 I'll call this meeting's order at 1 p.m. Would the clerk please call the roll? Board Member Corsi. Here. Board Member Gonzalez. Here. Board Member Judy. Here. Board Member Rabbit. Board Member Rogers. Vice Chair Futrell. Here. And Chair Fleming. Here. I'll let the record reflect that all Board Members are present with the exception of Board Member Rabbit and Board Member Rogers. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Item 2, approval of the minutes. Does anybody have any changes to the minutes as printed? All right. You have any public comment on item 2.1? We do not. Okay. Excellent. Then we will approve the minutes as submitted and move on to item 3, consent items of which we have none. Item 4. I'd like to call item 4, which is a report of policy discussing the elements of the downtown infrastructure financing plan. The IFPS presented by Dave Audenborn, Director, our newly minted director. Congratulations on planning and economic development. Thank you, Chair. And good afternoon, Members of the Board. Bear with me for a second while I pull up the presentation. Okay. So our plan today is to really have continue our policy discussion. More specifically about the project list and most of the presentation today will focus on the project list. We will talk a bit about next steps in timeline where we currently stand with that and really talk a little bit about the direction moving forward. Once we start identifying that project list and identifying the tax percentages, right? Those are always really, have always been the key components to this IFP. So first off, just a really brief timeline or an overview, excuse me, of our timeline. This is attached to the agenda just for future reference. As we look at the green table to the left, any of those items we've moved through where we're currently sitting right now is preparing the introduction of our draft IFP. So as we discussed in the previous meeting that draft IFP is released to the public. It is done 10 days prior to that intro meeting. And that intro meeting is going over the draft and that will get us through the green categories. And then once we move through that, it moves us into the columns to the right, which are more formal public hearings. And as you can see, there are two of those. The first is to really review comments and hear those from members of the public and the PFA. And then we go over those comments in the second meeting. And then we have really two critical components in between that second public hearing and the third. And that is to the point in which the IFP goes to the Board of Supervisors and it goes to the city council. And decisions are made on the IFP at that point. And the important piece, because we have that in that process at that point before it goes back to the PFA for final adoption is it's really critical to have both the county and the city on board with what the tax percentages are moving forward, what the project list is to make sure we can get an agreement at that point. If we don't, it hits a bit of a reset button on the process. So a lot of the effort that we've been putting in over the past month has been to have internal conversations about where we can settle operationally on that tax percentage to discuss project list based on the feedback that we received from the PFA but also from members of the community as to what they want to see in the downtown core. It really becomes a bit of a chicken or the egg conversation. Many EIFDs that I have seen examples of are very focused on a particular mission. An example I can give is a sports arena where there's a defined goal it's a public private partnership. The EIFD determines what the city's percentage of that cost is usually public infrastructure around that, and it's very defined around that project. Other EIFDs have gone with more general project lists, and that's what we've discussed in previous meetings, beautification elements, sidewalk improvements, and those EIFDs program certain amounts to those project categories, but those amounts aren't necessarily the sole funding for the project itself. There can be grants, there can be general fund dollars, there could be other funding mechanisms that come into play, but it starts the calculation around that amount. So what we'll talk about as we move through is some project concepts based on what we heard where we more take a conceptual idea and bring it down to a more specific project description and general amount. So you'll see those in the slides moving forward. Sorry to interrupt. Just so we're all really clear that the projects list or the project concept is that something that goes before the board along with the first the boards along with percentages between meetings two and three, or is it just a percentage that goes before the board? They're both components of the IFA. Correct. So it really is the draft infrastructure financing plan, and these are two critical elements to that document and they control the outcome. Thank you. So the next few slides just really show you an example of a project list. And I have seen, as I mentioned, very specific, very general. This one came out of Riverside County. In some of these situations, the EIFD is attempting to build out sort of a master plan area where they're encouraging development and putting in the public infrastructure. So you start to see these general categories. And it's shown here really sewer improvements, fire station facilities, behind the scenes, there's more detail to what that looks like from a capital project standpoint, and that's where the numbers are generated from because they're scoped out. But the list itself has a tendency to be very general. A few different reasons for that it does provide flexibility in that category for defining what those projects look like. And especially in a situation like this where it may be more nimble to the responses of development in the area where it may shift. There's a benefit to keeping the categories fairly general. Another example of a very general list. We see this one out of Orange County, just a bit of a different format. Once again, this is major core public infrastructure categories, and then they have dollar amounts associated with that. When, excuse me, when we look at our project list, based on the feedback we've heard, when we look at catalyst projects, linchpin projects, big game changer projects that we can put in the downtown. I know a lot of us that have conversations with multiple individuals, it does come back to connectivity issues. The connectivity between railroad square and downtown is highlighted quite often in that conversation. In the benefits of creating that connectivity is reducing the isolation between the two areas, especially an area that now has access to transit the smart station as ridership increases. How do you encourage the movement of individuals through an area. And the mall has been an impediment to that for many years and that's been one of the challenges in the downtown areas how do we define a corridor. And there's a few different ways we can do it and we'll talk about two different options here. The first is that we work with the existing conditions. And what this first concept looks at is focusing on Third Street as a beautification corridor to create those connectivity elements between the two districts. And there's a few different things that we can do there really from an aesthetic and usability