. If you're ever having trouble sleeping, I recommend, that's a great document to read to help you. But you can see in this photo, that's some of those perched areas in here and here where we've got water quality issues and mangrove problems that we're gonna solve. You can very clearly see the existing water depths, and that's the spot that we needed to fix to allow us further access there. So this is one of the, drawings in the plans or in the permit application submission that actually demonstrates how the alternatives analysis has helped us refine the shapes and designs of these islands. They're a little bit smaller, as you can see. That's where a large point, that seven and a half million in savings has come in. But you can also see these black lines, these are the runnels. So this is the whole area that's currently cut off and we're focusing on improving those and restoring the runnels so that that habitat can actually be restored and improved. So as we jump into this, again, reducing the overall impacts, improving the overall quality, and identified a lot of savings. So the alternatives analysis is a super rigorous process that's a really helpful design tool as well. So right now, we've done the site practicability of those criteria. We've gone through this process. We identified plans that were not practical, and we actually had to show them multiple variations and explore different ways to solve this problem. And we ended up with a scoring system, and we found plans that we think work well. And so with that... Are there any questions on the permit process before I jump into funding and what do we do now? Because that's obviously the next big question, how do we pay for this?

Do you see any major risk or obstacle based on how the gym went on how we might move forward or do you feel, I know it's all a guessing game at this point, but do you feel relatively comfortable that we've eliminated any risk or obstacles around that piece?

So the permit process, they're going to review it. And I would say right now we're in as good a position, I'm as comfortable as I've been on any major project in my career. That is not the same thing as saying that it's a guaranteed permit. But they're not shy about pointing out what they consider to be a fatal flaw. If they see something, they're like, I just don't see how you're going to get around that particular issue, whatever it is. We did not have any of those issues. The one that always comes up, seagrass impacts. Okay, we went way, way down the path of minimizing seagrass impacts. That's one that if we had, say, five acres of seagrass impacts, it would never happen. We have a tiny impact. My confidence level is as high as it can be, given the fact that it's an uncertain process. So nobody's pointed out a fatal flaw to us. And they would have. They would have said, I just don't know how you're going to get around that. And we don't have that. That's not a situation we have right now. So I'm encouraged. That's still going to be a year, year and a half process, maybe two years to get through it, because it's intensely challenging. studied by all the different agencies. There'll be a public comment period. Folks will be able to provide comments, and we don't know what those comments might be, and we'll respond to them along the way. There will certainly be more studies that they ask us to look at. They're gonna say, hey, we need more data on this, or we need you to evaluate. Go ahead, Bill.

Yeah, just to note, the alternatives analysis report we turned in was a 600-page document. That's how complicated it is.

