 Welcome to Longmont Town Hall 2023. I'd like to welcome you all to Longmont Public Media, and I thank them enormously for helping us put on this event. First, though, I think it's important that you get to meet our panelists. So why don't we start off with you, Sarah, and give us a brief introduction of whom you are and what you've done. And then we'll just go down the table. Don't forget your mic. Thank you, Nigel. Thanks for everybody coming out, and thanks to everybody tuning in, spending your Thursday nights watching a live stream. Sarah Levison, I've lived in Longmont since 1997. I consider downtown an extension of my own front yard, because I just live a few blocks from here. One of the reasons we chose to live in Longmont was the vibrant downtown. I thought it was vibrant enough in 97, but things have gotten better, and we continuously improve. And I served on City Council from 2007 to 2015. Prior to being on Council, though, I was on a citizen representative on the City's Economic Development Task Force, which really made me think a bit differently of how business and government interact. Thank you. Kimberly. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Kimberly McKee. I am the Executive Director of the Longmont Downtown Development Authority. I moved here in about 2011 with my family to take this job. I was very fortunate to move downtown as well, and I get to really experience the live work and play of downtown every single day. Prior to that, I ran a downtown program in Akron, Ohio. Excellent. Excellent. Sean. Thank you all for coming out tonight. I'm Sean McCoy. I'm a high school U.S. government teacher at Monarch High School in Lewisville. I have served prior to this term on City Council where I'm filling vacated seat of Mayor Peck. I served in 2007 to 2011 as the Ward 3 City Council member. And so I've served on different boards and commissions prior to that for 18 years. And, you know, I come from a legacy of community members. My father, Tom, served for 22 and a half years on Longmont City Council. So I love Longmont. I've lived her all my life. And just want to, you know, be here to support Longmont schools. Perfect. Chris. All right. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you Longmont Public Media for putting this event together. I'm Chris McGilvray. I'm the current chair of the Board of Directors of the Longmont Downtown Development Authority. I'm a small business owner. I own Longmont Lickers on the corner of 2nd and Main. And this April will be my 12th year in business. And I'm also I just got promoted through Front Range Community College to serve as the Dean of Manufacturing, Optics, Automotive and Welding. And so I'm really excited. I'm super passionate about education as well. And I'm excited to participate this evening. Excellent, excellent. Marcia, and give us a little talk about urbanization. Thank you, Nigel. I would love to do that. I'm Marcia Martin. I'm in my fifth year as the Ward 2 representative on the City Council. And I'm not going to tell you anything else about me. Because I'd rather talk about urbanization. Just like people have said, you know, Longmont is growing up. We can't stop that, but just like you do with your children, we want it to be, we want Longmont to grow up in the best possible way. And a couple people use the it's your backyard metaphor. And as we become a more urban place, we're going to be more and more using the city as our backyard. We aren't going to live in cocoons in great big houses. We're going to live in the city. Places in the city, our homes in the city won't be the center of our lives as much as the city will be the center of our lives. And that means we have to be able to get around. So we've got kind of a triangle of affordable and attainable housing, public transit, and the things that make life here worth living. And today the common thread of the two topics that we're having now are going to be what makes, there are things that make life worth living here. Things that give us a vibrant downtown, and things to give us really wonderful things to do in the vibrant downtown. And I want everybody to remember that common thread, that triangle, as we go forward and get down into the details of first the hotel Longmont, and second the planned center for arts and entertainment. So thank you. Thank you very much, Marsha. So what we're going to do here is we're going to take questions from you, the audience. Okay. So if you have a question, please just stand up because we have someone ready to hand you a microphone, which will definitely help. Let's see what happens. It's going to be interesting. Are there any questions? And there is a deathly silence. So we have a couple of written down questions, so let me get to those while people feel comfortable. Okay. First question I think is really, really important. Who are the people who are doing the hotel? Who would like to take that one on? Is the question who is developing the hotel? Yes. Okay. So the hotel is being developed by a group called the thrash group. They are a company that has developments all throughout the country. They are based in Mississippi. But they do have one of their partners and their son was they are so interested in Colorado. He moved his entire family here. He's lived here for some time and he lives in Boulder County. So there is Boulder County although they're based in Mississippi. They do a line of boutique hotels, which this one will be. They also do a line of hotels called the Origins. They've recently built one up in Red Rocks, Red Rocks Origins and one in Westminster. They also do multi-family housing and other residential housing. But the other communities that they've done projects in, we've talked to a few of them. They have been extraordinarily happy. Those properties are quality built and working extraordinarily well. They did say when they came into Colorado they were shocked that no one else had built a Red Rocks hotel. And so that is becoming a favorite of those that are coming to enjoy that amenity here in our state. Perfect. Anybody else lunches? Jump in? Yeah, I'll just add to what Kimberly said. The thrash group when they were kind of vetting which communities would make sense for a boutique hotel. I mean they looked at over 25 different downtowns across the nation and Longmont rose to the very, very top. Of course. And it was because we had such a strong foundation in regards to Envision Longmont, the master plan of our downtown. And that's what they referenced and so they had done their research and that's what Kimberly and the Board of Boards really impressed with when we met with them. How much of that due diligence that they had done in advance to visiting our community? Excellent. Sarah, did you have something to say? Yeah, I did a little bit of research just reading on the internet and found that they did a project in Tupelo, Mississippi which is a significantly smaller city than Longmont even though it's the home of Elvis Presley. Maybe people think it should be bigger. And they did also I found interesting that and I look forward to see what their final design is going to be is they did a hotel reservation that was Historic Hotel and they done a project in Lexington also and one thing I did note though is a couple of the origin hotels now are part of the Wyndham chain. So my concern would be whether or not Wyndham would then acquire this and I think that the angle that pleased the city council was that it was a family development group and that we felt that we were going to get special attention and care and it would be a big change from kind of corporate America hotels. So that would be the one thing I didn't realize that until I really started reading into all the origin hotels. If I could just comment on that quickly. They needed a brand that had a national flag which is why they did origins. They have made crystal clear that they do not want this to be that which is why it's not an origins and they said we love our boutique hotel projects. That's where we live. That's what excites us. The origins are great and we're proud of those but our passion is our boutique hotels and they really spent time walking around talking about making sure Hotel Longmont is a reflection of Longmont and that it absolutely is talking about looking at local art and looking at that and really capturing what Longmont is. They were very passionate about that. I understand what you're saying but I think they were very dedicated to keeping this unique. Thank you Nigel and exactly what