standpoint. The first is underpass lighting. It's very decorative. It ties into lighting themes that you can use outside of that corridor. It can be interactive. It's attractive. It's got a lot of different slides of examples. It's been leveraged in other areas and it becomes somewhat of a destination because it becomes lighting and art. The other piece of murals once you have that lighting you can put art in a certain area and art can be a destination piece as well and how you tie that together in certain areas and create an art trail and create that movement of individuals that can be very important to that. Underpass, it has to be a comfortable environment when you have vehicles in there. There's air purifiers, air scrubbers that you can do to just make it a better experience for individuals moving along that corridor and then stopping to take pause on what they're seeing, you know, especially when you invest in that. There's also an importance of the connectivity and the continuity in that design and how do you tie in railroad square and their design elements with courthouse square from a lighting away finding just a coordination sequence. So if you're doing underpass lightings under the dip under the mall you're doing the same thing under 101 and you're creating that connectivity and you're driving people down that that area to make the connectivity. Another piece we can look at is sort of a raised walkway I would envision this is a bit of a catwalk so you have less of a dip it brings individuals up it raises it a bit makes it a better pedestrian corridor. This is an example something like that. I think more of a Platinum program, please keep in mind these are very rough numbers really sketched out without not a lot of project detail to them. You're looking at anywhere from eight to 10 million for something like that that creates that level of connectivity throughout that area, working with the existing conditions. Now, another option excuse me here. Absolutely. Thanks for the specificity. Getting into this. Hasn't the lighting and murals idea already been tried once or twice. It has and I'll the next slides will talk a little bit about how it's different. And the raised walkway thing. I'm not sure I've got a clear vision of what you're talking about there but a couple years ago there is this crazy idea that county was going to build it building it where the Sears is now. The was going to be a plaza between that and the rest of them all open Plaza and the sidewalks would actually be at the grade of third street on the east and west side instead of going underneath. I know you're not looking at that extensive of a project, but I wonder is that something that we consider as a possibility if someone else decides to redevelop this area. Excellent point supervisor it's actually addressed in three slides from here where we talk about that exact situation so this is really an option where it's working in the existing conditions. We have another option that potentially encourages redevelopment in that site raises the street to gray talks about what that would look like. So these are a few projects that San Jose implemented a few years ago with underpass lighting. They are more artistic in nature than some of the lighting that we've seen that is more pedestrian centric. They are more interactive they respond to the movement of pedestrians, they are more art focused in that particular case you can color theme them. You can tie in street lighting that's the same color tone the same interactive nature that creates that pathway and that walkway, and this potentially could it's it's occurring in these particular cases under state owned highways. So it's working with Caltrans for one on one working with them all in the underpass creating the continuity between the two spaces. So San Antonio excuse me on really tied into their river walk has has done some amazing art pieces with light to this is more of a chandelier effect where it cascades sort of art and elements to the walls. But you can also one of the challenges when doing art, especially on a flat surface it's a very dark space it's difficult to light it. It's difficult to make it interactive and it sort of is hidden in the background so how do you make it more predominant. So instead of general murals do you touch sculptures that it bring lighting into it as well. Lighting really has been proven to be one of the things that can be a destination lighting is becoming art and people go to it to see it. So this creates a walkway that encourages that connectivity in both directions and then what economic development benefits do we get out of that connectivity will talk a little bit about in future slides. The next concept which is really still number one because it's associated with increasing the connectivity on Third Street is what the supervisor had mentioned is it's really looking at a concept where Simon in the mall is interested in redeveloping the site. And much of the history with the mall and of course we have a private development partner that's not at the table today and that makes a lot of these these decisions very difficult so we have to make sure that the options are flexible that they can account for both options. Many of the development concepts in the past have looked at the mall site from the northern edge of Third Street to the south. So the Sears building the parking lot the food court that overhangs the mall has been going through improvements to everything to the north and the mall is actually performing well in their portfolio. So what we're looking at is the feasibility of providing some level of benefit in your traditional sort of public private partnership where we have a defined project and defined project would be a redevelopment outside of the mall, where the EIFD participates in the public infrastructure component of that project to increase beautification to increase the circulation. In that piece we would be looking at more of the plaza concept Third Street would raise to the finish grade mediums better bikeway pedestrian connectivity. Many of the lighting elements can still be utilized. We still could do the underpass lighting under 101 we could use more pedestrian centric or street lighting to make that connectivity to extend out to courthouse square and even the mall. And the mall is actually currently moving forward with but permitting to rework the area where the hand sculpture is to do a parking lot and that is supporting more redevelopment of that mall site for big anchors PF Changs has been known to the public is going into that location and Simon has been actively pursuing that. So as part of that, even some of the unused landscape areas that are along that corner. The EIFD could work in a public private partnership to make sure that that continuity and that landscaping that are in that design is is worked out in that corner. The entry signs are important way finding is critical. We utilize that in both railroad square and downtown. There's two different districts with two different way finding how do we sort of tie that together and make sure that we're creating this this continuity between the two. This would be a much more expensive project obviously, because you're dealing with the utilities you're dealing with bringing the roadway up the structural elements of the wall mall potentially. And it is likely one of those where it requires the public private