All right, any other questions on permitting for right now? So we are deep in it. They have been reviewing it for about four weeks and the questions are starting to come. All righty, so how does one fund something like this? It's really important that there's two ways to do it. We've done $100 million projects for the city of Chicago where they funded the whole things themselves. They just wanted to own and operate it completely internally as a governmental entity. That's one strategy. You could follow that path if you wanted. We're recommending, in this case, a public-private partnership. which is exactly what the EDC does all the time. So it's grant funding to help us with the marine park and the habitat islands. Without those islands, without that protected basin, we don't have a private project. We don't have the ability to build a marina because it would not be protected. So that funding for that marine park, we're gonna look to all the different FEMA and Texas GLO funding, we'll talk about that in a minute, to create the conditions under which a private person could make an investment. We're going to talk about TIF or TERS, which is tax increment financing or tax investment or tax increment reinvestment zones in Texas, about how we can leverage that development to help fund some of those public infrastructure elements. The private investment is going to fund the marina and the upland development components. And when those private investment increases the property tax value and the TIF and the TERS captures that property tax value to help reimburse those costs. So I'm going to go into that in a little bit more detail because that's a little complicated if you haven't followed that along. So what is a TIF or a TERS? So TIF is Tax Increment Financing. It's also known as a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone in Texas. And they're kind of used interchangeably. It's the same concept. What that means is that's where there's public funding of public infrastructure to generate the necessary conditions that make the private investment financially viable, right? So it's a portion of the taxes that are going to be generated by the private investment that are going to refund the government funding of this investment. So what does that look like? It's not a new tax on the community. It's not an increase in any existing tax. We need everybody to understand that this is not a new tax. There's nobody going to be taxing the community to build the marina. It's not increasing any existing tax. It doesn't impact any other parcels anywhere in the community. It's really important that everybody understands that. It captures a portion of the increase in the taxable value that we're going to create to help fund the public infrastructure. So as an example, if the existing property tax value of an undeveloped site like we have out there is $25,000, when I say that, that's the annual tax payment on the properties. I think the annual tax payment on these properties is significantly less than $25,000. I think it's like $10,000. It's a small number. Now imagine, so you've got an existing parcel that has very low value from a property tax standpoint because there's no development out there. There's nothing generating property tax values. When that private investment builds a marina and they build the dry stack and they build whatever else is out there, shops, restaurants, and so forth, it's gonna increase the property taxable value of that parcel. And in this case, we're just using it as an example. Maybe that increases the annual property tax payments on the site to a million dollars, which is not unrealistic on a project of this scale. The difference between the existing taxable value at $25,000 and the new one of a million is what we call the increment. So the increment is about $975,000 in this example. You can then use a portion of that annual $975,000 in property tax payments that are generated from the investment to help fund that public infrastructure that made the investment possible. So I realize this is a little complicated, but it's a very widely used tool, and it's an excellent tool for public-private partnerships. So what would the TIF and TIRS fund? It can fund things like the parking, the utilities, the public marina lawn, the public main pier, and a lot of different elements. It can even help fund portions of the breakwaters. So we'll be looking for grant funding for the breakwater from FEMA and the state. We'll be looking to use tax increment financing to help fund this type of infrastructure. And of course, the private development funds all of the private investment in terms of the marina, the dry stack, and the buildings. So there's no government money funding private investment. But the simple matter is that this is a scenario where the public investments create the opportunity for private investment, which generates the taxable value to refund the public investment. So this is exactly what economic development is, and it's what the EDC does all the time. Any questions on that? Okay. So where else does the money come from? So Texas GLO, Coastal Management Program grants, the Coastal Erosion Planning Response Act has no cap. GLO Project of Special Merit can be $200,000 to $5 million. There's also other grants in terms of Texas Parks and Wildlife, et cetera. Of course, our project partners are going to fund the private side as well. So for grant funding, the immediate action is we're going to be submitting for another boating infrastructure grant, Tier 1, which will help fund engineering process. The boating infrastructure grant funds transit boating infrastructure. We've already gotten one round of Tier 1 funding. We're going to continue that path. We're looking at the second round of GLO-CMP and GOMESA funding, and then TCEQ Restore, and the public works and other elements there. So looking at this element here, I mentioned the big grant funds, transit boating infrastructure. We're also gonna be looking at a tier two funding. So tier one funds engineering, which we already have one of those. We're gonna ask another one. And then tier two is gonna help us fund construction, up to a million and a half dollars. So that's a big deal. And then looking at the grants that are out there, we have submitted in June, we submitted for CMP and GOMESA funding. We're waiting on the second round notification for the habitat design and the breakwater. We're gonna be submitting for tier one big grant later this fall. Then the rest of these are grants that we will be pursuing here in the future. The TCEQ Restore doesn't have a timeframe on it, neither does the Public Works EDA program, so those go on, and these are the different matches. The non-urban rec and NCRF and these other elements here are all other grants that we'll be looking into next year on their timing schedules. So a lot of different funding sources of how this all works. The next steps from where we are today is the joint permit application review process is ongoing. We are continuing our grant funding applications We need to identify the private development partner. We have a number of options. We have a number of folks who have expressed interest. Once we get the permit application complete, or excuse me, the permit review process is complete, we move on to final engineering. That always surprises people. Why are we getting the permit without final design? We don't do final design until we get the permit because we've given them enough information for them to understand the impacts, which is what they care about, They don't care about every last nut and bolt and detail. They just need to know how many acres of this, how many acres of seagrass. So we only go to about a 30% level of engineering because that's enough to quantify the impacts for the agencies to give us a yes or no. And when they say yes, inevitably the design will change. So we're not spending money redoing engineering work we already did. They're gonna say you need to evolve the design in this direction and then we finish it after we have that approval. And then we begin phase construction down the path. So that, my friends, is where we are today. So I open up for questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

That was wonderful. Anybody have any questions?

