Housing & Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Roll call, please.

Bowie? Coleman? Here.

Jost?

Here.

Kim?

Here. Naker? Here. Yang?

Here. Chair Johnson? Here. Seven present, zero absent. And item number one is approval of the minutes, MIN 26-18, approval of the May HRA meeting minutes.

I trust that everyone had a chance to review these. I'll take a motion from Vice Chair Jost to approve. All those in favor? Aye.

All those opposed? Seven in favor, zero opposed. The minutes are adopted. Item number two is discussion item RES 26-889, Resolution of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, HRA, of the City of St. Paul Exercising the HRA's Authority to opt into and support the Ramsey County Economic Development Authority, EDA.

All right, so there was several different communication and discussion points last week. We laid this over, so it's back in front of us. I'm just going to look through my colleagues if there's any discussion on the item. Council President, or sorry, Commissioner Nager.

Thanks, Chair Johnson. I want to say that I really, first of all, appreciate the time and attention that all of us have taken with this matter. Grateful to the county, and particularly to HRA Chair Zhang for the attention and the time that we've taken over the last week. Something that's really important to me is that as we make this decision about a million dollars going towards economic development rather than to affordable housing, that we have a good sense and feel good about where those dollars are going. And I feel a lot more confident after the discussion that we had over the last week that not just staff, but also policymakers will be able to weigh into that and help guide those decisions. So grateful for the time and happy to support version two.

Thank you, Commissioner Naker.

I also just want to echo the appreciation for the extra time that was given, especially when there's questions or things that arise last minute. It's important for us to be able to take those concerns into consideration and also to be able to have a meeting to talk about that. and so we were able to do that i think one of the things that's really important as well and i appreciated the clarification from our attorney's office too is that right not only are we opting in but we're opting in for five years and i think being able to clarify that you know in this vote in this piece and what that means is just because by state statute we actually will be able to to revisit this conversation five years from now but just so people are clear of why that maybe was important to take another time pause and also to make sure that folks are on the same page because this is a million dollars for economic development potentially roughly around there within the city of St. Paul but it also is something that has not been done before and something that we would be doing for the next four consecutive years after this. And so just something that I think is really important about the significance of this item for people who are looking and wondering like what exactly this is and what it means. With that, we do have a version two in place, which as kind of talked about last week, the discussion really primarily stemmed from the beat resolve clause that has now been removed in the version two. So with that, I will move the motion forward for version two of this item. Any further discussion or any questions? Commissioner Bowie?

Chair Johnson, I just want to say I really applaud how transparent you have been about just the changes and also the responsiveness in terms of making sure both parties are in agreement. I just have a question particularly around understanding that we are removing that clause. What does continued conversation around the spending plan and how the dollars are used and how the dollars will be allocated, which I think understanding these are two separate bodies, right? The HRA, Ramsey County, and St. Paul. Is there understanding that they're invested in that collaboration? But I'm just wondering, what does that look like operationally?

Yeah, I think I really appreciate the question, Commissioner Bui. And I do see Deputy County Manager Collins and County Commissioner Xiong here as well. And I think it's important for the county to be able to answer that with us too. So I'm going to invite them up at this time. Because this was also something that we talked about. As I mentioned during the discussion, one of the requests that we had at the time was around maybe mutually beneficial language. The resolve on the language front was that there wasn't necessarily a willingness to have different language. It was really just an ask to remove the clause altogether, but we did talk about some of that partnership pieces, but I think it's important for the county to reiterate to this body how you envision working directly with us as policy makers, and I think we even talked about in the meeting the difference between how the county runs and this body and why that was even put in in the first place. And also for my commissioner's awareness, we did also send just the updates and the rationale behind the edits to Commissioner Ortega, Moran, Zhong, and McMurtry.