development piece. So as the mall moves forward, if we're able to make this project into the EIFD, it may create more of an incentive for Simon to be interested into developing that piece because it's developing a revenue stream that offsets some of those costs. So it allows us to come to the table as a city in a better fashion because we're bringing something to the table with financial participation. So we're seeing a big benefit to that as we and we'll touch more on this in in slides further on in the presentation, but as those redevelopment elements come in depending on what they look like. There's usually studies on return on investment. If we're talking about conference centers downtown there's formal studies that go in to say what is the benefit of putting the conference center in downtown. And then you know what that is as that project comes through and then the EIFD is supporting that. This is really focusing on connectivity, but I think when you include it into the bigger project concept it has a much bigger economic development because it potentially is the catalyst that not only increases the connectivity, but also causes the mall to redevelop a good portion, a good unused portion of the mall for a better purpose. Preliminary costs 18 to 20 million on those so that that one that one is much higher and like I said these are rough numbers really based on today's dollars depending on my projects move forward like the increase in those costs. The two so those are really the catalyst projects so the next phase of projects we were. Yeah, absolutely. So the notion is the serious side connection to the bulk of the mall would be at grade with a raised third street presumably a boulevard crossing there that's creates an effective design leakage is that the concept that's the concept. Okay, yeah, and then the flexibility of a plaza programming that area for pedestrian use you have more area for signage. That's absolutely the concept. So, if I can just add to a couple of comments on that because of prior, but no longer in effect business relationship with Simon corporate. I have some insight into their thinking which city may have just as just as well. But the importance of connecting a serious site to the mall itself is of utmost importance to them and whether in that great connection for them the adequate is among the different questions that you have to be very very seriously explored. We also know that to some of the kind of tourism has a study for a conference center that is not yet released to to the public about. But we know that the downtown location preferably somewhere on the mall site is in fact their number one location extremely expensive and complex project to do just because of feasibility studies been commissioned of course we don't know that it is how real it is, but, but, but it's interesting. And finally, Simon wants the development of the serious side, I think we don't know that, but they have internal problems with their partnership with the hedge fund, that allows them to close the deal. And, ultimately, that obstacle will be removed. And it could be that if the EIFD is in place that might actually assist removing that obstacle. Just comments for the full board. Thank you. Thanks to Mr. Futrell for one of your points with the connectivity either at grade or above. I think the way we would look at that is that from a bike and a pet and a vehicle connectivity raising the roadway is a better option than the dip. And I think the redevelopment concept that there may be a variety of different ways to make that aerial connection building to building, having the flexibility to do that. But really, it is focusing on that connectivity aspect, opening it up having it be more of a continuity between two. And then I think you raise really the most important point is it is it a catalyst that really kicks off the discussions in a different way on the Simon site because it's bringing another option to the table. And especially with a project such as that with a convention center comes in, which is a big boost to the overall development and the overall economic development of the downtown. That's really why we wanted to bring these two key components up because they're critical components. And I think they are the linchpin of the catalyst projects that we've talked about. And in all honesty, they're those same projects that the community talks about on a regular basis. So that's why bringing these costs in, we really want to focus on our side this being one of those critical elements in the IFT. And then just talking through what that would really look like and then you're working towards I think a singular mission at that point. And it makes the discussions easier on both the city and the county side to really understand what we're getting and then work the problem with the tax commitment and what are we giving up to get it and work the mathematical problems behind the scenes behind the scenes. But that is the main reason why we really want to focus the conversation the project list because then we'll focus on the other elements. If we we sort of get an alignment we understand where the PFA stands on this, what you can support really when it comes to you for the final adoption. So the next two focus on activating some of our unused public space and in the downtown area there really two that have been focused on. It is Comstock Mall. I know many of you know where this is but it's off of Santa Rosa Avenue. It's right across from our transit center. It used to be yep right there. That Comstock Mall has always been an interesting location it's right up against the Third Street cinemas it's up against the Bank of America building right now it's a bit of a dark spot activity wise in the downtown because of the vacancies there. We have received development applications on these sites in the past many of those development applications have tried to utilize this location in some way shape or form for access and activation. But right now it remains really unutilized so how do we activate that either in the current situations or when development occurs. So what we looked at at this site, you either can look at a city initiated project because it essentially site the city controls and can activate now based on USD dollars, or it can be a private public partnership. You have lighting landscaping public art those are just your general aesthetic benefits that you can put in an area. You can do surface improvements associated with that that are ADA compliant those are more of your mechanical infrastructure pieces. I wanted to be bold how do you talk about it for recreation and use such as food trucks and reprogram it bring activity there create a buzz around it and just focus on it on a different way and that potentially could happen either now or in a development situation. We wanted to look at that. You know the food truck piece is more of a programming it used to be a right of way it's set up a lot for that there are smaller changes for that. There's the possibility associated with just doing fairly minor improvements to make that happen. Obviously it's understanding how the bigger downtown community feels about food trucks and how we work that out, but just throwing ideas on how we can reprogram that recreational piece. Pickleball is one of the biggest topics that is going on in the community today jurisdictions are taking commercial space and financial