Can you send me that PowerPoint? Because everybody's going to be asking me for it. Absolutely. And Gail also. Thank you. All right.

Well, thank you, guys. That was wonderful. And we are still 100% behind it.

Thank you so much.

Do you have questions from the audience? Oh, here comes Randall.

All right, this is Randy, the city manager.

Yes, and I wanted to speak both from the city perspective and then also personally as fishing offshore my entire life. Back with my granddad, I've always fished offshore. With that said, all on the Texas coast. So this year was a real wake-up call to me because every year that I fish offshore, I fish with a group of, when I say I fish with, We all go offshore on the weekends, and then we get on the radio or Starlink and network back and forth. Are you getting anything over there? Are you catching anything over here? And every year, there's less and less folks to talk to on the radio that are going offshore when I go offshore. And the reason is they're all moved to Port Aransas for the summer. It doesn't take much. I challenge anybody to do it. It's super easy. Just pull out your phone at any given time and Google annually, how many offshore fishing tournaments does Sal Padre host a year? And you get three. Then you Google the same, but you replace it with Port Aransas, and it's over 20. So this is the type of quality clientele that the city wants to bring to the island. We have the Band-Aid patch to try and bring folks to the island that spend money. little events, small things, stuff that may be here today and not be here tomorrow. But if you want really quality clientele that's embedded in a long sports that's proven itself with a group of people that spend money, go out on the nightlife, eat out, use hotel rooms, all the things we know about, then you've got to build the infrastructure. As a city manager, I constantly hear, how's this city doing that? How's that city doing this? Those cities are willing to do the heavy lifting and put the things in place that draw the people. I know of many projects that the city has desperately been trying to do. And it's just a continuation of negativity from people. We can all find reasons not to do stuff. One real good one from us that are hitting up or in age is we could just sit back and say, technically, I don't personally see the benefits. I probably may not be around in a real active state when the causeway gets built. Or I may not be around in an active state when the marina gets built. That's not our job. Our job is to decide. and have vision, what is best for the next generations that are coming about? What do we do as stewards with the knowledge we know? What do we see that can create a better Sal Padre for the future? It's not for us to worry about it personally. It's like, what do we know we need to do to create for the next generations? And this is a good project that's a good example of that. We all know that it takes a long time to work through all the mitigated stuff that we're all talking about. But we can all sit around and be negative, or we can try and say, let's look for positives. Now, I'm just one person that goes down on a very limited dock. And I'm not going to say the doctor's name, because I don't want to front him like that right now. But at the condo complex I live at, my neighbor Very successful doctor. He came here from another country. He lives in McAllen and built a heck of an enterprise. He's over quite a few other doctors in his organization. And he tells me every time I see him on the doc, they have a network of investors that are very interested in this, Marina. And he wants me to let him know when it gets to a little bit closer to fruition, because they would like to sit down and talk about getting a piece of the private part of it. And he's an offshore fisherman, so he knows the industry from anglers' perspective. But anyways, I just want to say, if I'm hearing that myself just personally on the dock when I'm messing around and he's at his boat and that kind of thing, I'm not soliciting anybody. They're just coming to me. So there's some interest in the private sector also. So I just ask everybody to please try and have eyes wide open. And let's be positive. The people that are negative that want to just talk negative about this project, if they just put their energy trying to be positive and try and come up with solutions instead of negative reasons, maybe we could get somewheres. Thank you.

Well said, Randy. Thank you. Anybody else in the field?