Thank you so much, Chair and HRA Commissioners. Carrie Collins, Deputy County Manager for the Economic Growth Community Investment Service Team at Ramsey County. Great question. Thank you so much for the opportunity, not just today to speak on that, but for the conversations in the past weeks and months about this endeavor. I'll start, and then Commissioner Zhang, if you want to jump in. I'll just say from the staff perspective, you know, we have really been kind of trying to build out our small business programming through the recommendations initially from our economic competitiveness and inclusion plan, of which I believe some of you were part of that endeavor. It called out a whole kind of suite of small business offerings that, to be frankly, we just haven't had the flexibility of funding sources to be able to. know provide investment into those areas in a really meaningful way and so through this opportunity of expanded hra eligibility we can carve out some of those funds to be able to do more with the programs available to us and so you know whether it be the the programs that we we offer now such as our emerging and diverse developer program open to business ceo next all of those programs were built on a healthy amount of community engagement and partnership with our city partners through one forum being economic development summits. We host those quarterly, and staff from every corner of the county participate, community development directors, et cetera. City staff from the city of St. Paul have historically participated. But we want to ensure, as previously mentioned, that we extend an offer to all of your legislative agencies. AIDS assistance to be a part of that going forward as well. We use that body as a sounding board for programming to ensure that we're not creating programs that aren't going to work with our communities, that are duplicative, but are truly complementary to the programs that municipalities are providing as well. And as of now, we've got this big spreadsheet that will be At our next economic development summit coming up here in July that demonstrates, you know, checkpoints where all of the municipalities are offering a range of services. The state offers a range of services, small business, support organizations, small business development centers. and exploring where those gaps are. And we'll want to take in feedback for the program refinement aspect of this endeavor. So it doesn't stop today with your consideration of opting in. It continues to be refined as we go through the remainder of the year. And it continues to be refined year after year to ensure that the programs that we're delivering are meaningful, that are being well received by community and that's going to take a lot of evaluation and partnership with all of you and your communities and so with that i'll i'll

Let Commissioner Zhang take it away. Thank you, Madam Chair, Commissioners. I'm Mai Chang Zhang. I represent District 6. I'm also the chair of the county's HRA. Again, thank you for the opportunity to have many conversations with you all about this. In terms of the spending and the input point, County Manager Becker followed up with an email that lays out some of the spending areas and those buckets that were named five core areas. And I just also want to say that this is a moment where many of our community members have also been asking of us in a time where all of our budgets are being stretched and we all have to be able to respond to the dismantling of our social safety nets. More than ever, we are going to need to build up economic resiliency in our communities And we see that the affordable housing and economic development is on the same side of the coin, right? On both sides of the coins. And I just share that to say that the input that we receive are definitely from community members, And in addition to that, it's also from you all, in which our commissioners also have deep relationships with our local electeds, including this body as well. And I just also want to give an example of building stronger together when we laid out our big, bold investments. That signaled to our communities about where those dollars were, where we wanted to invest. And so partners such as the city of St. Paul Public Works Department was able to reach out to us and say, hey, we have this deadline due to leverage and get federal funds. Can you send in a support letter? And that took a weekend of work for the county manager's office to say, we've signaled this to community. We can move dollars from here to go directly here. So that's just an example where it came back to the policymaker. So I just share that as an example of to say that this is how policymaker provide the input and the approval and where that sits with our relationship with the other HRAs are definitely where anytime we see that come across our table, like those are the questions we are asking about where our partners are at and who's asking for that support.

Council, sorry, I keep doing that. Commissioner Naker.

Thanks, Madam Chair. And just to your question also, Commissioner Bowie, I think that as Chair Zhang mentioned, one of the pieces of information we now have from County Manager Becker is not just the buckets, but also the amount allocated to each of those buckets, which is a level of specificity that we didn't have before. So again, this is all work that has really under the chair's leadership happened over the course of the last week that makes me feel a lot more certain about exactly where these dollars are going to go.

And I think just kind of following through, and I'll share with our colleagues my intentions and what I shared on the call, was that we would be able to also make sure that commissioners here have a pathway to ensuring that our county commissioners know at least where some of our interest lies from the buckets that are given and from the how. Because I think one of the biggest things about this conversation has been where and how we orchestrate city feedback, council feedback, into the county process. Trigger warning. But also just being able to have a formal channel for that I think is going to be really important. So we will most likely follow up with just an input. And I encourage council members to send their legislative aides as a part of that discussion because that was something that came out of it. I know I'll be planning to talk to mine when she returns. So seeing no other questions, I'll take a motion then from Commissioner Naker to, well, I already made the motion. So all those in favor? Aye. All opposed?

Thank you. 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Resolution is adopted as version 2. Item number 3 is Resolution 26-792, Resolution appointing Melanie McMahon as the Executive Director of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority of the City of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Alrighty, I will also move the version two for this one as well to approve. I will take some time and take a pause for comments from my colleagues or any questions that may come up. Okay, seeing none, I personally just wanna share that one of the reasons why we wanted to bring this forward in this process as well is because I think one of the things that's gonna be really important moving forward is the partnership that exists between our current planning and economic development director and our now, if this is approved, our now executive director of the HRA at the city, and we've shared a lot of different comments over the course of the last couple of weeks, so I won't belabor the point and just simply say we look forward to being able to work with you and what the road looks like ahead, especially for the HRA and the HRA budget process and the work plan that we have been able to share, and we look forward to being able to support your leadership in that role. So all in favor? Aye.

