Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

mailbox system. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Test test test your farmer. How are you? Good. How you doing? Sneak in. We are live. We are live. Volume up and video on. All right everyone. Thank you for being here. Uh, this is a meeting of the economic development committee, Monday, June 16, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Miss Lobbec, would you please take role? Chair Utenberg, here. Vice Chair Preston, here. Council member Alers. Oh, man. Yes. Here. Council member Bert present via Zoom. Council member Farmer here. Council member Crayons here. Council member McCutchen. Council member Tradier here via Zoom. All right. Thank you very much. It looks like we have a quorum. So that is always good. Uh next we'll move to approval of the minutes from the May 19th, 2025 meeting. Does anyone have any comments or questions regarding those minutes? If there are none, then I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from that meeting. Made by council member Preston, seconded by council member Crayons. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approval of the minutes, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Abstensions. Minutes approved. Um, couple of council members are attending remotely. I am sitting this evening with my back to the screen. So, if other council members would help me by noticing when somebody has to hand up, I would appreciate. Now, I get the logic. Chair, would you like to move? No, I'm good. I'm good here. Um, I know that might I'll keep an eye on you. All right. Okay. Okay. Very good. I am going to depart from the agenda for just a

moment because I wanted to um mention something before I forget and that is that officer Deg Gelder was recognized with a proclamation at the last city council meeting. He is going to be retiring effective. Is it July 2nd? Yes, sir. Great. Well, on behalf of the entire committee, congratulations on your retirement, upcoming retirement, and thank you for your service to the city. You're welcome. And thank you. All right. No gold or anything, but thanks. All right. We'll move along to public comment. Um, Miss Becky, you plan on making public comment or are you here as an observer? I'm here as an observer. All right. Perfect. And chair, we have no participants right now via Zoom other than our council members that are participating. So, one on Zoom. Okay. Super. Then we will move along then to discussion items. Uh, starting off with four information. And first of all would be an update on business changes and other business news. So for that I will turn things over to the tag team of Mr. Lee and Ms. Van for this one not tag team there chair we'll turn it over directly to our communications and economic development. Super. So we've had a busy month. Um we just posted our um latest spotlight which is on Viglia. All of these um spotlights profiling local businesses are doing tremendously well. We're seeing a huge growth in digital traffic for our social media and for our website. A few stats um we have seen a 161.1% increase in total post reach and it's driven by the shift that we have going on where dynamic content like videos,

reals, stories and live segments. videos alone reached 1.1 million over a multi-month uh two two plus month period. Um and multifoto posts reached over about 121,000. Um so yeah, all this to say that posting about businesses is doing well. Um we had um St. Louis Community College, their health sciences center open May 29th, tripling campus enrollment. um new businesses like Singer Ice Cream, Good News Brewing, American Mattress, Advanced um Arbit. Uh we also have some community um events and upcoming events, a networking lunch with the businesses of Wildwood that's coming up June 19th at Piglia, which is welltimed with our latest uh spotlight. Uh and then we have the West St. Louis County Chamber of Commerce monthly lunch is June 26, 11:30. um celebrate Wildwood September 20th and then we have a bunch of business anniversaries. Um Higlia is actually celebrating 75 years um and an upcoming Mattress Dogs fundraiser June 28th. All right, thank you very much. Moving along to ready for action items. um a review and update of the economic development initiative mission statement and um talked at length about this with um Paula and I don't know about the rest of you but I've sat through a number of discussions and when I was in the corporate world regarding mission statements and very often they tend to be four or five six sentences in length once they're written nobody ever remembers what they say uh and often times when you have multiple sentences in the mission statement then the conversation breaks down into not what the actual

message is but where commas are supposed to be placed and that sort of thing. So um I asked uh Paula for her thoughts on just giving us an an updated mission statement since people will take a look at that once in a while and we may be asked what the mission of this committee is. I said let's keep it simple. Let's keep it to one sentence following Jeff Bezos rule of no sentences of more than 16 words. Let's keep it 16 words. Let's do away with the multiple phrases and see if we can't get this done in one sentence so that everybody can remember it and it can just come off the tip of your tongue in case someone asks you what we're trying to accomplish as the economic development committee. So, um, we've got five proposed basically single sentence, um, suggested, uh, mission statements here. Uh, I would encourage you to take a quick look at them if you haven't already. Let's just zero in on one and get this thing approved and move on. And, uh, then we should be good to go and, uh, everybody will be on the same page regarding what our mission is. If if chair can you read those just Oh, okay. Yeah. So, I can share them on the screen, too. All right. Yeah. Super. We'll do that. Thank you. Thank you. Are you still waiting your um iPad? I got my iPad now. Okay. Use it. I know how to use it. I found my password. So, it's working. Cliff, you may want to be careful sitting next to I'm sorry that was totally unappropriate. Absolutely. All right, chair. I've uh brought it up on the screen here and we've got it's these five right here. Let me just read them.

So, I think number one was the one that that Paul and I had discussed um when I had spoken with her last week. It's basically short and to the point. And basically, we're here to support business growth, boosting the community, and preserving Wildwood's character. I guess we could add the word in their rural character if we wanted to, but uh that that's short, that's simple, that's brief, that's to the point. If somebody else has any other suggestions or thoughts, um you know, obviously we can discuss them here. Can you read that again? Pardon? Can you read that again? I don't know. I haven't Oh, well, right up here. They're right up here. Okay, there we go. Thanks. And while you're reading those, what I'll do is read you what our original mission statement was, which was the mission of the city of Wildwood Economic Development Initiative is to lead the development in implementation of the vision and processes that enable sustainable long-term economic development to occur in the city of Wildwood in a manner consistent with the city's vision statement. Uh I don't think probably if I would u force anybody to rem recite this I don't think anybody can do it. It's a little longwinded too. If they look uh I would you know we support why would you say supporting supporting business growth uh you know or Yeah. So this is Matt Trier. the the Wii support is the only thing that I have issue with in um the proposed mission statement number one maybe to support business growth. Uh it's a mission and I don't know where this falls within

like the the the greater scheme of of uh I guess documents or the city master plan but to support business growth to fund services boost community and preserve Wildwood's character. So, here's what we can do. Uh, if somebody wants to make a motion to approve one of these proposed mission statements, then what we can do is amend it and uh see where we go from there. So, it sounds like we have two possible amendments, one from um Matt and then one from uh Jim that would slightly alter this, which I'm good with. So if somebody wants to uh get that ball rolling in terms of um making the initial proposal to or I should say initial motion to approve number one for example then we can amend it from there. This is Jason Ber via Zoom and I will make the motion to propose uh number one with discussion with discussion and amendments to follow. Absolutely. All right, we have a motion to um approve the first proposed u mission statement there and then do we have a second? That's from council member crayons. Okay, so now we are into discussion mode. Um have you asked uh Mr. Farmer to do his AI magic on this or not? I have not. Okay. What AI magic would you like me to do? throw it in and it spits out something great all the time. I mean, those are pretty good. Okay. Well, I'm just asking. Yeah. No, it's always been pretty good so far. I'm not trying to have him overrule you here or anything like that. No, that's okay. Uh, so we have a motion and a second for proposed mission statement number one. Now, we're open for discussion. So, now we can take

amendments to this mission statement. Jim, you were the first one that talked about making a um I think a a change change. So, what would you change it to? I would just say instead of we supporting, you know, I mean supporting that would just simplify it even further. That's a good that's a good that would be good. That's just my thought. Okay. So, we have an a proposed amendment to change we support to supporting. Do we have a second to that amendment? Second. Okay. So, we have a second. Any discussion? I think that was Jason. All right. Seeing none, all those in favor of um support of changing we support to simply supporting Can I read that aloud for you? Yeah. So, with that change, it would read supporting business growth to fund services, boosts community, and preserves Wildwood's character. That would be the new vision statement. All right. So all those in favor of that please signify by saying I I I. Those opposed abstensions. Okay. Amendment approved. Now we have to go back and approve the proposed mission statement with the amended verbiage. Correct. That's correct. Okay. So do we then we need another motion. So, we need another motion to approve the amended mission statement to made by Jim with a second by Joe. All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I opposed. Abstensions.

Motion carries. Done. Okay, very good. Let's move along. Creation of the 2025 business outreach survey. So, with this, I think we turn things over to Paula. Okay. So, uh we have done a survey. We've done many surveys in the past. 2023 was the most recent and this survey was was a little bit was limited. This proposed survey includes both the business community and residents to really get a current pulse of what's going on and how people are feeling right now. Um so um we would roll it out and then we would sk we would um I guess relay it or share it with various community groups, neighborhood associations, the business community and we would our target would be um well as many as possible but I would say at least hundred. Um so you can see the proposed survey in exhibit A and um uh so this really in summary it presents an opportunity to engage directly with local businesses owners and operators and make sure their effort their voices are reflected in future planning efforts. Um so you could take a look at that survey and let me know let us know what you think. And chair, if I can add just one. Absolutely. Um, the idea would be to go ahead, publish it, uh, push it hard over the summer and then bring this back for the September 18th, uh, meeting of the economic development committee. Uh, sorry, September 23rd. We would have it close on September 18th to allow us to consolidate and draft a report. The idea here would be to have an EDC meeting before the next business forum so we could consolidate all those responses and kind of work them also into the master plan review process and then present the results uh to the economic

the business forum. Uh so that's that's kind of the timeline associated as well. All right, thank you for that. Um Paula, what does this business survey do for us that the survey that I think Gina did when she was here, uh h how does this improve upon that particular survey? It asks more direct and open-ended questions and it asks uh specifically questions that we're trying to find answers to right now, which the previous survey didn't do. So, we want to know about things like how to approach things like signage and drive-throughs and really looking toward the future as opposed to being reactive. And so, asking what types of industries will keep Wildwood vibrant and resilient and aligned with the rural character. So, this is really going to help with insight into how the community wants Wildwood to grow um and what services they feel are lacking or they feel could be needed or enhanced right now. All right. Thank you. Questions, comments, suggestions. Miss Matt has his hand raised. All right. Uh Matt, um so I'm not aware that I raised my hand. Uh it's low hand. Okay. Sorry about that. Um the hand was up there. So So hold on. Yeah, my hand was not raised. Sorry. Perhaps someone else's. Somebody saw your hand raised and we thought little hand thing down there. It could be a council member Troutier. So, so my hand is raised now. Oh, there it is. We see it. And now it is not raised. So, I don't know what the issue was, but no, my hand was not raised initially. Not a problem. Thank you very much. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you. Give input uh to Paula right now. Uh yeah, this is your time for um questions, comments, suggestions. Yeah. Was that one of the items that the public u is looking at

right throughs for the master plan? Okay. Yeah. And so there are 32 questions listed here. There are I mean I would say like the in terms of how long this will take 15 to 20 minutes I think we we uh introduce it as saying we know your time is valuable. We know you take a lot of surveys. Thanks for your time because it's we don't want to survey people out. But I think that based on my discussions with businesses and residents, people want their voices to be heard and they want to have an input. So I think that this survey will do really well and and resonate. What's the top three? What you know drive-throughs? What's number two if it's that's number one? I would say um different what like industries. So you do people feel like that we need more restaurants, but really what is like what are the forwardlooking industries that Wildwoods needs right now that the that would that would mesh well with the with the current My wife wants a shoe shoe store. They bring a shoe store to Wildwood. She's not good with that. The question is why can't we is are there incentives business incentives to come here uh that Wildwood provides? I don't I don't know. We just take come here and and and pay the high rent and uh and we give them any kind of breaks. It's a good question. I I don't know what we can do to what there was one here but it went out of business. Shoe store. Yeah. She didn't like that one. But heels, right? Anyway, what kind of things still can we bring to bring them here? Jim, is your wife familiar with heels? They're too too too tall or big or something. I don't know. She keeps bringing that shoe thing up.