Kimberly said it was made very clear when they came and spoke to the city council and we probably asked them a lot harder questions than I asked tonight. But they're very much interested in this hotel being part of Longmont and I want to make sure that we understand how this hotel is differentiated from any hotels that there are in Longmont. With one exception so far all of the hotels are essentially extended day, lower tier, with service hotels you know you may get an orange juice and a bagel in the morning for breakfast but they don't have restaurants they don't have room service they don't have any of that stuff. We have one full service hotel which is the Hilton Garden Inn over on Martin Street. It's Longmont's very first full service hotel but it's still you know it's not a luxury hotel it's not a boutique hotel it is one of a chain of hotels even though it does have local ownership and those local owners are very much engaged in our community. So we don't really have anything that is special Longmont as a place to stay and because of that a lot of Longmont's higher end visitors, people who are here to do business development, people who are here for weddings because that's where their family lives, all of those things like that, those people are going and staying in Boulder's boutique hotels. Well we don't want them to do that we want them to stay in our boutique hotel and spend money in our downtown and find out what a wonderful city we are and so I think that everybody needs to understand that this hotel is different and it's been in the DDA's plan for a long time and we finally found the right match. I'm going to add something to that in regards to what Marcia said about being in our master plan for a long time. I brought with us from 1985 is when the first vision was for a boutique hotel in our downtown and it was fascinating when Kimberly and I were reading through this. So this is 30 years in the making we had our master plan from 1995 and so boutique hotel was right at the top in regards to community need and interest and our master plan was through engaging all stakeholders and so we went through that entire process again with redoing our master plan and kind of going through that process in 2017. We were stunned by the how similar the 2017 master plan was to the 1995 master plan and the boutique hotel was one of our top priorities identified from our community and so it's quite special to be in this place to where we are at this opportunity where we have somebody that is so passionate about our community and sees the same types of vision that we see. Excellent, excellent. I do have a follow up question. Did they find us or did we find them? They found us. I will say through the iterations of our master plans one of them said you need to wait until the market is ready. You cannot force someone to come and so we did. We were patient and we waited until the market was ready. They were looking for their next venture. I think Chris mentioned they were looking at about 25 different communities and they came to us and they started with LEDP but they said we really want to be in the historic core of downtown so then they turned them over to talk to you. Okay, excellent. This is not necessarily about the hotel itself. However, I think it's a question that is well well worth asking. How do we know when development is good for our community and when it is too much or going to have a negative impact? If I may, I really like to know how things work and how a city works and in a special how the downtown works is that you have to have feet on the street. You have to have an essence of the community. The downtown has to be a destination and it's what brings us together. That's where our best restaurants are. That's where our night clubs are. That's where our really interesting retail stores are and yes, that's where visitors to this place will gravitate to and enrich the community with their personalities, their understanding of our city, and their money. So the thing is an organization like a thrash group that makes a business of understanding that market and that dynamic really knows when a city is ready and when it is an opportunity and when it's going to be good for a community and lift it up and that's now. Just like Walmart knows where to put the diapers with respect to the pepsis. It's one of those things you learn by experience. Excellent, yes. Back to your first question, I kind of wanted to say I don't have any specifics about this particular hotel because I was not on council when it was brought forth and everything, but this past week I was in Washington, D.C. at the National Congress of City through National League of Cities and what was most interesting to me when I was speaking to my counterparts from other communities within Longmont like Wheat Ridge and Brighton and others like that, you know, we often hear people say don't bolderize Longmont and with this boutique hotel we're not. We're just adding to the amenities of Longmont, but those communities there, you know what they said? They said they wanted to be Longmont when they grew up and that was the most interesting thing and so I really think that at this point Longmont is getting to that place where we are able to put in niche markets, niche opportunities and really make Longmont the special place we really wanted to be. So I think this is an opportunity that we'll see how the whole downtown development authority area really is impacted by it. Marsha. I just have one really brief comment. I met with four environmentalists out of Boulder last week and I just want to add that they said they want to be Longmont when they grow up. Why did I move to Longmont from Burford? Because it's Longmont. So I'd like to address the, if you want to read the question again there's a specific part of that question that I'd like to address. How do we know when development is good for our community and when it is too much or going to have a negative impact? How to tell whether it's good. Sometimes what you think is good turns out to be not good. And I think it's, it takes a bit of bravery. It also takes kind of wonky people. Marsha and I it's great that they put us on either end of the table because we probably between the two of us, you know, read a volume of books about urban planning and other things that are about this high. But I think that when you're looking at I'm not going to say good versus bad development. What's clearly bad development is stuff that doesn't really fit in, that doesn't fit the character. Look at, if you go up to Maryland, there's a lot of things going on in downtown Loveland. And they have a downtown hotel. They have a big parking garage. They have apartments that surround a little plaza with restaurants and stuff. And it's all very nice. And I was walking around downtown Loveland in February and saw a bunch of signs. They're going to take down an entire block of two-story historic buildings with wonderful brickwork to do something else. And the way they're changing the streetscape there feels that they're hollowing out the soul of what had made a downtown Loveland very unique and charming. And I think that we have to be careful to see whether or not the shiny object is shiny or is it going to tarnish quickly. And I think that good development stands the test of time. I'll also mention that I was in Lincoln, Nebraska last week. And they have a lot of, in the Haymarket section of Lincoln, if you've been there, that's kind of the old commercial depot area where they had a lot of the grain dealers and everything. And then there's downtown a couple blocks away. And in the downtown section, they have these wonderful buildings from the early 1900s. And one especially was a former department store with a wonderful metal awning and beautiful decorative work going eight stories high. We thought that they were just demolishing the back of it to maybe put parking and save it. They're demolishing the entire block. And people feel that that community where these amazing buildings that are solidly built and match the landscape, they're digging out the core of what makes the architectural fabric of that community that had lasted for over 100 years. And they're hollowing it out. And now anything that was there before that was part of the community conversation over time is now no longer there. So there's no conversation between old and new. And having just not advocating that every building has to look historic or whatever, but I think you have to look at how what you bring in