I did.

And it was to approve a version two. No problem, Kelly. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?

Seven in favor, zero opposed. Resolution is adopted as version two. Item number four is a staff report, SR26-111. Introduction to Galtier Plaza TIF, District 17, Ward 2.

You all may see a... familiar face coming up to the podium as we had an extensive conversation both with CDBG and TIFF this morning. You know what, Ms. Wolf, we've been able to spend a lot of time together today, so welcome back to the seventh of the HRA in regards to TIFF. I'll hand it over to Director McMahon, and thank you so much for being here again.

I'm just thankful for Ms. Wolf being here and presenting.

Again, this is an introduction of the item, so action would be before you in two weeks. One week. One week. One week at the next HRA meeting. And I know Ms. Wolf had reached out previously, but again, if there's any follow-up between this week and next, we're happy to answer any questions as well if you think of them after today's presentation.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Johnson and commissioners. I guess I just want to know how much time I have. The presentation does kind of give background of TIF. Am I kind of skipping over some of that and just focusing on this request?

I think because we were so close with the TIF presentations, I feel like you are more than welcome to skip directly to what the project is.

All right.

Sounds good. Thank you.

So, this project proposed, project located at 175 5th Street East across Sibley Street from Mears Park includes the conversion of the Galtier Plaza office floors into 166 units of market rate housing. And that will include 29 studios, 82 one bedrooms, and 55 two bedroom units. The initial rents are deemed affordable to households with incomes from 60% to 100% of AMI. And Galtier Plaza is on the National Register of Historic Places and will need to follow the Secretary of the Interior's standards during the renovation. Improvements will be made to the Skyway level and other public areas at the street level, including sidewalk improvements. And by way of comparison, here is a photo of the current office area, which has been vacant for many years. Beagle-Skulltier LLC purchased the office structure in 2019 with the intention of converting the office space to rental apartments. However, development plans stalled due to COVID. Beagle-Skulltier LLC applied to the HRA requesting tax increment financing to advance the redevelopment to produce market rate rental units. An initial step in this process is to ensure the statutory requirements to create a redevelopment TIF district can be met. Therefore, the HRA retained the services of LHB to complete a study with their professional experience, and they've determined the building does qualify with significant code deficiencies, and it qualifies under the statute as a substandard building. This shows a map of the proposed TIF district, and it's within the existing seventh place project area downtown. It includes the office tower and just the skyway portion of the old Y parcel, which parcel was purchased by Beagles in 2021. The parcels comprising the proposed TIF district are currently within the Minnesota event TIF district, and they will need to be removed as part of the requested action. The developer and owner of the property is Vigos.

I'm sorry, we have a quick question from Commissioner Naker.

It may not be quick. Thank you, Chair Johnson. I'm curious, in part because we are, I think, using this as a case study from our previous, the information we gleaned earlier this morning. I'm wondering how we determined that this would be the project area, and if you can say a little bit more about what the implications of the project area are.

Chair Johnson, Commissioner Naker. So being that this is in an existing TIF district, that TIF district is in an existing project area. Although project areas can overlap, TIF districts cannot. And our approach has been to If the property is in a project area, we just default to using that same project area. The project area is where you can expend the tax increments under your pooling if you're not doing qualifying affordable housing, which can be citywide. So if we were going to do other public improvements outside of the TIF district boundary, they would need to be within the project area.

But this new TIF district within the existing project area will mean that more dollars are available to be spent in this project area coming from this district.

That is correct.

Thanks.