districts and turning them into pickleball courts. There's a high demand for it. How do we look at that at that space and it may not be the most appropriate use when we look at it long term because of how it, how it's aligned. The EIFD can create that funding mechanism and with the broad category can allow that creativity to happen. But really I think as we look at these spaces that are bigger in nature, recreation activity, creating a buzz around it. How do we really resolve the dark spot that currently exists around that corner with some of the vacancies more immediate, but then how do we get creative with a public private partnership, where we can actually look at more institutionalizing that use their long term with the development of the adjacent buildings. What's the, I mean, what's the status of development of the theater property there? The status of the theater is that on behalf of a not yet determined nonprofit and not as a development project of my company at all. A 25 year lease option has been entered into with a six month due diligence period to assess the possibility of converting it into a hybrid performing in conference space. And that is very early in a due diligence period. And the city has preliminarily indicated a desire to assist that due diligence study, but no formal contract has yet been executed. So we will remain to be seeing what will happen there. But I stress because there's conflict of interest issues that this is not a project for my company. It's a pro bono contribution that I'm making to see what can be done with that critical site. Can I just ask a question is that an alternative to considering like the Sears side of the conference center? It predated the release of the HVS study. HVS study as I understand it assessed a convention center, which is a much larger facility potentially. And this would be much smaller. It's been suggested that if the, if the preferred convention center goes forward, which could be yours in the future, that this site can focus on the performing arts component. Okay. Okay. And the other location downtown is JG way, which once again is more of an alleyway. It was an old right away. This one is much smaller than Comstock mall. And due to the fact has some constraints. So there is lighting landscaping public art. Once again, it really comes back to that activation is a little more limited. I, you know, I've seen quite a few creative ways the jurisdictions will reprogram allies, but they usually more or less fall in those elements. It's seating, it's lighting, it's art to bring people through that court or because they're mainly through ways. This one, it does act as a through way for some of the businesses that support this one really falls towards the back end of our list, because it doesn't necessarily have the same impact that Comstock would if it was programmed for the recreational more of the activity. But we still wanted to include it in there because it is an underutilized space in the downtown that potentially has a little more potential. So when we talk about broad categories of activating existing public space that includes JG and Comstock, if we're looking at a very broad category in the IFD, that's what it would be and it would include both mounts for both. And what we're looking at there is beautification projects. I think a good budget for beautification projects is probably three to five million in both locations. If the project start getting into more of the infrastructure improvements where we're changing surface getting into utilities, obviously that gets more expensive because you don't necessarily know what you'll find so you get more of the five to 10 million for something like that. So really with these projects and then the last piece or just some other items that I know we've discussed in this meeting has been discussed outside of this with the community. But they're just generally taking some of these concepts and extending them out throughout the district, right? We can do general landscaping and lighting improvements throughout the district to improve connectivity just to improve the experience downtown. Public Parklets. We can build public Parklets many jurisdictions have. The benefit of that is to try to create that active use space to bring people out or bring people to the location. We have wonderful weather in the summer and they were fairly popular when we did that through our immediate reactions to COVID. So we're really trying to push the public Parklet program to bring more people in as you increase that foot traffic. It increases spending. That's the logic behind that. Public Art and how we celebrate and create public art in a themed way. I think that's an important piece. Public Art can become a destination. The sculpture on the square has become a destination. People know it. They come to see it. How do you do more? How do you connect people through that? How do you tie it into Railroad Square in downtown similar to some of our connectivity themes? It's all about destination and bringing people into the downtown. And the last one is we can create more space for outdoor seating. Parklet is one option. Usually what you run into with any Parklet or Bulbout is you're usually sacrificing public parking for that space. But there's a few different ways that we can do your more traditional sidewalk cafe seating through sidewalk Bulbouts or your more traditional Parklet platform seating through utilizing the space in the parking stall other side of the curb. So these are some other elements that we could bucket in a general list. Obviously it's a little harder to define the cost on this because it's not necessarily scoped out as a project. But as we look at an overall list, it's going to generate a grand total at the end that likely will be in the 40 to 50 million range as far as our total projects. Now the EIFD, as I said before, isn't necessarily always the sole funding source for this. As a city, we constantly look for grant availability for reprogramming some of these spaces to see what sort of other dollars are out. But we also have to look at it as a significant funding source. So how much of the project could it fund to make it feasible long term? So when we look at some of the economic development benefits, we will evolve this conversation and do as many studies as we can. But as I mentioned before, when we look at the connectivity benefit, it is really increasing for traffic. And when you bring more people into an area and those people are coming in with the discretionary spending, going to the businesses, they're sitting and eating in a Parklet and having lunch. And they're looking at the retail sites and they're entering into the retail sites. How much tax increase do they generate as part of that? This is a difficult calculation to come out with. But as we start materializing this list, as this conversation progresses, we will continue to do our number crunching on that to see what we can do to give some number and to give some specific benefit to that. Because I think that's really an important piece, especially when we're talking about the connectivity issue. When we look at just the general concept of public private cost sharing for development, that encourages development. It brings different conversations to the table. And as we bring development on similar to the conference center that has its own RII, as I mentioned before, that's