So anyway, I'm just asking if we got ideas. Uh we'd like to see businesses survive and they just don't do it. And and and I don't think you have to bring in a thousand people surround the the downtown. You got to have something that attracts them there. And uh I I know Councilman Vanic had a idea of uh like chicken and pickle ball. It may sound odd, but uh it's not odd. I'm not saying that, but it's it's something different. And and and so I'm just he's thinking outside of the box is what he's doing. Did they come up in the park? and some of some stuff that that's going on today. New businesses have entertainment uh as well as restaurant park and so that is that something we need to start kind of pushing uh and uh bring something different downtown uh maybe something the kids would like. Um did that come up in parks? I don't know. How far away are we from the normal or what's the uh the added expense there that um we uh I know um gentleman uh oh Ed um hey no the movie theater oh oh and K cone what what's that extra expense he talks about that they're still paying here in town center from the initial build not for talking about the yeah the what is being referred to as the SID This side of the Main Street does not is not subject to those assessments. No, they aren't. But if you're on that side of Main Street going all the way to 100 up to the Starbucks at that flank and then Walgreens at the at pretty much the southernmost flank, uh that constitutes

the SID. And right now until 2026, there is an additional it's an assessment that's based off of the square footage of your building. And that is the item that gets kind of complained about. It's why you know the rates are higher. older side. Um after 2026, that assessment and the bonds that were taken out to pay for the garage will be paid off and at that point there will be just a property and then a sales tax that's still constituted which the sales tax does not impact the business directly property tax which is minimal. The assessment is what is truly what is like so like I mean um let's say let's fast forward things to 2026 and the SIDS are now past um their effective dates. What's is rank going to be normalized there compared to you know our adjacent communities like Ellisville or I think it could I mean I don't know if they will do that but the assessments are what really does drive it up that I'll just I won't say a specific business but $76,000 $76,000 assessment bill just for one of the buildings over there. That's a lot. Yeah. So that's a lot when you owe then you then have to run the business as well. That's just on top of it. So, we should see after 2026 a little bit more of an attractant as we'll see later tonight. Um, we'll kind of look at the remaining parcels that reside within the SID. Yeah, I saw it on the map. We were Yeah. And those those specific parcels, they I believe for development purposes will be a little bit more attractive because that assessment will be gone. The property tax and the sales tax would remain. The property tax is nominal when compared to the assessment though. Yeah. Because I just I mean you look at that from I mean a a traffic standpoint b um I mean a cost to size ratio. I mean, if we're not going to be be competitive with Ellisville and Bowwin, that's tough to make that value proposition to tell someone to come here because it's like, hey, you get less traffic, less foot traffic, you know, I don't know if we get 30 to 40 50,000 cars pulling by town center every day, but what is the number

about 22,000? 22,000,000 recent study and probably at Clarkson and Manchester, they have they're well above 70,000. Yeah. So, I mean, that alone is a an objection that, you know, needs to be overcome. vehicular traffic and population density. Yeah. Where we and proximity to the interstate, which then ties directly into the the traffic. So, yeah. I mean, it'd be it' just be nice. That'd be a nice, you know, once those can go away and we can actually be to your point to Jim's point, we got to think outside the box a little bit how we do things. Joe. Oh, Matt's got Oh, Matt. So, I I think that this discussion is why a survey may be relevant and beneficial. It'd be nice to know what residents are looking for. Are we looking for more attractions, restaurants, and retail? Um, and is that the in the best interest of of the city overall or is the city looking to attract more businesses which perhaps residents uh, you know, work for or could work for which which offer revenue streams you know for the the city in total. So I think without data we you know this conversation is is hypothetical. It would be helpful to know what people really desire. Do the residents of Wildwood truly desire a pickle ball and chicken? And I I don't know anything about it. And if they truly desire it, do we have the consumer base to support a business such as that? With your permission, I can pull. Uh I was going to get uh Cliff, not to dwell on pickle ball. I just want to interject this since it was brought up. There's a place in Fen called MPC, Missouri Pickle Ball Club. It is sold. I mean, pickle ball is an epidemic. It's sold out of its It's in Ellisville now, too. Yes, that's what I was coming to.

Now, the old shopping safe has just become their second location. And, you know, there's I don't know there's between them, there's probably going to be thousand memberships. I don't know. So, if we had a grocery store size building that was empty, it it it'd do well here. I I guarantee you that would do well here. If it doesn't have to be that, but some some kind of business that would there's MPC, there's chicken. Chicken and pickle is a national one there. I think it started in Kansas City. So, you know, it's just phenomenal how it is. You know, we're going to get two courts. That that's that's it'll be Oh, four. Okay, that's not bad then. So, I I've been playing Bowin has eight outdoor one. That's really nice, you know. So, yeah, but we have to pay for them this way. Well, once they're Well, you're a pickle. Well, once they're in, they're in. You know, not a lot. Somebody comes in and builds them for their business. There's a Yeah, look at that. I I just wanted to mention this, you know, I think we're it's going to be a big thinking out of the box meeting, I think. So, that's that's one of my out of the box things here. That's a good one. Thanks, uh, Tom. Sorry. Uh, no problem, Chairenber. Um, and I just wanted to respond with some data uh that we do have uh from the 2022 citizen survey and maybe this is a discussion where we can go back out to the residents going to ask them and that's something we can commission as the EDC. But u to speak to your point u committee member uh Trier, I just want to read back. We asked a question and 752 residents answered back in 2022. So these these answers could be a little stale at this point but I think still relevant. Uh one of the questions in a overarching survey asks the question, what types of businesses, community services or other amenities are missing within the city of Wildwood? Kind of gearing towards what type of businesses

would you like to see come here? Um and the top three were retail, dining, and then entertainment. Uh strongly agree that they're missing in our community. Uh retail is at 29.44% 44% and then somewhat agree with that that retail is missing is 37.10%. Um dining we had 47.33% agree strongly agree that they we do not have it here in Town Center and then 29.68% of that 700 and 52 residents said that they somewhat agree that we don't have enough dining. And then last but not least u entertainment was at 27.01 for strongly agree and then 31.55 for somewhat agree. Uh so it shows that the the I that what the residents wanted at least from the 752 that answered the survey were retail options, dining options, and then entertainment. And entertainment was broken up into you know things like axe throwing, you know, pickle ball, uh escape rooms, those types of businesses that are more so adding a service. And I'm sorry if I miss this, Paula. How is this being distributed or who is this being distributed to? This would be to residents, businesses, people in Wildwood who have a connection to Wildwood and hear about the future. Mostly an email. Yes, it would be social media, newsletters, all of our communications channels on our website. Okay, cool. So, um, just sort of circling back to, um, Jim's question on the drive-throughs, and this will come up again later, uh, in the area in the survey where we talk about drive-throughs, we were very careful to point out that any drive-throughs would have to be approved by the planning and zoning commission. Now, the designs would have to be approved on the architectural review board because as you well know, there are certain people out there when you mention drive-thru, their first thought is of a fast food

restaurant with the garbage cans overflowing and uh so we need to assure the citizens that will be a change in your master plan. Yeah. Right, Joe? Drive-throughs, town center plan. Okay. Wasn't one of those we talked last month about Okay. So, any other questions? Uh, yes, Mr. Bonich. My apologies. And Paul and I did discuss this, but my understanding was is the surveys for businesses. That was enough. I think you just mentioned residents as well. Yes. Yeah. Right. We um we just finished the survey for the master plan where we had 800 responses from our residents and we asked business questions as part of that as well because one of the elements in the master plan is economic development. So I caution about repeating ourselves. So when would it possibly make sense then for um you and Paula to sit down and review the data that you already have to make sure that we do not um get repetitive and I apologize. No, that's okay. Paula and I talked I thought it was a business survey so I made a wrong assumption but Paula, does that make sense to you? Yeah, I think it it definitely makes sense and I would love to see that information. as some silver tablet marketing did it. Debbie Ward, it was a fairly comprehensive survey. It was open for three weeks. We received 800 responses. Um there's been an analysis done of the responses by the three different AI um platforms, CH chat, GPT, Gemini, and one other I had never heard of before. So, and we collated all of that, brought it back to the master plan, uh, citizens oversight group. They spent two plus hours going over it. So,

I think there's a good amount of information already that certainly is available to this committee as well as city council. So, it would sound like then the best course of action um to avoid being redundant with these surveys is for um Paula and Joe to sit down and meet and then possibly revise this survey. Does that make sense to everybody here? My apologies to maybe another alternative is to focus it on just businesses and not I mean I I look at it as not mutually exu exclusive businesses are also residents and so getting collecting the more information the better but maybe if it's if this is limited to solely businesses then it would add more value based on the previous survey that's already been done and that would be an easier change. Then one last thing and again I'm under the direction from the planning and zoning commission to kind of expedite this drive-thru discussion and we were thinking about having a public hearing before planning and zone commission sometime in July or August so as we could proceed. The reason I say that is although the master plan citizen oversight group will be looking at the conceptual land use categories map, the change to drive-throughs is more toward the permitted uses because it is already anticipated in the workplace district but without drive-throughs. It just says without with drive-throughs in the downtown. So, it's a little more of a refinement. and the conceptual land use categories map is a general there's four categories covering 13,000 properties. So we were going to go ahead and start that if the economic development committee wants that to be um slowed down we certainly can and we're going to we have an item

on the agenda respective to drives. Okay. All right. So we do have an item on the agenda with respect to drive-throughs and we can have that discussion and then we can decide as a committee. here, Matt. Yeah, sorry. I'm trying to use the the hand raise appropriately. Um, not to backtrack, but if you already have data from the residents, that's good data. I think we need we do need data from businesses, not businesses currently operating within Wildwood, but those, you know, who Wildwood would like to suit as potential businesses, and then see how the data aligns. So, if residents want um retail and dining options, that's fantastic. We know their need, but businesses are going to economically evaluate the viability of their potential operations within Wildwood. And there may be a reality where yes, if 700 citizens want it, that's great, but the restaurant just doesn't have the volume uh or consumer base within Wildwood to survive. So I think if we had data points from both sides, we could merge that efficiently and and try to I don't know if pitch or sell but but you know suit prospective businesses uh based on the data achieved or obtained from both sides. All right. Thank you. Um Joe, your survey was of residents only. Correct. We did include businesses. That was a specific request because Miss Boomer um Miss Baker and Miss Pek are business representatives on the oversight group and we wanted to incorporate some of that as well. So we have some feedback. It's not extensive though because it was very broad brush to get as many of the residents and others involved.