Sorry. The developer and owner of the property is Vigos Galtier LLC, and Vigos is the managing member. Vigos is a real estate development and property management company in operation since 1984. They own over 50 multifamily projects with 10,000 units throughout the metro area, and they own and operate 1,500 units downtown, including Kellogg Square, Galtier Towers, Mears Park Place, Lower Town Lofts, and the Cosmopolitan. They operate the former YMCA under the name Skyrec as an amenity for existing residents, and the space would be available for the new residents in Galtier Plaza. The units within Galtier Plaza will not be income restricted, but the initial proposed rents will be affordable to households with incomes from 60% to 100% of AMI. The rents are shown here by unit type, and they range from $1,125 for a studio to $2,800 for a two-bedroom unit. And for reference, we've included the income levels as most recently published by HUD, showing $55,150 is income in a one-person household at 60% AMI. So that's the household qualifying for one of the studio apartments. And then a two-person household at 70% AMI is $73,640. And then lastly, a two-person household at 100% AMI would be $105,200. And the table in this slide shows kind of where the unit types are and the income... Income set-asides would be, or the income, qualifying incomes would be, not qualifying, excuse me, the affordable incomes would be, and this shows that 37% of the units have the proposed initial rents affordable to households at 60% AMI. But again, the units will not be income-restricted, which would be what is required for affordable housing. This shows the project sources and uses. So the total development cost is just over $56 million, and it includes the two HRA sources, the TIF page you go note, $4,560,000, and then a TIF spending plan forgivable loan of $650,000. And then the other sources include the private loan and equity of the developer, as well as equity generated from the historic tax credits, and that's both state and federal historic tax credits. So the proposed HRA assistance includes the pay-as-you-go TIF note, And we would pledge 65% of the collected tax increments to maximize the pooling within the district and up to $650,000 in spending plan TIF to reimburse the developer for their city permit fees and the cost of public improvements, including the Skyway level. The spending plan TIF loan will be forgiven upon project completion. I'll just give a little background on the spending plan TIF. So last December, the HRA approved and amended and restated spending plan that included interest earnings on our transferred tax increments. That is the source for this, $650,000. The current expected total interest that we have available is about a million. So that does leave... dollars available for other projects. The required projects will need to commence construction this year. And we have to disperse the dollars this year. And the project has to include new construction or substantial rehab. So that's the same as what was required under the spending plan law. So I'm going to gloss over the background on TIF. I'll just reiterate that I shared this by chart earlier, but this is the proposed distribution of taxes for the Galtier Plaza TIF district. And then now I'm on to slide 15 here with the Minnesota event TIF district amendment. So because the parcels proposed to be in the new TIF district are in an existing TIF district, the HRA board will have to adopt an amended plan that will remove those parcels. So they'll take them out of the district and the resulting Minnesota Events TIF district will be smaller by the amount taken out. The impact is minimal to the Minnesota Event TIF district. These parcels currently generate $14,532 of HRA collected increments. So the Minnesota Events TIF district does collect increment, and then we have to pay the county share back to them. So this represents the amount that is retained by the HRA under the amended Minnesota Event Tip District Plan, which is to provide capital improvements to the river center arena and adjacent areas. The Galtier Plaza TIF plan was prepared by PED with input from Ramsey County. The expected taxable value is $28,552,000. This is $172,000 a unit. This results in an increased market value of $26,754,000. The HRA will elect to first receive tax increment in pay 2029, and that final collection would then be in 2054, which is 26 total years. The projected annual increment collected upon completion is $484,930 per year, which results in a total tax increment collected of $12,609,000. And at least twenty five percent of the tax increment will be pooled for qualifying affordable housing projects And that's estimated at three million seven fifty and then up to ten percent for admin And then this is the budget that is included in the TIF plan aside from the tax increments collected from the property is interest earnings so that brings the total spending budget to thirteen million 109 and And then the last item listed is the interest. So that's the interest that is due under the pay-as-you-go TIF note to reimburse the developer for their eligible costs in the principal amount of $4,560,000. As discussed other times, we did engage Ehlers as our municipal advisor to evaluate the developer's pro forma, their cost of the project, and how they would operate the project to make sure that they need the TIF. Ehlers provided a memo to us, and I'll just say that One of the changes that we have done is their memo is now an exhibit to our TIF plan, and our TIF plan is available now for public because we did publish the notice. If anybody wants a copy of that, otherwise it'll be attached to the action next week. And so that memo from Ehlers is included in that TIF plan, as is the LHB full report. So that is something that's been a change in our practice. And then we took that advice from the Port Authority. That's how they manage their TIF plans. And let's see so Ellers concluded that the project needs the TIF in order to happen For the TIF development agreement So we will the development agreement will authorize the HRA to issue a TIF note up to the maximum principal amount of four million five sixty the note would be issued upon completion of the project so the developer has to secure the funds to build the project. They have to complete the project. They have to get a CFO, and we have to certify that they've completed it and covered all of our requirements. And then we will issue the TIF note. The spending plan TIF loan would be up to a maximum of $650, and again, that will be determined based on the actual eligible costs. And then the development agreement will also have a look-back provision, which will allow us to make sure that all the estimated projections for the cost of the project and the operations of the project are actually what are occurring and that the developer is not being over-enriched. The look-back will be done at the time the project is completed to validate all of the costs. And then when the project is stabilized as operations to validate the operating revenues and expenses. And then lastly, if the project is sold. And then just real quick, the compliance tax increment financing of this amount triggers all of our compliance areas, prevailing wages, affirmative action, vendor outreach, living wage, project labor agreement, sustainable building ordinance, and HRA two-bed policy. And lastly, we will be looking to have action on this item next week, June 10th. Again, the action will include the amendment to the Minnesota event TIF plan, and then the establishment of the new TIF district, adoption of a TIF plan, and execution of a development agreement. um adam newman from bigos is here if there are questions of the developer about the project otherwise i i'm done with my material thank you miss wolf are there any questions that folks have or any comments that they'd like to share around the item commissioner thanks madam chair i don't have any questions thanks so much for the helpful presentation and i'm going to save the bulk of my comments for after the public hearing next week but i do want to recognize and thank mr newman for

