 And you can see, we're basically standing on it, the restored streets that were lost in the 1960s and urban renewal are cleared and they are starting to take shape. VHU will be open in 2026 and because of this inspiring project, we have been able to go out and secure tens of millions of dollars of federal funds to rebuild and upgrade both Bank Street and Cherry Street in the years that follow. You know, last time we had an event here was in November of 2015 and we gathered, you know, kind of like this to note the groundbreaking for the project. And at that time, what do I say, 2022, oh my gosh, let me start that again. Last time we gathered here was in November of 2022 when the city place partners were breaking ground. And, you know, I made a point at that time, which, you know, looking back on the long history of this project, I realized, you know, I always knew, but if I had to do all these events over again, one of the few things I would change is to emphasize further for the uncertainty and the complexity of development projects and the possibility for delays and that we had planned for them, but they were possible. And I said, you know, 15 months ago, when we got to that long-awaited step of the groundbreaking that further setbacks and delays were still possible. With all of the risk and complexity of this project, however, we have made enormous progress on the ground in those 15 months, as you can see. In that time, Vermont and the country have been battling inflation and interest rates rising to the highest levels we've seen in decades. But through all that, we have been fortunate. City Place Partners, Dave, Scott, Al, they have forged ahead with rare courage, determination and commitment to this community. Burlington is very fortunate that these three men and their teams have made investing big in Burlington's downtown a big part of their life's work. So with that, Dave, I'll hand it over to you. Thank you. Just, I think we're going to start right off by saying the City Place Partners of Dave, Al and Scott want to welcome the jury group. We've got a couple of representatives here, Ash and Encore. So that's part of the announcement that, you know, when we started out, we bought this project in the spring of 2022. We bought out another partner and we knew we were going to be looking to bring somebody in to help us. This is a huge, huge job. It's like Merrill pointed out, you know, the full scope of this thing is in excess of $200 million. It just, it takes a lot of time and money and effort and energy. And although we're all up for the challenge, we knew we were going to need some help. Believe me, we looked, we had a lot of people come and go and come and go and we just couldn't find the right partner. And then towards the end of last year, we got lucky to meet the jury group and started working out a deal and completed that towards the end of the year. And so we brought in some strong partners. We really feel that we're all like-minded. We all have the same energy and passion for this. And so we're real happy with it. And how we got here was, you know, as Merrill had mentioned, the high construction costs, interest rates, the kind of shaky lending environment that's going on right now. We couldn't really figure out this project, this piece of it, without some help. And we had to kind of shake up our thought process and we started thinking about how we're going to make this work on paper. So the banks will step up and participate. So we went back to the original concept. It's kind of ironic. This was originally designed as a hotel and then it left. And then we started thinking about bringing it back. And here we are. We've, we went through the process to get the state approvals, city approvals. And we've got the partners now that have great experience in operations and development of hotel properties. So we're feeling ultra confident. We've always been confident about the project. We're going to get this done. And now we're feeling better. We've got some support and help from our new partners. And we're pretty much on good schedule on this. Somebody asked, I think Brian Pine asked, he says, how are you doing for schedule? I said, I think we're at least three hours ahead of schedule right now. So we're going to keep that up. We're going to get this building finished up first quarter of 2025. And then, like Merode said, we get the foundation in the ground for the North building. And that's about two thirds done. And you'll be seeing steel like we did here in maybe July or August of this summer. And you'll start seeing that building going up. And that'll be completed probably the summer of 2026 along with the roads. And part of this development agreement, one of the items on that was an extension of some previously agreed to dates. We were supposed to have everything done end of 2025. And we're asking to just kick it out about six more months so we can take advantage of building as much as we can over the winter and then tidying up the roads, the streetscape and all that in the spring and early summer of 2026. So that's where we're headed. Well, you want to say something? It's been a very, very interesting experience for me for sure. And I couldn't ask for a better original partnership with Scott and Dave and the Jerry Group. Since they've come on, I mean, like Dave said earlier, they're very much like-minded. They build the same way as we do. They just work the same way as we do. So it's a great partnership. And I don't think anyone has to be afraid of this partnership being successful. And at that, we'll leave it to anyone else that wants to speak. I think I would say thank you, everyone. Thank you, CPP partners. Thank you, the community. And also thank you, Mayor's Office for all the support. I think, like everyone is touching upon this like-minded approach. I think like-minded people coming together. I'll just give you a brief introduction that when we first looked at this deal, end of January, last year, it was dark night. All those factors, economic factors was against us. And only three lines which comes out of my mind like come off my memory. Three lines came out of this wonderful gentleman right here. One was failure is not an option. Second is we got to get this done. Third thing is everybody's counting on us. That pride, that courage took us through this. And I think we are just very excited to be part of this project. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for coming. And just a brief word, I just want to say it's been a great experience working with my partners, Dave and Al. And of course, Patrick, might as well call him a partner. He's been pretty key to this whole operation here. And I just want to thank the mayor and Karen and the city for working through this with us. And we're going to bring a great project to the city and hopefully many projects to follow here. So thank you very much. Thank you for that, Scott. I want to say thank you to the whole city team that's worked on this. Only a few of whom are here today. Certainly Brian Pine and the CEDO team have been a large part of this for many years. He's also worked with many skilled local partners including David White and Tim Sampson, who are the current embodiment of the team. Not the first team that we've had working on this project since it began almost a decade ago. I also want to, I met Ash for the first time longer than a year ago. It was, I think, approximately two years ago when he actually showed up at one of my Wednesday morning open coffees at the Bagel Cafe out in the New North End. And he was there to introduce himself at the time because he and his partners were very interested in Burlington and they had already taken a step to get psych control of the old YMCA at the time. And I think it's an important part of the history for people to understand how long the Jiri group has been interested in Burlington, has understood that this is a place where they want to make investments and that the way things have sorted out here, there are going to be now two hotels at this site. The planned hotel, which was initially permanent and planned at the old YMCA site, however, with them leaving that site is now permanent and on its way to becoming homes for almost 110 households. What's that? Student housing. So with that, let's see, just a couple more things I want to mention about kind of how this works from here, the mechanics of how this works from here. So the partners have finalized this plan over, which really wasn't the case when we gathered 15 months ago, as Dave just described, they were figuring it out. They've now figured it out. They've committed to the current plan for the whole site. They've gone back through the permitting process and have secured those permits. We now at the mayor, city council level, we have a development agreement that has changed a couple of times over the years. The most recent amendment to it was also right around, maybe in October or November of 2022. And what we said to the council and the public at the time was that it was very likely that that development agreement was going to need to change. We were doing our best, we all did our best at the time to project where the project was going, but it was clear that they were still figuring elements of this out. And on a big complex project like this, there was likely to be changes. We have now made those amendments to the development agreement. We've discussed those changes in executive sessions with the city council a couple of times over recent months. We have available for the media now. We'll be posting to the city's website today the updated agreement and a memo that summarizes the changes between this agreement and the earlier version. And I'm grateful city council president Karen Paul is here and it is my hope that the council will take quick action on this and approve it to resolve one of the last remaining uncertainties about the project and further do the city's part to ensure that this project will move forward at full steam from here. The city is doing two other things at the city council meeting on Monday that are related and I think worth noting. One is we are awarding two public art contracts for the public spaces around the project. This was a combination of an effort that started many years ago when the project first began construction in 2018. It had to pause back then after we had started the artist selection process when the project paused. It now has been restarted and we partially opened up for new submissions as well. And so you will see in the materials being posted today both one artist from the initial competition a couple of years ago as well as a new artist that will be awarded funding on Monday. The city the board of finance reviewed this last week and it was unanimously endorsed. And another exciting thing that we will be doing on Monday that is related to this is that we will we are asking the city council to accept the $22 million raise grant from the federal government that we announced that we had been awarded this some time ago but we have now worked through all the details in our position to formally accept the grant award. This is a very rare federal award that comes with no local match requirements and will mean again that we are very well positioned to do