new reacts to the built environment that you have and is it going to cause other changes to happen to say, this is the one model that we want. I also find that I'll confess that I have the degree that everybody jokes about. I have a bachelor's degree in art history. However, it did serve me in good stead because I studied architecture, I studied philosophy, language, and the built environment and art. And really a bit of urban planning. So the way people react to the built environment is very important and it's a very subtle thing. So again, how we do things is just as important as what we do. And so good development will feel good in your gut. Bad development will be apparent over time. It will not attract what you want and it will decline and it will become less a part of the fabric of the community. Well, I was kind of raised on this sort of comment here that I'm going to make and that is good that development has to pay its way. It really does. It has to pay its way with our schools. It has to pay its way with our community members. You have to be able to a good development, make sure that you have good workforce housing for people. You have opportunities for people and for their children. And we don't want it to be laid on the backs of people that are going to later resent it. So good development really must pay its own way. And on the back of that, I'd like to say that because of the very clever, clever way that the incentive packages that were put together for this hotel because every new business that comes into a city has incentive packages don't fool yourself. It doesn't happen without that. But this one, the business has to earn them. We don't invest anything up front. The only money that goes into that hotel as an incentive package is the money that the hotel produces that otherwise would go into the city coffers. So yes, there is an incentive but only when the hotel succeeds. And therefore they're not only really, really really working to succeed, but if they don't they won't take any of our money with us when they go. And we'll get our stuff back and we can try again. Before I ask a couple of questions, is there anybody out there that would like to, I see someone with a hand up. Okay. Mike is on its way. Yeah, so I just had a question regarding the hotel. I heard that there is some space for meetings. And I know that Longman has a challenge of convention space, being competitive of other cities in the area. Just wondering how this hotel is maybe a partial solution and maybe potential solutions in the future for convention space. And that's also part of the consideration. Yeah, thanks for asking that. Yeah, I think one of the things as we looked at our downtown we would sometimes get calls of folks that wanted to host conferences or smaller meetings and wanted to stay downtown. We had no lodging options. At one point we had a bed and breakfast, which was fantastic if you had up to six guests. But normally they were looking for a lot more. And when we came to the, when the hotel came and they were talking about the needs of the community, we have some real gems in downtown Longmont. If you have not had the privilege to go to the St. Brain Event Center, which is on the corner of Third and Kaufman, it is the wedding venue in the region, I would say, even maybe further. And they bring in wedding guests from all across the country and they come for these destination weddings here in our town. They're often staying in other places. They're dark in the day though, because they are right now a wedding venue. And they said we really know that we can have some corporate business and some things, but we just need a little bit more of a synergy. The placement of the hotel, the addition of meeting space, and it's not a ton. It's maybe up to 5,000 that can be delineated into different things. But along with the St. Brain, along with the Times Collaborative, which is another fantastic meeting space that is right on the corner, hoping that we're going to get a fantastic new owner of the Dickens Opera House, have that into the mix. The Elks Lodge, which they will tell you, is the largest dance floor that you can have here in Longmont. And the Callahan House, the beautiful historic Callahan House. We really have an excellent value proposition to bring meetings and groups and things like that to our town, to keep them down here, to keep them in a walkable environment where they're spending their money and they're enjoying their time. So it is, yes, all part of a much larger vision. We have been woefully missing group travel. And when the plaza closed, it left a void. And even when the plaza was open, it was kind of like stuck in 1980 if you had been there. And so people want to travel differently. They want to have meetings differently. And the days of staying in one room and sitting there the whole time are gone. People want to experience communities. They want to walk around. And so we have a huge opportunity here and the hotel was a key piece of that. Thank you for asking. Yes. Yeah, and I'll just add, you know, one of the non-negotiables when we had the discussion early on was a rooftop restaurant. That was like a must have because that's going to be such an extreme value add to the downtown. And, you know, one of the things that spelled out, again, I always kind of go back to the master plan because that is our guiding light. If you attend LDDA board meeting, all of our discussions, all of our priorities, all of the decision making aligns with that master plan. And, you know, one of the things that we are really passionate about in regards to, you know, preserving the character is also preserving open space. And one of the ways that we're preserving the open space is to really look at parking lots, the under utilized lots within the downtown as sites to do vertical development with to get creative and how that adds sustainable revenue long term within the city. And so this project, it's exciting on so many levels but it's projected to bring over $6 million in sales tax revenue over the next 10 years. It's kind of like the ripple effect. You know, when you just think about the last time you traveled and you stayed in a hotel, there's high probability that you walked down the street to a restaurant. You went into the retail shops and you invested in those small businesses. And so that's what really excites us is all that local revenue and support to our small businesses within the downtown. Okay. It's interesting. You said under utilized. That car park is far from underutilized. And that'll get us into the parking thing. In fact, today I nipped down there and I took a couple of photographs of the actual car park full. And that's a Thursday at 1.30. Absolutely full. Both sides. I posted this meeting on a Facebook group called Friends of Longmont. Oh no, sorry. You must come from Longmont if. Everybody was concerned about parking. Everybody. One guy did make a funny remark. He says, why does Longmont need another boutique hotel? We've got the lamp lighter or whatever it's called. How are we going to cover parking? How many spaces do we lose? If someone would like to fill in on this. I'm going to jump in first because the other hat that I wore in one of my past lives before I was on council was part of the leadership of the historic east side neighborhood association which is basically our boundaries are the mid alley of Kimbark to the west side of Martin 3rd to 9th. And I did talk to a couple of my neighbors about this issue and one of them pointed me to an email exchange that she had with our city planner Ben Ortiz who admitted that we will lose a net 40 or more parking spaces to what is there right now. There is a really big concern around how many parking spaces there are and the perception that there is no parking. I freely welcome people to walk a couple blocks park in front of my house. In fact, as a residential property it's actually good to have people walking into the neighborhood and parking their cars because number one they feel safe but it also makes the neighborhood safer when there are people around. Eyes on the street feet on the street. However people are still not using the parking that we have and I think that when you're the short term when the hotel is being built we will lose all of those 117 spaces. So I think that for both the east and the west side and the people that work downtown and live downtown there has to be some kind of a firm plan. I think that having neighborhood engagement will go a long way and also to make