But you know where you where we should have these drive-throughs, right? Very much so. The department in 2008 Well, we have something on the agenda. Yeah. Well, go ahead. I mean, well, you want you want a recommendation from us? Are you looking for that? Well, I'm wanting a recommendation if we're moving too fast and you all want to basically take some time and survey it. I'm not necessarily going to slow things down. I don't think so. I would support Well, I'm not like I say, there's an item on I've interloped into this meeting. So, my apologies. No, no, no, no. We're good. We're good. All right. So, regarding um we need to come up with a course of action here with the survey. Could I make a recommendation of action? Uh maybe what we can do is postpone for one month, bring it back the next meeting, have the review of the ma bring back the results from the master plan uh survey, but also come back with a tailored approach to go after two things. the business community here in Wildwood, but also the BIS maybe it's something that goes out outside of Wildwood to entertainment, dining, and retail. We retailer the questions for both sides. One side being business and the other side being business in Wildwood, the outside businesses that are not What's everybody think of that? Do you want to delay it for a month? The survey component just the survey. Oh, okay. And come back with some of questions. merge the Yeah, that'd be fine. All right. Somebody want to make that motion, Cliff? I motion that we delay it for a month so Joe and Paula can merge their ideas together. All right. Do we have a second, Jim? All right. Very good. We have a motion and we have a second to delay uh approval of the business outreach survey for one month to give um Paula and Joe a chance to sit down and prepare notes. Any discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed say no. Abstensions. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to the creation of an economic development advisory group. This is something that Paula called me about um 10 days ago, two weeks ago, something like that. And uh my thought was why not? I don't think we've done something like this uh at least recently. And uh there's no cost involved with it. But Paula, I'm going to turn things over to you and uh let you talk about this. So we are proposing a roughly eight person advisory group of local economic leaders um to help guide work and future strategies. You mentioned business incentives. So we would get this group would advise us on best practices when it comes to business incentives. What are other cities doing successfully? Where are they failing? Um so why it's important it reflects our mission to collaborate and think long term. It brings real insights from the workforce, from business, from innovation leaders and hopefully it builds trust and help helps us shape realistic plans. So some suggested members are listed below. This is from um dozens of conversations that I've had. Um and so this also will um jive with our mission statement. We want the people that we select to uh to match our mission statement and what we're trying to achieve. So some questions just to think about. Does our mission align with the needs and prioriti priorities of high techch and innovation focused sectors? How can we promote certain areas currently this one um off near Highway 109 currently agricultural but zoned for industrial use as a future high-tech corridor? And then uh what collaboration opportunities

can we explore such as workforce training or innovation focused events? Any questions for Paula? Good. Yeah, thanks. All right. Then I would entertain a motion for Paula to proceed with setting up this um economic development advisory group. Okay. I I'll make that motion then we'll have discussion. Yeah. Super. All right. So we have a motion for Paul to proceed. Do we have a second? Cliff. All right. Thank you very much. So we have a motion and a second discussion. So uh you're going to have a like a board, right? Is that what Okay. Now, who's who do you have in mind to fill these eight positions? Are a few listed right here. So, one is Andy Daring from Zerex Corporation. So, and another one is Tech STL. I have specific people in mind, too. Emily Hemingway, um Tara Mott uh from Ezri, Joffrey King from Greger St. Louis, Inc. Um and a bunch of people from Arch Grants. And then I I definitely think we need to loop in St. Louis Community College. So, Steven White with St. Louis Community College. Are are these people uh I guess experienced? Uh yes. Yeah. Do we pay them? So, this would be as of now what I'm thinking is no. It would be purely advisory and it would be a there they would have suggestions. It would be a group of people who we would pick their brains. It would be a group of who would give us best practices and tell us um their thoughts on what to do and what not to do and we take it with a grain of salt. And h how did you find these people? Conversations and research. Your connections. Yes. Okay. And you know them very well. I do not I don't know them personally. These are

recommendations. So these are people who are recommended to me from different conversations and I the this isn't a final list. I think this is we I haven't reached out to them. Okay. I think they would be really good. Um I think they could they're they're potential people. Um but it'll it takes more see if they're available, what they think, and then um you know based on who can and who can't that might change other people because we want a good mix. Okay. So you don't know if these people are available. Yeah. Okay. But I know the the organizations to target. So you want to give it a a try here? Yeah, I think it would be helpful. Okay. And the and these people aren't necessarily in Wildwood either, right? They're not. I didn't recognize I didn't think I recognized that. Yeah, except for uh St. Louis Community College. But I think the fact that they're not in Wildwood is actually an advantage is the is I agree I agree with that. It's it's we need outside influence and outside perspective to develop new business. If we only pull businesses already in Wildwood, that achieves it achieves something but not I think the ultimate goal of attracting new business, right? We want people who are skilled who know what's going on here and elsewhere. That's what I was trying to say too. And I was going to say you would send out some stuff on St. Peters, city of St. Peters on some of their programs as a way of looking to, you know, develop things too, right? Yeah. So, looking at what other municipalities are doing in different places, um, not just in St. Louis, but around the country, right? I I I'm all for it and I and I agree with the outside perspective too like that. Right. All right. Any other discussion, questions?

We have a motion. We have and we have a second for Paula to proceed with this advisory group. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Extensions. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to circling back to something we began a discussion on a few minutes ago. review and consideration of driveth through uses along State Route 109. So again, we'll turn things over to Paula. Okay, so this is something we've been uh looking into for a while. Um and we've had a lot of conversations about this. So um you know, this is just a document looking into just the background, the historical background of where we've the conversations we've had and where we are right now. Um, Thomas, I know you wanted to you have a lot you have more to say on this, but um, under con current zoning regulations, drive-through facilities are only allowed under very limited circumstances, and it's primarily financial institutions and select previously approved businesses. We have a list of what they are right now, um, including Starbucks, uh, Panera. Uh we've also created a map to look at um the commercially available like what's actually available right now. Um and so we've worked with um different people in the city to understand where what's available and where they are and I think it would be good to have a conversation on how we want to fill those funds. Um because yeah in order to know how to move look in order to know how to move forward we have to know where we stand. Um, so Thomas is bringing up that math right now. So if it has a color here, just to add a

little context, that is the undeveloped properties here within Town Center. If they have a pending development project or something along those lines, um, they are not highlighted. So this is what's remaining here in Town Center. We also have the uh industrial area up here highlighted. Then we also added the Lasale property since that recently went on the market, but that is not in town center. So there will be some pretty pretty strong restrictions on there. But when we're talking about master plan really it's the industrial district and here in town center. So really getting a basis of what currently is available, what is left to recruit here. Uh that said, and I didn't want to cut you off there, uh Paula, but feel free to take it back away if you'd like, but no, I think it'd be helpful to go through each one and then just talk and talk about as an extended next. Okay. Um that said, the idea here is um after doing conducting some research where you find the most success with drive-throughs, and this is something that everyone observes as you're driving throughout the country, if you've ever been on a road trip, typically it's at interchanges. At the end of the day, it's where you at a city, you have probably their main road for their city, and then you're going through an interstate. Um, at those points, typically, you'll see pre presence of gas stations, you'll see the presence of some quick food service chains, um, and some maybe a retail shop or two. So, those are typically where you'll see the amount of traffic necessary. And looking at Wildwood as a potential area for this, there are two questions that call in mind. Did we want to look at State Route 109 within Town Center and just open up the floodgates? I don't think that's what our residents want. I don't think they want to see um 15 different fast food restaurants open overnight, but maybe there's something the city could do. It'd be a little bit more of a controlled approach. And what that came up with and the memorandum tonight uh shows that maybe it's a focus right next to the intersection of State Route 100

and State Route 109. and he's circling around these three parcels to add some context here. This red parcel here um that is going to have after the reserve is built, there will be a road that cuts in right here and goes into the development here. So when you talk about egress and ingress to these developments, they're not going to be coming right off 100 109. they would be turning onto Main Street or turning onto the new road that's being built uh by the reserve and by McKelby homes and then having creative ways to be able to tuck in a quick serve restaurant that would have the drive-thru not necessarily directly visual to the to the side of the road. Maybe you tuck it in where those cars say they were waiting in queue. Uh they would be kind of tucked away and have some screening that would talking about a red line where they lion's choice. Yeah, something like Alliance Choice could be the area you're talking about. Yeah, that's that's there was a Lion's Choice proposal at one point in that Phillips statement. So that's where and that's where we're really kind of focused. Yeah, that's right next to the BP station, those two. Yep. So that perfect. Yeah. So this this case there are currently this parcel here. The one the one issue is that there is Bonome Creek covering here, but that said, the roads they're building will will kind of solve that issue. uh this property and then the property to the south here. Sorry for will that be called Main Street on the other side, Thomas? Uh yeah, it would be Main Street. Um so yeah, so it' be Main Street on both sides. But in this case, my the the idea here is the proximity to 109 and 100 because individuals that might be traveling to 100, down 100, uh maybe they're trying to cut through and they would then see, oh, I could pick up food here. The hope is to get a resident, not a resident, but a motorist or two to come off the highway and then they actually notice, wow, there's a whole section of the city here that I didn't even really know about. Maybe they they start noticing that I didn't know this was a stopoff point.

Obviously, there's the two gas stations, but add five schools within a half mile of that, too. But lots I mean, there's probably several thousand students there that I mean, that's pretty common place. So, how many stores are you talking about then? How many drive-throughs this would these three properties could accommodate? I would say no more than if you you would have to pack them in there too, but it would be like four at max. As many as four. Okay. As many as four, but I would almost argue to keep it around two to three. U and that's the the idea would be to look at this focused area, see how it works. U but the thing is this doesn't promise anything because the idea is to maybe give that impression to the outside the community that the at least the city and this will have to go through the traditional zoning process as Mr. Buna should mention um but say, "Hey, we could potentially be open here to having a a partnership, not necessarily someone, you know, McDonald's coming in throwing in the big golden arches, but having a like the Dunkin Donuts proposal that coming in and doing it in a tasteful way where you're not going to be throwing up those large monument signs that stick up, you know, 100 feet in the air, but something that's done well, done with the within our architectural guidelines and is done in a way that reflects Wildwood, just like our Starbucks how it actually spells out Starbucks and doesn't have kind of obnoxious signage in that in that regard. We did it our own way. We did it like while we would want to do it. So the idea would be to do that same thing but with a different business. Is there interest? Is there current interest in these areas or are we just discussing opening the option and then ideally you know we would attract interest from a potential drive-thru uh establishment. Council member Trudia, there is currently no interest from a specific entity. That said, um along this little stretch, that is the location where um both the Lion's Choice, I believe that Culver's was interested at that location and we had

uh Dunkin Donuts show interest in the this specific area. And each time, so they've done the market research and they know that there's enough traffic pattern flow to support their business. So really, it's Wildwood holding holding uh holding up the effort. It does it does seem that the the prohibition on the drive-throughs and then the there in some cases that that that was one of the big items that made them kind of walk away from the proposal. So, um the u I'm sorry, Culver's we couldn't take because of the blue roof. I heard right. original location was at West Glenn Farms Drive at Route 100. And yes, the architectural review board said no blue route and the gentleman said I'll ask you, Rica. And then what what is Chick-fil-A have a problem with architecture too here? I don't ever talking to a representative from Chick-fil-A. It was just on this memo here. I I didn't I heard about Culver's Chick-fil-A be a great one. You know, it it was more so of an example of like if if a Chick-fil-A were interested in Wildwood, they wouldn't be permitted under existing code to place a location at those that intersection because we don't we would not permit the drive-through at the location. Oh, previously. Previously. Yeah. Previous where they have a maybe they have a red roof. I don't know if that would work out. That would also be something that we had to we'd had to really peel back the layers. But that's have to change that. That would be someow. Well, it's I'm not getting too far ahead of this. I just I'd heard about Culver, but I didn't know about Chick-fil-A. It was very very early on in the adoption of the town center plan. Um the architectural review board was very

adamant about adherence to the guidelines and the gentleman from Culver said I can do everything you want except that and that comes from corporate. Sure. And now they're in Aliceville on the other side and that's why people Yeah. will um uh so it really the feedback we're getting tonight uh we were looking for tonight would be Mr. Boonish is planning to take um a little bit more of a comprehensive report to a public hearing and also to the consideration of the planning and zoning commission tonight we're really looking for feedback but also if if this is something we'd like to look at further an endorsement from the economic development committee to at least to conduct a review to see if it could be done. I'll make that motion. All right, we got a motion and a second. All those uh excuse me, I'm getting ahead of myself. Discussion. Uh Mr. Brunich. Well, first of all, thank you for considering this. Your assistance is appreciated. As you know, recently we talked about electronic message centers, electronic message boards. You did an action on that. That action was presented to the planning and zoning commission at its latest work session. So your input is always welcome and I know the planning and zoning commission appreciates it and to follow just like to thank you for coordin All right. And then who is the first and second on that? Just for the Jim and me. Thank you, Mr. CR and then Mr. Preston. Any other discussion or questions? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Those say no. extensions.