what we said we would do when we went to voters in 2016 of rebuilding the public infrastructure not just around this block but on much of Cherry Street and Bank Street as well. We may with the additional federal money actually be able to do even more than what was initially laid out in as the maximum vision of eight blocks or we're now hoping we might be able to get done as much as 10 blocks depending on exactly how what happens in the years to come. With that I if you guys don't want to add anything more I think we will take some questions. Housing you can correct me if I'm wrong on that but this new proposal scales back the housing you know by maybe like 100 units adds a hotel given Vermont's housing crisis. I mean is another hotel really appropriate and why not look for ways to invest in making all that housing available instead of reducing housing. I'll let you get into the so you know the the project has shifted a number of times over the years as we've been working towards today. So the there was a prior version of the development agreement not the one that was approved in November of 2022 that projected about 270 homes. The November 22 agreement I forget this I hope I get it exactly right it projected a range of about 424 22 it did say that more was possible but it would put it in a range. So you know what we are coming forward with now is more than the original vision it is modestly less than the total number of homes that was hoped for in November of 2022. It the square footage if you compare the two between hotels and in long term permanent housing it's it's almost two to one permanent housing to the hotel square footage. And what I think is a big difference between what we are coming forward with now and where we were in the fall of 22 is just how far much farther along and much more closer to reality this is. And so I'm to me this is still one of the largest literally second only to Cambrian rise in the total number of homes that will that has ever been built in one project. It and I see it as very positive that it also in addition to being the second largest housing project in the city's history that it has two hotels is good very good for the city in a number of ways. It means more money that flows to the city in terms of property taxes in terms of gross receipts into local businesses. Reason we have such a great city with so many great places to eat art to see other amenities is because it is a place to visitors enjoy and invest in as well. And so I fully support you guys know knowing I don't think anyone's been louder about the need for for housing in the state of Vermont and then I have been over the last 12 years. This in its total package is a huge win for housing and I hope my colleagues in the council fully see it that way. Yeah, I agree. And it's a simple step closer to the mic. Yeah, I mean, it's economics of the project week. We wouldn't be able to have built the original project under the conditions that we now had, you know, way different from 2020 when we were looking at it. The whole world changed and between the construction costs and interest rates. This is an economic move that we had to do if we wanted this project to keep going on. And it's like more would said, I think we're we were permitted for up to 422 housing units. And now we're saying it'll be no less than 350 housing units. So that's at 70 units. But if we didn't bring in this hotel component, there'd be zero units. So that's how we're that's how we look at it. And that's just this way it's got to be. In terms of the affordable housing, is Champlain Housing Trust still developing the building? No, no, we're going to be doing that ourselves. What happened with that? Again, economics, mostly construction costs, interest rates and what that deal. Would have resulted in is us selling forever a piece of land basically that we would have no future economic income from. And that was detracting from the package, the whole financial package of it. So we felt it was better to even though we're going to meet all the IZ requirements and all the rental rates. And I'm not I'm not the expert on that. Patrick is right here. Yeah, no that Patrick, we decided we'd we'd rather retain ownership. So we'd have the long term income and that would just help chip away at the at the rock that we got here. And and just in selling it at what we felt was a, you know, pretty discounted price for that land value. We decided we're just going to do it ourselves. We build it at our costs. You know, in the end it that departure with the CHC relationship helped us get to where we had to be on the on the project. We'll still be delivering the 20% IZ units at the affordable rates that are required. Liam will just at the we we put out a press release on this about it was in early December. And to paint the full picture that what what overall what this means for affordable housing is is again is is is more it's it's a win for affordable housing. So the the 70 units that will be built here on site, they have no public funding commitments to them. Perhaps these guys will apply for some small amounts of state or federal programs that are out there, but they're going forward with this with no public financing commitments. The the Champlain Housing Trust has pivoted to adding an additional project at Cambrian Rise and is attempting to take the public subsidies that had been committed to this project is pursuing a new project over there. The net sum of that hopefully will mean I think there's good chance of it will mean is that overall I think it's a net increase about 180 permanently affordable units. And the part of the Cambrian Rise project