sure that we have, I know we're working on wayfinding on parking but again as much as you're doing to get the hub full to let people know that there's parking by the Roosevelt Place apartment buildings people don't seem to use the structures. And lastly, I mean the deal sounds to me I'm a fiscal conservative. I've been accused of many things but I'm happy to be accused of being a fiscal conservative. The deal financially sounds too good to be true but I think that there are also some aspects of the deal that maybe weren't included in the numbers that are outside the numbers and I'll talk to that if somebody wants me to talk about it but I think that the issue of parking and again the community wide perception that there is no parking downtown if you want to come downtown has to be that narration has to stop and we have to educate people to come downtown either a different way. We have a lot of free buses but they don't run after a certain time. Maybe we need to do a little more but that's again another one of those spillover discussions. We're not going to build enough parking for downtown for a parade day and a shopping day and a festival day all happening in the same day. Then that's not sustainable. They always talk about churches don't build parking to house everybody to park on Easter and Christmas. Yeah, I just I'm sure that Kimberly has the numbers better than I do or Chris does but I feel like it's more credible coming from a council member than coming from the authors of the project. So I want everyone to know that from the moment the council improved the incentives package that she and our traffic department and our EDP and its transit group have all been working on how are we going to go through the construction period without making it difficult for people to get downtown and that runs from leasing parking places from other businesses that do most of their stuff in the evening for the people who work during the day and that's all set already, right? You can just nod Kimberly that's mostly all set and then all the way to different kinds of public transit because here's a not very well kept secret RTD has kind of admitted that it can't do intercity transit in these outlying cities it's admitted that it hasn't delivered for us and it has to let us do something else and there's a parking there's a partnership program where they're going to help us fund something better and that's going to take a while but in the meantime this gives us a good excuse to try out different kinds of public transit solutions that will show us what the best most trustworthy and most popular way to get people downtown without a car because ultimately part of this change from a suburb to a city means thinking outside the car, people in New York people in Chicago don't own cars unless they live in Chicago's own suburbs, you know we need to have fewer cars and fewer vehicle miles traveled we're never going to be a car free city but we need to have alternatives that are fun, credible and inexpensive to driving cars around and oh by the way the utilization of downtown parking overall is about 30% so the businesses would be suffering if it were any lower than that to Marcia's point here there are American Recovery Act funds to go towards some of these intercity transit opportunities and that's why I was in Washington this past week to find out about those talking to the appropriate city staff about how to make that happen and how we can access those funds Parking, this is always at the top of the discussion when it comes to redevelopment so we have so many discussions with our community about parking and how to address it within the downtown it's one of those things, you know I can speak for my own narrative in 2017 we went through the first South Main Revitalization Development we learned a lot through that process I couldn't get into my business for two solid months there was construction all around me, the LDDA the staff did tremendous work with communicating and marketing so the downtown was prepared in handling this and so we're thinking creatively, we're having a lot of discussion about creative ways to support our downtown small businesses during this process, you know parking is always a challenge and so it's something that we continue to have conversation on every three years we do a study, a parking study and we've spent thousands and thousands of dollars studying parking and to Sarah's point we don't have a parking problem, we have a perceived parking problem if you walk one block in either direction of the downtown there's plenty of spaces but again and I'm just as guilty as anybody, when I go to the pump house I expect to park right in front of the pump house and so that's what we deal with it's a perception versus reality I can understand that but where did the 50% come from for utilization did they work that out? Was that done over a 24 hour period? Yes. Okay that would explain it. So we just commissioned our third parking study, our first one was in 2016 our second one was in 2019, our third one was in the end of 2022 they take several days, a Thursday and a Saturday and they go all day on all of the streets public lots, private lots and they monitor how many cars are there, how long they're staying, are they staying over their duration, is there enough turnover within these lots and so we looked at that over two days and we benchmarked it over three years. Systemwide we have 50% of our parking system that is still ready to be utilized. Sorry, that system wide that's not referring to that one car park was I can look but I think consistently when you look at every two and a half hours it was in the 50 to 75% utilized. Within about one eighth of a mile from this lot there's about 750 other parking spaces to choose from, one eighth of a mile. There's parking throughout the system and it is we try to make sure that we have 15 minute drop off spaces because we understand that sometimes people have mobility issues so we need to make sure that people can get dropped off. We have great businesses that have deliveries and have pickups that's why City Council has allowed people to stop in the alleys with their flashers on for up to 25 minutes to do those things. City Council has invested in a way finding signage program that was just recently adopted. We are going out for RFP right now. We will be putting parking ID signs at all of our public parking signs that make it very clear that it's public parking how long you can stay. We will also be implementing a system of parking trailblazer signs that say more parking this way, this way, this way. That would definitely help. We have made investments in lighting to make sure that all of our public parking is better lit. We heard when we did some of these studies that they were dark so we made sure that they were all much lighter. We added the string lights along main street again, not only for ambiance but for safety so if you do have to walk that block or so, we just implemented our first round of cameras in all of the alleys and we will be adding them all to make sure that there is a level of safety that, and I don't want to say that those will be monitored but they will be there. We've heard from our peer cities that that has really helped as a deterrent of bad behaviors and it adds another level of safety. So we are looking at this from top to bottom. We are looking at ways that we can get people through our parking system to use our land that has been designated for parking and to get them safely from one spot to another. We do understand that construction impacts are hard on businesses. I have two wonderful staff members, Emily and Del Ray that work so hard to communicate about parking and communicate about constructions and let folks know what's going to be happening. We take that very seriously. We take people's livelihoods very seriously, the investments that they've made in our downtown. We'll work very hard to make sure people are educated. In that lot there's about 55 permitted parkers. We are moving about three of those to the city lots at St. John's. They're all public sector employees. The board approved last night for us to start lease negotiations. We've been talking with the Elks Lodge. They have three rows of parking that are extraordinarily underutilized. They'll tell you that. To lease that for our other parking permit holders that's about 55 of the displaced folks that are happening. So we are taking this seriously. We are working very hard and we will do everything we can to make sure that people are educated and can find other parking. Right. I only brought it up because it was the most asked question and the biggest worry of a lot of people. When our producer and myself T.G. Lewis walked down Main Street popping into the businesses they were incredibly worried about how are their customers going to drop off a bicycle. You know that's not something that you want to start trying to wiggle through town. I mean I used to be a cyclist so I know. Mind you I was dangerous and he explains the scar on my lip. But that's the reason. We're getting very close to break time. I just want to add to what Kimberly said is one of the things that we committed to the current permit holders who purchased a permit are guaranteed a permit after the project and we'll have enough spaces to follow through on that. Okay. Oh I did have one quick question. How many rooms will this hotel have? How many stories? 