of being here today.

Wonderful. Thank you. And likewise, just more so for the interest of time for today. But I genuinely appreciate any time that we have our developers in the room as well. And so because we have a couple more updates today, I won't invite Mr. Newman to the front. But if we do have additional questions and we want to hear from him at the next meeting, I'm happy to do that. heading into the next item as well, but appreciate you, Ms. Wolf. Thank you.

Item number five, staff report SR26-112, introduction to the acquisition of 259 University Avenue West, District 7, Ward 1.

Director McMahon?

Yes, thank you. This is an introduction to the item. There will be action for consideration next week. And we have Jonathan Reister here to provide the update.

Welcome, welcome. We're getting it put up on the slides.

That's probably fine anyway, right?

Jonathan, if you press Control-L at the same time, it should.

There we go. Thank you, Chair Johnson, commissioners. Again, I'm Jonathan Reister, principal project manager on the economic development team. And today I'll be talking about, I'll be introducing the resolution approving the acquisition of 259 University Avenue West. Also, as stated, 259 University Avenue West is in Ward 1, District 7. It is near the corner of University Avenue and Gaultier Street, about halfway between the green line stops of Capitol Rice Street and Western Avenue. It is surrounded by six HRA-owned parcels that are known collectively as the Saxon Ford site, as there was a Ford dealership under that name previously. These HRA-owned parcels were acquired between 2006 and 2009. The Sherbourne Avenue parcels used to be single-family or duplex sites. All three Sherbourne Avenue parcels are now currently vacant lots. Structures on them were demolished either before the HRA acquired them or just after. The University Avenue parcels were commercial sites. This is where the Saxon Ford dealership operated. All three are vacant as well, but 253 and 255 each have buildings on them that are registered with the city as category two vacant. And 263 is paved and a vacant lot as well. Among the funding sources used to acquire these six parcels was a LAAND loan, LAND, which stands for Land Acquisition for Affordable New Development, which requires that 20% of new housing units developed on the site would be made available at 60% AMI. So the site will carry affordable requirements when it is developed. So why do we want to acquire 259? Quite simply to create a more contiguous redevelopment site that allows for higher density development along the Green Line, which the T2 zoning district will allow for. The source for this acquisition, we have reserved CDBG, Community Development Block Grants, and as you probably know, HUD requires that we meet a national objective when we use CDBG. The national objective that we've identified is slum blight, and so this will be met once we, one, acquire the property, and then two, demolish the structure to prepare the site for redevelopment. The acquisition price is $600,000. It was listed on the market for $625,000. Looking at the timeline, There is a purchase agreement already executed, which is contingent on HRA board approval. So if this item passes next week, the purchase agreement will become effective. City Council would then need to approve the spending of CDBG. That would hopefully be on the June 10th City Council meeting agenda as well. And then closing could be as early as June 11th. Next steps included environmental site investigation, which is a requirement of our CDBG usage, demolishing the building at 259 as well as the buildings on 253 and 255, and then assembling the site as one contiguous site and soliciting it for redevelopment. Are there any questions?

All right, Commissioner Bowie.