As he was speaking, it reminded me of something. I know there's been a lot of concerns on this project about the environmental impacts. We have spent, like I said, the last 13 months out there trying to honestly and scientifically assess the condition of those mangroves, the condition of the seagrass beds and stuff like that. Between Urges and Edgewater Resources, we have spent considerable time and effort trying to reduce the impacts, but also we have found ways when we identify these problems to resolve them. We can actually, by taking on this project, come up with a habitat that will be in better shape than it is today. If you let that area continue undeveloped and untouched like it is, as I said, we've seen a decrease in mangrove cover in just one year. So by taking on a project like this and having the funding available, we can actually fix some of the problems out there and actually make it better in the end result. Now, we know that's not an easy task. And that's why we work hand in hand with all of the resource agencies, Corps of Engineers, EPA, Fish and Wildlife. We've had TPWD out on the site walking it with them. trying to find ways to resolve some of the issues. So I hope people will take that into consideration, that we have done our homework, and we will continue to work through this process with all the resource agencies so that when this project comes to fruition and it actually gets constructed, we can look back and we can see a habitat that is actually in a better condition than it is today.

Thanks, Phil.

Thank you. Gail? I'd like to add that we also have the RGB Reef out there that's still growing. We have the fads, and they are producing, and our TIF tournament, proved that they're working, that we have many more billfish that were released this year than last year and even the year before. And that's a huge part of our tourism, which is our only industry. And that offshore fishing is very important. And the boats that we're going to be attracting, that's the tourism that we want. That's all.

Anybody else? All right, well, thank you guys. Thanks, Craig. Thanks, Phil. Moving on. Troy.

Oh, Troy.

We got the Honorable Troy here.

Troy Giles in the house.

Speak into the mic.

That was a great report. That was incredible. I don't know where to start, but... from, for sure. And it's kind of been proven up. Anyway, just kind of look back on the history, and you can see about the theft and how it grew into the Bill Brothers Invitational Tournament and all the other tournaments between here and Alabama and going down south to Honduras. I mean, really, we got to... It's not that too far to come from Alabama to Honduras up here to South Padre Island. And I think we got something that we really need to do. And I'll go right along with what Randy, I mean, Randy had to say. And anyway, we started with Boardwalk, as you may know. And there were like four major tournaments back in the early 80s. And it brought a lot of money to this island, lots of money. A lot of money. And just build it and they will come. Thank you. Thank you. That was very positive.

We appreciate it. All right, is there anybody else that I didn't see? All right, moving right along. We're going to 5.3, the discussion and possible action to approve the recipients of the latest round of Sand Dollar for Success grants. And this is Lynn.

Okay, I'd like to make. Make sure it's on and loud.

We have a lot of people listening.

Now can you hear me?

Thank you guys.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Excellent.

Great job.

Okay, I would like to make a motion to give the following Sand Dollars for Success grants. $13,000 to Nautico Island Grill, $5,000 to SPI Wine Bar, $21,000 for a new project that Karen's Custom Towings will be doing, $10,000 to a newer company called Skin, and $10,000 for Joyful Living Market, which will be available pending the acquisition of them getting a South Padre Island storefront.

Have a second?

I'll second.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, congratulations to our Sand Dollar recipients.

be calling them after the meeting and letting them know.

All right, thanks. Moving on to 5.4, which is the Executive Director's Activity Report, including the latest economic indicators, project updates, and upcoming events.

Okay, so we'll start off with the economic indicators, and that is all great news. The sales tax revenue for July was $875,898, a 6.2% increase 6.2% increase over July 2025. Highest July on record and the highest monthly sales tax collection ever.

Yay for our July.