Motion carries. Thank you. Just um just for slight review, what did we actually approve on? The idea is that those three parcels and they're listed in the memorandum. Uh three parcels that I have to let me read the exact addresses so I have I'm not just throwing them out here. um 17191 Main Street, 17194 Main Street, and then 2431 State Route 109. Those three parcels would be considered by the planning and zoning commission to potentially include the use of a drive-thru moving forward. Okay. And that's what you review. I just asked for that because we had started talking about drive-thrus as part of the survey and then we've got a separate drive-through item here. that we talked about them in conjunction with the undevelop underdeveloped properties that will be in the end. We'll jump right into that a second. All right. So, moving on to item E then review and discussion of potential uses for undeveloped properties. I'll turn things over to Mr. Lee. Thank you, uh, Veron Berg. And this is actually something that stems from a discussion uh I thought a very positive discussion with uh council member Farmer. it it the idea was well we had a a rough version it hadn't been updated for a long time um but we had a whole list of undeveloped properties here in Town Center and the idea is right now um for our residents developers typically do know the jargon but for our residents u if they look at a zoning map they could be confused on what could potentially go in a place that currently is covered in trees some you know they don't know where the property line ends not everybody's hopping on um you know the county's website to see where the different parcels are. So, a discussion that uh was started about a couple months ago was that we should kind of do an

inventory of what's remaining and then have a a plain discussion. And this isn't necessarily replacing the zoning process and taking all that out or taking out the land use component. It's more so having just a plain discussion for feedback. So, as we get into the land use component, but also into um discussion of how we're going to, you know, go through this master plan process, um what is it that the committee here, you know, it represents a large fraction of the full city council? Uh the the department wanted to hear from you all u to see I wanted to almost go through each individual parcel. You could see we've there's actually more as you could see like a parcel here that the former McBride proposal. It's multiple actual uh properties, but it's kind of controlled as one conglomerate uh one large parcel that could be developed. So, we almost took different parcels and they're still layered in there. And this this interactive map was available to everyone um including the public and now that it's in the memo, but also will be shared on the website. But um we almost took land areas and said this is what's available right now in our town center but also having what's available in our uh up north in our industrial district because that does always get uh discussed when discussing economic development and then obviously the Lasale property but that is outside of town center so there will be more restrictions on that. So the idea here tonight is to as you could see it's not like we have all of Town Center open for development. Um so the idea tonight would be maybe we even click through these and say what do you want to see there not in the sense of ah we let's let's zone that non-urban. Let's make that let's let's actually talk about I'd like to see a you know restaurant go in there and then have a couple other options too because developers don't necessarily just show up and say I'm ready to do whatever you want. one

option we're losing our commercial um that McBride area that'd be great to be like a light business area uh that that would be across from Latitude N38 is where I'm talking uh but have some mixed use or keep it sort of commercial because we're getting a lot of residential coming in here and you got Bright Leaf on the other side was supposed to bring people into town center that isn't exactly working the way they uh we had anticipated uh because our businesses are not but uh uh but I'd like to see more com commercial white commercial if we can uh keep it open to something you know that might come by that we don't know but uh to to to make that residential and that area is all highly residential anyway and small o lots something mixed there. I just I think it look nice for the downtown area. When you say mixed, do you say mixed use? Like more so like a commercial blend or Yeah. Some kind of a I don't know. I'd have to see what would come in there, you know? I don't want a Waffle House or anything, you know. So, so I'll I'll add some maybe Jim this is what you're speaking to, but I work on a lot of developments in the Clayton area and what's been highly successful in the last decade um for for ancillary properties like this that are not directly uh you know in in the high-rise area are are light commercial mixes. So, you have businesses, you maybe have a two-story development, you have business offices on the top floor, and then you have retail or restaurant or whatever. Um, consumer-based business on the the primary floor. I I think that could be a good potential um depending on what the

needs are and what what residents want and what ultimately makes um viable economic sense from a business perspective. Yeah, Thomas, the area in pink right next to it, that's Tetherton Road, right? Yeah. So, uh, in pink, that is actually along Crest View, but that is the former N38 site. Well, I I just want to interject. Nothing about latitude. It's over. uh otherton otherton is going to be fully developed into residential activity, you know, and I I hope and I I would plead everybody here to really look at making sure we get villas developed in Wildwood. I guess there's a term called age and place. People want to stay and as they grow older, they want to move to a certain thing. We have basically no villas. You know, people are going to Eureka, Chesterfield once they want a villa and we don't have a lot to offer. There's one development behind the Y. It's a it's a 55 55 and older community. Something goes up, it's gone right away. But we we really need to look at the Philip development in this area. And I think Yeah. and proximity to the town center where you have a lot of walkable or short drivable uh grocery stores, restaurants, entertainment. That makes sense. So, in this case, just to kind of summarize, so I guess we can kind of bounce around here, but I think we're focusing in on um I'll circle what we're focused in on here, the N38 site, and then also focused in on the uh the former McBride proposal site. you're we're saying here that what would make

sense there uh to summarize would be like commercial office on the second floor, retail restaurant on the first uh but also potentially having the introduction of villas at that that spot. So kind of a that's a pretty open open-ended which is good. Um so that said it wouldn't lock it off just commercial. It would have an opportunity if if the right project villas would come in for these two sites both north and south. those villas may work depending on what goes on on the other side of that property where N38 was. If you have less less density over there and then beef the uh yeah, you could have a mixture of something like that in there that might work. So So Midas Midas is a a large contractor development firm that's doing a lot of business in the St. Louis area and they have, you know, cuttingedge data on on these exact things. Um, the light commercial could be condos on the top floor and restaurants and retail on the bottom floor. This is becoming a popular thing and I think the Wildwood Town Center is well situated for one of these developments essentially the Greenberg. Joe, your survey that you did, is there any information in there or any feedback that can sort of dubtail into this conversation? Yes, sir. And what would that be? We asked our residents what the typical question what they would like to see. Villas came back as a primary response. We also talked about just mixed use in town center and the application there and if there were particular activities and again Tom mentioned them on multiple occasions, retail, restaurant, certain services. So, we're hearing a consistent message if that's any good. Um, what type of

action did you want to see from the media committee on this was this was the type of action. So, the idea tonight was to kind of actually go through these sites real quick and and and just have this we actually just had a really good discussion, right? um these sites and obviously we can go back and pull the addresses but in yellow here and then in pink what we would be happy to see and this is not codifying it but it would be something that could be taken to the land use component. Um currently that other land along Etherton is not for sale. Yeah. So when you go back here, nothing else along Etherton. Where are the three acre lots? Is that right where your arrow is? Right there. Then that there's Yes. Yes. Right. That's where those three homes are going an acre lot each. So you got all that space between there and the pink which will be developed. That's where Tom's building his house. That said, so summarize the idea here, chair uh is to nice how you just skipped over. Not building the mansion over there just yet. Uh but to have uh go through each one of these sites and really kind of discuss what what the committee would want there and then each one we would maybe take a motion that you know in this case the we would we could color we color coded it for that reason. um yellow going forward with uh some type of mixed use but also light commercial um second floor re uh first floor retail restaurant second floor um condos or apartments something like that and then also also offering villas in these depending on density obviously that would be key consideration but just generally what would be acceptable. So if you wanted to then just continue on with each one of these properties. Okay. So then what we have and this is the next one we wanted to kind of jump I

wanted to jump into the SID. So this let's give a quick outline of the SID starts here and goes all the way to 100 and uh the community improvement district. So right now that's it's a an extra sales taxes levied in that district. Uh they do pay assessments if they're a real property owner and they also do pay property tax property behind the garage there. Yep. Right. So these are the interesting component here and I always found this fascinating. These are actually three parcels. So, here's one. Hold this. Here's one, here's two, and then here's three. Um, I'm assuming if someone were to purchase this parcel, they would have to utilize, and Mr. Fon, you could answer this, but they would probably need to purchase this parcel as well to accommodate the storm water. Actually, storm water is addressed via the facility behind the So, these could be bought independently. In theory, we may have to do water quality because when the approval was granted for the more regional facility behind the theater, it was only for um flood plane or reduction in velocity and flood plane, not water quality. Are they zoned for like offices? There's actually an ordinance that specifies what they could be and a lot of it was as Mr. Tradier just mentioned there was a residential component. Okay. So, and commercial and the garage was an intricral part of that. The garage has kick out panels on the second story or the plaza side that were intended to allow direct access into a building, a multi-story building. Does Coleman own those properties? That's my understanding still. Yes. All right. and he has something in mind that he did. He has the wherewithal to build something really, really special. Wildwood was a disaster for him. So in this case, we have three parcels here that could be bought severally, could be

bought together. There's also one additional parcel here, but this actually is quite frankly a large parking lot at this time. Um could be converted, but it is a that that could be available here in the future, too. I'm going to title these the SID properties because they're remaining properties within the SID. Um, what what would this committee like to see? I'd like to see it stay commercial. Yeah, Joe had his hand up. Joe. Yeah, I mean I think certainly, you know, we can we can go through this exercise and I mean all of us will have some opinion on what we think should be in these places, but um I I am kind of I think in alignment here with Mr. Trier, which is there are many pretty significant firms that this is what they do for a living. Midas being one of them. I'm pretty sure they're building the apartment building in Ellisville or at least they're a partner in that. Um I've seen some of the stuff that they've tried to do in Clayton when I was doing those things, too. So I I'm I almost wonder if the easier and better direction from a city standpoint is, you know, we have this map figured out, these parcels are available. Maybe we look at I don't know if it's I don't know if the process would be like an RFP or something like that where we're inviting these kind of major developers that do these things to tell us what it is we should have here because those guys have billions of dollars to figure this stuff out. And while I'm I think it'd be great to put an office building or whatever across the street, I'm not opening one up. So, I kind of think like, you know, when we had this conversation a few months ago about N38 and whether that was the right fit or not or or whatever, and we're having our kind of continued conversation about our main street now going even across 109. Um, to me, this

map looks pretty primed up for a company that knows what they're doing to come in here and develop that entire backside of Town Center the way that it probably should be, keeping, you know, City Hall and Village Green sort of in the middle of this commercial district. Um, and we also probably need to understand what the economic impact would be to, you know, the green parcel there by Shnooks because that place has taken a pretty significant beating over the years. And to the wedge, the this parcel here. Yeah. Not not even just the I mean the wedge is currently nothing. But I mean where the Shnooks and the local house and the the Bros are going to be and all that kind of stuff. I mean that that complex has not fared particularly well over the years and a lot of that is because the drivers that were in there being bread company and whatever moved to primary town center which is certainly fine makes sense but you know these development entities can come in and explain to us this is what we need to be doing because right now we're depending on you know any deskco to put another nail salon next to Shnooks, which isn't helping. I'm all for getting our nails done, but like it's not helping anybody, or another orthodontist or another dermatologist or whatever, another dog place. Um, we're kind of shooting in the dark here. I I would entrust this to the not that I'm saying I'm I want to entrust exactly what they're telling us, but like these people get paid a lot of money to figure this stuff out. We don't. So I I would try to involve any number of them to figure this out before we start assigning where a steakhouse should go because I I I support that position 100%. Somebody else there's other entities and I have contacts with quite a few that would be happy to look at this. They want to make money if there's a potential they can make money.