Thank you, Chair Johnson, and thank you so much, Jonathan, for this presentation. I do have a couple questions, but before that, I just wanted to say I really am happy to see that there's some level of action being taken on this site when I think about living in this neighborhood for the majority of my life and just seeing some of the safety issues and just really remaining vacant and not having much of any opportunity or reimagination. So I definitely am happy that There's some attempt. I also want to just ask, particularly just for the purpose for community education, what is the current state of the building condition and the vacancy level? Understanding that this is a very unique HRA property. Majority of our HRA lots are just vacant lots. This is only... I believe in Ward 1, aside from the Lexington Library, that actually has a structure on the lot. But can you speak to the condition of the building?

Chair Johnson, Commissioner Bowie, do you mean the building on 259 University or the buildings that are on 253 and 255?

All above. Okay.

The building that we're looking to acquire on 259 is not vacant. It's occupied, or it has been historically occupied. I don't know if it's currently occupied as it's been on the market. But that building is over 100 years old. I'm not sure the age on the two buildings. on 253 and 255, but they are both registered category two vacant, which means that they are unusable and condemned, I believe is the phrasing that DSI puts on that. That's what I know about their status. Thank you.

I do see a question as well from Commissioner Yang. Thanks, Chair Johnson. I appreciate their presentation here. I was just wondering, can you clarify who the purchase agreement would be between?

Yes. I believe the entity is an LLC. It's 259 University Avenue LLC is the name of the entity. That purchase agreement will be attached to next week's action item as well.

Thank you.

Can you just also clarify as well regarding the CDBG funding, like where is it for the full acquisition amount and where are those funds coming from within CDBG?

Chair Johnson, that's a good question. I'm not sure exactly what bucket of CDBG these came from. I don't know if we have someone that could answer that more in detail right now or if we'd have to get back to you on that.

Yeah, I think it would be helpful as a follow-up. We did have a presentation as well today on CDBG funding, and we kind of saw the full outline as well earlier during the council budget committee meeting. But it would really be helpful, I think, to pinpoint where those dollars were coming from. through these funds, just really just kind of thinking about the acquisition and what bucket it falls under. And in the space of operating with clarity and transparency, I think it's just important for this body to know how those are designated and when we have projects that come up that fit or are in alignment with them, how we're designating that for federal use, federal funding here. So that'd just be really helpful.

Chair Johnson understood, and I'll look at the board report as well and see if that information is in there, and if it's not, see if there's time to update that board report with that information.

Thank you. Commissioner Bowie.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. And also, Jonathan, I have a question particularly around just procedurally. I believe I saw on the slides, I don't have it before me here, but the next steps. I understand this item is only pertaining to the acquisition, but there are also the acquisition with the intent on demolishing buildings. those buildings, can you speak to procedurally, or maybe Director McMahon, in terms of what are the additional actions with prompting this acquisition? Does that automatically requires us to do the demolition? And then what is that procedurally in terms of the timeline? Like if that's going to be coming before us within the month of June, or what is the timeline in between the acquisition and...

Sure. I can speak to the first portion of it, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Bowie. It will take some time to do the environmental site investigation and get ready to demolish the building. So I don't think there would be anything in the next one or two months happening. But throughout the summer, we'd be looking to get moving on those two items. As you know, probably historically, we've had interest in this site before. It's been a difficult site to look at redevelopment options because of the one parcel that has been privately owned, so this does enable us to look at a wider variety of redevelopment plans and options for the site, which is exciting. Again, as you said, this is also just for the acquisition today and next week for the action. We will be working on the next phase, and we can be in partnership with you on that as well.

And just to add to your point, Mr. Reister, is that we would be moving forward towards demolition next. There won't be like a year or a gap of time between those steps, so it would be acquisition and then moving towards demolition. Got it.

Yeah, I guess one of the things that, just for clarification too, looking at the amount of time I think we've owned the rest of the parcels, is it right that we've owned some of the other parcels since 2009? On the slide, I think that's what it was acquired by in 2009, the neighboring parcels. And then the earlier parcels were Acquired when?

All six were acquired between 2006 and 2009. OK.