84 rooms and it will be five stories. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. So I'm going to address the parking issue. So I think from hearing we're all in agreement and we're like the booster for knowing that there's parking downtown. I think what we need to do is find a parking curmudgeon and match them with a parking concierge. And have them you know basically what a concierge does in a hotel. There you're smoothing the path. So when we find the critics maybe we contact some of the critics that came on the social media site that next door or Facebook page and have a concierge or as the Denver Center and frequently when you're at other countries you approach a block and the next block there's a parking garage it tells you how many available spaces there are. And I know there's also things about how much signage downtown and all that kind of stuff and I'm not really in favor of a lot of electronic signs but to make wayfinding better. And I know for example that when the garages have been full at the pouring art center in Denver my daughter's boyfriend knew of a parking lot that was three blocks away that we could park and you know hook it. Those three to six blocks and get there. So I do think that these are all reasonable solutions. One thing that I would like to address is the fact that while it appears that the finances and everything have lined up I do want to point out to people that during construction there's going to be major damage to the certain blocks with heavy equipment and then my also concern is the alley. And we paid special attention to the alleys there were big visioning sessions in the early and mid 2000s and we did the permeable pavement alleys to make things drain and everything. That alley will be completely in shadow and I want to see what the plan is to reconstruct that alley. Maybe make it a bit wider because a hotel like this will have a lot of trucks. And we've done such a great system with having the communal trash pickup and recycling. I want to make sure that we have a firm plan so that alley is not only workable but where it comes out on 4th Avenue does not become a hazard to pedestrians and motorists. Absolutely Is it quick? Yes it's quick. In fact it's a parking lot, the other kind of parking lot. There's been talk of having additional town halls as downtown changes and we should have one about engineering and what it means to a city's infrastructure to go through this transformation. And that's a whole other topic kind of not good for bringing up the very end of something. So let's make it part of the next one. That sounds like a wonderful idea. And in terms of finding parking I just like to close with also there's an app for that. Now see the thing is I've got all your addresses now so when I have trouble parking down here I know exactly where to go. Okay we are now going to take a 10 minute break I'm pleased to say that Jonathan Dwayne is here he's actually going to sing us a short song. So he needs to quickly set up so we're having a 10 minute break then we'll be back for Jonathan Dwayne then just a quick move his stuff and we'll start the second half talking about arts and entertainment. Thank you very much and we will be seeing you in about 15 minutes. Thank you. Welcome back everybody. Jonathan and myself had known each other for a couple of decades because we used to work together but this is a sight of Jonathan I have never seen. Let me introduce Jonathan Dwayne. Thank you. Hope for places. Some place where we're going to belong. Where our dreams will come true. Even the dead ends it's all just a part Getting everything you want it's way over about it and you see it from afar. Really have I never knew you could sing Jonathan. We're going to take a very very very short break now just as we quickly clear all of Jonathan's equipment to the side and then we will be talking about the importance of arts and entertainment. Welcome back to part 2. Today we're going to second part we're going to be talking about arts and entertainment and how important it is for a town. Having done a lot of work at the Longmont Theatre Company as an actor, director, a tech is always satisfying from a performer's perspective to hear that audience applause and to see those happy smiling faces it turns the cast on and you can tell that the audience has had a really good time. So we have got a slight change now. This is by Elliott Moore who is taking over from Chris. Elliott is the conductor with the Longmont Symphony and he also wants to give a little talk about how important the arts are. Elliott over to you. Thank you so much. So my name is Elliott Moore. I am the conductor of the Longmont Symphony Orchestra and also I am the designated spokesperson for the Longmont Alliance for Arts and Entertainment. And I would like for you all to imagine the following scenario. The mayor was absolutely overjoyed to learn that Weird Al Yankevich's stay in Longmont was going really, really well. Following Weird Al's morning children's book reading and signing at the Longmont Library he had been genuinely impressed with the level of talent displayed at the afternoon's master class that included St. Rain Valley School District students. Weird Al had coached an array of students from across the district who had both sung and presented him with their comedy routines. Before they went on to the world's largest stage America's got talent. Several hours before the show the now typical influx of people from outlying communities filled Longmont's downtown chops from Kent Prep Boulevard all the way south. Businesses were thriving. In fact many new shops had opened since the center opened just 12 months before. And in the center's first year alone the center impacted Longmont's economy with increased earnings of $3.5 million. It was uplifting to see the influx of outsiders creating revenue for businesses here. Sure there had been some tough times economically before the construction of the center but like always the economy ebbed and it flowed. We had been in an upswing for the last five years and everyone was glad that we acted when we did because we had created a new economic engine that was paying dividends for Longmont. The rising tide was indeed lifting all boats. Well that is a pretty rosy scenario right? Let's separate a little bit of fact from fiction. Fact not only is the center expected to bring people in from outlying communities but according to the study arts and economy prosperity sorry arts and economic prosperity five to people from outlying counties paid over double what the local residents paid. The study also found that the typical attendee spends $31.47 per person per event beyond the cost of admission. And what that really means is that for every 1,000 tickets sold $1,000 is injected into the local economy. Here's another fact. The center aims to have a robust educational component for our area's youth that every single performer production and performing organization will adhere to. The center will serve our diverse community with equity and inclusion and it would present world class performers from many cultures and many genres. The promise of social equity and inclusion for Longmont's children through free and low cost access to the arts would be realized through educational initiatives. Here's another fact. According to projections from Johnson Consulting the Center for Arts and Entertainment in Longmont is expected to impact Longmont's economy in the first year alone with increased earnings by almost $3 million plus half a million dollars in sales tax and hotel occupancy tax revenues combined. In other words, the