They'll propose every which way to do so on these parcels. I think this group and city council at large is responsible for the the the latter half. Let's get the proposal and then we'll work through those details and figure out if it's a viable fit or not. But I don't know that the several of us sitting here um are necessarily well suited to identify what the ultimate most economically and aesthetically beneficial development is. Uh, I certainly am not. I would I would also just say, you know, this would put I think if we did this part right, it would put the city in a position and Mr. Vunich, please correct me if I'm wrong, that I don't think we've ever been in, which is now we sort of get to drive the car rather than just being told what is going to be put somewhere and do we like the blue roof or not. If we get out in front of this thing and plan accordingly and work with the property owners that, you know, had a deal with McBride and now they don't, we those are conversations the city can probably try to facilitate in a way. Um, but let these people do what they're good at. We we we have tried that before uh when I was on the council years ago and all we heard we need some kind of an anchor store, remember Joe, to to draw people in. So, what's important here is find the right stores that bring people into town and we had a chance for Kohl's at one time and Wildwood stumbled on that and uh and uh but kind of feel our way through it. I and and uh we've learned a lot and uh we're just looking for a break somewhere to get things rolling. And uh and Matt, I'd like your your idea and and bring some people in with some money. And we had done that with Opus.

Remember Opus came in and they were going to build pennies and they were going to have restaurants. They're going to have a lake and build the entire town center. And we uh we said that's too much here. And then we had Target and then we chased them out. So we had we let some opportunity go. But, uh, we're a young city back then and and, uh, and I think these companies will also, I hope, I mean, assuming that they would be the developer that is investing real money, they're also going to be able to assess for us what, if any, impact the new downtown Chesterfield would have on any of these things or all of that stuff. I mean, that is stuff that is way beyond what we can take a guess at. Joe, would you like to put your thoughts into the form of a motion? Uh, sure. I mean, I I think I guess it would be I guess it's an RFP. Is that right? If we're not, are we going to go pay a consultant to No, no, no. I'm talking about like we we we want to put together a package, which I think we're pretty close on, and locate, you know, and Mr. Trier could give us some names, too, but you know, obviously the Midas people are kind of in the news. We can get that figured out. locate a handful of these large-scale development groups that seem to fit into what makes sense here. Um, and approach them about partnering with the city in some capacity to facilitate telling us what should be there. And then, you know, obviously we're not going to rubber stamp anything, but you know, if you're part if if you're coming if you come to us with a good proposal, we're not going like we're much like we're doing here with the drive-through stuff, like we're not going to drag our heels and, you know, angry about it. I I also think it's important to put the word out if we're doing this to the community because the the communication on this has got to be

it can't be wrong. Disease Do these companies bring the developments with them? The They do. Yeah. I mean, mostly they have they have like an you know, they have various anchors and entities that are kind of attached to how they build stuff. Oman brought Walgreens and and uh so they Well, we've talked about anchors and that's something we we really need to drive some of our existing Well, you brought up the Shnooks Plaza. Yeah, that's right. They they they they could use a really strong anchor in there. I don't know if there's room in it now with the dog place taking over everything, but you know, um I'm I'm just I think that out of the box. Yeah, that dream is gone to get an anchor store in here. There's no no room for that anymore in that. And just to be clear, the these new new age developments are not necessarily the anchor store is not the store. It's the residential component, at least what I've been exposed to. So, you you you build a condo complex, you put residents on the the second story, and then the stores, you're talking about mom and pop or local shops below. That's what I think uh their these firms research has indicated is is desirable. I I don't know that we're looking for an RFP. I think we're looking to blast out something like this map and say, "Hey, entities, we have these properties or these properties are are, you know, viable. Do you have an interest?" They'll do all the research. They'll do the the studies, regional studies, not just Wildwood. And they'll have an understanding uh and likely say, "Oh, yeah, we're really interested. Can we propose?" or they'll just flatly say no this is not you know within within our our profit loss margin or whatever the you know but I think they'll have the ideas I think it's just bringing awareness to the the

the vacancies and the open properties that are available in that case with your permission shar two two notes here um this is a a showing of undeveloped properties another really important uh point is that not all these properties are for sale so some of these are off the market but the idea was to have this pulled together to be able to communicate with the outside world, developers, development interests. Here's what we have. You know, and you might have to go find the owner of that property and make a convincing case. And some of these properties are they're extremely expensive quite to be quite frank. Um, that said, we can go ahead and you'll see in here is actually we've already added some of the info, the price of it. This would be a a tool that we share with the development community. So, here's the price, here's the acreage. This is how instead of just showing an address and here is the brochure, it's really showing, hey, here's the vision for a while, but here's what's left in Town Center. 100% agree with your that sentiment, Tom. We're not the broker in the deal here. Um, I think we're concerned about the latter half. Somebody gets to the the table, they're ready to buy and develop. We need to steward that development according to the the master plan and, you know, constituent uh opinion. But I I think just simply showing some of these developers a vacant space, let them figure the rest out. If they think it's a economically viable opportunity, they're they'll be more than willing to come to the table and negotiate deals. Um, whoever the land owner is, but I think there could be lacking uh um exposure or visibility on what space is available. And then pair with that the mission, you know, Wildwood's mission and and and forward thinking, um, you know, economic plan, master plan, prosperity, and I think you could get some stars to align. Well, we're going to circle back here to Joe. You were starting to put your

thoughts into the form of a motion. Yeah. So I think the easiest motion is uh to authorize city staff to engage outside development professionals to provide conceptual guidance on the re on the development redevelopment revitalization of town center. Perfect. Yeah. Do I have a second? Council member Preston. Super. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. Gich, with your permission. Absolutely. I think we should be prepared to to answer the question, will the city offer public finance incentives? There's very few developers, I think, at least in West County, that don't do that do projects with without them. I think most ask for them. So, I think you as a group need to be prepared to respond. Yeah. I mean I so that kind of goes along with what we have going in a way with the chapter 100 conversation and and the issues surrounding that specific thing. Um you know this is where you can get these entities that come in and expl and and explain not that Mr. has done a bad job or his partners on explaining that but there are there's just kind of a different thing there compared to something like this. I'm not necessarily advocating it. I just know that Eureka just granted a chapter 100 Aldi's. I would not necessarily see that as a major anchor or something that would necessarily spur significant development downtown center. But I think most of the projects at Clarkson and Road, Manchester Road have gotten some kind of public financing incentives from the city of Ellisville to make that happen. I think what you're saying, Joe, is we just need to be prepared to have that conversation. Yes, we do. I would say I mean, I think we should be I think we should be prepared for that. I think we should also be prepared. Some of these entities might come back and tell us this is not this is not worth anything. And then that helps us try to figure out

like, oh, looks like it's going to be a lot of nice trees over there for a while then. Well, at least we know. That's right. Um, but I would also really strongly suggest, and you know, I think maybe we can lean on Paula on this, like to me, this is a story that can be effectively told publicly that gets the attention of the people that we want it to get while calming the nerves of people that are thinking that we're going to put, you know, Walmart there or, you know, whatever it is. We we have to have this conversation in two directions at the same time or it will not go well. I agree. I think that we come out strong and control the narrative right before it controls us. Yellow station. Um so yeah. So then that that would be my that would be my motion with my encouragement on getting the word out specifically and keeping our minds open on the other stuff. Mr. Barnes, Mr. Sure. I think there's a great story to tell about Town Center. When Paula and I were going through the old map that Julian had prepared, there's been significant absorption of properties. This is when you think about it, not much that's left. And I think the message can be if you're interested, you better start looking because things are going. I'll just But a lot of these have been available for 20 years, right? Well, since the adoption of the town center plan, but slowly but I know a lot of been has been built, but a lot of these that are left have been left here for a long time. And Tom hit upon one of the reasons. Several of the larger properties is owned by one entity and the price is just astronomical. Jim, did you want to make a comment? Oh, look what they're doing at Chesterfield. I mean, they know how to do it, but um

I mean, we've had this conversation before and uh it's it's good to take another shot at it. Let's do something. But I I just don't care to see it all and say, "Hey, this is your town. Why would that's mix little commercial? Let's make it nice what we have left, you know. Very good. Any other discussion? Seeing none, uh, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Extensions. Motion carries. Very good. Moving on to the master plan update 2026 economic development element. I guess I will turn things over to Mr. Lily. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, so we had and Mr. Mr. Albert, real quick, did you have that? Did you turn that in too? I can pull those responses up now. That link I sent. Yes. Okay, I can pull that up. Yeah, I did. Okay, we'll back into it. Uh, we had postponed this item last month just to for the sake of time and also to provide the new committee members an opportunity to go in and share their feedback. Um, in the meantime, tonight, what we have here is each of the current 2016 economic development goals. Um, and then feedback from five respondents that had turned it in, all being committee members. Uh, that said, we also have one more that we'll go through as well. tonight. Uh the hope is that the committee has had a chance to review this and the feedback provided. But the idea would be to go through each one of the goals, policies, and the objectives and policies and really just read them aloud and provide have a discussion on each one. I mean, I think that's the best way to go about it. And then also have um if we want to add one in or delete any, we could talk about it. But I wanted to also go over some key considerations

uh talk about and think about with economic development we've added into this report this week. Um one and this is a big one that's recent but leveraging institutional growth and in this case a good example would be the uh community colleges uh new building. I mean they're literally looking to triple their enrollment. Um so a couple ideas that the department had put together were identifying promoting businesses uh that align with the needs of students and faculty. So, you're going to be having a bunch of new students and faculty coming in. Um, maybe we can really try to drive that food service, additional housing that, you know, supports different uh students that might be going there, co-working spaces and retail that services those needs. Um, also with this, you know, almost them developing a campus over there, considering ways to strengthening collaboration between the city and St. Community College really starting to use some maybe we start using some of their facilities for some some events and things along those lines to really help kind of strengthen that partnership considering they are going to become a driving force of bringing new bodies here in Town Center and really deep into the heart of Town Center. Um and then also maybe looking at you know how we can maybe get better public transportation. I know it's always been an issue here in Wildwood but connectivity to the community college pedestrian infrastructure around it. Overall, it's we've got a really nice uh map right now layout to get them there, but can also get them to and from, but maybe we can do a little bit more of an audit there. Um, and then also how do we how do we take this new opportunity and then incorporate it into our broader goals for economic development in our city, adding this new building, um, it being driven by workforce development, etc. So, just wanted to start off by that. uh was talking about that and then also this is another idea that kind of goes into the getting developers uh viewpoint and also looking at the developments the properties that are still available for development but establishing a proactive sight specific development framework. So going through

to each undeveloped parcel within our town center and the industrial district. there's not much opt many options left in the industrial districts but still going there and then u really trying to have maybe two different versions of the same same site ones that's a little bit more developer showing they understand the jargon they know okay this is zone for xyz and they can move in and they they they have the professional knowledge to know what exactly go in there but also creating another side of this which is resident focus saying here's the worst case scenario here's the best case scenario here are the items in between this is what this property can turn into. So when a development proposal comes up that specific site for any specific site, you can say that is part of our master plan and it's been on in this packet but also on our website clearly demonstrated that this is what the development for that the development framework for that site has been for the last x year amount of years since uh well this year with being the master plan. So that's one item is to go through site by sight maybe getting developers input and then having it shared two two ways keeping the zoning maps as they are and then having it updated um with the planning departments and the citizen oversight group but also having it almost in layman terms what that site can become. Top of that wanted to jump into uh same thing we've been talking about today the consideration of drive-throughs specifically along 109 and 100. Uh we've discussed that today. Um, another big item when looking at the master plan for the e economic development component, we discussed in the current uh goals, objectives, and policies, uh, well, we have a lot of information about what we're trying to do, bring in businesses, retain businesses, but we don't necessarily explain to residents what that means because if we have more businesses in our town center, but more people spending money in Wildwood, that is more part of that half cent sales tax that's going into the Wildwood pocket to be