going to better understand what the benefits are putting that conference center in. Hotels typically travel with the same benefit because there's defined calculations you can do to understand how that impacts an overall area. And I think really the important piece is when you develop this new funding source and you add another line item to all the benefits that you have for coming into Santa Rosa to develop. It's really important to have a financial piece. It is the one that usually raises the eyebrows and changes the conversation with the development community. So really important just to be a catalyst for development. And I think that really important piece. And I know for many of the individuals that were on council, we've been trying to invest in downtown for many years. And we've been putting our effort into it for pretty much as long as I've been at the city. And I think it's important to show the commitment to show the investment to show that we're doing what we can do to really help out the community here. But I think when you help out the county seat and you help out the downtown and the county seat, you are helping out the county and you're creating sort of that investment in downtown and you're generating that buzz and you're creating that level of activity. So we think that commitment is really important point. And then of course we have the housing piece which we talked about before when you show that commitment and you show that energy and you're bringing more infrastructure and you're bringing more people and it sort of changes the narrative and it changes the concept about housing. And if we get more development of a lot of these unused sites, then that increases the tax on those sites. So that has that generation the buzz and just increasing that property tax revenue so we have sales tax benefit of more people we have additional property tax revenue with with the build out of those additional units that can come out of this. Like I said the mathematical calculations that go behind that to say how much that will have to progress in time. But as we framed out the project categories that you've seen today, it was all focused around that that that was the main marching order to hit these main bullet points on this slide. And that's why we limited it to more of the catalyst projects the ones that get really interest and bring people in and can create a destination. And it drives by and says that's great he doesn't come back to it, it is a destination and brings people in from the other area to see it. And then I think on the city side it's how we brand that how we market it, how we encourage people to come in because of all these great efforts that the IFT is putting. So with that, happy to accept any questions or comments. You know, like I said right now we're really trying to define this project list. How does the PFA feel about these general concepts. Are we going down the right road, which will help us really start having that conversations both internally on the county side and the city side. But at the end of this whole journey, we do come back to the PFA and this final document is presented. So we really need to make sure the PFA and the city and the county are really aligning with the general mission here. So we can start getting that draft IFT going, which will kickstart those public hearing processes and help us get to the finish line. Well, I'll just start by saying thank you for bringing us something that is concrete and flexible at the same time. No pun intended. Chris is not here to provide us with those days. But I think that what this will do before we get to questions is it is it will allow for some some flexibility so that we can have, you know, the spark that we need at the right moment and hopefully not get distracted by the squirrel that is the spark in the squirrel. So, you know, and that discernment between the both of them and I think that there's room for that in here. So with that, do we have questions. Start here and go down. Okay. Thanks, Kate. As you mentioned, the boring stuff isn't in here streets sewer water parking those kind of things. But those are part of what a project that's ultimately that would be correct. Yeah, so as we scope out a project, especially if a project is getting into infrastructure and what you would be looking at is if we said that best example I can give Comstock mall we want to put a pickleball court and a pickleball court is mostly infrastructure it's ADA compliance is getting inside walk its utilities its drainage. And so we can scope out that very general project. And what happens is you have sort of subcategories underneath it the control the ultimate cost. Now the benefit of being general is it allows us to move the EFT money around in that general category, because it may be out of that pickleball court there's certain that you find grant eligibility for and other funding sources may only cover certain elements of the project. But that is correct. So the public infrastructure would be a component of most of those projects we had talked about even when you do like right there's the electrical component of that and getting that infrastructure in place. I'm going to channel channel my absolute colleague. And just ask about the he has a concern about using the FD to pay for things that are going to happen either way. Like the maintenance of effort clauses that we have in some of our tax measures. Should that be a concern? Is it, is it something that can can legislate out of out of possibility. I'm just wondering what's the norm there and I'm asking because I know that it will be asked at some point so figure get it going here. And it's an excellent question and the norm from what I've seen is that the EIFDs do not cover that. They typically look at areas where you're trying to do something different than what you had before. So it may very well be that you have to go in and replace 30 year old water main as part of that project that that is because you are supporting development. And that is really the catalyst and it becomes to the be the public infrastructure that supports that development. So the maintenance very well could have been on the jurisdiction to replace that water main, but it forced it to occur earlier, because you're building the public infrastructure that's needed to support the land development. That's typical to your example of your doing a sports arena or you're doing some public private partnership and it would likely relate to when we get into Third Street if we get to the point where we're raising that up. We're touching public infrastructure technically that public infrastructure is the city's long term maintenance responsibility, but the project is initiating it to be done quicker than what it would normally would. Oftentimes wouldn't be needed on that exact date. The project's going or not. So it's not really either or some day it might happen. Now we're going to make it happen here. So we use this to calculate. And I think the uniqueness of this EIFD is the city in the county component. If this were just the city, I don't know that we're having a conversation around supplanting. Right. I think that conversation comes up because my understanding from Supervisor Rabbit is that we're not utilizing EIFD funding to supplant a project, a service that the city otherwise would have done on its own anyway. And so because of that, I do think we're in this great