I think as we continue to talk about just HRA properties and ward by ward, it sounds like there's interest from Ward 1 to see movement here on this project. And as we think about just what we're investing as well within HRA-owned properties and our line items for our own development and what the opportunities are that present themselves across the city, I wonder how many of our HRE properties that we've owned for 20 years and think about what we can do to really get them off the ground running. And so would definitely welcome, especially as the process moves along, if we continue, I'm assuming, presuming a little, that if we get through the acquisition and also the designations of funding, the demolitions, that we would actually be able to see this project come forward if that's for other future redevelopment opportunities later on, especially because we've held on to some of the neighboring properties for so long. And so I think the investment itself will be really important, and it'll be helpful to know with certain projects, especially those that we've owned for 20 years plus, what we think could get those moving, especially just because we don't want to acquire another building just to sit on it for a while. Commissioner Bowie.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. I also agree as well. We want to just see some level of movement, but we also want to make sure there's the education and there's the community input and engagement part of it as well. I have a question particularly around just the financing. It's really clear in terms of how much we're allocating to acquire the property. But do we have the numbers in terms of how much we're going to allocate to do the demolition? And is that coming from the same source of the CDBG funds?

Chair Johnson, Commissioner Bowie, yeah. The reservation of funding from CDBG funds was for $700,000. So there is an additional $100,000 that is available to use for demolition of these buildings.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Reston. I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Item number six is staff report SR26-113, the Highland Bridge update.

All right, so as a reminder to this body, we do ask for updates to come to us from the Highland Bridge site every year. I look forward to being able to hear this one as well, and so welcome and thank you for being here in person, as always, to deliver updates this update, because we have an ending time usually around three, I'm gonna ask that we hold some of our also important questions, but to get through the presentation and then be able to either ask the questions here or also be able to maybe compile them and ask them in a follow-up. So depending on how much time is done, I don't want you to feel like you have to be rushed. It's super important. I want you to just be able to have a chance to go through that knowing the time constraints that we have ahead of time. But welcome, thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair Johnson and commissioners. Most of you know me. For those who don't know, Sean Ryan. I'm a developer with Ryan Companies. I'm overseeing portions of the Highland Bridge development. So I'm excited to be here again talking to you about the Albert, which is what we are calling the apartment building, formerly the Gateway Apartments, Outlot B, which is Civic Square, the Southern Row Home land, and an update on Block 11. Start with the Elbert. So just to orient where we are on site, this is really at the corner of Ford Parkway and Creighton. This is a 97-unit residential market rate apartment building with about 24,000 square feet of retail along Ford Parkway. We also have a second block with 13,000 square feet of retail that Tierra and Cantata will take over later this month. And just to give a little nod to the name and why we chose it. So Albert Kahn was the architect of the old Ford plant and coined the Kahn facade. So we are throwing an homage to him because we ended up putting parts of the old facade on our building facing Civic Square. So since we last met in the fall, this project has carried through the winter and spring just very smoothly. Currently we are undergoing unit finishes on all floors now with owner punch lists kind of progressing and complete on the fourth floor and working down. Our first floor lobby and amenity spaces are ongoing. Leasing begun last month. I'm happy to say we have a number of leases, although we're still early, so time will tell. Site walls, sidewalks, landscaping is ongoing. So if you've been around the site, you're seeing probably most of our activity is on the exterior now. Like I mentioned, the con facade is complete and up. And then we are tracking for an August turnover and first move-ins, which is ahead of schedule, which is great to see. So a couple quick, I'll kind of go through the photos quickly, but picture on the left is a picture out of one of our third floor apartment buildings, so featuring the civic, the central water feature. Picture on the right is our club room in a fairly early state. This is a fourth floor corridor, so as you can see, we are through finishes on the fourth floor, and we have a finished unit kitchen here. Here's a rendering I like to show. Obviously, an important aspect of this entire development is the shared space between the residential building and the daycare, and then through to the Marbella properties. So that is the rendering. This is a more grainy photo that I would like to see, but you can see that we still held that same view and pedestrian path right through the buildings. So I'll jump into the retail on this block. The retail shelves are about 90% complete. Site work, sidewalks, and adjacent right-of-way work is ongoing, as well as landscaping and final grading. As I mentioned, we'll turn over to Thierry and Quintada at the end of this month, and they'll begin their build-out with the intent of opening directly at the end of their build-out. And then a leasing update. While I'd love to tell you more names, we're working with four assigned LOIs right now at various states and just working through the leasing documents with those. So it is going very well on the leasing front. And I'm hoping in the next two, three weeks, we're able to share some of those tenants with you. And then as you can see here, this is a picture of the con facade that is now up on the building. Couple more photos of the retail. This is along Ford Parkway. I know during our zoning and entitlement phase, there was a lot of discussion about kind of meeting the street, Ford Parkway, and the sidewalks and our stepping down because of the severe grade change. So as you can see, each building slowly steps down to meet that 16 feet of grade change over the course of the two blocks. And then a few photos of Tierra Encantada in the interior shell of that building. Civic Square, Outlot B. So right on the corner of Ford Parkway and Creighton, we have Civic Square. This will be a park owned by the Master Association and will be privately operated by that group as well. One, I think the biggest change from the last time I was in front of this group is we have decided on the central sculpture element, and we have two large friezes that came off the building that we are going to showcase in kind of the centerpiece there. And we really think that just, you know, connects what we did with the Convisatum building, the history of the site, and then bringing it to the park as well. But the park will have bench seating, you know, sidewalks and landscaping throughout. outdoor dining opportunities for the adjacent retail at the Elbert. And then, again, we're preserving that angled pedestrian connection down into Civic Plaza. There's a further back picture of a rendering of the Civic Square. And that started construction this week, actually. New to this update, but I wanted to share this because it's going to be happening very quickly, is the MI Homes Row Home. This group is going to be taking over the second phase of the row home product that Pulte started a few years ago. They're looking for their first takedown of property at the end of this month or early next with starting construction, hopefully in July. But just will be a continuation of just the success that really was re-sparked on this site based on the actions of the city council last May, or two Mays from now, now that we're in June. So exciting to see these come to life. So very similar product to the Pulte Row homes. These will be three-story, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half baths, a handful of different models. And like I said, construction hopeful to start in the next two months. And then finally, Widener Apartment Homes. Make sure I'm on time. Okay. So as many of you know or have heard, Dean Winder passed a few months ago. Dean was the owner and really the leader of Widener Partner Homes for the entirety of his life. And he was a very active day-to-day manager seen all of the developments in the country. So while the passing was a big jolt and hit for Widener Apartment Homes, we had been forecasting that this project was potentially going to push about a year. And I'm happy to say that right now, we are currently forecasting to bring that back and start it September 1 of this year. So still in the works, but we had our I think we're going in for permitting soon, and so all signs right now are pointing towards the September 1, which is just really important for the site overall just to continue seeing starts at Highland Bridge. That was a lot and kind of fast, so any questions?