able to spend on capital improvements. So, if you spend a dollar in Wildwood, that is going to a park, bridge, road that is here in Wildwood. Keeping your dollars local truly does translate to keeping your spending your dollars local. Um, so that's one item to look at as well. the cap being able to promote not not necessarily promoting the pool tax program as much because that is countywide, but focusing in on our halfsent capital improvement sales tax and understanding how that benefits our city and how if you shop local, you are actually investing into the community and and the infrastructure that we use every day. Um, still having a large component about preserving Wildwood's rural character. think it's always important that we still double down on that that exact that exact thing protecting well its rural character and having responsible development take place within our town center. Um in this case we can reaffirm commercial growth is uh limited within designated areas in the town center like the town center and the industrial district protecting the areas outside of it. um you can still acknowledge the importance of economic activity while underscoring city's commitment to environmental stewardship which we have done you know over the last 30 years um and really communicating the fact that well this this goes into a lot what the citizen oversight group has been doing but uh education educating our residents that town center is 2% of our total city land mass but that said what do we want to do with that 2%. top of that u understanding the infrastructure needs that we need uh looking at our infrastructure this is going to be part of the transportation part of the element but um we do have some some brick walls if you will that we we have to overcome one being sewer capacity so even if we were to we would never do this but if you expand town center you really can't do it west of 109 because we don't have the sewer infrastructure to support commercial develop so in that case I mean it literally we are tied down by the utility needs which I think It's important to as the part of the education and awareness to residents that it's just not going to happen. We

have a you know really defined area that we can really play with it. I it's you know Wildwood's playground. Um also this is this is a one of the most important parts is the economic realities here in Wildwood. Um I think we do need to work this into the master plan. The department does anyways. um that over the last 10 years we've actually received very few development proposals that are retail office focused. They've all been the mixeduse or residential. Uh and most of the time they are looking at a previously commercial and and Mr. Bunich, I'd love for your opinion on that too from what comes in on the planning side, but you know it doesn't really matter. We're not getting the same proposals that you know we were getting back in the 2000s that show we'd like to build out an office center here or a retail center here. it's all residential or if anything it's residential mixed in with a small commercial component, but it's most definitely not um full focus on having a retail. You're not going to have a shopping plaza these days, at least from what we've been getting. So, understanding that reality and actually I'd like to revisit that, but I have a couple other too. Yeah, I think you explained it very well. Okay. Well, that that I mean it's the truth. Um we we're just not getting that that input. Um, so the other thing is do we want to take, you know, as the we just shared the map that has the undeveloped parcels, do we want to take a couple of those parcels and say, "Hey, we really should protect these for commercial use." And I know that might be something a developer needs to lean in on, but that's a question we need to ask ourselves. Do we because right now what's going to happen is most of these parcels are going to turn into residential based off the developments that are coming in. So, do we want to identify a few and isolate them and say, "Hey, we are protecting this even if it stays trees for the rest, you know, the rest of the century." We wanted to make sure that we have a commercial town center um in some areas, not necessarily all. So, can I interrupt you there? So, do we need to do that now or can we wait until we move forward with uh Mr.

Farmer's proposal and try to market these properties first? We got to present to you. Okay. put yeah this is more so just kind of get gearing up the discussion for overall discussion for the master plan um but then also we've discussed this quite a bit but understanding while with low traffic counts during the day you know the distance for major interstates 20 20 minutes no matter what at least 20 minutes to get to a major interstate um limited daytime foot traffic they all pose uh real challenges to you know certain different kinds of businesses like activity entertainment based business retail and also obviously the uh D. So that's one thing uh to look at as well. And then one major item to to really keep in consideration is the rise of e-commerce. Uh you really almost do have to offer some type of experience to get a person to come to your business these days versus um just selling a good because most of the time you can buy that good from Amazon. So the idea is how do you help our businesses differentiate and how do we help explain to our residents the importance of still spending those dollars locally. Uh the other component too is and this is where this all kind of ties in is maybe instead of focusing on a model that's not necessarily fitting and that would be finding businesses that focus in on daytime commerce you know that that lunchtime traffic things along those lines maybe we take fact that we just don't have the daytime traffic and you 90% of residents leave for work leave Wildwood for work each day maybe we shift our attention to I think an underutilized component of the Wildwood populace, which is they're leaving each day. So, why don't we identify businesses that service residents that are both leaving to go to work and then coming home. There's that critical component of when they enter Wildwood, they're there for 15, you know, the 15 minutes they're driving through Wildwood. What businesses do they want? Uh they might need to pick up food. So, that that's the drive-through component. Quick food. Uh they might need to pick up some dry cleaning. Dry cleaning could

make sense. Uh, what about, you know, also having some not necessarily activity based because that's you're bringing the whole family. You're talking about quick grocery stores, things along those lines. Maybe you can talk about a limited Whole Foods, something along something that helps get them home and have a more convenient day. Um, that's just an idea really. At the end of the day, I'm open to suggest the department's over suggestions as well. But that's why you've seen uh Puppingham Palace become a very popular, you know, business here in Wildwood is because people, you know, they drop their dogs off, they pick them up at night. Daycare centers always do well in Wildwood because they're they're services that service residents as they come back and leave for Wildwood period. So, the idea is just thinking about that in a larger perspective and what we want to uh recruit here to Wildwood. The other ones are going into more basics, but business retention, expansion, etc. Um going into this though we can go through department's open to it. We actually have I can take notes the department can take notes tonight going through each one of these or we can read through the responses. I know that it's going to be a timeconsuming process. We do have about five responses for each one. Um I guess I'll turn it back to the chair if there's any questions about what was just discussed and whether or not we want to go through these all tonight or if we wanted to share the the actual report that's provided tonight with the citizen oversight group. So, I'll open it up to the committee for suggestions on how you want to proceed. You want to Well, I The only thing I'm worried about is our commercial. It's such a small downtown and I like to save some of that for commercial and not residential. That's, you know, I want to protect that in the future. And, uh, you don't know what's going to happen another 10 years. it may all be developed. But I hate to see it all be residential and I know the big argument is make it all residential because the little businesses that we have are going to uh thrive and that's not going to

happen. It's not going to happen. We got 35,000 residents here and uh and they don't come downtown to support the our businesses and uh but anyway, I'd just like to see some commercial uh preserved for the future. Joe and then Cliff. Um I mean I just I broke the report down so I can just read the breakdown of the report and we don't have to go over that little but unless anybody wants to do that. No. Uh so why don't you make a motion? Do you uh do you want me to make a motion or you want me to read the report? Um what what are you looking for from us? Well, the tonight that was going to be taking this report and then our synopsis of the report and having the background u and then sending that over to the citizen oversight group. So when they get to that part of the econ the review of the master plan, they have this as a reference point. Okay. I read it. Yeah. Okay. So basically the the plan features four goals, eight objectives and seven policies. Um findings were number one, town center must be the focus. We're not al uh but we're not fully aligned on how general agreement that town center is the economic core of the city. However, members do disagree on how aggressively to pursue redevelopment such as drive-throughs, housing density, and business types. Uh business retention is undervalued and underserved. Several responses noted that the lack of formal uh business retention programs is problematic. Occupancy data is inflated by anchors. Small business conditions are misunderstood widely by the city. We say yes too slowly and it's hurting us. Respondents expressed concern about long permitting timelines over planning, desire for better clarity, streamlined approvals, and realistic market engagement. Infrastructure and housing must be tied to economic strategy. Strong calls for highdensity housing in town center to support daytime commerce

is needed. Capital project priorities like Manchester and Main Street should be linked to development opportunities, not just for their aesthetics. And a mixed consensus on messaging, marketing, and incentives. Some want robust promotional efforts. Others think brochures are a waste of time. Several responses called for a clear definition of what marketing wild actually means. Um, generally speaking, the ideas, you know, create the parcel level map, which we've done, reframe drive-throughs as a policy discussion, not like, do we actually want them, yes or no. Um, educate our citizens on how the city's finances actually work, like what a sales tax is versus a pool tax, all those other things. Um, generally a shift from a reactive to a proactive proactive economic development uh vision. Create a document that signals what types of developments are encouraged and which would not be. Stop waiting for developers to guess on what we want. And tie economic planning to infrastructure realities. Incorporate broadband, sewer, road width, and walkability into site feasibility studies. Don't just zone to make developments doable. Um there is also I mean says the EDC conducted a full review of our current economic development goals, objectives and policies. Feedback clearly showed a shared commitment to revitalizing town center and supporting local businesses but also highlighted frustrations with how slowly we move, how little practical guidance we give developers and how misaligned some of our policies are with the real conditions on the ground. Staff recommendations are smart and actionable. We need a parcel level redevelopment map of town center, a clear framework for acceptable use types, and a better tools and better tools to support existing businesses. But we also need to own the reality that our tax base is fragile and the education and h and that education and housing density especially around St. Louis Community College are critical to economic sustainability. The next step should be a form to formally adopt three to five high priority goals and begin aligning incentives, infrastructure and

regulatory processes to support them. The EDC has a chance to shift from being reactive to strategic and that is the roadmap to get us where we need to go. There we go. Okay. Um, so all that being said, I mean, I'm happy to make a motion to share this share share this with them, but I do think um, one of the things that, you know, I know we've talked a lot about, Tom, like we don't need to change our zoning rules for people that know what they're talking about, but we do have to be able to effectively communicate this to people that don't know what they're reading or talking. So, you know, much like we've talked about with the Lasal thing, and I think the mayor did a great job of communicating what that means. Like, I don't know. I think right now they could fit whatever it is, 40 houses up there. That's what it is zoned to be right now. So, that's what the city knows until somebody buys it and wants to do something else. That's what can go there. Um, we don't have to, I think, from a communication standpoint, we don't need to be shy with our citizens. Just tell them what's supposed to be there. If we have commercial properties, that's that's what it is until it isn't. Um, I would say from like a a learning thing and from a a council perspective, it would be important for the current council and and future iterations of the council to understand, hey, we now have four commercial lots available. We now have three commercial lots available. It isn't going to affect probably how they make their decisions, but giving them the full disclosure of like this is what we have that is available. You can change it if you want. That's what this means. That just gives them the ammunition they need to make their best choice. So, I mean, I'm happy to make a motion to pass this forward if that's what you guys want to do. But I think I think the communication side is a part of it, but I don't know that that needs to be in the master plan. That just seems like a best practice for the city. I don't So, do we have a second to that motion

made by Mr. Alberts? Any discussion? And that includes so that includes sharing this report but also getting Mr. Farmer synopsis. Yeah. Would you mind sharing that with me? That was my question because I'd like to give them the detailed. Sure. I also would appreciate the summary of the group. No. And Joe, we'll need to just for the report. I might just want to reformatted that. I want to add the notes that we had this discussion tonight beforehand. Um, so, so just to make sure that we know what what we're doing, I just want to I'm going to I'm going to give a Colleen a much better motion so that she knows what we're talking about. We just got this one down. Oh, okay. But you can you're free to email me your I will email the the idea would just be the motion to approve the economic development committee synopsis and strategic direction summary as the committee's formal feedback on the economic development element of the master plan and it transmit it to the master plan citizen oversight group for consideration in the 2026 I will my short hand isn't that good anymore we get a vote on that motion we did not get a vote on that motion yet we were still in the process of discussion. So any discussion on the motion that has been made and second no hands up. All right. All those in favor of passage of the motion by saying I I opposed. Motion carries. Primer. Thank you for helping us. Sure. Excellent. Uh I I'm just curious who seconded it. CL. Okay, good. Yeah, nice interject. Absolutely different. Just my out of the box thing here. You know, I I just heard Thomas address people leaving the city for this and that and and I've since being on the