Thank you to all the businesses that worked so hard to make that a reality. And then the occupancy tax revenue collected was $2,774,809. For July, that's a 3.3% increase over July 2025. They actually had one higher year. I think it was right after COVID, around COVID. Property tax revenue collected was $50,634 for August. And the building permits in August for 2026 was a pretty good month. We had $5,759,962 permit valuation. And that was comprised of commercial permit pulled for $2 million for the Coconuts location. It says BG, I guess Bubba Gump. And then also there was a permit pulled for another permit for that 6401 Pottery Boulevard, which is like that construction site by Sea Turtle. They did a $1.5 million permit. And then there was $2 million for residential. It's 204 A and B on West Lantana and 118 A and B on East Capricorn. Each one was $1 million, one was $700,000. OK, the projects on the Birding and Nature Center, the interlocal agreement status, it was sent to the city attorney to review. He replied to me that he was OK with the language and it would need to go on a city council agenda for approval. I emailed Lauren Hable this morning and asked her to contact Ed and place on the council agenda. I think it needs to be the birding center that goes to the city council and the county meetings. I also emailed the agreement to Pete Sepulveda. I ran into him at the Island Horizon event. He and Eddie and Joe were all there, and they asked me to go ahead and send them the agreement. I had sent it to them back in April or May, but they didn't remember seeing it. So anyway, it was the old language. So now they have the new language, which we all have agreed to. So I'll follow up with him because I asked him. Uh-oh, my microphone cut. I asked him to reply to me when he received it, and I did not get a reply back, so I'm going to be calling him. Because we got to get that thing moving along. But I'll keep you posted so far. That's where we're at on that. Also, work on the phase two of the wetlands has begun with the birding center hired Phil Hanley with Urges to do the permit application to the Corps of Engineers. And the birding center received a grant to cover about half of the project. The cost is going to be $200,000, about the same as phase one that we paid for. The grant was $65,000, and then they have to match it. So that's $130,000, and they do have the budget for that. We need to find out when they have to spend that money by, because we won't be able to do the work till November. It can go, though, to some of the studies and the permit stuff that Phil's doing. And then they're still going to need to find other grants to pay for that. But I sent them four. I just Googled $200,000 wetlands grants. About four or five things popped up. So I think they will be able to find grants for it. They just need to look. And I'm going to keep trying to help them with that. But because of the nesting season and that kind of thing, it has to be done in November, December, January of 2027. So we have time to work on that. On the Art Business Incubator, the new program director, Jose Lozano, is doing a great job. We welcome three new artists. this month to join the four artists currently in the program. So there's seven artists in there right now. Please go by, meet them. They're very talented, and we're very lucky to have them. I also received two fantastic applications from out-of-state artists. We will be interviewing them in October to join in the January when the other ones are done. So it's a great thing that we actually have a little waiting list going on with those two. And then ARA, the ABI's second annual fundraiser is here October 3rd at 6 p.m. Lynn Tate has been working really hard on this event. I have not been going to the committee meetings, but Lynn, do you want to say anything about Aura?

It's going to be good. We have six artists. They're going to be doing their realms where they will be doing different types of artwork. Everyone will be with a docent going into the different realms. There's going to be food and wine, well, appetizer type bites and wines, that are paired with each realm. We have seven restaurants that are helping us. And it's gonna be a lot of fun. It was a great event last year. I think it's gonna be even better this year. There are 120 VIP tickets that are $100 a piece that we expect to sell those out. And then there's a general admission at 7.30 for $30 per person. And we'll be selling 80 to 100 of those tickets.

Yes. And I think Jim and Tom are going. Lynn, of course, myself. I know Gail's got election night. And Glenda's out of town. Well, I will say that we planned this in February.

So we didn't know there was going to be an election.

But anyway, we do have a couple of conflicts in the fact that Zufari is also that night.

Yeah.

Right.

The tickets are for sale from you or at the ABI? The ABI has the tickets. ABI, okay, the Art Business Incubator has the tickets.

I can get tickets to you if you know somebody that wants me to deliver some or go get them or whatever. I'm happy to do that.

Okay.

Okay, so, and then we are sponsors for the Wahoo Classic Fishing Tournament. It was supposed to be last weekend. It's now, it was rescheduled because of wind. to this weekend, that's held on the Green and at Jim's Pier if you all want to go. I think it's just, I think that's Friday and Saturday. Well, let me know if you want to attend, exactly the details. I'm gonna be in Houston, so. Oh, do you know the details of the event?

Registration's Friday and fishing's Saturday and awards is Sunday.

Oh, they used to do the awards on Saturday also, didn't they? Oh, it was always three days? Okay, and public can go to all, what happens on Friday at the registration? But I mean, is there anything fun going on?

No, I mean, just everybody visiting more than anything.

I mean, is there drinks and food or anything?

Just visiting.

Okay. What kind of board are we on? We also sponsored the Make-A-Wish this year, Wine for Wishes event at the Shores on October 17th. We will have a VIP table, and the table has been filled from your emails. There's also a Friday night on the 16th, some kind of kickoff event at Henrietta's. And that's not a table. I think it's just you just go to that. And I think that's all I had. Walk for Women, Reese, is... It's the next morning. Do a sponsorship for that if you want to contact me. Is that you, Lisa, that does that?

