 Call this meeting of Durham City Council to order on November the 4th, 2019 at 7 o'clock and very glad to have everyone here with us tonight and also want to welcome all those who are watching our meeting at home on television. We're glad to have everyone here with us. And now would you please join me for a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. Councilmember Reese, would you please lead us in a pledge to the flag? I'd be even Mr. Mayor and colleagues and Durham City residents if it's your practice to do so and if you're able, please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much Councilmember Reese. Now Madam Clerk would you please call the roll? Mayor Shul, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, Councilmember Alston, Councilmember Caballero, Councilmember Freeman, Councilmember Middleton. We'll address that in a moment. And Councilmember Reese. Mr. Mayor, would this be an appropriate time for that motion? That would be fine. Let me just state that Councilmember Middleton is not able to be with us tonight because of he is helping one of his family members through a health emergency. And so he is asked for an excused absence and Councilmember Reese. I'll take that motion, Mr. Mayor. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote and please record me as a yes? Motion passes 6-0. Thank you so much. And now we'll move to our ceremonial items. And we've got just two items today, but really very great items today. And the first one is the Duke Energy Storm Resiliency Grant Award presentation. And if I could ask Chief Zoldos and Indira Everett from Duke Energy and Indira whoever else that you have that you might want to bring with you, come on up. Is Chief Zoldos here? Well, then we'll have Deputy City Manager Bo Ferguson who'll be representing the Chief. This Duke Energy Storm Resiliency Grant was established to help North Carolina communities increase their response capabilities for future severe weather events with advanced preparation and planning. And I will just, I think rather than saying what the fire department is going to be using these grants for, I think I'd rather just wait for Indira to talk about it a little bit and then if I have anything to add or Bo does, we'll take it from there. But we're very, very grateful for the support of Duke Energy for this project and you'll hear about it and we're just extremely grateful. So Indira Everett, please come to the microphone and talk to us. Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council members and City Manager for this great opportunity. Tonight I am super excited to make this check presentation to the City of Durham Fire Department and to Bo tonight. Each year the Duke Energy Foundation focuses as giving on K-12 education, workforce development and nature. And each year the foundation adds an additional new focus area based on the current needs of the state. This year that focus was on storm resiliency in response to the devastating hurricanes we experienced in recent years. Duke Energy just awarded this year to North Carolina several storm resiliency grants and we're proud to say that the Durham Fire Department grant was ranked very high among them. I'm pleased to announce a $25,000 grant to purchase emergency response equipment to increase capabilities to conduct severe weather rescues to preserve human life and to provide specialized training to first responders. So I'd like to thank Ryan Campbell who submitted this grant and on behalf of Duke Energy I'm here to thank Ryan, the Fire Department and the City for partnering with us on this outstanding cause and so I have a ceremonial check but I also have the actual check with me. On behalf of the Durham Fire Department I just want to thank the generosity and the partnership with Duke Energy for this important grant. I know I have discussed the uses of the funds with Chief Zoldus they're very excited to be able to add some of the capacity that this grant will provide and some of the swift water response equipment at stations and areas that do have to deploy in situations like this. So we just again want to thank Duke Energy for the partnership and we're excited to be able to put these funds to good use. Thank you. It's great to have both the symbolic check and the real check. So thank you so much to Duke Energy. Last year they supported our tree canopy work with $100,000. They've given us a lot of wonderful support over the last few years and Indira thank you for your incredible civic leadership. And second we're going to have a history moment for our second ceremonial item and I'm going to ask our public historian Eddie Davis if he would come forward and Eddie will have others that he will invite to the podium as well. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening council members, staff members and audience. Thank all of you for your support throughout this quiescentennial year. Today is Monday November the 4th 2019. In 1952 67 years ago November the 4th fell on a Tuesday. It was the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Because it was election day. Nationwide retired Army General Dwight David Eisenhower defeated Illinois Governor Adelaide Stevenson. Eisenhower was joined on a Republican ticket by a 1937 graduate of the Duke School of Law Richard Millhouse Nixon. Nixon was then serving in the United States Senate as a senator from California. Adelaide Stevenson's Democratic Party running mate was Alabama Senator John Sparkman. Here in the Tarheel state and here in North Carolina here in Durham, history was made on November the 4th 1952 through the election of William Bradley Umstead who would become the 63rd governor of North Carolina. This was the first and the only time a governor was elected from Durham County. Several other governors had been elected from Orange County during the time when our landmass was a part of that county. In 1952 Umstead and Lieutenant Governor of Canada Lutha Hodges defeated Republicans Chubb Sewell and Warren Pritchard. William B. Umstead was born in Bahama in 1895. He attended Durham High School, the University of North Carolina and Trinity now Duke School of Law. In advance of his election to his gubernatorial seat Mr. Umstead served as a Kingston North Carolina high school teacher, a combat officer in France during World War I, a Durham area district attorney, a United States Congressman, a United States Senator, a member of the Durham County Bar, a member of the prominent law firm of Fuller, Reed and Umstead and a member of Trinity United Methodist Church. He was involved in several famous Durham area federal cases including Blue versus Durham and McKissick versus Carmichael. Although he was a moderate to conservative Democrat by those standards then, Mr. Umstead had a wide array of 1952 gubernatorial support here in Durham, including an endorsement from the Carolina Times and its crusading editor, Lewis Austin. Two days after he was inaugurated in January of 1953, Governor Umstead suffered a severe heart attack. Although his health rose and fell during the next two years, his term came to an end 65 years ago this week on November 7th, 1954. He passed away at Watts Hospital here in Durham. This Durham County native lived, worked, studied, worshiped and enjoyed many friendships in the Bull City. He received and provided a great deal of glory in Durham. History gives him the distinct, the unique distinction of, at least so far, being the only Durham resident to be elected to the office of Governor of the state of North Carolina. Governor Umstead was funeralized at Trinity United Methodist Church and buried at Mount Tabor Church Cemetery in Bahama. We actually have the current pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church here with us, Reverend Suzanne Pretty, would she please stand? Thank you and the rest of the congregation here at Trinity, right across the street for all that you all do, not only for the city of Durham, but for the less fortunate in our community. We are also privileged to have with us Durham Attorney Merrill Umstead Richie, the daughter of Governor Umstead. We would like for her to join me at the microphone and to share a very brief remembrance of her father, Ms. Richie. My father had many close friends and supporters here in Durham, both in his life and after his death. I wanted to illustrate that. The first thing is a plaque that my mother treasured. It looks like this and I'm going to read to you what it says. Presented in tribute to the honorable William B. Umstead, Governor-elect of North Carolina by the Civic Clubs of Durham, December the 2nd, 1952. In you we find those attributes which exemplify man's worthiness for service in public office, integrity, ability, dedication, dignity, tolerance, courage, sincerity, patience, and humility. We, the undersigned club presidents, bespeak for our members their pledge of confidence in you and further pledge to you the loyalty and cooperation of our clubs in any undertaking for the betterment of our city, county, and state. And it has the seals of nine Civic Cubs in Durham and the signatures engraved of their presidents. After my dad died, a local committee formed out of a felt need to make a memorial. This ultimately resulted in the William B. Umstead State Park being named for him because of his conservation efforts. My father practiced law in Durham after tending Duke Law School. His offices were in the post office building and the hill building on Cochrane Street. He was also legal counsel for the citizens national bank, Corner Main Street and Mangan Street. My father was a lifelong Methodist. His father was John Wesley Umstead named after the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. In Durham my father was an active member of Trinity Church. Today the only church in the downtown loop where he taught the men's Bible class for years. The present building had at first service in 1925. It was designed by Ralph Adams Cram, a noted church architect and is unusually fine. I'm not sure what it cost but I know it was a lot. In 1944 my father who was chairman of the board of trustees at the church together with the minister Reverend Huggins raised the money to completely retire the debt on the building. At Christmas time my father and I would drive around Durham delivering Whitman's sampler boxes of chocolates to his friends, always the same gift. He always bought his candy from Ralph Rogers Drug Store on the corner of Mangan Street and Parrish Street. Years later I learned that the Whitman Company had sent sampler boxes abroad to the soldiers in World War I. My father was one of those soldiers. In his small way he was thanking the Whitman Company for their long ago gift. As a veteran he was instrumental in beginning American Legion post number seven in Durham. Since the focus tonight is on my dad's service as governor, I brought his hat. The end. Thank you so much for that great presentation. Thank you to our public historian Eddie Davis who's been bringing us wonderful Durham history moments throughout our sesquicentennial year. All right. Now we will resume our agenda and I'll ask if there are any announcements by members of the council. I do have, I think this might be an appropriate time to, we have another excuse, another excused absence that we need to take up. I believe that Council Member Freeman and Council Member Middleton are going to the National League of Cities Convention, is that correct? And you will be missing November 21st City Council Meeting. So can I hear a motion that we give Council Members Freeman and Middleton an excused absence for the November 21st Meeting. I moved. Second. And moved and seconded. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 6-0. And will you also be at the work session or will you use the work session? It's only at the work session. I'm sorry. The work session. My apologies. I said the council meeting. I'm sorry. The work session on the 21st. Alrighty. Other announcements? Council Member Rees. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening everyone. Tomorrow's election day here in the City of Durham. The 2019 general election in our city races is tomorrow. On the ballot is the race for mayor, our three at-large city council members and the $95 million affordable housing bond. I just want to make sure that those of us, those of you here in the audience or listening at home who have not availed themselves of early voting, please make a plan to vote tomorrow and make sure your voice is heard. These are incredibly important elections for the future of our city. We'll determine for the seven seats on this council including the mayor and it couldn't be more important to the life of our city over the next four years. So just encourage everyone to get out and vote and to make that easier. I'm really proud that our city has made our city bus service go Durham fair free tomorrow. That was a proposal as I recall that was brought to us by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People originally and I want to thank them for encouraging and inspiring us to make this an annual, an annual thing that we do on election day. So please make sure you get out and vote. Like I said, these elections are pretty important. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much, Council Member. Are there other announcements? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment and reflect over the last eight days or so. I'm sorry, the last week or so, it's been about eight shootings and most of them have been in neighborhoods I'm very close to recognizing that I live, work in a 10 church in East Durham. So I felt it was important to note that there have been a lot of community conversations going on, a lot of folks experiencing anger and hurt and fear. And I just wanted to make sure that we acknowledge that that fear is a part of that process and recognizing the trauma of having someone ripped from your community due to gun violence. I know that we have a conversation around violence often on this Council and addressing that, you know, we need to do more to regulate our gun laws, I mean gun restrictions or have gun restrictions. I want to be specific in stating that we also have to do the work to figure out how to address more immediate needs and recognizing that the people who are angry, the people who are experiencing the hurt and the trauma need the support of us all right now and recognizing that in a few of these meetings a few things have come up and I wanted to share with Council there have been a number of calls that have been made. So noting that between January the first and September the 30th about 145 people have been shot and 518 reports have been made of a shooting and with all of the people involved in each of those incidents everyone's been impacted and re-traumatized especially for those who've lost the child or lost the loved one. I mean it just reopens that wound that's there. We have come a long way in addressing police resident contact issues around the fade recommendations but I'm concerned that we have not had any work done around the residents or resident contact recognizing that not just in law enforcement but also in community there's work that's being done and we're not supporting that from the city and I would love to figure out how we do that and then we have the long range plans of attacking root causes which are commendable along community health and safety especially with the conversations we've been having around having a task force set up but that's like what a year or so away and these hurts and these harms are being caused right now and what we can do about that is important. So also noting I did a little math back of the what matchbook back of the napkin kind of math and recognizing that between January and September there were about six hundred times our six thousand five hundred and fifty two hours in that time period and in that time period every two days someone shot and every twelve twelve point seven hours there's a report of shots being fired and these are not sustainable and I recognize that there are many who think that this is acceptable you know we're working on it I do not feel comfortable with saying that and I really want to lean in on saying that we can do more and so noting my council colleague who is not here this evening Mark Anthony Middleton made the comments a few days or so back and saying that we're not doing as much as we can as a council and I wanted to speak to that and saying that just noting like sitting with community members and hearing their stories it's an it's impactful but it's more than that it's also qualitative data and that qualitative data has to mean something so noting that there has been a call for a healing day at rock quarry park next I'm not next but Sunday November the 17th where services and resources are made available to those who've been experiencing trauma and hurt in the community creating space for youth to be youth together and I would love to hear from my council colleagues on whether or not they would like to support that there's also a call for additional police officers to honor the police chiefs CJ Davis's request and her professional assessment of police staffing needs there's also been a call for resources and supports for the credible messengers that we have in our community providing these supports on the street level that aren't engaged with law enforcement but actually are doing the work as community members and volunteers and you know you're familiar with many of them there's organizations like together for resilient youth communities in partnership a chance for change there are so many here spirit house I mean these are all folks who are doing this work on a regular basis based on their understanding of what it takes in our neighborhoods also there was a call for parks and replications to be open and welcoming to our youth in the city and I would really like to know among my colleagues who would be interested in working towards trying to get some of this moving in the next couple of weeks or so because I don't think you know waiting for a tough health task force should be the the barrier for trying to address some of the calls that have been made by record residents in the community and so what it's appropriate this man would like to figure out if we have at least a majority of council colleagues that would be interested in supporting that effort to address these calls thank you very much council member I would say that all of us are interested in that I think I can speak for the entire council and saying that all of those things that you mentioned are very important I will certainly want to appreciate what you said and we are like all cognizant of the fact that we had a tough 10 days in the city and I am grateful for our police officers and our police force who've been working on that and also very appreciative of all the people that you talked about who are in the community because you're absolutely right the police can't do it alone it's got to be a community effort and I very much appreciate what you had to say the I look forward to hearing more about the the proposed event on November the 17th I believe as well as any specific thoughts that folks have about you mentioned our parks and rec department you