council, the mayor has talked about this all the time that residents go here, go there, whatever. I think we have such a conflict with that and our master plan doesn't allow us to fix a lot of those things plain and simple you know and it would I I you know here's here's just I know don't gasp or anything like that but you know every there's close to 40,000 residents here own nice homes like to work on them everybody has to go somewhere out of here to find something to fix their house with their yard, you know, whatever. You know, what I'm trying to say is the most basic thing like a Lowe's or a Home Depot doesn't stand a chance in hell of being in here, you know, which is which is kind of sad, you know, but plus there's a Home Depot just um out it is, but but we're leaving Wildwood. I thought that's the whole premise of this committee to try to keep people in Wildwood spending and but there's not a chance to have a lot of these economic right developments in here because of because of the master plan a lot of times. Yeah. I I don't I don't disagree. I I think and I think Paul and I might have talked about this a little bit. I I think that I'm a big fan of data. I think it helps us understand and communicate a lot of stuff. So, one thing I don't think that we have super solid numbers on is like a retail leakage plan. Like we don't have any idea when it comes to fast food restaurants how much money from Wildwood is going to Ellisville or wherever on a daily basis because we not I'm not saying we're going to put a McDonald's in, but like we don't have a McDonald's. So I know how much my family spends at

the McDonald's in Ellisville and it's not an insignificant amount of money. So I just think like if we could figure out a way and maybe this is something that we talk about for you know the next budget cycle because you know at the moment unless I am misunderstanding the current economic development budget of the city is zero dollars. It's got a little more than that but it's it's like much more than that. It's like $10,000. It's like $10,000. Yeah. So thing so when the when the budget of the economic development committee surpasses the allowable spending limit of the city administrator we will call it an actual budget but we should be budgeting for these things. This is information and you know maybe these developers that we're going to talk to they might come in and have this kind of stuff. I I don't know. But like to me these are things where because I talk about the the mayor talks about this all the time and he's not he's not wrong. We may figure out at the end of the day that we still think we want everybody to go to Ellisville to get cheeseburgers. Whatever. I don't like that's the conversation we can have. But Joe, we have a reputation of chasing that away. That's what we're trying to do. And and it may be it may be that we we don't get like you don't you don't get a lot of cracks to get this fixed. Now, one thing I have seen in all the stuff I've done, which I think is good for our city, is we are in a unique place because unlike our neighbors in Ellisville and Bowwin or even Chesterfield, we're not talking about redevelopment of things. We have stuff people can do whatever they want. I mean, within reason, whatever they want. So, you know, we don't have an old shop and save that's being turned into a pickle ball court. While it might work, we don't have we don't have to worry about that. These people can come in and put in place what they want. So, I think that we really should be figuring out how much money is an appropriate amount of money to do some studies to get us the answers we need so that we know, hey, every day $4 million is walking out of the city of wild. I don't know if

that's the right amount of money. I hope it's not, but it would be good. Hundreds of thousands of dollars though because I mean, here's what I know. There's cities a whole lot smaller than ours that have a whole bunch of stuff going on and we don't have enough money to fix the wershed or we're arguing about what pothole to fix this month. Like this is crazy to me. We don't have enough staff. Like it's nuts. That would be I mean if we're going to if we need to have it on a different meeting or whatever, I would I would have you encourage you guys to put a budget together and go, "Hey, we would like a million dollars worth of studies." and then let the city council go, "That's awesome. You can have $50,000. Just ask." Cuz all we can say is yes or no. But if you don't ask, we're not going to get it. And we're going to keep having the conversations about how much money is walking away. Give Paula a budget. She can go find it businesses for us. But I I I think we're on the right track. Let's Let's That's fair. uh start looking around with some developers that that that may offer something to us. Um and again, I think we need our commercial and have a mixed thing and and kind of extend our downtown a little bit. Joe, how many times has this been attempted something similar to this? Thank you for asking. Actually, when we completed the town center plan back in 1998, we did a very nice brochure of how it came to form, the components of it, and the benefits to it in Wildwood. And we sent it across the country. And we did get some responses. Um, unfortunately, as we started to kind of weed through those responses, we got the same

reaction we get now. We didn't move to Wildwood to be next to market. Where's all our 3acre zoing? And it kind of died there. Um, and Mayor Garano has been like many others very upfront about the fact that we don't allow much outside Town Center, but inside Town Center we really should consider as much as we can accommodate. Right. And I think we can I mean again to me this is a messaging thing. We should say hey anything anything west of 109 there's not a sewer. There's barely a water line. So nobody is going to put anything out there. And we're not unless something real crazy came that would you know change everybody's star so to speak. I don't think the city council is super eager to put a mall at Pond Road. This is all a conversation about a very very small space that at the moment doesn't have a huge number of residents. I mean, we've got our folks over in Cherry Hills and things, but all of the other people that are purchasing in Town Center are buying very tiny lots and the fact that they're concerned about threeacre minimums is nuts in my opinion. I I I live in Westland Farms. I don't have a threeacre lot. My parents live off Wilder Creek Road. They do. We live two different kinds of existences and we're both very happy with that. I don't need to drive an extra 15 minutes to get somewhere the way they do. It doesn't mean it's bad. It just means, hey, look who it is. I heard my name a few times. I'll just go over there. You've been listening. Having a great conversation. Your your ears must have been ringing. I heard a few times. Yeah. I I'm sorry to interrupt. I It sounded like you guys have a really good conversation. So, but I do I do think and I don't know

if this is a master plan thing either. We've talked about this, too. Like, if you guys need to go talk to some of the restaurant people in town to get further clarification on this, everyone I talked to says the biggest issue is getting people here to work and be able to work in the evening. So, we can get creative and partner up with the other municipalities going that way. And because they all have the same problem, too. they have a little bit different bus system than we do or whatever. But like I think from a committee standpoint, we can try to get creative in solving that problem because I love, you know, I currently have a high schooler who got a job as a lifeguard and made it two weeks before she decided she didn't really want to have a job anymore. And it's a luxury she gets to have, which is a luxury a lot of the kids get to have out here, which is great, but we still need people to, you know, work at the Indian place or whatever it is. And right now, from what I can tell, most of those places are operated by like literal families, which is also not particularly sustainable because, if I remember right, that's why Yenqing closed because they just didn't have anybody else to run it anymore. And Benadetto, right? Bob and N made it clear that, you know, after eight years, they wanted some downtime, some peace, and the kids weren't weren't willing to step up. Well, what happened was the daughter got out of college and she used to come back in the summers and kind of service that, give them that vacation time, and she got out of college and wasn't wanting to do restaurant stuff. She wanted to get a career. So, yeah, it wasn't it wasn't that the actually the business was doing well. Yeah. He was he was paying for his like dishwashing staff and stuff to they were he was Ubering them home that's not sustainable or driving him home himself. Yeah. To keep them late. Yeah. That's 100% accurate. So here's a question I have. We talk about the transportation system and the transit system and uh not necessarily servicing our needs in terms

of being able to make it easy for people to get out here and fill some of these positions. Have we had any type of a conversation with the people that are in charge of the transportation system? We've tried we've tried recently too and it's hard it's difficult to get a hold of Metro. It's just it it we can try again. Okay. Say that. But it's they their buses are inconsistent. Uh that's the that's the true problem. They're supposed to have a 10 p.m. bus that picks up. They don't. and they show up at different times each time and it could be 9:30 and they'll they'll stop and they'll say, "Well, we stopped, but that person was expecting." What is your current official schedule for this area? How many times? Their last bus is at 10 10 p.m. on weekends. Any day, any given day that all the restaurants would have to close at 8:45. So, are they coming through once every half hour, once an hour? I'd have to check into that, but I know for a fact 10 p.m. is when most of the workers were looking to leave for Yeah. I wonder if they're aware that the um community college has just opened up their new facility and they're expecting more students. That is something we just reached out to him about was actually having a new pickup point right next to the community college considering the fact that you're going to probably need that here soon. So, they don't have that now. No, the latest the furthest it goes is to West a Yeah. It used to run up to Taylor then several years ago. It extended, but it it loops around uh West Avenue, New College Avenue, and then on to 109. So this if there are students, I don't know what the data is. They still have to get off the bus and they still have to walk down New College Avenue past the YMCA. It's a bit of a walk. It's probably a half a mile or something. So, well, that's why I told Tom, I said, "Why why are we not just getting the bus right to the door?" Like, you know, imagine the winter time. We used to have students walk on Manchester Road, and that's even before we even had sidewalks. Yeah. So, I just looked it up. So, the official service hours and frequency for

our bus, Monday through Friday, no services available on the weekend. Bus departs Taylor and Wildwood Shopping Center. Uh, first departure is at 5:24 a.m. The last departure is at 9:15 p.m. and it runs every 40 minutes or is supposed to. Okay. So, nobody that works at a restaurant is getting on a 915 bus. Right. Right. So, are they So, it's the term that was used was inconsistent. So, are they inconsistent? They don't. That's they sometimes at least this is what's been reported by the owners of the businesses is that a lot of the times when they did work them they would they would cut the person off that day and say hey go make the bus and the person would come back and they'd end up clocking back in and doing more work but then after that then they they're practically losing more money because then they're calling them an Uber because there's no other transportation method and and by the way not that I think a huge amount of people do this but if you got on the 524 a.m. bus here in Town Center, you would get to the Maplewood Exchange Station at 6:15. Yeah. Yep. So, it's almost an hour to get not that far. That's a 30-minute trip by normal car. I can't say I ever see very many people standing at any of the bus stops. No, no, no. I don't either. I mean, I see I see more people at the one on um that's off of 100 kind of by Westland Farms, which is also a weird place to have a bus stop. But um look nice. Yeah. But but I mean, you know, I don't know. I guess we could maybe do some research and figure out like where is the closest latest stop and then try to figure out a creative way to get people there. I don't know how we do it. And and I think maybe we can get the data what the wrership is today because most of the time when I do see the bus it looks empty. There's there's one maybe two people at the stop in the

evenings. I know there's a gentleman that lives in Wildwood and he is a passionate commuter. He he he rides the bus to work and rides it back. And uh and uh I think he may be maybe the only one that I know that does it. Uh but uh I think if we can get the writership data, maybe survey the businesses to say, "Hey, if we got more frequent bus service, would it help you?" You know, maybe that's something we can try. But I think we're at the end of the line. You know, that's puts us at a big disadvantage. It's the longest ride. It does sound like we need to have a more extensive conversation with them regarding a service over here to the community college. Well, and I also think there's that's just going east, right? Because nothing goes the other nothing goes to Pacific, right? So, I mean, there's a whole another group of people would make sense. I think if you want to have a a reliable transit system, you'd have to have frequent service. That's what the only way you're going to get people to ride it because if right now they're going on the hour, it's very inconvenient, you know, but I think they're probably places where they probably might have more frequent service. We need that you need you kind of need an anchor right now. closest to it is the college and I think it's worth trying to at least see if you can get the bus right to the as close to the college. It it really makes it convenient. And then to your point before you were saying about data I think it would be helpful. I don't know how much percentage has fast food we lose. Probably none. I mean we don't have any fast food. So we're losing 100%. I mean it's not even just fast food. I mean that that study should really be well I think and that's a conversation I've had with Paula and I think maybe we have access to some of the data already inhouse but you know just look at the number of cars coming