center has the potential to both improve the quality of life for Longmont residents and directly enhance the economic growth of Longmont, which is precisely by the way why the Longmont Economic Development Partnership Board voted unanimously last month to support this endeavor. Though I want to cut to the chase. How much would this cost and why on earth would anyone vote to raise their own taxes? The center would cost $80 million. We are proposing that the private sector raise $35 million over five years and that the remaining $45 million be raised from a bond issue. The critical part of all of this and what makes it stand really in stark contrast from something like Fast Tracks is that until the $35 million is raised, Longmont will levy no taxes and will issue no bonds. If we do not raise $35 million in five years the people of Longmont will not see they will not be taxed. There won't be a center. If we do raise the $35 million in five years, this means that the public will see the interest and they will see that the support for the center is real and also the people of Longmont would get this facility at approximately half its actual cost. Nationally the arts play a critical role in our economy and the time is upon us to embrace the role that the arts play in our local economy. The time is upon us to literally and figuratively put the arts on the map here in Longmont. Thank you. Perfect. Now we've all been hearing a lot about the art center. Who would like to give us a brief overview about where you're thinking of putting it, et cetera, et cetera. Anyone like to take that one? Marsha. Thank you. I'll take that. One of the earliest things that the capital campaign that is part of the $35 million would do with the money raised would be to secure land in the downtown arts district. So we have a plot of land identified but I'm not going to tell you where it is other than it is in the downtown arts district. So it's no secret. The reason I'm not going to tell you precisely which plot of land it is is because I don't want the price to go up and also there are several really good candidate plots of land in the CDA and the arts district and the enterprise zone. So there are many financial incentives and many candidate, well, several candidate spots. But there, within walking distance, within shuttle distance of downtown, and those of you who were here for the first session know that we've already explained to you how important feed on the street downtown and the vibrant nature of the culture really is. I want to just tell a story from my own ill spent youth which is I lived in St. Louis which had a wonderful symphony orchestra. You may have heard of them. And also a really vibrant theater review in a different building. And I was young and lived in St. Louis's ever fashionable central west end. And my friends and husband and I would go down there almost every weekend to hear either the symphony or to hear a review or a musical comedy or a series play once in a while. But then those things all ended at about 10, 10.30 in the evening. And we weren't done because we were young and ill spending our youth. And so then what we did was we went downtown in the arts district and we had dinner and we had drinks and we listened to other musicians that were local performers of all types. At the time when I lived there was a big blues and ragtime scene in St. Louis. I don't know if it's there anymore. But wow. That was a way to live your life and I would like to spend my last days in Longmont living that life. So I'm just telling you it's one of those rising tides that's going to lift all the boats. So for 17 years this has been a goal of mine. Since 2006 when Peter Schmidt and I and others were trying to get this off the ground. And we had different areas that we thought this might possibly happen. But I can't think of a better spot for it to be is somewhere along Main Street in the Longmont downtown development authority area. Because I think that that's an area that we are going to have so much going on from the transit site to the just the vibrant downtown that really seems to be taking off. And so I really want to see this happen. And I like the idea that it's coming in at half the price. I think that's a well thought. I was really impressed with the fact that you already have an organization out there that's actually trying to get that. We have people that would like a whole lot of other things in the community but they're not organized. You guys are organized that are part of this. And that's critical especially if we're trying to put it on their ballot so that people can decide when they get their $35 million are you ready to then start axing yourselves. And I think this is the thing. Now yeah, in 2008 I think what kind of cut us short was the great recession. And so it just kind of fell off the radar. But I really think that this is the important aspect to Marsha's point of being able to have little businesses out there starting and to have places for people to feel that it's their year's moment where everybody feels that's their spot and their opportunity to have a place where everybody knows your name and you're out there. And that sort of thing is really important to a community and I think this gives real identity. I sometimes get feedback from various people and one of the things that I will get feedback on is, but Elliott wouldn't it make more sense to do this where there's just a ton of land like that where you can build a lot of parking. And what I very nicely say to these people that say that is that to me what that does is that forces people to drive to the arts and then get in their cars and drive back home. And what I am passionate about is yes I do love hearing people applaud, but what I really love the concept of is how the arts impacts its community. And so when it's a walkable type thing and it's somewhere along the main street corridor, what can happen is it becomes a walkable thing where you can go see a concert and by the way let me just say this right now because while I am a classical musician I love jazz. That's what I love. I can't wait to go see jazz there. It's a center for the places that are here the organizations that are here, the Longmont Symphony, Centennial State Ballet, Longmont Corral, et cetera, et cetera. It's also a place it can be a place for film. It can be a place for the exceptional popular music scene that we just experienced here this evening. We want it to be a place for culture not just classical music. So while I happen to be the spokesperson please understand that it is for all culture for different, you know, for children, for older people. But the idea of it being walkable attached to businesses, to me that is what drives me. And if we can accomplish that goal then the economic impact it's going to be the arts that are transforming Longmont and that is what I want to see. You surprised me you like jazz. I had you as a heavy metal man. It's absolutely true. It was kind of interesting. Before the Speakeasy it was called Cheers owned by Sandy Rogers that used to be my local watering hole even though I lived in Burford. And every, you know, every Wadden's Dishy had open Mike. The talent in Colorado is unbelievable. We have got some of the most special musicians around. To see four people who've never met, go up on a stage and play together and be almost no perfect. We used to sit at the bar and just, you know, door drops because it was some of the most amazing music. I will say this though Speakeasy if you like jazz they have some of the best jazz bands. I know the Speakeasy. Sorry, I know you wanted to jump in. Well, so I hate to throw a wet blanket on things however I'm a bit of a skeptic. I understand the I felt, so I have two gifts. One of them is getting a doctorate musical arts and she's a clarinet classical clarinet performer and another one who's an actor and so I wholly support the arts and they've been graced with a lot of great opportunities here. I've been to a lot of performances for Longmont Symphony, Centennial Ballet, Longmont Corral, everything's great. I'm thinking that there are so many things that are going on the ballot this fall that people are going to have to make some hard choices and there is an upper ceiling on where we will get to property taxes. I don't know some of you I'll say there's a house up the corner for me that sold for over a million dollars my house is not really a million dollar house and I'm just looking at myself, my neighbors are conversations about affordable