know of course right now our parks and rec department provides free after-school programming for any teenager and we will of course need to continue to do that so thank you very much council member any other announcements at this time I'll just make one announcement I wanted to thank and congratulate the people who organized the closing events for Durham 150 our 150th anniversary which is a wonderful event that was held this past weekend I was just incredibly grateful for the people that discovered Durham and the Museum of Durham history and all the other people many many people who contributed to making it such a fabulous closing event for our sesquicentennial and wanted to just say how much I appreciated that and how much I've appreciated we've had more than 150 events this past year to commemorate our 150th birthday all many of them sponsored by our community groups and churches and PTAs and all and all of these supported by the work of our sesquicentennial committee so many thanks to all of them alright now ask are there any priority items by the City Manager thank you Mr. Mayor members of Council good evening everyone no priority items from the City Manager's office thank you madam attorney Mr. Mayor madam Madam Mayor pretend members the council the City Attorney's office has no priority items thank you madam clerk good afternoon good evening everyone on the City Clerk's office has no items thank you madam clerk well now move to the consent agenda the consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the council items on the consent agenda are items that the council has previously worked on. And I will read those items. No, I'm sorry, and I forgot to add one important thing. Items can be pulled from the consent agenda by any resident or member of the council. And if an item is pulled, it will be heard at the end of the meeting. Item one, approval of city council minutes. Item two, Durham Cultural Advisory Board appointment. Item three, Mayor's Hispanic Latino Committee appointments. Just a minute, I'd like to pull that item. Item three, okay. Item four, Mayor's Nominee for Appointment, Durham Convention Visitors Bureau DVA Discover Durham. Item five, year end 2019 inventory performance audit dated September 2019. Item six, interlocal agreement between North Carolina Central University and the city of Durham to conduct participatory budgeting, PB, cycle one evaluation. Item seven, designation of community development department director, a certifying officer for National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, environmental reviews. Item eight, interlocal agreement with the city of Raleigh for the Triangle Bikeway implementation study. Item nine, contract for landfill groundwater monitoring services. Item 10, amendment one to the Parkwood area lift station consolidation, Palsco professional engineering services contract. Item 11, Ellerby Creek sewer outfall rehabilitation project, amendment number one to the professional engineering services contract. Item 12, miscellaneous water and sewer rehabilitation projects. Contract one for professional engineering services with CDM Smith Incorporated. Item 13, miscellaneous water and sewer rehabilitation projects. Contract two for professional engineering services with Kimley Horn and Associates Incorporated. Item 14, professional services contract for the Celeste Circle and Gifford School lift stations. Item 15, September 2019 bid report. Item 16, selection of third party administrator for workers compensation and liability claims administration services. Item 17, cooperative group purchase, eight automated refuse collection vehicles. Item 18, cooperative group purchase for sideloading collection vehicles. Item 19, condemnation action to obtain two easements at 408 Patterson Road. Item 20, condemnation action to obtain two easements at 418 Rondolais Road. Item 21, future disposition and redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. We'll pull that item. Item 22, fiscal year 2019, housing appeals board annual report. Item 23, city Durham County youth work internship program interlocal agreement. Item 24, 2019 national sexual assault kit initiative grant project ordinance. Item 25, contract amendment number one to contract SW 49C consultant project manager with Horvath Associates PA for additional management services for various projects. Item 26, contract amendment number four for ST 257C contract administration and construction inspection services by Horvath Associates PA for the Carver Street extension project. Item 27, fiber optic network electronics installation. You have now heard the consent agenda and with the exceptions of item six and I'm sorry, three and 21, I'll now accept a motion for the approval of the consent agenda. So I move. Moving to second, we approve the consent agenda. Madam clerk, we please open the vote. And the motion passes six zero. Thank you. And we'll now move to our general business agenda for public hearings. And the first item is the consolidated item. The only item on the public hearing agenda is a consolidated item 4809 Farrington Road. And we will now hear a report from staff. Good evening. I'm Jamie Sonjak with the planning department. I would first like to state for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law and affidavits at all notices are on file in the planning department. The city of Durham proposes to change the future land use map and zoning designation of 12 parcels of land on the east side of Farrington Road totaling 23.41 and eight acres. The area is presently zoned industrial light with a development plan for a rail operations and maintenance facility associated with the formal former light rail project between Durham and Chapel Hill. Go Triangle, the project sponsor and owner of the subject parcels as officially discontinued the light rail project. During the public hearing process, the zoning map change during the public hearing process for the zoning map change, the city council initially indicated that if the light rail project did not move forward, the city would pursue a zoning map change to change the zoning back to a residential district. As a result, the city recommends rural residential suburban multifamily, RSM for this area. No development plan was prepared in conjunction with this request as there is no specific development proposal. A list of the available, a list of the allowable uses in the residential suburban multifamily, RSM, zoning district can be seen in attachment seven. The subject properties are currently designated industrial on the future land use map, that's attachment three. The city proposes to change this land use designation to low medium density residential to coincide with the zoning request. The Durham Planning Commission at their September 10th, 2019 meeting recommended approval of the proposed by a vote of 12 to zero. Staff recommends that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Three motions are required for this application. The first is to adopt a resolution amending the future land use map. The second is to adopt a consistency statement and the third is for the zoning ordinance. I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much, Ms. Sunyak. Council members, you've heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and first I'm going to ask if there are any questions by members of the council for our staff. Any questions for staff? If not, we will, we have two speakers to this item. First is Ruth Ann McKinney and second is Phil Post. Ms. McKinney, please come to the podium. Give us your name and address. Welcome and you have three minutes. Good evening. I have some laryngitis. Can you hear me? Yes ma'am. All right, perfect. My name is Ruth Ann McKinney. I live at 5139 Niagara Drive in Chapel Hill, which is in Durham County and the city of Durham. And it's also the Culbarber neighborhood which is the over 55 community that's directly across the street from this parcel. So I was remiss in not saying thank you, Mr. Mayor and thank you to the council members for letting me speak briefly. So I'm speaking on behalf of my neighbors at the Culbarber community and also surrounding communities and the parents at Creekside Elementary School. I think Mr. Post is gonna speak directly from the neighboring community also from the Oaks which is also nearby but I'm speaking for neighbors at Maitaville, Trenton, Culbarber, the Creekside parents and I'm probably forgetting someone. A number of those neighbors are here tonight. Many of them were here visiting with you all a year ago but if you'll raise your hands if you're here in support, which is we are speaking in support of this proposal. I wanna thank Ms. Sunyak and her staff for having brought this forward as well as the legal department for working with us and helping us understand it. Ms. Sunyak and her staff held a meeting out at Creekside in July and I think there were 50 or more people there and they carefully explained to us what was involved. We understand the zoning, we understand the comprehensive map change. It's not perhaps ideal but it's a compromise that we're comfortable with and that we support. We are particularly interested in the fact that it protects the buffer along I-40, the tree buffer which protects all of us from the noise of I-40 which was what that buffer was designed to do. It also protects in the zoning the watershed which is also important to us and we'll continue to watch that in whatever comes to that parcel when it's sold or if it's sold. So we encourage you, I'm speaking for all these neighbors to encourage you to vote in favor of the city's proposal and that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McKinney and thank you for your persistence. Mr. Post. My name is Phillip Post. I'm a 40 year resident of Durham County. I'm speaking on behalf of the homeowners association for Oaks 3 which is 126 homes in Durham County. I want to first express my appreciation to the council and to the staff for following through on your assurances to return this zoning to residential and I also want to express appreciation to the planning commission for their unanimous recommendation of support for adopting this rezoning and map change. And I simply want to say that speaking on behalf of myself and my 126 other neighbors in Durham County we urge you to adopt both the land use map change and the rezoning tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Post. Is there anyone here, anyone else here who would like to be heard on this item? This is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to be heard on this item? If not, are there any questions or comments by members of the council at this time? All right. Hearing none, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matters back before the council will take three motions to approve this. Motion one would be to adopt the resolution of many of the future land use map to low-medium density residential. Can I hear a motion? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution of many of the future land use map. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. Thank you. The second motion will be to adopt the consistency statement. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. Thank you. The third motion will be to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. and the motion passes 6-0. Thank you very much. And thank you all to the neighbors for spending some time with us tonight. Thank you. That was shorter than last time, wasn't it? All right. We have two items, so I'll just wait a minute till the chamber settles down and then we'll take on the first item that was pulled from consent. All righty. The first item that was pulled from consent by Council Member Freeman, and that was item three. Council Member? I just want to note that I, in speaking with Council Member Middleton, I understand there was a mix up on his tally or something, and I just wanted to make sure that we didn't miss his opportunity to look at. I'm sorry, Council Member, I can't hear you. Just noting that Council Member Middleton indicated that he had a mix up on his vote tally, and so he just wanted to make sure he had a chance to look at it. And with him not being here tonight, I figured you could hold it till Thursday. Okay. Council Members, without objection, I don't see any reason that we couldn't go ahead and hold this until Thursday and then act on it by suspending the rules. Madam Clerk, would that suit you? I know that you've been trying to get this committee together. Would that be suitable? If it works out for you folks. Okay. Okay, thank you, Council Member. We're gonna hold this item until the work session on Thursday. And we will, at that time, we'll be able to suspend the rules and vote and establish the committee. Okay, thank you very much. I don't believe we need to do anything else on that. Madam Attorney, I think we're good. Yeah, thank you so much. All right, we'll now move to the second item that's been pulled from Consent and the last item on our agenda today, which is item 21, the future disposition redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. This is not a public hearing item. So let me describe, I have spent some time talking to staff about the process that we're going to go through this evening. And I know that staff has communicated this both to the developers from Fallon as well as the developers from Akridge. And so let me just describe how this is going to happen. First, we are going to be hearing the report and recommendation from staff. Then we will have, each of the development teams will have 15 minutes to address the council and can use that 15 minutes in any way that they would like. We're gonna go in alphabetical order. That means Akridge will be first, Fallon will be second, after which there will be, and after each individual presentation, I'll give the council opportunity to ask questions at that time. And of course, council members can ask questions throughout the process. Following that, we will have members of the public who are not members of the development team who would like to sign up to speak. If you are a member of the public who would like to sign up to speak and is not a member of the development team, please go to the clerk's desk and sign up and we will give everyone a time to speak after the developers have each had their own opportunity to present. So let me just go over it again so everyone's clear. First, we'll have the report from staff and the recommendation from staff. Then we'll have the developers each have 15 minutes to present in alphabetical order and can present anything that they would like to present to make their case. We will go in alphabetical order, meaning Akridge will go first, Fallon will go second. A subsequent to that, members of the public who are here who have an interest in this who would like to speak but are not members of the development team, this will be your opportunity to be heard. Council members, any questions, any concerns about that? I think everyone's clear. Okay. Alrighty. And let me say that I already have a number of people who have signed up to speak on item 21. If you have already signed up, of course, there's no need to do so again. And I'm going to now turn it over to Ms. Stacy Poston for staff report. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and members of City Council. My name is Stacy Poston and I'm here this evening representing the General Services Department and serving as the project manager for this project which is the disposition and redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. This evening we also have available other talented members of departments including Summer Alston from the Economic Development Department, David Boyd from the Finance Department, Thomas Leathers representing the Transportation Department, Karen Lotto from Community Development, Sarah Young from the Planning Department, Gina Prokes from General Services and our consultant team from HRNA, Elizabeth Packer and Kyle Vangel are on site as well. This group of individuals along with deputy city manager, Bo Ferguson have been working on this project with us since September of 2017. At that point, we began a review of all the existing policies and plans that had been adopted by council. We conducted community outreach sessions that touched over 1,200 individuals that participated and we received a recommendation memorandum from the City County Appearance Commission. We took all of that information and in 2018 presented that to City Council where we received direction to move forward with five objectives regarding the development of the site. This has been our foundation and our selection and evaluation process moving forward based on these five goals. The goals included affordable housing on site, financial return to the city, mixed use project with office on site, preservation of the existing Milton small structure on site and delivery of a signature project with best practices and urban design for this gateway location. We have presented to City Council five times on this item as we've drafted and issued the request for qualifications and as we drafted and issued the request for proposals. We received nine requests for qualifications from teams from across the country. After an evaluation process, we invited four teams to submit requests for proposals. Those proposals were due on June 28th, 2019 earlier this year. We received three requests for proposals, submissions from teams and ultimately determined that we wanted to interview in person two finalist development teams that had responded to the request for proposals and we interviewed those teams here in Durham on August 14th. After the interview, we invited those two teams to strengthen their proposals in two specific areas, their financial offer and their affordable housing component and we gave them until August 19th to resubmit this information. The Fallon company at that time submitted modifications to their proposal that strengthened their financial offer to the city. Acres declined to submit amendments initially and then changed their mind and submitted a revised proposal 11 days after the deadline on August 30th. The evaluation team reviewed all the submissions from both proposers, whether the submission was late or not and presented a recommendation to city council at work session on September 19th. At that time, the staff was recommending entering into development agreement negotiations with the Fallon company. At the city's council meeting on October 7th and subsequent work session on October 10th, city council directed staff to communicate to the development finalist teams that they would be allowed to submit substantive changes to their existing proposals and that these revisions would be submitted to staff by October 18th. On October 18th, Acreage submitted a development program with substantive changes and the Fallon company submitted clarifying materials but held firm on their existing standing proposal. Since October 18th, the evaluation committee met, discussed and undertook a thorough evaluation of all components of both proposals based on the five elements outlined in the initial RFP. We conducted information sessions with city council members and drafted a staff memorandum that's in your agenda packet this evening that outlines the development proposal evaluation matrix. At this time, city staff recommend that the city council authorized the city manager to enter into negotiations with the Fallon company and those elements being memorialized in a development agreement that we bring back to city council for consideration next spring. I and the team members stand ready to respond to any questions that city council members may have at this time. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much, Ms. Poston and appreciate very much the report from staff. According to, well, I'll ask first, are there any questions at this point for staff before we hear from the development groups? All right, thank you so much and I'm sure we'll have some questions later. All right, we'll now hear from the first development group which is Akritch and Mr. Spaulding, are you organizing this presentation? Great, you have 15 minutes and welcome. And for each speaker that comes to the podium, if you could just please give us your name and address. Thank you so much. Good evening, Mayor Schull and members of the council. Let me just, let me, I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt. I apologize, just one more time. For those of you all who are maybe not familiar with our council procedure, we have a timing clock over here that might be helpful to you. I'm sorry, go ahead. Good evening, Mayor Schull and members of the council. My name is Matt Klein. I'm president and CEO of Akritch from Washington DC. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present the merits of the Akritch team's proposal for the redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. I'd like to begin by saying that I regret any distress we may have caused surrounding our advocacy for our proposal. Our company has been a successful real estate developer for over 45 years. We've been involved with over 20 million square feet of development. We've won awards for architecture, for historic preservation, for civic engagement and business ethics. We've also participated in numerous RFP processes before, certainly well in excess of 100. We've won our fair share of these RFPs, which means we've also lost many as well. In almost all of the cases where our proposal was not successful, it was because a competitor offered a higher price. In this proposal, our price was highest by over 20% and we offered the most affordable housing units, the two top criteria for evaluation. Our vigilance and advocacy for our proposal has been focused on making sure that the facts relative to our proposal were fairly communicated to key stakeholders, including council. We are competitive, we are invested in Durham and we are excited about Durham's future. In our October 18th resubmission, we made two adjustments to our proposal. First, we adjusted the location of the office density such that it accommodated the preservation of the current building, the home security life building. As part of this process, we increased our office density by 15,000 square feet which is less than 5% of the office program. And we added four residential units which is less than 1% of the residential program. The fundamentals of our site plan, including parking, urban design and community space did not change. Because the densities are in direct alignment with our original proposal, the timelines and performance from our original proposal did not change and remain valid. In the second adjustment, we brought greater specificity to our closing date. During the August interview, we told staff we expected to establish an outside closing date for closing that was tied to the development management agreement. We brought specificity to this statement by establishing an outside closing date of 90 days from completion of the DMA. But for this design modification to accommodate preservation and the clarification relative to timing on closing, our proposal remains the same. The staff report speaks to financial wherewithal. As stated, Ackridge is a 45-year-old real estate investment and development company that has successfully managed through six US recessions. We have developed award-winning projects in all parts of real estate cycles. Institutional investors like J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Prudential C. Ackridge is a highly qualified joint venture partner. Along with our multifamily affiliate Jefferson apartment group, we have 12 active construction projects with $1.5 billion in construction costs. We have more than sufficient financial wherewithal to execute our plan for the 505 project. As stated, Ackridge is already an active presence in Durham and developers in Durham, and we have more projects in the pipeline. We will close within 90 days following completion of a DMA and we'll work hard to get a shovel in the ground as soon thereafter as possible. Our proposal offers clarity and certainty and requires no zoning adjustments, no special financing, and will be completed in one phase. An important strength of our proposal involves the team that we assembled. We have a great set of consultants and architects that are both highly qualified and represent the best in local capabilities. Most important, however, is the partnership we've developed with NSV Development, a local and minority investment firm that accounts for one-third of the ownership of our proposal. We know how important it is to have real, substantive local ownership that reflects the community, that leverages the diversity of Durham and strengthens all aspects of our proposal. We're fortunate to have them as partner. I'll now pass the baton to Mr. Spalding. Good evening, members of the Durham City Council. My name is Ken Spalding. I represent Ackridge in this matter. First, Mr. Bonfield, we wanna thank you so much personally and on behalf of my client and staff, for your staff to allow us to have an opportunity to be one of the two finalists in this effort and to be able to have this hearing tonight. We wanted to personally thank you and your staff in that regard. I would also like to say that if you would, as stated in your executive summary, the General Services Department has made its recommendation and preference. Tonight, the City Council will express your preference in making your decision. As we all know, the City Council makes its decisions based on the input from various sources, including stakeholders, the community, taxpayers, affected parties, and information presented by staff. We feel that our proposal is far superior to our competitors based on, we are paying $2 million more to the city's taxpayers for this property at 505 Chapel Hill, West Chapel Hill Street. In short, the city of Durham and our city taxpayers could potentially lose $2 million if our competitor is selected. We will provide more affordable housing than our competitor. Here on a night before, the election and vote on our affordable housing bond issue for $90 million. We're asking our taxpayers to reach in our pockets to help fund more affordable housing. We're also saying as we taxpayers will have to pay for this, we're also looking at the leadership of our council who's asking us to do this. And we're looking because we want to be able to say that the city council and our leaders are making sure that they also are seeing that we get more affordable housing in Durham and not just the taxpayers. We also want to be able to see that the taxpayers will receive some of the money, $2 million worth, back to help defray some of the costs of the bond issue. We have only one phase while our competitor has two. Fallon creates a risk for the city if the second phase is not built. We have conventional ready to go financing while our competitor will require HUD approvals and financing, potential governmental tax credits, potential subsidies. That does not apply for us. We're ready to go on the financing. Acreage creates more local, more local and minority ownership in and for Durham. The mayor strongly asked both parties to consider this component when he and the council reopened submission. As far as historic preservation, we have preserved the building. We recognize and heard the historic preservation proponents. We have a better and stronger design which better protects the original building. Unfortunately, we must disagree with the conclusion and approach regarding the process used in determining the recommendation. Even with the original RFP criteria and now this very subjective, very subjective so-called advantage ranking methodology, Acreage's proposal still comes out far ahead of Fallon's as the stronger proposal. We would really ask at this time if you would look at your executive summary that was presented to you. You will find on page two of your executive summary the next to the last paragraph that the approach that was used in determination for approval included this highly subjective and questionable analysis called Advantage Ranking Methodology. This opened the door from objective consideration to subjective consideration. Let's further look beneath and unearth the findings beginning on page three if you would look at your document, executive summary. It talks about provision of on-site affordable housing units. The methodology was used to diminish our success in having more affordable housing units compared to Fallon's 80. When development does not possess any unique financing, they have heard financing and tax credits which are not unusual while Acreage has immediate ready-to-go conventional financing. Both companies are nationally recognized and pass the city of Durham's request for qualification process, the RFQ. As far as the next item on there, you indicate the generation of financial return. The pro forma has remained the same from our initial proposal. The program and design is consistent with the preservation of the building and Acreage far surpasses Fallon with the $2 million payment. Generation of financial return, the schedule remains the same. Fallon has more exposure to adverse economic conditions because Fallon has more office space which will absorb more impact than Acreage in an economic downturn. Acreage's proposal is more balanced with its residential and office components. Office space suffers more negative impacts from a downward economy. After Fallon's number one and first phase, there's no guarantee of development of the second phase. That's risky for the city. Generation is your next, generation of financial return. Fallon's tax revenues are uncertain due to their two phases. Acreage has only one phase. The city will collect their funds immediately. The next delivery of mixed use development, affordable housing and residential development are strongly needed in Durham based on all growth data. Durham already has at least 1.2 million square feet of office space in the pipeline near our location. Durham's Innovation District and American Tobacco. In regard to the delivery of mixed use development, we are both equal from the report. In regard to preservation of the existing building, Acreage does not loom over the existing building. It is set back from the street, from the church and from the building. Fallon's design will actually infringe upon the front part of the building, Fallon's will, and will impact the face of the building which does not align with the total historic preservation goal. The signature design and activated ground floor compelling design to highlight the site's gateway in your report, Acreage does not block the North Carolina Mutual Building and will not be taller than the North Carolina Mutual Building. It is believed that Fallon will have a parking podium of at least seven stories in addition to approximately nine or more stories of office making them taller than the North Carolina Mutual Building. We have someone who can respond to that tonight. The signature design and activated ground floor while we are doing Fallon is disgusting. We have true minority ownership, ownership and we have included North Carolina Central University which has been working with Fallon, have been working with Acreage for months and months and months and they will receive $100,000 for scholarships and internships with our program upon the passage of this item. I wanna talk to you about the word that was said at the Durham 150. I heard with you all. Kenya said the biggest thing that Durham needs to be careful of is the G word, gentrification. But we're dealing with now is black ownership. That is what gentrification is all about. We talk about it and we brag on the black wall street about it and in fact there are only two black owners of property on the black wall street, Paris street. What we're seeking to do is to create an anchor with the mutual tower which will allow an opportunity to create what we call the mutual district. This will be something that people will be talking about as they have the black wall street in the 21st and the 22nd century about what we have as far as the mutual district and this will be dealing with black ownership. I would also like to say that you have a choice tonight. This is your moment in time. It was a beautiful function that you had this past Saturday. It made all of us proud because both black and whites alike and Latinos and Native Americans were all shown the proper respect that our community deserves. But we just cannot live in the past. It is truly important that we make sure that we are there for that 21st and that 22nd century and this is what that anchor can do with the mutual tower to create mutual, the mutual district. They and only they will have control of both parcels of land to be able to make this happen. Carl, I'd like for you to say just a few words. And he means just a few, Mr. Webb. Good evening, my name is Carl Webb and I am a principal in New South Ventures, a 59 year Durham resident, native of Durham. We have really been privileged to have an opportunity to work with Acreach. It's not often when a developer comes to town and seeks real partnership. Often what you see happening is opportunities to consult or sort of be in the room, but not opportunities to have true ownership. What we have here is a team that is made up of owners. We own and control 33% of this project. New South Ventures is controlled by greater than 51% African American ownership. We have Gloria Shealy of the Danielle Group that will help us build this project, an African American female headed organization. We have Xena Howard with the design firm of Perkins and Will, an African American leader that will help us build this project. So we're excited about having an opportunity to create this district. I have inspired my entire lifetime because of John Merrick, Aaron McDuffie Moore, and all of those who went on to create North Carolina Central University, Mechanics and Farmers Bank, Mutual Savings alone, and we're not waiting for the approval. We're working on Providence 1898, a co-working space that speaks to the next generation of entrepreneurs and creatives. So we just ask that you take this moment in time to give us all something in downtown Durham with all of the districts that we have to be proud of as African Americans of the significant contribution that we've made. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Webb, and thank you all for your presentation. I'll, since the average group went a little over the 15 minutes, I'll give Fallon another couple of minutes as well if necessary. So thank you so much. Council members, I think I would rather go ahead and just have the Fallon presentation and then we can have questions for both groups. Is that everyone good with that? Okay, Greg. Yes, and if you all could take that down, I think that would be great. Thank you so much. We're happy to see it. Yeah, thank you so much. And now we will hear from the Fallon group. Mr. Banks, welcome. And you also, let's, I think, add another minute, make it 17, please, Ashley. Thank you. You all will have 17 minutes, Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And good evening to other members of the council. My name is Shariah Banks. I live at 5105 Carrollwood Lane here in Durham. I'm the owner of the Banks law firm, which is generally regarded as the largest minority owned firm in the state of North Carolina. And for 25 years, it has been also a resident of the city of Durham. I must say, first of all, that I am proud to be a citizen of Durham, where not only the city council, but also our county commissioners have taken a look at our very dynamic downtown and has seen fit to make sure that affordable housing is here and is a vital part of what is going on in downtown so that people who work downtown can live. And so that makes me very proud. Tonight, I'm especially proud to be a part of the Fallon team. I think I'm a part of this team because my law firm has the largest collection of affordable housing attorneys in the state of North Carolina. I'm very proud to be representing Wynn companies, which is the residential development of this project. Wynn is the largest operator of affordable housing in the United States. They are a very, very diverse company. They'll come up and tell you that. But our design for this site has always been extremely inclusive, it's always been one building. It's always been affordable units and structured throughout that building. There has never been a different door for the affordable units versus the market rate units. There has never been a poor door in our project. And I'm very proud of that. Also proud to be a part of the Fallon team because this is a unique situation in that I've never done any legal work for the Fallon team before, as I have for the Wynn team, for the Wynn companies in the affordable housing area. But I know Fallon quite frankly because my law firm also represents the Charlotte Housing Authority. And Fallon has partnered with the Charlotte Housing Authority to do a very large mixed use development in Charlotte. So in fact, I have been sitting across the table negotiating on behalf of Charlotte with the Wynn folks. I'm sorry, with the Fallon team. And I can tell you this about Fallon. Though I don't represent them, I've never represented them before, but proud to be on the team. Fallon is an organization headed by Joe Fallon. And I think you also met the son, Mike Fallon. They are the type of organization that if Joe Fallon gives you his word, it's as good as a 30 page legal contract. They will hold up their end. They will expect you to hold up yours and you can count on it. Since I live in this town, and it's rare that really I get the chance to do this type of development and work as an attorney in this town, I can assure you that I would not be on this team if I didn't have a lot of trust and faith in the leader of the team. That's Joe Fallon, who I'd like to bring up right now. Thank you, Sherrod. Mr. Mayes, City Council. Pro Tim and Tim Andrew, I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. And I appreciate onwards, Rod. There's a couple of things I wanted to talk about. We didn't get a chance or an opportunity to meet with you because we were told not to. So we stayed with that commitment. I think it's important that if we're gonna develop in a city that you understand who we are and what we stand for. There are three major virtues that I have everyone