space. From the city's perspective, an argument could be made. No, we don't believe this is supplanting, but from the county's perspective, an argument could be made. Actually, this is, and so I know I'm not giving you a great answer, but I am just highlighting some of the uniqueness of this specific proposed EIFD. Yeah. We know it'll come up at some point. So just something to be thinking about. Gabe, I also wanted to ask you about, I think the third street connectivity has been an issue for forever since it happened 44 years ago. But fourth street is also the fourth street through the wall, or at least a pathway through the wall. And I'm wondering if that may be a way for Simon, for example, to provide their share of whatever the third street cost is. If we, if we can use, I don't want to say leverage, but if we can use our persuasive powers to make sure that third street doesn't. Maybe it's not the only way, but it's the only new way to make it fourth street as well. And that's an excellent point. And I think from a broad project category, if we say we want to increase pedestrian invite connectivity along the third and fourth street corridors and fund the two options. And the fourth street corridor becomes problematic because of Simon's unwillingness to move forward because of the investments that they're making that area. It gives us a flexibility to move to the third street, but it does not lose the ability to go to Simon and say we have a funding pot that can improve the pedestrian connectivity through fourth. And in one of the challenges, I know many of this that have lived here for many years, when the mall is open, the fourth street corridor somewhat works when the mall is closed and it's early it doesn't. And the connectivity around is not is not the best. So just concepts of opening that up more 24 seven have been discussed for many years, but that is an excellent point and I think one of the ways around it is to really merge those two concepts together. We'd want to do both third street might just happen naturally with development anyway, but the fourth street becomes a bit more problematic. And how do you create that financial incentive because you're attempting to solve some of the problems for them financially to address the four street, which is just that combined project type. So I think that would be one way to include both of those elements in the IP for the exit. Are there remodeling plans right now. They preclude that four street connection. What we have seen we have had conversations with Simon but what they have submitted for is they are working with two tenants to have out really facing access to the front of the building on that side where the hand statue is the hand statue will be a parking lot with more of a horseshoe configuration for circulation. That is much of that's pretty tenant driven because it provides front door access it provides ADA access drop off, but they are really focusing that predominantly as the front of the mall was shifting a lot of that attention outward. And that's, that's one of the challenges we're currently up against is that when they put that level of investment in. And I think that if we move in this direction, we still can have those conversations with them about that. But I think because third street is a defined right away corridor that really becomes the backup or the contingency plan and the event that the four street option does not work. Be a lot of new parking lots. I had a question about flexibility, because I like your ideas on the Comstock Mall, for example, and you were discussing food trucks and pickleball and whatnot. And I was wondering, is there a way where we can make it as flexible as possible so that when trends aside, and I can't imagine food trucks ever going out of fashion but let's just say that that that happens. Can we move something else in there is there a rotating wine tasting or something like that where we can still gravitate people and use that space as functionally well as possible. That's that's my first question. And that is an excellent question and I think if if something is set up for the use of let's say food trucks, where you're really talking about vehicular access. It was a right away corridor. Much of it was defined for that purpose, likely removing planner boxes re landscaping doing murals. You end up in some ways with a bit of a blank canvas that can be reprogrammed for different uses. I think the square offer some of those similar benefits. If you have a flat ADA compliant area. It becomes how you program that for events. So I think absolutely anything you can bring food trucks in on you would also have the ability to because it's not vehicular access you can close it off. You can do pop up events of various sorts. It really gives you more of an area to focus on. Okay, my second question is, and thinking creatively to about some of the options that you've listed like lighting and landscaping and public art. Even if we don't check off one I can also imagine a way where all of them could be combined in some fashion. So just hear me out. So let's say you had a rose garden but then with hedges that were constructed in such a way that they form a statuesque art piece, and then combining with lighting and blah, blah, blah, blah, right. So some of these I don't think we should look at as either or, but that we also should consider the possibility of combining them to create something new and different that also serves as a destination. I love the idea. I think that the creativity and the theming of it I think is important, right? You know, the theming, the uniqueness, the creativity, those are things that usually draw people to a location. And I think as you have really sort of a blank canvas in some of these areas, how do you reprogram it for that sort of use and how do you combine the natural elements with the lighting elements with the flow to create sort of that destination. And once again, how do you market it? There's a lot that we're really discussing internally in the city with our economic development plans moving forward. I think it's really important to bolster this up to bring people in there for all the elements and the creative elements that you've put into it, not only the use, but you just like walking through it. Okay, four questions and a comment. First, I'm sort of piggybacking a little bit, but just are we looking at mutually exclusive options here? You know, like it's Comstock or Third Street or, you know, so that's the first question. The second question is, does the city have a lighting design standard that it uses, you know, or could work with developers on. So, in order to get that kind of consistency that you're looking for, is there an alternative approach to doing that, which would be through establishing building code standards that the city would have. Third, I just noticed that there weren't costs for the Comstock Mall in Jeju Way and whether you like actually had those numbers but just didn't have them. And then fourth one is just does the city have a public art policy where you have, you know, like 2% of construction or development costs go to public art? Is there a policy like that? So I'm sort of with the lighting standard and the policy questions, I'm thinking back to the goals that we talked about where we're not sort of, we're not using these funds to replace, you know, the plant of either policy or funding, you