housing, attainable housing there is a cost to everyone in the community when you're raising property taxes or potentially raising property taxes that'll kick in in some future year we have potentially three or four taxation issues coming up on the ballot and I think the cumulative effect when people add it up, people are going to make some choices and I think that a lot of people with the downturn in the economy and some pressures in banking systems and the cost of construction now this may not be the right time for this but I'm also thinking that this had been a goal even prior to the event that you and I have been talking about from 2006 at the Longmont Theater there was a visioning process in maybe it was 2004 community charrette where we talked about and Doug Brown our former city council member who's deceased a vision Longmont with the downtown or a corridor main street that went from basically Pike Road all the way to 66 that was a vision that has been sustained and really caught fire with people in the community even now that he's been gone for several years he hasn't been in office since I think he left office in 2005 even so a lot of people don't even remember his name but I think that that was a vision that all of us shared I also am looking at some challenges in the arts community my older daughter got her master's degree from University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and we attended concerts that the university was paying to use the Union Colony Civic Center auditorium in Greeley and then the university built an entirely new performance space which is fabulous if you can go up there to see a free concert anytime the university orchestra or symphonic band plays go up and see it I am just wondering with the competitive environment between Denver and Fort Collins has the Lincoln Center there is the Greeley I'm just wondering how many people in seats they have for all those performances that are coming in and I actually took a look at what the requirements are if you wanted to rent the Civic Center auditorium in Greeley and they have charges just for them to handle the tickets at the door and so I'm looking at what price point are we looking at for people and frequently we go down to Denver for performances and we're the typical suburban people we go in we park in the garage we walk from the garage to the theater we don't really do anything afterwards because it's 11 o'clock and we got to get home so I'm thinking you know I'd like to maybe see a little bit more of what the market share is Denver Center has an amazing marketing budget if you turn on any station you'll see they'll be running ads for something on Sunday night when the show has already started and the run ends on that Sunday so I'm just looking at what we have in the community already and making sure when we're building something that we're building something that's you know could bring in some of those larger shows I did take a look at some other communities Greenville South Carolina has a municipal owned performing arts center however that was built years ago they didn't build it from scratch and they have a market area of about 500,000 people in their area within 20 or 30 miles plus a university so I want to say where we would fit in the competitive environment if our arts and entertainment center is going to be something that fits a part of the market that doesn't exist so I wanted to see a little bit more pro forma and I could probably make a good guess of where it could be located but I was told not to mention that I'll be in just a second then I'll let you guys talk when I started directing at the Longmont Theatre Company being a director was different from being an actor being a director I was actually able to meet our audiences if you put on the right entertainment I guarantee you will get people from Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland, Boulder and Denver and I spoke to many and in fact when I directed Narnia I had two people from Russia make it now I've got to be honest they didn't come just to see the show they were actually visiting Longmont because Longmont has such a good reputation and they wanted to see how we actually worked in Longmont they were brought along to the theatre saw the show I chatted with them via a translator amazingly two weeks later on closing night they came back that meant the world to me really did anyway sorry that's just me reminiscing a little bit guys there are many issues that you brought up so I'll tackle maybe one so you mentioned a lot of different communities and you know Loveland, Greeley, Fort Collins, Denver I can mention Arvada you know there are places that people go you like by the way me and I'm sure everybody else in this room we're taking our hard earned dollars and we're investing in somebody else's economy that's the first thing okay so what this proposes is let's bring people from outside and have them invest in our economy while keeping it cheap for people who actually live here that's the first thing the second thing is and I'm reminded of my dear friend who passed away recently Harvey Yocum whose good friend was a guy named Kenny Pratt and he would tell me often about his friend Kenny Pratt and how Kenny had a map in his office of the front range and he said Harvey so Harvey what Kenny would say to Harvey is listen there is this is you know front range and if you look Longmont is the center people will come from all around to go to Longmont of the places you listed I didn't mention Boulder by the way Longmont is dead in the center and so what that presents is the opportunity to bring people from all of these other environments to a place where there's 50% use of the parking spaces okay I just I'm just putting that out there so there is this is a great place for this to happen and in terms of you know programming and what not I mean there are many ways that I could answer that question after spending $150,000 this is totally feasible here that is the answer is and by the way here's another thing timing oh it's a bad time was it a good time to spend $150,000 to see if this was feasible right before a worldwide pandemic isn't it amazing that here we are just a little while later here we all are no mask we're all happy we're all healthy and we can meet again and I think that the time is now because the economy does ebb and it does flow and who is to say what is going to happen in one year from now or five years from now and if the economy is really bad in five years from now you know what we're not going to get $35,000,000 and the people of Longmont aren't going to be taxed I would just like to say Sarah are you the reason we can't have nice things in Longmont no no no no no I am not that's not a fighting talk I am not I'm just kind of a realist sometimes well yeah I think that's what I mean is absolutely true and even though he began with Weird Al we haven't really talked about filling the non-local spaces with outside acts but in fact it's very possible to have you know Wednesday matinees and Wednesday evening performances of troops that are on their way out of Denver out of Fiddler's Green out of you know wherever they had their big performances and they'd like to make up a little bit of travel time by stopping in Longmont on the way and that is in the plans as well and will really enrich the cultural scene in Longmont but I'd like to say just one more thing about big point about parking because you know if you go to Mackie which is the only place really close to here where you can have a big performance in a big theater you spend half your life parking and then you spend half your evening after the performance just getting out of the parking let alone you know you're driving home in the wee hours so no you're not stimulating the economy when you go to those performances Longmont is way too far, I'm sorry, Fort Collins is way too far, Greeley's pretty far and Denver's really far and has the same parking issues as Boulder does but you know what if you turn around and go the other way it's not like that coming to Longmont is easy and Kimberly and her team of downtown planners are making it easy to park on the periphery when you drive here and then shuttle around and get back to your parking spot that's on the periphery after you're finished playing downtown so you know we've got a really sweet setup by putting this downtown and making this one of the downtown amenities that's all I'm going to say. Sean, I believe you will be finishing alright, so you know my wife was on, Marine