in our staff become, it becomes ingrained in them. And it's true, not just with our staff with all our consultants. It's passion, compassion, and respect. We're very passionate about everything that we do. We spend time searching out cities that we want to work in. We sell fund, we put our own equity on the line. We're the ones that actually step up first. We have local people working with us due to pain as a local architect who works with us in other cities and actually has one to introduce this site to us. So we work closely with local and we work not just in Durham, but in other cities. And we work with a passion that we make sure that everyone feels the same. And compassion, and it's part of, again, our company, I'm very fortunate to have Michael, my son working with us. But I have my daughter Elizabeth who heads up our foundation. We actually focus on our foundation. We focus on people that are in need. Everybody at one time, everyone in this room at one time is needed help. Those are the people we seek out. Those are the ones that we try to find, suffer in silence and we try to help them in every community that we work. That's what our foundation does. That's where we focus. It also has caused us to be very ingrained now in the special operations of the military and also gold staff families. Because again, these are kids that just don't have the lead that they need. So we focus on those types of camps to help those kids. And integrity and respect. Respect is very key for us. We respect everybody that we work with. We respect the communities that we're in. But we also respect people that are working outside of our community, outside of our world to try to make sure that they too understand it's important that everyone live up to their word, do what they say and commit to that. So I want to bring, we're running out of time quickly. I want to bring others up. But at the end I want to just mention a couple of other things that will be important. Gil. Good evening. I'm Gilbert Wen, CEO of Wynn Companies. And I wanted to say a couple of things about our proposal, really to underscore. So we are the largest operator of affordable housing in the country. In addition to that, we've been in the state of North Carolina for almost 20 years. We're one of the largest operators of on-base military housing for our fighting men and women in the Marine Corps housing in North Carolina. We're affordable housing owners and managers in the state of North Carolina. And when we invest in a city, we generally stay there for decades. And we invest again in new projects. We are not flippers of housing. We don't go buy, develop, and sell. In fact, our very financing vehicle here today is a 35 to 40 year financing vehicle through HUD, which greatly reduces risk. Because in the down markets when interest rates can fluctuate and underwriting guidelines can fluctuate, that is in fact the reason that the HUD financing exists. So that projects with affordable housing and that are good for the community will proceed in all events. In addition, I wanna talk about affordable housing as something that we have included in our proposal from the very beginning. Our single building with mixed income housing that has undifferentiated finishes and entrances is something that was part of our proposal from the beginning. I think that that's important that we didn't have any buildings at different parts of the site that were only for the affordable folks. We didn't have the best building in front just for the market rate folks. And whether or not those proposals changed is really not the point because changing a proposal will show a willingness to mix incomes. But having those affordable units mixed in from the very beginning shows a desire and a belief that that type of middle income housing can work, sorry, mixed income housing can work. That is who we are. It's ingrained in wind companies. Our over 3,000 employees are comprised of a majority of minority team members. That has taken decades and we live by our word. When we are in new developments, we meet or exceed every local and minority women-owned business goal in every project that we do. In this project, we're proud to be partnered with James Rogers, who is a co-owner with us. He's a local minority real estate developer and he was part of the team from the beginning. In addition, our retail component has Dr. Henry McCoy leading the charge to make sure that we set aside ownership in the retail component for local minority investors. And because Dr. McCoy is leading that effort, we have no doubt that that will be successful. We are very proud of our track record. And again, it's evidenced by the fact that we continue to do business decades later in the cities that we do business. I want to talk, I want to have our company, excuse me, talk a little bit about what mixed income housing means. That doesn't just promote diversity, but it also promotes inclusion because it's easy enough to put a mix of incomes in a building. It's harder to create a truly inclusive community and we've done that for years. And I'd like to introduce Shawnee Wilcox, our executive vice president, who can talk a little bit more about those successes. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. I'm Shawnee Wilcox, executive vice president with Wynn Residential. And as part of the Fallon and Wynn team, I just really want to emphasize how important we believe this project to be and our commitment to making sure that 505 West Chapel Hill Street becomes a model project for the city of Durham. I want to share five quick points with you, all of which are items that I think are critical of critical importance. One, we understand the importance of the rich history of the city and will do everything possible to ensure that that history is not lost. Two, this project can and will be a catalyst to improve the socioeconomic status of the affordable housing residents through the modeling and exposure to people unlike them, excuse me, that will naturally occur. Three, Wynn has been very successful throughout our almost 50 year history in helping to create communities and not just building buildings. Our approach to creating connected communities is different from any of our competitors. We get involved with our communities that we serve and we lay the foundation for long-term sustainable relationships and we want to do that here. No one has been successful as Wynn with the affordable mixed housing model. I want to stress again that we are the number one manager of affordable housing and that's for a reason. Not saying that we're perfect, but we strive every single day to do the right thing by the people that we serve and the people that we partner with and we will do the same thing here in the great city of Durham. Finally, you will not be disappointed with this team. You will find that we lead with integrity, with passion and a commitment to really seeing this through. I thank you for your time. Have a great evening. Thank you. Lave, you've been here before, sir. How much time I got? Seriously, good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, city manager, city attorney, city clerk. My name is Bill Bell. I reside at 1003 Huntsman Drive, Durham, North Carolina. I was contacted by members of the Fallon team sometime in late August after Fallon had submitted the response to the 505 West Chapel Street RFP to the city and that was June 2019. I was not aware of the RFP at the time, nor that I know very much about the Fallon company and their team other than what I personally knew about the local team members. After doing my own research on both major companies on the team, and I mean Fallon and Wynn, I was impressed with what I discovered, that they had accomplished in their successes in the development of mixed income urban housing as well as their success in commercial office space and real estate development. They had approached me to consider advising their team in some of the Fallon areas, and to advise them on their approach to building community and city support, to provide feedback on the development concept such as the design, mixed income, and commercial retail concept, to help facilitate connections and introductions to individuals or groups who need it and where appropriate, and to consult the team and to provide preparatory feedback during the interview and selection process. I want to emphasize that at no time that I contact any member of the city council or the city staff during their initial RFP preparation or the deadline when they submitted June 2019, nor that I contact any city council on the decisions that were made on October 7th to reopen the RFP process to allow for further information to be submitted from both development teams. In other words, I never requested any member of the city staff, city council, that they support Fallon team during this whole process. As you will see in the last RFP submitted October 18th, I consented to having my name listed as part of the team as an advisor, which I thought was appropriate given my involvement as a strier. And finally, I will say that in my discussions with the Fallon team, I found them to be honorable and to have integrity with their proposals. As a company, I trust that they would do and deliver what they promised. Have also told them that if they were successful in being selected, I would have no hesitancy in speaking out if I felt that they were not keeping their promises with respect to development and what they have promised the city and this community. And over the years, I've had opportunities to meet with many developers as well as having reviewed many development plans. And I would say that the Fallon team ranks them on the highs with respect to integrity and definitive development plans and processes. And I reckon them very highly for the 505 West Chapel Hill Street development as they have a proposed. And I know a lot has been talked about and diversity. I have no question in my mind that given the foundation, what these people have done, they will make an impact in the minority community if they are given this proposal. If you're noticing your proposal, Mechanics and Farmers Bank is one of the partners in this project where they will be making investments with obviously, which allow Mechanics and Farmers to spread their investments in the community. So in my opinion, they come highly recommended from all sources. But more importantly, I trust them. I know they would do what they say will do and it will make us proud of the development they put forth. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's the longest speech I've ever heard Bill Bill give. So seriously, it's great to have you in the house, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, just in closing, I want to just identify a couple of things that when we commit, it's not just a financial commitment, it's a commitment of our team. So we're committing tonight that our team is going to be there to do everything that we need to do to make this a strong community development. And for us, we appreciate your time. We appreciate the staff recommendation and we appreciate your vote tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much. So while we're at recognizing mayors, I do want to say that former Mayor Webb Gully is also in the house and we're glad to have you here as well. All right, colleagues, I'm going to ask, we have a number of speakers who have signed up. Has anyone else signed up, Madam Clerk, in addition to these cards? Thank you. But let me just remind everyone, if you would like to speak up, if you would like to speak, please go to the clerk's table there and sign one of these cards. Council members, any questions at this time? I'm going to go ahead and call on the speakers unless there are questions at this moment. Everyone good with that? Okay, we have quite a number of speakers. So I'm going to ask that everyone please hold their comments to two minutes. And I'm going to begin with Stella Adams. Is Adams? While this Adams is coming forward, I'm going to call the names of the next couple of speakers. And if you all would please just make your way over here to my right. Second will be Omar Beasley. Third will be Cheryl Brown. And then John Warsilla. If you all could make your way over here and be prepared after Ms. Adams, that would be great. Ms. Adams, welcome. Thank you. We have two minutes. Y'all know two minutes is tough. I know. My name is Stella Adams. I reside at 4128 Cobblestone Place and appear before you on this item as a citizen of Durham for over 50 years. I come before you to ensure that you as a council stay focused on the purpose of the proposed sale of the police headquarters at 505 West Chapel Hill Street, which is to increase the number and quality of affordable housing units available to residents of Durham, both downtown and throughout the city. I stand before you to urge that no points or consideration be given for the historic preservation of the former police headquarters. The preservation of the police headquarters, a symbol of black and brown oppression personally offends me. I am curious how it is that we must preserve the police headquarters while a mere facade, a piece of a wall is all that was required to preserve this city's legacy as a worldwide center of the tobacco industry. I have heard all of the arguments made by those who seek to preserve the building and I am not persuaded. The police headquarters building by its own admission has not aged gracefully and despite costly upgrades to its Havak system, roof and building envelope, it remains uncomfortably key and expensive to operate and maintain. The building is functionally obsolete. And that was, if that was true in 2014, it certainly is so now. I understand that the developers have done a test fit of the facility as a person who recently was part of an executive team that purchased and completely overhauled a historic building in Washington, DC. I can assure you there is a big difference between a test fit, space plan and the actual renovation. I can almost see the developers coming back to you saying that it is not feasible to renovate the building at the proposed cost and secure funding. Will someone yield me 30 seconds? Ms. Adams, we don't yield, but I'll go ahead, I'll give you 30 seconds, you're fine. Thank you. They will come back requesting a different mix of affordable units in order to complete the project. They will propose units with cheaper amenities for the affordable units, subjecting our neighbors to daily stigmatization. No, the police headquarters needs to come down. If the council is persuaded to preserve the legacy of Raleigh-Martinist Milton, then I would argue that the council has the opportunity to fulfill the final vision of Durham architect, Phil Freeland. When it comes to 505 Chapel Hill Street, let's plan a historical marker and call it a day. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Adams. Next, we'll have Omar Beasley. Mr. Beasley, welcome, you have two minutes. Thank you. My name is Omar Beasley. I reside at 3204 Skybrook Lane, Durham, North Carolina. Equity, equity is important to me. We at the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People are supposed to fight and advocate for the empowerment of black people here in the city and the county of Durham. So that's what I'm here to do. Advocating for black empowerment by simply asking you all if the Durham City Council to practice what you preach, vote the way your progressive ideology says you should. Be deliberate, be intentional. Be deliberate to bring about some equity in a downtown that there is none. As it was mentioned earlier, that there are only two African-American property owners in the historical Black Wall Street District. Is that shared economic prosperity to you? I would certainly hope not. While I know all the African-Americans on the development teams for both projects have the utmost respect for all of them. So I'm not here arguing for one group because I like them all. I'm here arguing because I'm asking you to do what's right. I'm here to do what the mission of the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People says we're supposed to do. Uncompromised conviction of our mission within me has me speaking not for acreage, but for equity. Acreage did something that we all should be rewarding. They partnered with a locally-owned black developing group and gave them 33% partnership. Think about that, digest that. In a district where there's hardly no black ownership. Mayor Schuyl, you asked the post phone to vote about a month ago, citing the equity component as the reason why we need to re-look at this. New South Ventures is getting what you wanted to look at. Fallon says they have equity partners. We wanna know what that is. Is it 33%? The public deserves to know. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Beasley. Next we will hear from Cheryl Brown. Ms. Brown, welcome and you have two minutes. Good evening. My name is Cheryl Brown. I'm a Durham native and proud community supporter. I'm the owner director of Brown's Early Learning School, which is a five-star childcare facility in Durham. And we have proudly served our citizens for the last 47 years. My family and I have lived, worked and thrived in Durham for 50 plus years. During that time, I've seen a lot of changes. While most have been for the better, there have some that have been proven or may prove to be detrimental to our very own. I believe that the proposed design by the Fallon Wynn Development Groups will greatly benefit and positively impact the Durham community as a whole. The proposed redesign of this iconic structure will help to add value to the area while preserving its history. It will provide much needed affordable mixed income housing for residents of our community. The building design will help foster a sense of community and accountability that seems to be lacking in today's society. This will impact the lives of future generations by providing them with role models and positive influences that they are able to relate to. Men and women who look like them, who can see them, who can touch and interact with them. This is Durham's chance to be at the forefront of what we want the future of this diversity to look like while continuing to maintain the iconic visual images of our downtown landscape. A development like this will put people from all backgrounds and upbringing together and allow everyone to learn and grow with one another. The beauty of Durham is its diversity and I believe that our housing choices should reflect that, which is why I support the selection of the Fallon Wynn Companies as the recommended development for this project at 505 West Chapel Hill Street. Thank you very much, Ms. Brown. Mr. Warsilla, welcome. While he is coming up, if I could call the names of the next three speakers and if you all could please make your way over here to my right. Next we'll have Marcia McNally, Ellen Weinstein, and Lou Myers. Those folks are here, if you all could come over here to my right, that would be great. Mr. Warsilla, welcome and you also have two minutes. Terrific, thanks. Appreciate you putting this together. So I've been a resident of Durham since 1995. I served on the executive committee at DDI for probably 10 years, much of that late 90s, early 2000s. So the first thing I would say is the fact that you're even having a discussion like this speaks volumes for how far Durham has come. To get this caliber of development in Durham is something we only dreamed of in those days. So kudos to everyone involved in that. Over the past year, we've been working with Pendo, large startup, headquartered in Raleigh, helping them find a site. The site they settled on was a site that's being developed by the Fallon Company. Over the course of that year, we worked pretty closely with the Fallon Company on Pendo's behalf, right? So we're Pendo's architect. So we got to kind of kick the tires up close. We flew up to Boston, looked at the work they'd done up there, found that to be really pretty exemplary and found them all to be pretty stand-up people. So I would be a huge advocate for working with someone like that in Durham. These are exactly the caliber of people you wanna work with, both in terms of ethics, financial capability, but more importantly, development expertise. This is, that's a rock star team. So I can't say enough good things about what I think they can bring to the table. I think both sides are probably highly qualified, but I can only speak for my personal experience and I found them to be terrific to work with over the past year. So that would be our advocacy. Thank you, Mr. Wasella. Next, we'll hear from Marsha McNally, followed by Ellen Weinstein, Ms. Weinstein here, and then Lou Myers, Ms. McNally. I welcome you have two minutes. My name is Marsha McNally. I live at 203 North Church Street in downtown Durham and I'm here representing the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit. We were, I want you to know that we were approached by, met with and talked with both teams as a coalition, but we're not here to recommend or advocate for one team or another. Rather, we are here to basically advocate for a set of principles or criteria that we've developed through the process of participating in this two-year process that the city's undertaken and they are as follows. A good project in our mind would deliver at least 80 units of affordable housing on the site at 60% below or below AMI. 60% below or AMI, not a blend or an average. It is willing to accept, the developers are willing to accept if available DHA housing choices vouchers and project-based vouchers delivers the housing quickly. In other words, it's part of the initial phase of the project. It blends or scatters the affordable housing units across all buildings, residential buildings as opposed to only in one or some of the residential buildings. So that actually the project is indeed mixed income. It is developed by a group that has substantial experience in the development and operation of affordable housing and to sort of underscore that, it has a commitment to operating the affordable units long-term. The affordable units are deed restricted in perpetuity. It does not rely on a 9% light tech therefore does not compete with DHA projects in the pipeline. The developer has an equity stake in the affordable units and the development team designers commit to meaningful community participation process. Even though it's been a unusual process that we've participated in, we really are grateful to staff and we look forward to working with everyone in the city and city council, whoever is chosen in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McNally. Ms. Weinstein. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Thank you. And now we'll hear from Mr. Lou Myers. While Mr. Myers is making his way, I'll call the next couple of speakers, Rob Codwallader, Michael Page, and Dr. E. L. Allison. And we'll begin now though with Mr. Myers. Welcome and you have two minutes. Thank you, Mayor. I'm Lou Myers. I live at 208 Rigsby Avenue here in Durham. I've been in Durham for 38 years. I'm here to speak in support of the Acreage project, the Acreage team. And it's not that I don't think that both teams can do the project, but we talk about equity and inclusion and participation of minority owned firms. And certainly, Durham has been at the forefront of this. I was in state government when we started these minority business programs. And so we're certainly at the top of the class. But this is an opportunity to talk about equity. You know, this is a transformative opportunity. We're talking about 33% ownership going to a black owned company. And why is that important? Both teams are gonna meet the goals for whatever the participation is, 20, 25, 30% in terms of contracts. That's good. But at the end of the day, if we are going to talk about dealing with the disparity in equity and net worth, it's about ownership. So I think that this gives Durham an opportunity to put, you know, act where we talk. Again, I was at the event on Saturday evening and it was a moving event. I thought very well done, but you look at what the Dukes did to step up and make some capital available for the Marics and the Moors to own and as a result of that ownership, you had the North Carolina Mutual, you had the mechanics and farmers. So at the end of the day, the project will be there. I think it will be a great project, but it's about ownership and equity and this is a chance to do it. I've never seen a project of this size come particularly to downtown with black ownership. I happen to be the president and CEO of the North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development. We own one of the two buildings on Black Wall Street and I think Durham in the street langle, we tend to pimp that, talking about Black Wall Street, Black Wall Street, but there's nothing there but two buildings. This is an opportunity to rectify that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Mr. Codwallader, welcome and you have two minutes. I'm Rob Codwallader. I've been a resident of Durham for over 40 years and I'm here primarily for two specific reasons. A little over a year ago, I made a pledge to fail when that I would help him develop affordable housing in Durham. I didn't know squat about how to develop affordable housing although I've done a lot of other development. But I understand finance having been a banker in this community. He died the next day, literally, after I made that pledge. I'm very familiar with the Fallon Company, I'm familiar with the Wing Company and what they've done in various markets. And honestly, I feel it was a gift to learn that they were here. I've worked with a number of members of this team in development that I've done in this area initially with Trayburn years ago, Project in Washington DC. I absolutely believe that integrity is probably the most important quality in dealing with anybody. And in interacting with this team and the people with whom I've worked in the past, I know them to be honest, I know that they do what they say they're going to do, I trust them. And at the end of the day, I think trust is probably a more important quality than anything else. And as I'm sitting here looking at this team, I know that they're gonna deliver what they say they're gonna deliver. Not gonna say that it's not gonna be without bumps in the road, life is filled with bumps in the road, but I believe that this team will overcome those bumps and make this a very successful project for the city of Durham and make us all very proud. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Mr. Cudwalleter. Now we're here from Michael Page. Welcome, Reverend Page. Thank you, sir. Good evening. This is Mayor Schuall and two members of the City Council. I am Michael Page and I reside at 702 Basil Drive here in the city of Durham. And I'm pleased tonight to be able to stand on behalf of our Chancellor, Johnson Akkalei and the entire North Carolina Central University campus in support of this project and particularly the support of the Acreage Group who has been really working with NCCU for quite some time to help explore ways that would really be a continued collaboration between the students of the university and the development of the mutual district. Partnership and development with this development were concerns and should be concerns of common interests. Many of our students have a keen interest in the Black Wall Street of Durham, the success of black entrepreneurship to as exemplified by the North Carolina Mutual Story. An opportunity to participate in paid internships by Acreage which teach the current day achievements of the African American entrepreneurship can be very much changed lives of our students and their future careers. So we welcome the outreach from Acreage as well as NSV as we would like to continue our collaboration and involvement through the important internships that they provide by your support of Acreage and NSV in this proposal. NCCU students would have an opportunity to participate in Durham and in Central's community engagement efforts. We also want to acknowledge that Acreage and NSV have agreed to fund this initiative in the amount of $100,000 for the full and complete benefit of our students and their immersion into business, history and success. So again, I too was one of those persons who really appreciated the Durham 150 celebration on Saturday night and the way you provide rich history of the entire community. But again, this is a wonderful opportunity to preserve our community and really help continue to promote much work that's been done. Thank you very much. Thank you, Reverend Page. We have, now we'll hear from Dr. E. L. Allison. Dr. Allison, welcome. Me too. No problem. Take your time. Dr. Allison, we are glad you're here tonight. And I know most of these persons that look like me who've come up here. And if I had the time, I could in fact talk about each and every one of them. Ken Lewis, I see you back there. Good. I'm E. L. Allison representing the North Carolina Leadership Conference, Inc. I spent most of the time coming up here with an organization that I've spent my life in and it's messed up. And I'm not gonna deal with that. My mother worked for Dunbar Realty and educated three girls. My sister, my older sister was buried November, I mean May 5th on her birthday. My youngest sister that most of you know, Carol, she was the first one to die. I'm the last one of three kids. My father died when he was 35 years old. My mother was 32. I'm here because they gave me some information. I asked questions. I don't even have to ask them a question. It's right here, mixed use. Venus and Serena, they had to leave Oakland. They had to be around some folk that were a little bit better. You can't put all the poor people like the government did. You get what I'm saying? Mixed use is excellent. That green plaza, the first level, I'm fascinated by that. It can do so much. And they have said what they're gonna do. Seven of the people, most of them are local people here. And I have met every one of these big, powerful money people. I didn't ask them any questions they gave it to me. So I'm standing here for the Fallon Group. Everything that I wrote, the other folks, they say it's gonna be done because I don't be there telling them to do it. And when I asked somebody to do something, if they say they're gonna do it, then I expect you to come up and do it. And I think I trust these people. And you know, I was ready to come to tears. I am just, come what we've happened in Durham. I can cry. Everything we've lost. My husband spent 70 years as the president of a bank. North Carolina Mutual Gold Acceptability. You got to pay the park up there. I don't want to start on that. Support these people. They're gonna do what they said they're gonna do. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Allison. All right, we have two more speakers. Well, we have several more speakers, but the next two speakers are Mr. Garrett, Mr. Dennis Garrett, followed by Ms. Minnie Fort Brown. Mr. Garrett, welcome. You have two minutes. Hi, y'all, my name is Dennis Garrett and I reside here in Durham. And I ain't got all them acclimates behind my name. I'm from the streets. What I'm saying is there's a lot of criminal activity going on in Durham and it's because of poverty. How many y'all gonna hire us to come in? I got a training program for ex-offenders that's coming out of prison and they ain't got nowhere to go. They ain't got nowhere to leave. You're talking about affordable housing. Affordable for who? We got to make it so that our people can have somewhere to go so they can stop shooting up the community. So my mayor and going to BP and pump gas are not worried about a ride-by. What are we gonna do to subsidize this criminal activity? It stores with the poverty. All y'all for felon that's got some important names. You ain't been to my neighborhood. Like, so bring my neighborhood to where you live so that we can have a chance to live too. So like, I got some business calls. Which one of y'all want? Like, give them a job to build the houses so they can have somewhere to live. Thanks for letting us here. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. Ms. Fort Brown, welcome. Thank you. I am Minnie Fort Brown, a native of Durham. I live at 1612 Merrick Street. You've heard a lot about John Merrick. Well, my street is named after him. I attended the Durham 150 celebration and I was so very happy to see the inclusivity of my community and its history reflected on the screen and the impact that black folk have had on building Durham. You quoted W.E.B. Du Bois in his article that talked about the up-building of black Durham, the success of Negroes and the role, the value in the tolerant and helpful southern city, Durham. Where a black man could get up in the morning from a mattress made by a black man and a house which black men built out of lumber which black men cut in plain. He may put on a suit which he bought at a colored haberdashery and socks knit at a colored meal. He may cook vitals from a colored grocery in a store which a black man fashioned. He may on a stove with a black man fashion. He may earn his living working for colored men, be sick in a colored hospital, buried from a colored church and the Negro Insurance Society will pay his widow enough to keep his children in a colored school. This was progress that was then and this is now. That was when Haytow was growing. The railroad separated us. Pettigrew Street was the line and on one side was everything that W.E.B. Du Bois referred to, booming black businesses. We didn't have to cross the railroad track for anything but 147 came and destroyed it all. Black businesses, the promises that were made to rebuild our community were promises that were never kept. They put up 10 cities and I'm gonna keep talking which was erected but it was a disaster, it was a joke and it still is. Nearly 60 years later, the ability to continue to help right or wrong is present. I was in Raleigh seeing the gentrification, people being pushed out, black community gone, black businesses gone, the gentrification is happening in the same endurum. Residents from the south side, Waltown, North East Central Durham are all being pushed out but there's light at the end of the tunnel if we want it. 505 Chapel Hill Street is up. Now, they've already told you about New South Ventures. We see Carl Webb here. We talk about the Acreage Group. We talk about 33% minority ownership. What do they say they're gonna do? The promises they said. Establish a mutual district that will honor the history and legacy of black owned businesses in Durham and entrepreneurs. They say they're gonna have a development team with deep roots in Durham and a track record of successful development reported already in our community. You've seen Providence 1898, you've seen the Whitted School. Local and minority investors are going to control 30% of the Acreage Joint Ventures. They promise that their proposal will include 90 affordable units plus an additional eight live and work units at below market costs designed to attract artists, artisans and small businesses. I'm almost done. Scholarships and internships. You notice where I am, school board members, the proposal will provide $100,000 to NCCU. We need to up that price and student internships are gonna be offered. We also, they say they're gonna offer an annual $5,000 to students who graduate from Durham Public Schools. We're gonna up that too because students who go into post-secondary vote to fix what we broke tonight. Fix it. Thank you, Ms. Fort Brown. All right. I have two other people who signed up, Mr. McCoy and Mr. Rogers, but both of them have been listed as members of the Fallon team. And so I think that what I will do is this. I would like to hear from both of them. So I'm going to ask both of them to come forward and speak for two minutes. I'm also at this time going to say to the Acreage team, if you all have any, another four minutes will accrue to your team. If there's anything else that you all, any other people that you would like to have, Mr. Spaulding or any other comments that you all would like to make. So I'm gonna begin with Mr. Rogers. You're gonna have all the time you'd like. Mr. Rogers, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm a local developer on the Fallon team. Some of you may remember me. I was before the council in 2015 and the council was gracious enough to give me a grant to assist with the project at 406 South Drive Street. We did that project and we successfully completed the project. That is the reason why I'm on this team. So you are part of responsible for that. We did well in that project and during the course of the project, I got to know many developers, many contractors. And it was an intentional effort on my part to make sure that we used minority labor in that project. And you have the information that I submitted to you. More than 85% of the work done in that project was with minority labor. Now I completed it and I'm very proud of the project. It has generated quite a bit of activity in that community. Mr. Mayor, I think I've seen you at East Durham Bake Shop which is in the building. Invictus co-working space is in the building. A signature cuts, Barbershop is in the building. We have a deli that's gonna be opening soon. He leased the space about a year ago. It was taking his time opening the deli. We have mixed use apartments upstairs and the building has been fully occupied since I purchased it. Now I named the project Ashes Corner after my oldest daughter who is here with me. Her name is Ashley. I'm hoping that one day she'll stand here as a developer with her own project. As I mentioned earlier, I am on the Fallon team and the Wynn team because I developed Ashes Corner because I know Durham. When the Wynn company approached me earlier this year and after I had an opportunity to learn a little more about them, I was convinced that they were capable and willing to do exactly what they said they're gonna do. I think it's important for a developer or a contractor to be able to do what they say they're gonna do. You Mr. Fallon said that integrity was an important thing for him. And I think integrity is important for all of us. And but I determined after doing my research after talking to Mr. Fallon and talking to Mr. Wynn that these guys have integrity. And I believe that they are capable of doing the job. Now I also believe that they are motivated to complete the task and to do what they say they're gonna do. If they didn't do anything about Durham, they've learned something about Durham from this process. And I think what they've learned will motivate them to do exactly what they say they're gonna do and to include, to be inclusive in the Durham community. Now when they approached me, I asked them. I said, because I want it to be a part owner in order to participate. And they provided me that opportunity. They didn't have to do that. That indicated to me that they were willing to be inclusive. And I hope that the council will vote to allow them to do this project. I look forward to seeing 500 block of West Chapel Hill Street transformed. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. Mr. McCoy, welcome. You also have two minutes. Thank you. Good evening council. Mayor, my name is Henry McCoy. I live at 118 Victorian Oaks Drive here in Durham. So I appreciate this opportunity to talk about this particular proposal. I'm not gonna spend the time really talking about the qualifications. I think that we've heard kind of a tremendous amount of terms of qualifications on both sides. I think, you know, the wind company is the largest affordable housing developer in the country. I speak volumes in the work of the Fallon Group. I wanna talk about my involvement in this particular project. The connection with wind goes back beyond this project. So this was not something that they just approached me on this particular project. I've had a relationship with wind beyond this and they've always impressed me in terms of the inclusion of what they wanted to do. What I really wanna talk about is my involvement in this particular order proposed for this particular development. We've talked a lot about equity as a part of this particular project and I think it's important. I actually think it's actually a kind of a great night in Durham and we can stand here and kind of debate about this participation and in terms of increasing the minority, increasing the black participation in a project from both sides. But my goal in terms of working with wind and Fallon has been looking at, how do we actually broaden their equity? How do we broaden the ownership? How do we broaden the impact of a particular project? Particularly looking at the fact that we know that historically we've had been able to in the community sometimes aggregate ownership amongst a few groups. What I'm very interested in is how do we bring more and more people in Durham that can be part ownership of this particular property? Coming up with innovative and creative ways to increase equity. Coming up with creative ways that we can look at the retail component and have black ownership and black retail component. All those kind of things that I think are important to really spread in the wealth and not just thinking about it in a very narrow way. And so I'm here to fully support the Fallon Group, Fallon Wind Proposition. And I think it's something that would be very helpful to spread in the wealth and Durham. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McCoy. All right, Mr. Spaulding. Are you all, do you have any other? Hi. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Zena Howard. I am the Managing Director of Perkins and Will. We're the architects on the ACRES team. I'm proud to say that we moved our offices here to downtown Durham in the Mutual Tower building on the second floor more than two years ago because of this vision of a mutual district. I was fascinated, had not heard anyone talk about anything like this before. And I work in many, many cities across the United States. And this was an opportunity that I was so excited about. Our proposal, first of all, does not distinguish between, we don't have a poor door in our residential housing mix. We would never do that. We develop this type of work all over the country and is always with the eye on being equitable and fair. We're talking about building a neighborhood, a community with a wonderful green space, a pure green space that has no vehicular traffic, no cars going through. That can be a model, we believe, for this city in conjunction with the Mutual Tower site to create a district. Durham needs the Mutual District for Black people. I work all over the United States, preaching about providing spaces that Black people and the Black Wall Street restoring those lost visions can provide. Our team has worked more than two years on this proposal. And regardless of a ranking criteria, and I know this wasn't on anyone's criteria, but this should be, first and foremost, in the hearts and minds of everyone in this room, that it is important to understand that Black people need to own stuff, not just be participants, not just be consultants we need to own. And that is why I'm a member of this team. Thank you very much, Ms. Howard. Mr. Spaulding, you have two more minutes. Do you have a, okay, thank you. Okay, yep. Good evening, my name is Rob Bernard. I'm with the Stratford Capital Group, we're the affordable housing partner on the transaction. Stratford Capital Group is a national developer of affordable housing. We've developed and invested in over 25,000 units and over 225 projects nationwide. Just with a few more seconds, we'd like to clarify one kind of topic on the affordable housing within the project. I think a few comments tonight focused on the concentration of affordable housing within a single building. And that has never been a component of proposal. The affordable units have always been of equal quality to the market rate units and dispersed across the entire project. With that I'll pass it over to Ken. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, my name again is Ken Spaulding. All I want to say is we are paying more money, $2 million more. We have more affordable housing. We have African-American ownership in this project. Gentrification is here and it has been here and it is getting greater and greater. I have talked to a number of you all about that. When you go to forums, you're asked about that, especially by black residents. And I'm saying to you tonight, this gives you an opportunity, your moment in time, to be able to live up to the fact of de-gentrifying at least some part of downtown Durham. We need to have some ownership. We're not asking for a handout. We are willing to pay the $2 million more to be able to have an opportunity to be able to enjoy the fruits of the labor of us black taxpayers within this community, black and white together. That's what now we have with NSV and also what we have with Acwych. Together, finally, 21st, 22nd century, not ownership by itself, but ownership together, working hand in hand, just like you all told us over at one, what is it, 150 Durham or whatever it was I was at? And that was exactly what the message was for us. We're not hypocrites. Thank you, Mr. Spaulding. I'm gonna ask for another minute. Dr. Allison, you can have another minute. Dr. Allison, one. Thank you. One. Let me just stay as I stand here. Equity and equal I've talked about for years. You got to start with something before you can own anything. This situation talking about affordable housing, I could bring in 50 people right now and ask them to give me some money so they can buy the real name for affordable. Now, trust is what you got to have. And right now, I don't trust half of the people who are sitting in this room. They've been in charge. Now, these are new people. They have proven to me that trust, when they say they're gonna do something, they're gonna do something. All of this is projected. And I hope this city council will understand that right now, if I ask for people to come up and give me $20,000 so that we can in fact decide how many people are gonna buy the houses, you all got to be honest and look at what we're looking at. Right now, the school system, we can't even find enough folks to give them that. At this point, I hope you all will look at the whole room in terms of what we've got to do. Thank you, Dr. Allison. Definitely. Thank you. We've heard from the speakers tonight. Most appreciate everybody's comments. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate the presentations from both groups. We also appreciate all the comments from members of the public. Thank you very much. Now, I'm going to ask my council colleagues for any questions of staff or of the developer groups or any comments that they might have at this time. I have a couple. Council Member Freeman. So I just wanted to note, I heard that there was a North Carolina Century University where we were receiving $100,000. Is that only with this project or is that something that you've done previously or is that something that you're going to do? How does this factor into being a part of this project? Has to do with the passage of this project. This occurred before I was even brought on the team. Ackridge had been working and Carl had been working with North Carolina Central University in collaboration of trying to find a way. There is a linkage between North Carolina Century University and North Carolina Mutual. The founders of North Carolina, the founders of North Carolina Century University were encouraged and worked with through the founders of North Carolina Mutual. They had been the continued relationship for over the years. Ketchoff has been an expound on the genesis. Go ahead with your genesis. So that connection was something that we've always... Tony, could you introduce yourself? I'm sorry. My name is David Tony. I'm with Ackridge from Washington, D.C. That connection between this development and outreach to NCCU and many other organizations in the community is something that we've done in projects in Washington and something we wanted to do on this project, particularly given the magnitude and quite simply the need for something like that, that kind of community engagement really brings the entire city into a real estate development and the impact it can have. And it felt as if that connection with NCCU in addition to with public schools and other organizations is where that began from our original submission and was refined over time to where it is today. Do you have any other projects in the city? We are developing 555 Mangum Street along with Northwood Raven that delivers at the beginning of next year. We are in the process of acquiring another building on North Washington Street and we own the trust building on which was a building we bought from NSV a few years ago. Do any of those projects have $100,000 going in North Carolina Central? We have scholarship projects in Washington, D.C. This would be our first one in Durham. Thank you. And I just had a question regarding this ownership question. So I'm hearing a few folks say that there's black owned and I'm under, the way I understood NSV was a mix. So it wasn't quite a black owned company. If you could explain that would be helpful. NSV is a company that is owned by, the majority is owned by African-Americans. We have two of the owners that are in the room. If it helps to see that Dwayne Washington would be one of the ones that would do that. Michael Lamasky would be the other. And so between the three of us, Dwayne Washington and Carl Webb, the two black guys, we're the ones that control the company, which is the same case with the North Carolina Mutual Building as well. And I'm also curious how that compares to the Fallon team. And I'm also kind of interested in whether or not going forward, this will be the type of question that will be asked of all developers seeking to do business in Durham. I really encourage that. And I think that would be a good idea. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Webb. Other questions at this point, Council Member? I'll defer to some other council members if they have questions, if not, I have a few more. All right. Keep going. Sure, I have a question for staff. Council Member Austin. Question for staff. Thank you. I was wondering if you could just summarize the relationship between the phasing of the construction for the two projects and the payout of the city? Sure, so just so I understand your question, the phasing of the projects in terms of delivery of the buildings for each of the teams. Right, and any relationship to the cash that comes to the city for the property, for the sale. So let me explain the financing component first. In the latest round of proposals, the Acreage team is proposing submitting 5% of the total amount that they are offering at the execution of the development agreement. They are proposing the other 95% within 90 days of the execution of the development agreement. The Fallon team is proposing 95% of the funds at execution of the development agreement and 500,000 or the remaining 5% at the point of vertical construction of the commercial building. Right, and so can you I guess summarize kind of your rationale for kind of recommending kind of Fallon's schedule over the Acreage schedule given the differential in payout? Sure, and maybe I'll have Kyle Vangel come up and speak to the schedule and the performer together. Okay, thank you. Hi, I'm Kyle Vangel, the consultant for the city. So just in terms of that financial structure criterion, one of the key things that Stacey mentioned was the consideration of the pro forma in addition to the schedule. So in terms of the pro forma, I think the city would have liked to been able to evaluate a revised pro forma along with the revised proposal, given that there were some, what seemed like significant changes to the program. First, in terms of the preservation of the existing building and the new office building, there were things that would sort of suggest that it might be difficult to sustain the original asking or offer of 11.25 million in terms of the construction of the new building, you know, sort of preserving the building is a substantial change. And that wasn't, we didn't have information to sort of evaluate how that would be done by the team in terms of the costs and revenues associated with that since it was fundamentally new to the program. So it would have been nice to see that information in addition to the cost of now sort of the new structure of the Class A office building, which was now going to be sort of built to some extent over the police headquarters. On the revenue side, it's our expectation that the revenue generated by that sort of renovated building would be less per square foot than the Class A building. So fundamentally as part of this program, the Class A building shrunk to allow the renovated building to be kept. So again, it would have been helpful to understand with cost potentially increasing and revenues potentially decreasing with the size of the new building, how that price was able to be sustained. In addition to just, as Stacy mentioned, the front loading of the financial offer to a greater extent than was originally proposed by the Accraage team, again, that might be something that would make it harder to sustain the offer price given that fundamentally accelerated payment in the higher present value associated with it. So those were some of the concerns just with not being able to review the financial pro forma and understand how that affected the offer. In terms of the schedule, our understanding, because there was not a new schedule with this development proposal, I think there were questions about the ability to deliver the original program, having essentially four buildings per seat at once, in addition to a fifth building, the renovation of the office building. And it just would have been helpful, I think, to see a revised schedule in addition to more information about the pro forma. Thank you. I have a question about heights, that maybe for either of you, I'll go and ask it. There were some representations made by the Accraage Group about the height and the preservation of the site line to the North Carolina Mutual Building. I just wanted to reconcile maybe both proposals and have an understanding of whether or not that site line is gonna be preserved with either of both. Right, so I think what the staff memo was trying to explain was that if you look at the existing police headquarters building and the height of that building and the shape of that building, in the Fallon proposal, they proposed to put a larger office building on the rear of the site, leaving a space, a physical space that goes all the way up to the sky between the existing building and the new constructed building. And the proposal on the Accraage team, what you see is the existing headquarters building, they're planning on ripping off the rear of the building and the staircase on there, adding another commercial building that tops over the existing building and there will be an alleyway that you can walk through to see the Mutual Building. So by that construct, you will not be able to see from the interior of the site, the Mutual Building in the same way and feel that you would in the open space that exists in the Fallon proposal. Thank you. Kelce, we have a copy of it. No, not right now, thank you. Anybody else? Any council members? Okay, I have some questions. No, we'll get to you in a minute. We'll allow both teams to do a little bit of clarifying later, but we're not gonna keep sort of doing it one at a time. Yeah. I have a few questions. My first question is for the Fallon team and my question is around explicit work hour goals for women and minorities. You all have stated in the materials I've read, you've gotten a history of your work hour goals for women and minorities and your MWBE goals for women and minorities in previous projects, but I wasn't clear about what they were on this project and could you all give me a little education about that? Sure, Mr. Mayor. So to take a step back, when we talk about worker hours and minority and women-owned participation, we do wanna point to our track record and one of the things that we included in our proposal was the accomplishment for the last two decades as the largest MWBE Engager in the state of Massachusetts with over $7 million a year to minority on businesses. So when we talked about achievement, it isn't not about the percentages because those percentages I presume will come from the city in a negotiation. It is about the accomplishment of those percentages. So I will respond to that by saying, we will live by the negotiated amount and we will exceed it as that is our track record. There was not a prescribed amount. I will say that we will exceed all expectations. In the past, I wanna say we've achieved over 75% worker hours, we've achieved over 40% ownership of subcontracts. Again, those are site-specific and negotiated based on the demographic. We have no doubt that we will exceed whatever requirements that you profit. Thank you. My next question's for Mr. McCoy. Mr. McCoy, I'm glad to see you and you've heard the contention of the acreage team that the 33% minority ownership is a very, should be a significant factor in our considerations. And as I understand it, you've represented that you will be bringing minority ownership to the Fallon win group as well. Could you discuss that in more detail and I'll then ask the folks from Fallon to respond as well. But could you reflect on that a little bit more, please? Yeah, well, the