Thank you so much as well for just the update, but also it's really exciting to see, and I'll just share that The progress over time has been really good to see that folks were also following through on what they shared that they would do. So I think it's a testament to also following through and performing well to the word that you gave, the team gave, to making sure that this happened and that we went vertical and we continue to go forward and see progress on the site. So this is all really, really exciting. Also, it's very hard to even tell that some of your renderings are renderings and not the actuals in the sense of there being, you know, a lot of accuracy within the renderings, especially just kind of from site to site. So it's been cool to see someone who doesn't always, you know, I represent the East Side, so I don't always get out there every single, you know, day. It's not my... It's not on my commute home, but it's definitely something that everyone is watching through and just wanting to see progress through it. So really do appreciate you taking the time here. I want to acknowledge, yes, the significant loss that is involved by losing Mr. Weidner to not only the project, but to the team, to the family, to those that are really close to him as well. And it's... great to see that there's progress being still made on the apartment part of this but also just wanting to acknowledge that as well um and just sharing that like that can be always challenging whenever um you know in a team project to lose a team member as significant as that as mr reiner was so thank you so much for you know still making the time to come out and i know that that's part of why we wanted to push back this uh update a little bit as well to give some give some time and acknowledgement to that too but overall really great to see Commissioners, are there any questions that you have for Mr. Ryan? Vice Chair Jost.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. Just a comment. I want to thank you for being here. I really appreciate seeing the update, and I spend a lot of time nearby Highland Bridge or running through the site or the park, and so I have been really excited to see everything that's moving forward. I'll be excited to find out who the tenants are going to be in the new... Are we calling the whole thing the Elbert now, or is it...

A little TBD, but for now it's the Albert.

I know names tend to change often until things are complete. So I'm really excited to see that and just appreciate you coming here, especially as Chair Johnson mentioned the circumstances with Widener and my condolences to them. I know that they're... The times that I have met with them, they're all very close, and it's like a big family business. And so I really will be thinking of them during this time. And just very much appreciate that things still seem to be on track. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

We appreciate it so much. Mr. Ryan, thank you for coming in and for being here and for sitting through our robust meeting to be able to provide this important update that we all look forward to.

Commissioner, thank you.

That brings us to the end of our meeting. We are adjourned.