in into the city from all the entry points and then all the cars that are leaving the city in the morning and then you can probably get a good idea of you know plus how many people from within Wildwood are leaving. Uh I would love to see the data on that because I would think that we are seeing an outflow in the morning and an inflow back at night. Didn't we see that information on um there is a the um the information came from the um real estate source. Yep. that then they pulled their data from uh I think it was the US labor bureau but it's about I and don't quote me on this but the last stat was like 92% of Wildwood leaves in the morning that are employed fully employed individuals if you're not part of the unemployed section or retired you 92% leave in the morning but they I don't think they had data on when they return or what time they returned and things along those lines but as I recall it showed the population of our city dropping by about onethird during the You know, cars were another thing on my list. You know, you can't even get your car fixed in Wildwood. You know, there's a couple little small shops, but there's, you know, there's no Well, that one shop's pretty good. Oh, there's no Doabs or Firestone or anything. You want Home Depot, too? I heard that one Lowe's. Lowe's. Oh, Lowe's. Okay. Home Depot. I heard you before. Yeah. No, I'm just saying. Well, it you know, but it was just an example of everybody in Wildwood go somewhere for their home improvement. I do think from an economic development perspective, there's definitely some, you know, there there probably some things we'll never ever entertain. Right. I think it's pretty much ingrained unless we have the zoning that calls for a big box store. But as far as I know, I I I think that's a line that I don't know that we'll cross in this

generation. Yeah. build a big box store while we're right so uh but I was thinking about how you know in in a lot of the communities the main streets of America those main streets lost a lot of business once the highways were built because now nobody went through the main street anymore they had these bypasses and so sometimes I wonder do we have whether it's intentional unintentional bypasses in Wildwood like For example, I think there's a tremendous amount of volume of cars that bypass Wildwood up State Road and go right into Ellisville. And so those people don't pass by any of our businesses. And our businesses or any new business always says, "What's the volume? What's the traffic?" Right? And if you have more traffic coming in front, there's a better chance they're going to stop and get a coffee in Wildwood or stop and get lunch at Panera. But if there's a bypass, we're pretty much just cutting them right out and doing a favor for any other city down the road. And so like there I think there are I don't think we ever be able to stop the traffic, but how can you encourage people just like a lot of those main streets trying to get some of that traffic back by creating these business routes? like how do you how do you try to encourage people to come through our business area, our town center area and maybe that helps make the case. I mean I think by design a little bit tough because 100 you have to turn off of it to come to town center but you know Manchester Road you know probably would benefit if there was more people. So, I think there's opportunities like that if we can look at the data and see. But we we we have

bypass uh traffic. I think you'll need a sign. You'll need signs. I think well the wayfinding signage was good. I think a prime location is right on 109 if you're heading northbound right before Old State to basically kind of encourage, you know, say Town Center up ahead instead of and at the Old State folks would be happy too because if you can kind of encourage more to take the state highways which is 109 and 100, you know, it it might it might help bring some of that traffic where we want it, right, coming through our business area. this thought expert. I know where they're what businesses they're going to, you know, and and get those businesses in Wildwood, you know. Well, I think I think that's the thing. You want businesses that are good fit for Wildwood, right? that people are going to patronize and use and try to target and try attract those businesses. So, I think we accomplished everything on the agenda. Um, it's very seldom that we're have a chance to hear directly from the mayor. He's here tonight. So, I'll just open it up for some discussion. want us to ask him any particular questions? Any about what? Yeah. Oh, open open question. Oh, no. I maybe we keep it a little bit more towards, you know, the economic development side, but did we get any accolades about painting Clayton Road yet? Well, you mean Clayton Road, the county? Yeah, they painted it today. I think Tom Tom and I were

talking about it because they were out there last week and it looked like we were hopeful that maybe they were going to actually hit some big spots. I think they just hit one major spot, but they did patch a little bit here. Bridge is still bad. Yeah, they patch that much and then they painted it today. They painted it. All the lines are repainted. Oh, so I guess that's it. Must be done. Tom talked to them and uh repairs. We I think they did what they probably they said they'll only do patchwork at this point, but we don't have a project scheduled to resurface uh um Clayton Road. They claim that there are 108 miles in front of us. Yeah. Under on their maintenance schedule. So 108 108 miles of Clayton Road of different different roads in the county. It's really bad by us. I'm not trying to help our friends that much in Ellisville, but it gets really bad east of view. Yeah. East of view all the way up to about Shreker. It's just one asphalt did on Old Manchester down by We have 100ker. You should go look at Streker. It's I drew it on Friday. Great. Great. I don't. Well, you got any other economic development stuff, Joe? We're We're going to get every fast food imaginable put on Oh, boy. 100 109 and a Lowe's. You know, you you are on a camera here. Somebody's going to use that line. The founding fathers are probably Yeah. uh turning over, so to speak. We We did talk about motion. I don't know if you want to uh add any more to this. You did a little bit, but like we did talk about put trying to put some money in the budget to do some actual heard that he's going to put a million. I mean, I said they could ask for a

million. They're going to get You only got to get 50 50,000. As long as we're exceeding what the city administrator can approve by himself, we should be okay. I took a note on that. So, I'm going to have a conversation with Tom about that tomorrow. So, that was a good idea. I think the key thing might be let's not spread ourselves thin like let's focus on what we want to tackle like what we want to do like let's make it a goal like if we're going to focus on attracting you know maybe a couple let's say restaurants then let's just kind of really concentrate a lot without spreading our stuff I know in the past the economic development kind of went down a path and there was a you know there was a focus on tourism and there was a focus on like too things, but it's kind of like where do we think we have the best chance of succeeding, you know, and let's just focus on that. And then uh well, to your point, I mean, I don't know that that would ever happen, but the industrial area is undeveloped down in the valley. It's part of Wildwood. So if there's something that this group feels that there is a a good need for the area then maybe try to attract it there like you know and try to track or get the word out to these places and say look hey there's something there you know that's undeveloped. I mean, I just approached it because I've heard you say meeting after meeting about the rush to get out of Wildwood to do this or do that and and you know, everybody that lives in Wildwood goes to a home improvement store. True. It is a certain business type that we probably don't serve in and a small We've had several small hardware stores before, but they didn't they didn't last. They don't have a chance in it. So, I mean that might be too big a fish, but it's just We're getting a carpet store. That's close, huh? We're getting a carpet store. Yeah, we have like a bits and pieces. We got carpet store, we got plant store, two mattress

stores. We only had a conversation, I think about two weeks ago, gardening property down in the valley. Thank you. Thank you. You tell them that. You tell them what you want. Well, I I do think trying to pursue putting that into maybe some type of a high-tech corridor or some something along those lines. Yeah. Yeah. That was the day I think we were at the college and the college opened up their new uh you know, health sciences and technology center and and I kind of was really pumped up about it because I thought this is really cool like they're going to train. The college is really focused on skill building and trying to get people into careers. I think they've made that shift a couple years ago from what I've heard. And so they're obviously, you know, going to train people in, you know, healthc care and all these types of sciences, the drone sciences, but you know, I kind of noticed that in other cities like they've kind of almost in a way designated areas that they kind of make it a focus. Like I'll tell you, Ellisville between Manchester and Clayton, they see that as their, you know, their doctors, their professional offices, they wanted that to be a medical corridor. I've heard that that from the mayor there. And so, you know, you kind of see that, you know, there have been, you know, the eye doctors and all that, you know, eye care and all that. And uh and so they they intentionally, I think, whether what I don't know how they've done it, but they try to make that work. And I'm like, well, there's there's undeveloped land. Maybe, you know, like there's a need that could be served, you know, that can have local jobs and it can bring people and, you know, maybe there's a professional type of offices or something like that that can be built there. Right. Um because you know what I do say

this and and I say this we have seen other proposals come for places like the valley and elsewhere and it's like it's like why do we just wait for someone to come knock on the doors of city hall to say here's what I want to do and it may not be the best fit or we don't agree. So why are we may maybe being a little more proactive in if we get our heads together and figure out this is really what we want to see and then try to attract and put the word out to the business world in in St. that says, "Look, Wildwood's really looking to have, you know, some kind of, you know, let's hypothetically tech, you know, park or health sciences or something like that that complements the education and all of that. Then then you know we can try to focus on influencing what we want versus always being reactionary and somebody coming along saying that they want to do something and it may not be what we think is the good fit. That was kind of the idea with your permission chair. Yeah, absolutely. That was kind of the idea too with this like interactive map was to have it where a developer's interest could click on it and it could say layman terms of what we would the council agrees it wants to be there. Obviously, the zoning would be in there, too. But then also having examples like here are some examples of what would really be valued at this location and maybe there's a streamlined review process for that. If it meets certain criteria, you get you kind of get through the red tape. That's Yeah. And I've also been inspired because I think I've seen that even on Manchester Road, we had a very high density proposal that I didn't think was a good fit. It's fourstory, four buildings and it's like we keep waiting or waiting for someone to come bring us something and it's like what if we had an idea of what we thought would be a good fit for that area and maybe somebody would realize hey Bollywood's

looking for this good fit and and then you know kind of makes a match. Paula had a similar idea because she had mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago pursuing um data centers and businesses along those lines. Well, did you hear the proposal about state that for me again getting Oh, the developer stuff. Yeah. Did you hear that? Well, we we talked about rather than kind of going through each parcel on the map that that we came up with, we talked about uh going and looking like basically putting out there to like these larger development companies like Midas and things like that. Hey, this is this is available space. this is kind of what you know, let them come in and tell us, not like we want to build a 12story apartment building or something like that, but really look at it from a a a business perspective than just kind of like hoping somebody shows up and wants to build something. The industrial area is an open area and I I mean I think that, you know, we could also pursue people. I mean, that production facility they're building down there and all that sports stuff, you know, I mean, that that little corner right now seems like it's in the middle of nowhere. Very soon, it is not going to be. And I mean, I'm not saying we want to put necessarily drive-throughs down there either, but I mean, uh, basically down on our little like there's nothing close to those that volleyball place or the soccer thing they're building or whatever. You still got to drive all the way down around into the valley. So, I mean, I think I know they're going to build a luxury hotel apparently down there for the production facility. They're doing all kinds of stuff. I mean, that that's one of two places in the country in Chesterfield that they're putting in the valley down there. They're just like that. So, how much land do we own down there or We don't own any of that. We don't know. But it's a it's wildwood though. That whole Yeah, that that that's what I meant. How much basically from fixes that? How many acres? 500 acres or something. That's right.

Well, we could do the the big pickle ball building down there or something, you know. It may hold a sports complex, you know. Well, there's already been a couple down there, but it could definitely hold some kind of like pop golf, you know, something like that. Something outside the box. Chesterfield's kind of done that already on the other side. Well, we can compete with them, can't we? Well, yeah, you could. Yeah, but they got something going for themselves. Some of that on flood plane. I think I mean all that stuff down there is sort of in but they got that big levy. Yeah, they never look on the other side of the road there. Huh. Well, Chesterfield though, they're they got 64 right there. It's right there. Yeah, but but Council Member Grans is right. It's like one side of the road's been all developed, the other side isn't. And that's the Wildwood side. So why why is it that way? I mean, I know that there was interest two, three years ago by some kind of North Point or something like that, but they went to Maryland Heights. Um, and then I know recently somebody was inquiring about it, but I don't think anything ever evolved. So, there's definitely I think the property owners are do trying to sell because otherwise you wouldn't be getting the inquiries. Is that on the list? And uh yeah, it was the last page. It's right. And we do have a little bit of industrial. I mean there is uh what's that the uh the builder's block and is it a cement plant over there? Yeah, we have a storage facility down there now, don't we? Yeah. So, right. [Music] Anyway, yeah, I mean there's some potential. Right. So under miscellaneous uh I should say we were discussing miscellaneous uh item I wanted to mention next meeting date is Tuesday July 22nd 2025 at 5:30 p.m. So Mr. Cray I think a few minutes ago you wanted to make a motion and I think

I knew what it was. Would you like to make that motion now? Dispense a journ. We have a second non debatable. All those in favor say I. Bye.