involves permanently affordable ownership ownership units. The I think it's worth noting that this almost never happens that the inclusionary zoning units get built without public subsidy. It's been a major problem with the housing market in Burlington for a long time. And these guys are going forward and I found a way to build one of the very largest inclusionary zoning projects in the city's history and to do it with without public money. Another benefit. Thank you, Karen. A really good point is where the CHT project envisioned a one building on the west side of the project that would have all the inclusionary zoning units in it. The new plan correct me if I don't say this quite right Patrick, but it is the north building will have all 70 of the of the of the units assuming that project stays on schedule. If somehow that were to fall behind, you will see in the agreement, you know, in in a very unexpected scenario where that project does not get does not get built for some time. This this building would have to meet the inclusionary zoning requirements and that's written into this updated development agreement. So there'll be 70 70 permanently previously it was estimated about 84 I believe so yeah 14 less but very good chance of that active work going on a new affordable units with that financing up the road. The plan is for this is the south building. They're going to be occupying. Oh, sorry, they'll be occupying their their jump Lobby as it's known is going to be up on level one, which is first level above grade. And then they'll be on five floors above that for the hotel rooms and then the balance of the building will be regular apartments. And then in the north building, the program has them in the northwest corner coming down Pine Street. And then the balance of this building along Cherry and down the New St. Paul Street will be the residential component with with retail throughout the whole ground floor. Nothing's changed on the retail program. All right, looks like looks like we've exhausted you guys so thank you all for being here. And again, I do recommend I know Catherine's done it if I did it once. You know, if you can find a way to get up to the higher floors, it's a unique view of the city. I encourage you work with these guys and and check it out. So thank you all for being here today. We'll talk to you soon. My name is Karen Long and I've lived in Burlington for 46 years. I was very active when the city wanted to tear down the mall and change the height limit to 14 stories. I thought that was too much. We now have a 10 story building and I'm very, very disappointed to hear we're going to have two hotels. We need housing. They're pushing housing all over the city. And I feel like this is a bait and switch and a secret. I just found out this morning that there was a press release. Thank you. Well, it's disappointing in some ways that the housing component has been reduced to be replaced by hotels. But I have to, you know, I guess deferred to the people involved that if that's what the financing requires, maybe that's what needs to be done. And say Farrington said if it weren't for that component, then the housing wouldn't be able to have any either. So I appreciate that. But I do find that the neighborhood code amendment that is being considered and fast-tracked in City Hall is a housing effort that will in many ways, I think, diminish neighborhoods in the name of affordable housing without any affordable component at all. I think that needs to be looked at again because it's not an amendment that will really help the city in its housing crisis or in any other way. The housing in a project like this or another larger projects downtown that don't contribute to the environmental damage of increased lot coverage and increased runoff in sewage overflows, those kind of projects include 15 or 20 percent affordable units. The neighborhood code does not do anything for affordable units. And in fact, it enables predatory kinds of rental units such as we have in some of the student-dominated areas. All right. So I want to thank you. Thanks to all the people who are working behind this on this hour day in, day out. I want to thank Dave, Scott, Al, Patrick to build, got this building to this level without even a bank loan. Until now. So I want to thank them for their courage and pride for the Bullington. And I want to thank all the community for their support. Thank you all. Oh, my name is Ash Sangani. I'm part of Geary Hotels. Yes. I'm Karen Paul. City Councilor Ward 6 and I currently serve as City Council President. And today was an exciting day. Another step forward in the City Place development and this will be coming to the City Council next week. And we've been talking about this for quite a while, the amended and revised development agreement. We call it ARTA 2.0 that we'll talk about all of the things that we heard today. So the development is moving along and I can't remember now who it was, but somebody said that we're moving on schedule. We're only three hours, I think we're three hours ahead and this is an exciting project. I think the one thing that I just would like to say is that this project has undergone a lot of iterations and I am excited and have been excited about the three City Place partners, like many of the other developments that are going on in the city. The bottom line is that when you want projects to get done and you want them to get done right, you look to the local people who are invested in a love of Burlington to make these a reality. And I am grateful to Al, to Scott and to Dave and to the new partners from the jury group to make this a reality.