was on the Longmont Council of the Arts as its director and they worked very hard to bring in that pillow tax and to Ellie it's a point in regards to how the big picture idea of having people come here, stay here, play here and then leave that's really what it's about trying to make sure that these opportunities are out there and I don't know that we won't see an amazing renaissance of businesses that are associated around this that want to be close to it but we had our conversation just about a boutique hotel and all of the benefits maybe potentially of that and you know I agree we have to be fiscally prudent and I always respected Sarah's opinion on that and she's right we have to be wise about this but one thing that I see out of this group and there are a lot of groups out there that are trying to vie to put things on the ballot, this group's organized and if these other groups want to have those same things they have to be organized and that's really critical. Perfect, perfect I think it's important we've got time for one question. Let me help Sarah with some figures, the Denver Performing Arts Center is a 501C3 a lot of people think it's owned by the city or the county of Denver they're involved in it obviously and it was formed by some people a long time ago SCFD all of those people who did that. It takes in around 54 to 58 million dollars a year, it makes 1 million it's ticket sales are 28 million now that has to be part of ticket fees that you feel on that ticket because each organization in the Denver Performing Arts Center like the symphony and the ballet they're all separate 501C3's and they all have their own ticketing service I know they work for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. The Buell all of those are separate. Their salaries are 13 million dollars they take in 8.2 million dollars in grants and 8 million dollars in contributions and it goes on and on and on. Their education fees run about 500,000 which is kind of surprising you think it would be bigger than that but their education system is very good that's their classes and everything that they have. The Fort Collins Lincoln Center is owned by the city of Fort Collins so finding the finances is more difficult because it's wrapped up in city financing the same with Greeley. The Greeley Stampede does really well it takes in about it has assets of about 9 million but it owns its own facility you didn't throw in Cheyenne Wyoming they remodeled they have a 2600 now see symphony plays there so that is also part of the market Denver has a unique relationship with New York it's one of the only ones it is when we own one in the country you will see a pilot play or pilot musical at Denver Performing Arts Center before they see it in New York City. It's kind of like the old Peoria Illinois thing. If it plays well in Peoria it'll play in New York it's kind of that way with Denver now. A lot of people don't know that but Randy Weeks who's now deceased was the person that started those relationships so it's really unique and you're not going to throw that out the window at one point when I worked for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra which was 20 years ago it was the third largest box office in the country so your question is am I going to pay $55 to $150 for a ticket in Longmont or am I going to drive to Denver and see a New York City tour company also the Denver Performing Arts Center pays on their tax statement they pay $5 touring companies a million I don't know if that's just a fee there's other costs involved in that of course housing, hotels, etc. etc. so yeah you're right you need to know you need to have your thumb on the heartbeat of exactly what your market is who you're going to attract and more importantly in Longmont who's your audience who's your audience I'm hearing tourism I'm hearing bringing people to Longmont that's one facet but what about your local audience who's your audience by the way Elvis Presley and Mississippi sees over 100,000 visitors a year how do I know that my family's from Mississippi so I would be curious with the statistics you pulled up to actually see what our leakage is from Longmont exactly you know and I don't know whether or not the study that you guys commissioned showed what our leakage is like if I mean I don't think we're going to get Fiddler on the Roof we're not going to get you know frozen coming to Longmont however I'd like to see for what the goals are for this where our leakage is like our people from Longmont and our people from Boulder and Erie, Lafayette, Louisville where are they going and what are they going to those places for the other thing is I would really like to see the numbers and it wasn't very transparent when I went in the City of Greeley website to really know when UNC built that new performance space how much the City of Greeley lost in revenue it's really difficult when these kinds of what do you call them performing arts centers or concert halls it's really difficult to find the finances unless it's because it's wrapped up with the university it's like it's like Colorado Shakespeare the Mackie they're all part of a university system so they're all wrapped up into those finances that's the same with City of Fort Collins it takes an unbelievable investigative reporter to call and get those figures but you can get them if you really try being a former reporter I know the other thing to interrupt but we really must think about wrapping this up I think the one thing that we do need to understand is I mean because can't see you Sarah is that who you are out there no Faye I'm so sorry can't see you but finances are not analogous what we're looking at first of all this theater will be owned by the City of Longmont and operated by the City of Longmont the sales tax that will come along with it is enough to not only do all of the building maintenance over the 20 year expected life of the building but also to be able to cover any operational shortfalls in the building and I spent most of yesterday finding this out in terms of the spreadsheet people in the city who figured out how big that tax had to be and they're going to true it up but I'll tell you who our audience is our audience is our seniors and most of all our audience is our children because I don't like things that are only for privileged people and I'll tell you that when because I can afford to go down to the DCPA and see whatever is going there that is good enough to entice me to make that trip and it takes me you know I mean I have to rest all day the next day right you know because you take a long time getting down there you take a long time parking you walk and then you have to go home once all the other cars clear out you know that's not going to happen in Longmont but you know we don't have to compete with that because the thing that's really true is that our not privileged children and our seniors who are living in subsidized housing are not owning cars are too old to drive automobiles they're not going down there they're just they don't see it at all and I'm somebody that live performances are the only way to go you know as far as you know recorded stuff is just noise for me so those people especially those kids whose parents are working two jobs apiece they'll ever get to go and I will tell you more than that which is that seeing a symphony orchestra perform can be a life changing experience for one of those children and if those performances are here then those children can go the next day and talk to Elliot himself so that's who our audience is and I think we ought to be willing to pay a little bit for that I totally agree and I do apologize but we're way over time and it's probably time to call it quits for this particular meeting I do hope that we all get to do this again sometime thank you very much Sarah thank you very much Kimberley Sean Elliot Marsha and if you are if you are interested in learning how to create a film make a movie make a documentary Longmont public media is the place for you to sign up they can take you through the whole process they can teach you how to do the whole process and they have some wonderful equipment here and as a member you get to use it nice anyway I'm Nigel Aves thank you very very much for coming out tonight those of you at home thank you very very much for watching hopefully we're going to get this broadcast a few times I'm sure T.G. Lewis our producer will edit some of the things I say but that's okay anyway everybody thank you so much for coming here peace farewell