goal in my mind as I've talked to the Fallon and win team over the months was to find ways by which this project was selected that it could mean something beyond again, just a few that have ownership. And so what we've been working on is a plan that would look at creating something to kin to a, like a community reinvestment first that would allow people to be able to buy into ownership of particularly the space that the retail space and the retail area. What this means is that, as the area by which the building is located as that area becomes more prosperous as you have people mixed income in the building that the area, the retail area as it's collecting rents and incomes will be able to be growing value and that people much broader than just a few owners would actually be able to benefit from that. And so in looking at several models that would encourage again, something akin to a community reinvestment first that would not be only excluded or exclusive to what we call accredited investors in the overall investment space. And so looking at up to 50% ownership of that space by people in the community with the idea that at some point in the future, there would be the incomes will continue to come in or there will be some exit event and the people in the community would have some benefit from that. And specifically looking at minority investors as the primary driver of that equity stake. Thank you. So could someone from the Fallon or the Wynn team also comment on what Mr. McCoy just said as well as your thoughts about minority equity stake in this development? Yes, and as Dr. McCoy just said, so up to half of the retail, we are gonna make available to local minority investors. And with Dr. McCoy's help, I really have no doubt that we're going to accomplish that. As it relates to the housing development, we mentioned earlier that from the very beginning we've partnered with James Rogers as an owner. I will say that that is a percentage that rivals the net percentage that the opposing group is talking about, especially when you consider, I think, Councillor Freeman's point of what does 33% really mean when half of the ownership is non-minority. So I will say that one of the things that we live by is when we make a promise, we will live by it and the best predictor of the future is what we've done in the past. So James Rogers will be a part of the ownership of the housing. Dr. McCoy will lead up to half of the ownership in the retail and we will meet or exceed all minority hiring goals. So when you say the retail, tell me a little bit more of what that is. So each of these buildings will have mixed uses. So there'll be housing and retail, in the case of our development, the side that wins heads up. So one of the things that's important is not just what the ownership of those retail spaces are, but also what the uses are. So as an example, to engage in ownership of that space is one thing and again, we will make sure that half of the ownership of those spaces is reserved for local minority owners. But in addition, what are the uses? Are they good for the community? Are they things that the community can enjoy and actually be welcome into the community? Because a lot of time, retail, especially large national branches, are not necessarily welcoming to those in the community. So it's not just about the ownership either, it's also about what the uses are. And Dr. McCoy will help us make sure that we are responsive to the needs of the community for those uses. I appreciate that. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I'm trying to figure out half of what asset. Half of the retail component. And the retail component consists of? Consists of how many square feet? Almost 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. Thank you. Is that it? Yeah, thank you. If I could follow up on that question. I have, yeah, sure, go ahead. Just to clarify, you're saying that 50% would be about, so 40,000 square feet is retail. No, 40,000 total retail, and you're saying 20 is gonna go to minority local? 20,000 square feet of total retail. And 10,000. And half will be available to minority investors. Thank you. Mr. Wynne, while you're up there, I have another question for you. I'll stay up here. Yeah. You've talked about two potential ways to, you've talked about, for the affordable housing component, you've talked about a mix of incomes versus simply having the 80 units at 60% or below, right? So one option is having the 80 units at 60% or below, right? Another option is a mix of 30%, 50%, 60%, 80%. The council has been clear that we're interested in 80 units at 60% or below. Are we prepared to make that commitment? We are prepared to make that commitment, yes. The Acreage Group has contended that the having the Fallon Group's project proceed in two phases is risky. Could you speak to that? Or perhaps Mr. Fallon would like to speak to that. Sure. The intent of the project is to bring a office building to the market quickly, which would be the police station. Once the police station has been established in the marketing center setup, we'll start marketing for the next phase. Building it all up once doesn't seem feasible to us because you really have to attract tenants to the site, get tenants excited about the site, and then lease aggressively. So for us, bringing in the police station quickly, getting it built, and then marketing for the office building would be the best way to proceed. Understood, yeah. Just to clarify, I think you talked about the residential and the police headquarters. Residential will start with the police station, right? Yeah, and so I appreciate that, but I'm not sure it speaks to my question, which is about, is it risky as the Acreage folks have contended to have a two-phase project? Is it risky? I think any development has risk. Is it riskier than developing a single phase? It's riskier to build it all, for my perspective, riskier to build it all and have it sit there as opposed to leasing it up, creating and establishing a site, and then moving into the next phase. Okay, I think those are all my questions for you all, and I do have some questions for staff as well. So the Acreage group is offering more money, and you, Ms. Postman being staff, has identified that as highly advantageous to them. And money isn't everything, but it calms my nerves. And I think that we all like to get paid more than less. So with that significant advantage, or I think it's a highly advantage, because this is an important aspect of this, it's highly advantageous, could you and staff tell us what it is, what other advantages are so important in the Fallon group that you are recommending them, despite the price differential? So I think I'd like to have Karen Lotto come first and speak to the affordable housing, and we'll work through the elements one by one. Thank you. Good evening, Karen Lotto, depositors. Excuse me one second. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I just wanna say to Mr. Banks and Mr. Spaulding, after we all finish, I'm gonna give each group three minutes to respond to whatever you'd like, okay? If there are anything that you all would like to respond to that has been said. Sir, you had some comments previously, so I just wanna let you know that's coming. We're gonna, once we work through all the council members' comments and so forth, I wanna make sure that each of the developer groups has the opportunity to respond. Okay, I'm sorry, Ms. Lotto. No problem. So Karen Lotto, Community Development Department. On the affordable housing component, City Council set as a goal, 80 units at 60% of area median income. Both of the proposals delivered on that goal. In terms of the ranking, staff differentiated for several factors. The first was the strength of the affordable housing developer, while both teams had strong affordable housing developers, the staff assessment was that when was the stronger, both not just in the development of affordable housing, but in the management of affordable and mixing communities with a particular focus on creating community within those buildings and creating opportunities for their residents within their buildings. And in this assessment, we were looking not just at that building, but also at the prospect of bringing wind into our market long-term. The second piece was that the financial model that wind was offering, was proposing is actually, while it relies on low-income housing tax credits, not the competitive version, but rather the version that is readily available, it is a model that has not been done in North Carolina. This kind of scattersight condolizing of a 4% low-income housing tax credit model, it is a model that, once we demonstrated, is potentially replicable in Durham, and would be a useful strategy for us to pursue for future affordable housing development in Durham. So we saw that also as an advantageous model to the city. We did note that Acreage did commit to providing 10 units at 80% of area median income, and that was kind of in the plus category in their category. It was not a strong weight because at this point, 80% of area median income is not a priority for the city, and according to the plan that Council has adopted for rental housing because outside of downtown, 80% is really where our market is right now for rental housing. So we did note it as a positive, but we felt that the other factors with the affordable housing outweighed. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Summer Alston, Office of Economic and Workforce Development. As it relates to the commercial component of the development program in particular, our office, the Durham Chamber, and Downtown Durham Incorporated have long advocated for the need for additional class A office space in and around our downtown. As we've discussed previously as we presented to you, this site is uniquely situated. There is not another site like this in the vicinity of Downtown. It affords us a perfect opportunity for a large-scale commercial development that can attract a headquarters tenant with visibility from the freeway. This has been a tenant throughout this process, and in this case, we are presented with two programs, one of which offers us as much as 135,000 square feet, more commercial office. There is always risk. There is always market to be considered, but that much of a difference in the delivery of office space is very meaningful in our market, and it is a needful thing. Thank you, Ms. Alston. Good evening. I'm Sarah Young with the Planning Department, and I want to talk a little bit about the design aspects that we looked at. One is, as was mentioned previously, in terms of preservation of Milton Small Building, the historic structure, while the Fallon proposal does do a small intervention at the ground plane, it does maintain the original transparency at the ground plane of the building that was a hallmark of that era of construction. I think more importantly is the fact that it preserves sight lines to the mutual tower, which is a designated local historic landmark, whereas the Milton Small Building is not, and so that is an important consideration that we looked into as well. It preserves more sight lines to the designated landmark. In other terms, while both projects contain a fair amount of open space, we believe that the open space more seamlessly flows on the Fallon project. It, the massing overall is lower at the street and is more respectful of adjacent development in the Fallon project, and most of the massing is kind of contained towards the back of the site in terms of height, again, being a little more respectful, particularly to the church across the street. And I think the last thing that was a consideration was that there was no exposed parking along the street frontage, that the parking was podium parking, wrapped parking so that the neighbors did not have to look directly at a parking garage. Thank you. Both Ferguson, Deputy City Manager for Operations. So just wanna summarize, Mayor, I think your question to Stacey was, what are the points that counterbalance the significant financial offer? And I think the summary comments I wanna offer is, what we feel like Council tasked us with in the beginning was to come up with a scheme by which to evaluate proposals, and we started a conversation with Council that gave us these five criteria. Ultimately, our job was to create an analysis system that looked at what the development teams provided us and tried to provide an objective analysis. In the end, there was no trump card. So we did not treat any one of the five factors as trumping all of the other four factors. So when we settled on this final recommendation to you, it was looking at which proposal we thought delivered the highest benefit in each of the five categories and how well did they work together? And so ultimately, the three points that were just presented to you, I would describe as impactful in our discussions, but it was a conversation amongst all the resources, both the staff who've spoken to you tonight and other staff who were as part of this team that ultimately relayed that recommendation. No one of the five criteria, but all five of the criteria, and that's where we settled on our recommendation. Thank you. All right, other questions by members of Council? Any other questions by members of the Council at this point? Yeah, I had a question for Mr. McCoy. Council member Caballero, Mr. McCoy. Dr. McCoy. Just corrected myself there. You're busy tonight. Yes. I wanted to have a little bit more conversation around the 10,000 square foot of retail. When you discuss minority owned, will there be also conversations around, I'm just thinking about like technical assistance to get folks into that building, because sometimes what we know from our marginalized communities is that they don't necessarily have the, they need the help around the business development. And so just trying to figure out how would that space work? And then are you broadening that view of what you're considering minority to include the Latinx community? Yeah, I think from this particular standpoint I'll answer your question. The idea is to find the right, well, so there's a couple of components to think about this in terms of space. So one is the equity component, right? So the actual capital goes in and kind of who owns that. Second piece is the uses of it. And so who goes into the particular space? And so we've had a intense conversation about finding the right businesses to go into space that also minority as well. So that you, in some ways you're, I don't want to call it double dipping, but you're having ownership, but you're also having the actual ability to be in the particular space. And to ask you a question, I think it's very important to think about how can we make the space as inclusive as possible. I don't want to kind of fell off, but I literally today in my class at NCCU we talked about the article that came out in New York Times in April 2018 about who belongs downtown. And it was, the article really focused around the idea that there's a feeling of exclusion for particularly on the black community and things that nature. My conversation today with students was about, well, what does it take to make a vibrant downtown where everybody feels welcome? And I think that the designs that have been laid out in the Fall and Winter proposal with the green space and thinking about the retail component, I think it's a critical opportunity to really actually create a space where you can bring all communities together in Durham. And in terms of the technical assistance component, I'm one of those who for a long time I've argued that we have very capable and strong minority businesses out there, right? A lot of times it's a matter of finding the right ones and offering the right opportunity, particularly as it relates to access to capital and opportunity. And so I feel like that when you have a prime space, as we've heard, I mean, there's tremendous opportunity there with the Class A space, with the mixed income inside of the space that we can find the right entrepreneurs to be in the space. And so you're benefiting again, not only from ownership and the rise in value, but also in being in that particular space and the incomes that come to that and that can have additional benefits out into the community from that standpoint. So I think that it can be a very inclusive space to be inclusive of black and brown folks here in Durham. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions? All right, I'm gonna now ask for each of the developer groups, if you all would like to make three minutes worth of comments and I'll begin with Akritch. Any summary comments that you all would like to make? Let me just say to both groups that the clock's gonna be running with three minutes and this time, since it's not Dr. Allison or Dr. Fort Brown, who I always give extra minutes to, I'm gonna hold you all to the three minutes. You can have a message. I said that I'm gonna give each of these groups just three minutes. Yeah, because I said I like to give you extra. I like to give you extra time, Dr. Allison, but I don't do it for everyone. Okay, let's go. Okay. You got all the time you want. Shealy, welcome. Glad to see you. Thank you. Good evening. Gloria Shealy, I'm president of the Danielle Company. We are a woman-owned African-American general contractor and construction manager based downtown Durham in the heart of all of this. The two things, and I wasn't going to speak, but I do want to say a couple of things that I think is important. I've been here before where both teams are equally capable of delivering the physical product that you're talking about, and I think that's the case here. I think that there is also a confidence level from both to be able to do that in the integrity of the process, but this is about more than that, and it is an opportunity to make a distinction around what equity and inclusion really means, and it means the entire community. We've done this on the contracting side. We do this all day, every day. That's what we do. We have the relationships in the community, the African-American community, the Hispanic community. We have a great person involved to help us with that. So I would offer to you that you look at what equity really means, and it is about ownership, and it's not about a partial ownership. It's about full engagement in the process, and I think Akritch has presented that in expanding beyond that 33% of us that can be involved as well. I look forward to being a part of that as well. Thank you. Thank you, Gloria. It's a perfect segue into the first point I want to make. I'm going to talk fast because I got a lot I want to cover. One is we've been absolutely transparent in both our minority equity participation at a third. We've added an additional 5% that would be available for equity participation to the local community. That 5% would substantially eclipse 10,000 square feet of retail. I also want to say that we've been totally transparent that we would have a minimum goal of 25% MWBE participation in the contracting level. We also talked about in my opening remarks about the fact that our program did not substantially change. Our office and residential waiting did not move materially. As a result, we looked and scrubbed through all of the economics of our proposal. We pressure tested it with contractors. Our performers and schedules remained consistent with what we had when we initially submitted, which is why we didn't submit anything additional because our basic framework that we submitted in June remained directionally accurate with what our financial proposal is today. The end of the day, this is about facts. We gave you a scorecard about facts and the five most important waiting elements that were in the proposal, which involved price, affordable housing units, and other key design elements that our partner who owns North Carolina Mutual endorses how our design addresses. We feel very confident that those elements all layer in to the priorities that the council established in the fact-based analysis relative to the waiting criteria. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll now ask for the Fallon team. You also have three minutes and no more than three minutes. So mayor and council, I didn't know we'd be doing it. He said, she said, what I do want to do is identify that we've been doing things that we just haven't talked through. Our contractor is Hope Brothers Construction with a significant track record here. Terrence right there, working with us in the construction side, our bank is Mechanic and Farmers Bank. It's a community bank, a minority bank. We're not just talking about it. We're doing it. And for us to sit down, we could easily start sitting down and listing all of the things that we've done. I didn't understand that was the purpose of tonight. We can do that. So for us, it's important that you understand that our proposal is a proposal we stood by from the very beginning. It's not something we talk about. It's things that we do. So I want you to understand that. I think Shuad, you want to have a couple of other comments? Gil? Thank you. And I want to add something that was a really important question, Mr. Mayor, that you asked about the financing and about risk. So with 95% of the purchase price being offered at the signing of the development agreement, that takes the risk off the table for the city. So I just want to state unequivocally, when 5% is given at development signing, what's that old saying about a bird in the hand? Okay, 95% of the purchase price of the competing proposal is on the come. Well, 95% of our proposal is at the beginning. Joe Fallon and I stick by this project. We are not changing our proposal to match anyone else's. This has been our proposal from the beginning. I think you can take solace in that that we'll deliver. Thank you. We thank you for your time. We thank you for your efforts. We thank you for your diligence and we're prepared for your vote. Thank you. All right, council members. We've heard from the groups. We've heard from members of the public. Any other questions for staff? Any other questions for staff? All right, matters now before the council. Council members. I move for approval. Move for approval. Of future disposition and redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. Alrighty, you've moved the staff recommendation that we approve the Fallon company. Is there a second? Second. So it moved in second that we approve the Fallon company and now I'll ask for any discussion by members of the council. Alrighty. Yeah, well, I'll do a little discussing. First of all, I want to appreciate both of the groups that are here tonight. There's absolutely no question in my mind that both of the groups that presented really good proposals are not just in my mind, but more important than in my mind, in the mind of staff. These two groups were the final two groups for a reason. And that reason, those reasons have been borne out by the proposals that we were able to review. I got a notebook this thick that I've been reading this week and have a much appreciated being able to read all the detail from everyone. I've appreciated and so I'll just say, I agree that either one of these groups could do a good job here. We are very fortunate. I believe it was Mr. Tony. I was talking about the current projects that Acreage has going in our city. And we're very grateful to have Acreage as a great corporate citizen of Durham. I really want to appreciate our staff. We have been very well served by your diligence and analysis. And one of my colleagues said today, I think it was Council Member Freeman. I believe it was Council Member Freeman saying that the analysis by staff was especially, that the fact that it was kind of interdepartmental and cross-departmental and that you engage so many people within the city to bring their various expertise in very appreciative of. I think that this is a tough decision. I am very persuaded by the analysis of staff in terms of the factors that we set out. We set out the five factors. The staff broke them into kind of non-subfactors. And I found the analysis extremely persuasive. No question that Acreage is offering more money. And staff had to, therefore, I think, in my mind make a strong case that the other factors outweigh this. And having reviewed that, having heard about it at the work session and having read it, I did feel that way. But that left me, I'll just speak for myself, thinking about yet another factor which we had not prescribed, but which is a factor in all of the work that we do, which is to thinking about the inclusivity of this. And I think Mr. Webb said earlier that it would be good if we made this explicit in our future development proposals, should we get any of those like this? And I agree with that. And yet, I think that we all know that it is implicit in everything we do. And we've heard from, let's just say on both sides of this issue of what these two developers will bring to our minority communities from just leading citizens of Durham on behalf of both developers. We've heard from Mr. Banks, Dr. McCoy, Mayor Bell, the whole brothers are included, Mr. Rogers, Inclusion and Mechanics and Farmers, Ms. Brown, Dr. Allison, we've heard from Mr. Spaulding, Mr. On the other hand, Mr. Webb, Ms. Shealy, Mr. Beasley, Mr. Myers, Michael Page on behalf of North Carolina Central University, Ms. Howard. And I'm very impressed with the fact that this has inspired, this process has inspired this kind of attention and concern about this issue of inclusion. I do think that I wish that Fallon had been, had named an exact percentage concerning what the minority equity stake will be. And I'm appreciative that Akrige did that. I think that is an advantage for Akrige. But I am also, from the record that I have seen and I have read the whole record, I am also convinced that you all are people who have been able to do what you've said in terms of inclusion. And I think that that speaks very well for you and gives me confidence. So I'm gonna be supporting the staff recommendation on that basis. I will just say, I think I should say just a couple other things about the staff recommendation. I do think that in terms of the affordable housing, I don't think there's, to me, both groups, again, I think cross the threshold. But I think that I agree very much with the staff's analysis of why the wind proposal is preferable in terms of the self-financing, the 4% scattered site condoizing, I think is a very unique and valuable contribution. And I also think that in my mind, the additional commercial space is a substantial, very substantial advantage. If I was to say one thing that I hear constantly in this community from, what is it that Durham doesn't have? What is it that we lack? One thing that I hear constantly and that I believe myself is that we lack major office space for a major corporate headquarters. This is a civic, this is a tremendous civic need. We are constantly, I think, challenged by the fact that we don't have that. There's no guarantee that we will get such a headquarters with the Fallon proposal, but I think that the chances are decent and we will certainly be counting on you all should you all be chosen through the negotiation process after the vote of the council, should we prove it, that you all would be making, bending every effort to make that happen. Yeah, so those are my comments and I'll ask any other member of the council to have a comment. Council Member Alston. Thank you, I appreciate your comments, Mr. Mayor. First, I wanna thank staff for your focus, your objectivity and your nimble responses to this process over the last several weeks. To both the teams, these are both incredibly impressive teams. You both took our direction to heart. You brought important considerations to our analysis and created two proposals that both of whom married are the development opportunity that we have before us now and our values through incredibly creative concepts that I hope will be modeled by other developments in the future here in the city. I do intend to support the staff's recommendation and vote for the Fallon proposal for many of the reasons outlined by the mayor, but in particular the percentage of the cash or the money that's gonna be paid up front at the disposition of the property, their work with an affordable housing developer with a proven track record, the provision of a significant amount of office space, but I think in particular provision of that office space at diverse price points or rental rates, whatever the case may be that I think will be very important here in Durham, the immediate activation of Chapel Hill Street with the redevelopment of the building and I think unique and appropriate reuse of that current site. So I think this is an exciting step forward for the city and for Durham. I wanna thank both the teams for their participation in the process and look forward to moving this forward this evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Any other comments about members of the council? Council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, when we face hard decisions on the council, it's generally between doing a thing and not doing a thing. We get people on the controversial ones that really want us to do a thing. We got people that really want us not to do that thing. And so we're often faced with these very binary choices. I can't remember a time when we've made a decision that was hard because both of the options were really great for the city of Durham. And I just wanna thank staff for teaming this up for us to make this really difficult decision. Maybe thanks isn't the right word, but thank you anyway. And I really wanna thank the All Star teams put together by the acreage and Fallon folks. Just not the kind of choice that we are often faced with. And so it's a blessing and a curse in many ways because whatever thing we do, whichever of these projects we choose will be a benefit to the city and the curses. We have to make the best choice we can. I didn't make my decision until a few minutes ago. That's how close these two proposals have been to me throughout the process. Spoken as many of us have a ton of people in the community about what they want out of this project. And just as an aside, I just wanted to having former mayor Bill Bell here tonight to talk to us about this reminded me that when we were in the throes of trying to decide what to do with the property directly adjacent to Durham station, Mayor Bell was a strong advocate for mixed income housing. And the project that's now the world's three departments went a different direction. But ironically, we are here again with another much larger piece of city owned property. And both of the very good proposals before us are mixed income proposals. So I just wanted to say as an aside or Mayor Bell, glad to see that whichever way we go, your vision of a truly mixed income community near the heart of downtown will be realized by what we do tonight. And I thank you for your leadership on that over the years. It's almost unfair that the Fallon Group brought not only former Mayor Bill Bell, but Dr. Livonia Allison to the podium tonight to advocate for what I think is by fractions the superior proposal tonight. The weakest portion of the Fallon proposal in my mind is the unstated minority ownership percentage. And that's something that's been discussed by contrast, I think the two strongest factors of the Fallon proposal are, as my colleagues have said, the fact that the financial investment, the return that the city receives is almost entirely upfront. But number two, I think the ability to bring a nationally recognized affordable housing developer into our community to partner with them and to show them what good partners the city of Durham can be to begin what I hope will be a long and fruitful relationship. With respect to the accurate proposal, let me just say that there's very little bad about it. There's many fantastic aspects to it. I'm particularly appreciative of Acrig's commitment, around minority ownership, which we've heard a number of speakers tonight say how important that is. And I also want to thank the folks in the community who've come out and supported the Acrig proposal. But I think by fractions, by the nearest margin, I do believe that the Fallon proposal is the superior proposal of the two. Like either way we decide to go tonight, the city of Durham will be better for what we do. That's all I had to say about that, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Your other comments? Mayor Progetto. Thank you. I just wanted to also express my thanks to both the teams and to our staff. This has been a long process to get us to this decision. And I really appreciate everyone being so engaged and the work of our staff to get us to where we are. I'm also gonna be supporting the staff recommendation. I think that the proposals are both really good. And of course, we very rarely have a situation where we have to decide between two really great options. And I'm also very grateful for that, for having two really good options for the city of Durham. I think that the information that's been provided to us by staff about the advantages to the Fallon proposal are persuasive to me. And so I'll be supporting that proposal tonight. But I do, I think as everyone is going to say, think that the average proposal is also really good. And so this is a really hard choice. And I just wanna appreciate the fact that we are where we are in Durham, where we have this caliber of company of developer coming to us to do this kind of project here in our city. I think it's just really great that we have so many qualified folks vying for the opportunity to invest here in our city. And I'm also really grateful for that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Caballero. Thank you. Thank you for everyone who came out. Thank you to our staff who's prepared excellent documents, has walked us through a lot of very technical information that at times was hard to wrap our heads around. Both development groups here have been originally, I'll just be honest, without the saving of the building, it was a pretty clear cut decision for me just because of the community input that we were hearing around preserving the building. Then the Ackridge folks updated their proposals. So then it was this very hard balancing act around what do we want to see in Durham. I will be supporting the Fallon Group tonight as well. Partly, and I'll say we often lean on our staff and one of the things that I know I've said continuously is we often operate in silos. This group does this, we don't interconnect our projects, we don't have a holistic view. And this project was an exemplar model of the kind of work that I expect from staff and you all just really knocked it out of the park. So thank you because that is the expertise that helps me make a better decision. For all groups that are here before us, we will be watching. I know I will be watching to see that you deliver, especially in the Fallon Group here, and Ackridge because we know you have other projects in Durham that you are helping our most marginalized communities build wealth because that is the only way we're gonna battle this problem around gentrification in this community. I'm gonna say all communities, I mean all communities, black, brown, and white. And I know that this community space in the Fallon Project gives us an opportunity to create something really beautiful in Durham and I expect you all to really think that through and provide a space where everyone feels welcome. Thank you. Any other comments? I guess since everyone else is... I can't help but be honest. I was blown away by Fallon's proposal immediately. I have to say that I was underwhelmed by what Ackridge proposed in the beginning. It's really, you definitely stepped it up and I appreciate that. I wanna say that I really wanna thank the entire Ackridge Group for proposing, putting their best foot effort in pushing us to realize just what we have here in Durham. We have a very good talent pool of folks here who can develop just what we need for ourselves and so that for us by us could actually be realized in future projects. I definitely have, I think prior to tonight I probably would have just gone with Fallon and tonight I'm really pushing like going back and forth in my mind on whether or not it should be Ackridge knowing that you guys are local and recognizing that it is important to make sure that when there are organizations that come across and the way in which it did tonight which was to use your integrity and trust and kind of conversation, it really rubs me the wrong way and I'm still on edge on that one but I do know that the conversation around equity is where I wanna see us move as a whole as a city and just not black, brown and white but also Asian and indigenous. Everyone in this city should be able to have access to shared prosperity and it's important that we make sure that black wealth is built because at the base of the issue with our gun violence is black men and if we don't recognize that black men need to be held up in this because of the disparities that they have faced in the past, we will lose. That being said, I really, really wanna thank James Rogers and Carl Webb for being driving forces in these conversations because it's important to note that these two black men are standing here today bringing both of these groups together to bring this project to Durham and I am very proud, I'm very honored to have a decision-making ability in this. I unfortunately do not feel good about how this vote is gonna go tonight but I do wanna say that it's probably in relation to how I feel about how we should support our staff that my vote tonight will be in support of our staff's recommendation and recognizing that when staff makes the proper, like takes the time to build out the proper protocol and follows the process and uses all the tools that they have at their hand, it's important to make sure that I as a council member support them and so I just wanna let you know that I will be supporting the filing group tonight. Any more comments? We have a motion and a second that we support the staff recommendation. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. I wanna thank both groups for being here tonight. Very much appreciate it and I believe that is the last item to come before us tonight and I'm gonna declare this meeting adjourned at 10 o'clock. Thank you.