know, that would happen some other way. So the final comment is more about just the challenges that I see of sort of selling the public on catalyst type projects. And the, in particular, I mean, I would love to see the Third Street open through the mall. But somewhat of a longstanding vested interest in that moving forward. But one of the challenges there is just a perception, different type of sort of a flip side of the coin of sub plantation is gift of public funds. So if we're seen as contributing money to Simon that he would otherwise have invested, you know, how do we, how do we work with the public perception or the public concern? From that standpoint, when you're talking about a catalyst project, the comments of piece of that is, I think the Third Street is so significant in changing the perception of the city as being more welcoming, more unified, more, you know, better mobility, et cetera, that it would overcome any issues that public would have with the perception of, you know, great gifting funds to an owner like Simon. All good questions. Sorry, a lot of content there, but. No, that's okay. So the, the first question is it's an end. So basically, all of these projects will populate our project list. And even the options, we'll, we'll build that all in. And the last option was more general beautification throughout we can build that in and program a dollar amount to that as well. So, and then your second question, I'll slide back here really quickly. Sorry, because it moved around so activating public space. This would include Jeju and Homestack. Okay, good. Right. So the three to five million would likely cover the beautification and then I think the five to 10 is if you get into more of the physical improvement. Yay, surface improvements. The city does have a public art program. So certain developments pay into a public art pod, and then that public art is distributed amongst the community. And in this particular case, that would just be another funding source to do public art. So really that would probably be the primary the IFT becomes the secondary to avoid that supplanting issue. And, but the problem is development wise that that spigot goes on and off. And it wouldn't less necessarily be the catalyst because it's build up the pot, spend the money. And it's purely development driven so year to year to year the revenue actually is consistent. Yes. And then the public perception is an excellent one. Anytime I think you get into a public private partnerships. And I go back to the public perception and I go back to the sports arena. That's a private entity. Private entity is making money out of that public dollars are going into that but the public is enjoying that. So how do you create an enjoyable situation for the public where they feel like you're addressing some of the concerns that they said for many years. And I think that was much of the focus on lighting and beautification. It's those things that really people want. And this is based on a lot of the things that we have heard from the community about creative ideas. And I think the perception of you have to actually partner with the private developer is sometimes difficult for the public to grapple around, but private development delivers projects much quicker than the public does. So, and you usually do it actually in a more efficient way. The delivery of that overall area happens at the same time and we partner with private developers quite often through reimbursement agreements when they do work that's not necessarily their nexus responsibility. So it happens quite a bit. But I think as we march forward with more of presenting this to the public what it means to you building RFI cues that's a really important point to address. And we have to discuss how that is actually a benefit for those public dollars to go into these sort of catalyst projects. But I think that's also why we wanted the catalyst projects to be appealing to be fun to be something that you would stop and look at if you're a resident of Santa Rosa for the last 30 years. I believe that was all four of your questions. Good job. Couple observations. As the PFA ultimately goes through the process, of course, one of the decisions would be how to deliver the most public benefit at the least cost. These options may fall out naturally because they'll run into the obstacle of excessive cost. Others may rise because you can get big impact relying on existing infrastructure. So, I don't think that has to be spelled out necessarily but it's obvious, but probably worth noting. On J.J. way, I would encourage you if there's a reference to J.J. that did to be asterisk. This is a tiny postage stamp and there is likely to be other sources of dollars for the necessary beautification which is likely to be pretty fairly minimal to be effective. That's out there. In terms of the connectivity and the economic analysis. One thing that needs to be noted. So within the downtown core today, there are twice as many hotel rooms as existed before the times. And that's generating potentially somewhere between 70 and $80,000 of gross revenues a day, which means generating between the different taxing agencies. 11, 11, 5 per day. So anything that increases occupancy and ADR in those hotels to creating a connected successful downtown is going to have a major financial impact on the public. Clearly the county. And we're not talking about sales tax or so tell tax. But we also know just speaking, you know, as someone is, you know, is in business. There is what you might call restaurant usage leakage going on out of those hotel occupancies. One reason that there's a lot of new restaurants in downtown is because there is increased restaurant demand coming from hotels, but a lot of those hotel people nearly are using new hotels, especially on the railroad square side of the freeway. It's just a way station to go somewhere else and they're not for the most part eating or dining in Santa Rosa. Anything that encourages them to stay and have a lunch or dinner in Santa Rosa is going to be an impact on the city's budget. And as well as on Congress. That's all the big plus one to me that's one of the big economic plus and connectivity plus obviously the public perception that it's, you know, it's a unified downtown, which will have economic effects. But I think it needs to be said, in my opinion, the city literally has no leverage over Simon because you cannot impose a nexus on either of those two projects. You can't say oh to develop the serious side you have to raise Third Street. Lots of luck getting that through. Similarly, what you're talking about is tenant improvements within existing buildings. You have no nexus to impose knocking knocking it through. I mean, you can't make that you just can't make that finding. But what you can do is if there's positive reinforcement through revenue streams to show them how something in the end is in their benefit, then maybe we'll get something really special done. I'm a big skeptic about honestly about Sonoma County tourism study. The complexities are huge. Convention Center requires more hotel rooms. Where do you put it? How do you make all that work? But on the mall side and not the Sears side, you've got, you may one day have the Macy site, which of course is separate ownership than what Simon has. We've got the, whatever that is, the forever 21 site that is a essentially a mid-rise building, which