Yeah, whatever we did last year. I can't remember.

Okay, thank you. We appreciate it. And then the next CDC board meeting is October 20th. Hopefully that's a little bit later in the month and the reports won't be so at the last minute on the finances.

I did forget something. There are going to be two fabulous musicians that are going to be there. If y'all were at the event at the Burning Center, the guy that was playing in the back that everybody just was enamored with, he's going to be playing there. and the guy who played last year in the courtyard who was wonderful. He's going to be playing also. But I didn't mention one of the things that y'all should be doing and the whole public should. Maya, who is one of the artists that we have, she is doing the mural, the huge mural that goes from, you know where Kick's Ice Cream is and Padre Getaway's, you know where the archway is to go to the courtyard, it is now mural of an aquarium and they are still accepting some donations to sponsor some of the fish that are on there and the names are hidden within the fish and then there's going to be a bronze plaque that says you know which fish was sponsored by which person and um it's pretty exciting y'all should stop by and see it's in progress right now it's huge it's um It's gonna be a nice addition to the town.

Where can you get information on the sponsor fish and all that?

You call Lynn Tate at 956. Call phone number. 433-1508.

That reminded me of Ryan Henry's bird trail. I don't know if you all have seen that on social media. So Ryan is going around and painting birds on the different businesses. and they look so real he did the rosy eight spoonbill at the birding center if y'all noticed it yesterday it looks so real 3d kind of but when you get when you see it in person i didn't know it was a painting i thought it was a statue yeah he's so talented and so good um so yeah and henry from meridian and muse who's moved to the front And he was one of our artists. He was the editor of the Brownsville Herald forever and just painting on the side. And I said, you need to be in the art business thinking better. He said, what's that? And then I can't believe we got him because he's so good. He needs to be doing this all the time. He's very talented. So he's a really talented artist.

And he is still selling the birds. I just got one for our building.

I'm having a kingfisher put on it.

Yes.

So he's doing them in Port Isabel too. It's not just the island. He's doing them in Port Isabel. Yeah.

The debt transfer we talked about in the last meeting on the burning center, all that is finished?

Yes, you'll see it in the financial report. They actually already did it. I have to go to city council. Well, I get to go to city council tonight. I'm on the agenda for the budget amendment. And, yeah, so we're on the, that's the final step. It's sitting in escrow right now.

So the debt transfer has happened, but the payment has not been made. You'll go to city council tonight, and then that will get finalized.

Well, it sits in escrow until October 1st. Perfect. When the payments do. Great, thank you. Yes. Be kind.

Can you tell me more about, you said the piece of property that is just south of the Turtle Center, and it stopped work for six months, maybe eight months. Yes. And three days ago, I saw guys out there working.

So it's been on the city council, has something called the substandard review. You should watch that agenda. So yeah, the city council has been dealing with that property owner issue. There's a substandard, is that what it's called? Yes, a substandard.

We have a meeting tonight at 5 p.m. Things are online.

Tune in at 5.

If I can find out how it became substandard, why it became substandard, and what have they done so far to make it standard that now that they're building it again? It's all in the meeting.

It became substandard. What we look for is properties where something gets started building and then it stops. and nothing happens for like six to nine to 12 months. And then it comes up before the substandard structure review board and we basically give them some length of time to either make progress or tear it down or take out a lien and we will demo it. Just because we don't want that stuff sitting around on the island. They fine them so much per day usually. Eventually we start levying daily fines.

So in this case, the contractor passed away, right? Isn't that what happened?

I don't know if he passed away.

All the videos and stuff were there for the last, no, we should refer to the committee.

No, he was out of the country for a long time. I think that's what happened, and it did, nothing happened, and there was some representative that would come to the meetings, and finally the guy came back. So we didn't really stop them.

He stopped it because he left.

Yeah, he stopped it.

And then they said, you better start again. And then they had to pull another permit to start again, evidently, yeah.

Okay, let's go back to.

Go back to our business, yeah. That was the end of my report. Does anybody have any other questions?

Anybody have any questions for Darla? All right, meeting's adjourned.

They left, they didn't even hear my report.