is of enough square feet, which is associated directly with parking and is sitting right there on the axis to go right through. And I think that Simon, if they haven't made other commitments to other people, and it's no secret I once had a deal on that time, but that's long gone. So it's not an issue. If they don't commit to somebody else, it could well be that a convention center that went in there, they would like. And that could justify the sheer amount of dollars that could flow into the city and county out of that could justify a major assistance to get that knocked through. My guess is that that's the best route to actually get it. Of course, we don't have the feasibility study and so we don't, we don't know what it says except it was positive that there's a demand, whether for a full convention center though. I'm clear. The other thing I just wanted to mention in terms of the Comstock Mall is there are the private pedestrian ways, while they're public pedestrian rays and private ownership that circulate around the Comstock Mall. And any Comstock Mall project should take those into account as far as what how the planning is really handled. And the theater site, who knows if a conference that will ever happen, or what will ever happen if that doesn't happen, it'll just sit there until somebody is willing to try to put a residential building on it. But the current building turns its back on Comstock Mall. And that's, I think, very deadly for future Comstock Mall uses so how that problem is ultimately solved. Unless a whole new building is built there is something that will really matter and could affect planning for the mall. Thank you. All good comments and questions. Most of my questions have been answered. I, the note that I have was that in this process that we figure out how we're going to communicate to the public a direct public benefit to two people in this process. I think that, you know, we all kind of understand what we're talking about, but I don't know that this is easily filtered out to the community. So having a strategy as we go, especially into public hearings about why, why we are doing this and what you will see and being able to make sure that if we go through this process that there is something and it might be that it's Comstock, that we can actually deliver for people on. I think that we've got to be realistic while aiming high. And with that, we don't have any more questions. One more question. Maybe one. Okay. The old time redevelopment devoted specific dollars to affordable housing. I, as far as I know this doesn't require that at all, but can, can EIFD money be used to help with financing affordable housing. And we have our consultants on board where I have seen it is it acts is infrastructure funding. So it essentially provides a funding stream for really offsetting some of the costs that affordable housing development would have for public infrastructure. But I know Chris, are you on. And the, the EIFD law allows the financing of acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of affordable housing. For rent or purchase. And I think that would be a good thing to specifically highlight as a real. You mentioned Parklitz, but the fourth street corridor in the Mendocino corridor, more generally could require improvements beyond Parklitz, including lighting. And the private development plan who knows if it'll happen on the Mendocino corridor. And it could be the private development is going to end up doing an awful lot of that work in EIFD would otherwise do there. You don't want to supply that they're going to pay for it. Let them do it. But I'm thinking that perhaps need to be broader language about those two key corridors than just Parklitz. I think it's great to supervise of course he's question. So, are you wanting to see some sort of direct benefit through the EIFD to affordable housing. Yes, I would and I think that, you know, not only benefit people live in that housing but I think it benefits the public perception of what we're doing. I'm asking you to clarify if you don't mind like what what you specifically are being suggesting that in the PFA we would have for the EIFD we would have financing for infrastructure to support affordable housing. And as part of their capital stacks instead of them underground or deal with sewers or something that you would have funded for it. I'm asking staff to come up with some good ideas for us. Okay, so with that do we have any more questions or comments? This housing issue is fundamental because the demand could be so great it could affect everything else. Under redevelopment there was a provision as you know for the X percent of redevelopment revenues did have to go to lower modern income housing. I would suggest that if there is a housing component that the revenues available defined enough so that housing advocates and what you might call economic development advocates aren't in a constant argument in front of the PFA for years to come. I haven't missed a question maybe for staff but I'm sorry to the chair. Haven't the infrastructure limitations like the sewer issue been a barrier to some of the housing development in the past or have I misunderstood that? I mean I know these are things are unsexy you know the sort of utility side of things but they're also you know also a type of catalyst right. Am I wrong in my thinking? Well the ten or so buildings we built downtown there were never any infrastructure limitations. Going forward PG&E infrastructure could be a decisive impediment I think we're generally conscious of that. Right, and the cost I know I mean I know from my development experience the cost of upgrading PG&E infrastructure is really quite probably expensive. Okay. I think just for clarity we for our downtown stationary plan there's infrastructure analysis that goes into that and our I know our water teams and our operational teams put a lot of effort into ensuring that development aren't hit with big offsite infrastructure. That's typically what EIFTs will cover. Right. There's a major impediment to develop an overall area that backbone infrastructure becomes a line item in that EIFT we're not anticipating that downtown at this point. Okay. All right very well then. Do you have anybody who wishes to make public comment? We do not. All right. Seeing that I will close public comment. Thanks staff for the excellent presentation and the board members for a lively set of questions and comments and move on to item five public comments on non agenda matters. Anybody wish to make comment? Seeing none. We'll close public comment. Item six discussion of next meeting agenda. Staff have anything they would like to flag for us. Well at this point I think we will be continuing our internal conversations. Our goal is to really get to that draft IFP. And our next meeting in the schedule is to present that. That's a really good feedback provided by the PFA today. We'll work internally to get to those main elements in the IFP. And then our goal really is to move that forward. If there is any additional feedback needed from the PFA from now on to this point if that's the next meeting we'll schedule a meeting but our hope is to get to that draft IFP as soon as possible and have that be the next main agenda topic. Sounds really good. Any board members have any input on future agenda items? Very well then. We shall adjourn. Item seven at 201-7. 15 minutes and zero seconds.