August 10, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[6:03] city council I want to go ahead and call us to order ask for a roll call please yes sir good evening everyone we'll start tonight as usual with council member Benjamin president mayor Brockett president council member fulcrates present friend here Joseph spear present mayor Pro tem Wallach present councilmember weiner present and Yates here mayor we have our quorum thank you Alicia just to lay out the format for this evening we have one public hearing for this special meeting and that is our meteor boarding commission appointments once that's complete I'm going to close the special meeting and then hand the

[7:00] virtual gavel over to council member Yates to then have lead our study session afterwards which has two items so I'll let him talk about those when we get there well so for now if we can go to our one and only public hearing please yes sir tonight's public hearing is item 3A on the agenda it is the 2023 midterm boards and commission appointments Maria do you want to give us an intro I I actually think you don't even need me today because we are in great hands with our uh clerk's office as we think about that so Felicia I will send that right back to you thank you ma'am thank you ma'am so good evening Council Elisha Johnson your city clerk and Records manager and before we begin this process of nominating and appointing board and commission candidates to fill our current vacancies I'm gonna go ahead and provide an outline of our process for this item there are two steps first we will present slides of each board and commission identify which seats are

[8:00] vacant along with their required qualifications the eligible candidates and whether they have applied to any other boards the second step we will ask them I will ask the mayor to open our public hearing close it when it's completed and turn the discussion back to me to provide counsel with guidance on how the nomination and appointment process will proceed Emily if you would please present the slides we will go over the boards and commission's open seat of vacancies next slide please our first board that we are seeking appointments to is our environmental Advisory Board we have seat number two that's available and that is to appoint a member to an unexpired four-year term through March 31st 2027 seat four is to appoint a member to an uninspired one-year term through March 31st 2024. we have four applicants for these two

[9:00] seats we have Hannah Davis Richard gyocia Greg Hill and Alan Lewis next slide next we will look at our landmarks board we have seat number four and that seat is to appoint a member to a one-year unexpired term through 331-24 we have two applicants Renee globik and James Lindbergh next slide our open space Board of Trustees is next we have seat number three and that is to appoint a member to an unexpired two-year term through March 31st 2025 we have five applicants for this one seat we have Bruce Feinberg John gersel Keith Musselman Mason Roberts and Harmon Zuckerman next please we have next our University Hill commercial area management commission we have two seats available for appointment seat number two is to appoint a member

[10:01] to a five-year term through 331 2028 this seat is for a property owner or representative of a property owner as with seat three with the same terms and the same requirements we have one applicant for either of those seats which is tell Jones I will if there is no questions or any information needed I will down turn it over to the mayor to open and close the public hearing mayor Bronco thank you so much Alicia so if we can open the public hearing please I understand we have one person signed up to speak okay so that individual will get three minutes Lynn Siegel Europe I will look for her she doesn't seem to be present I don't see her in the lists no she isn't present tonight sir

[11:02] we'll catch you at another meeting we'll then go ahead and close uh the public hearing and bring it back to council so let's get started if we can I think it might be helpful to have the slides up for this um on the other hand it would be helpful to be able to see people's faces so I can see raise your your hands so but why don't we start with the slides so we're all on the same page for a good place and mayor if I'm will no please John Morris is also joining us tonight and he will keep track of the nomination and the appointments in the zoom chat thank you John thank you John all right and I can actually see you all pretty well um I'll just ask you to hold up your hands for a while when you when we do voting all right so we have the environmental Advisory Board two seats available I think we generally will start with the longest term first so seat number two of an unexpired four-year term I'll accept nominations from the floor

[12:00] Nicole thank you um I wanted to nominate Hannah Davis I was very impressed with her professional background I think it's important that we have um as a kind of the main woman who applied here I think she brings an interesting perspective there especially being a mom with with young children there as well um she just she seemed like with her professional background and her personal experiences she would be a really good person to have joining this board very good any other nominations mark yeah I'm going to nominate Richard giosia he seems to have a an extremely substantial background and environmental issues um and I think he'd make a uh a wonderful addition to the board just based on technical capabilities and experience in the field right any others

[13:01] seeing none does anybody else want to speak to this or I'll just call on myself here I'll just uh say I thought Hannah Davis's application and interview were both stellar and I'm excited to be uh hopefully appointing her to the board so I'll be supporting her this evening all right uh seeing no other hands I will call oh uh please tell me are we going alphabetical or backwards alphabetical for our start well and I just want to be remind I want to remind everyone if one more than one person is nominated for the same seeds we have a specific process narrowing the candidates down to one finalists a vote of support will be held for each individual nominated candidates must receive a minimum of five votes to be declared the finalists for a vacancy and if the first round of voting does not produce a clear winner the candidate with the fewest votes will drop from the nomination list so in the order of nominees will be called either alphabetically or reverse

[14:01] alphabetically by last name of nominees depending on the flip of my handy dandy coin okay so I'm gonna flip now we will start with reverse alphabetical and from this point on I will alternate the order for all future nominee votes during the meeting where more than one candidate will be nominated great and then I'm going to ask Rachel if it's all right with you you can raise your virtual hand uh for your chosen person I've uh I can see you in the participant list so uh reverse alphabetical we will start with Richard joshia all in favor I got one from Mark which means that goes to Hannah so congratulations Hannah uh for being appointed to the four-year term and uh Matt I just want to say like

[15:01] it would have been nice if we could have voted in uh affirmation for Hannah I know just based on how Stellar uh she did an interview and and stuff so I know it goes by default but um uh just wanted to put that out there fair point I'll ask I'll I'll go back all in favor of uh Hannah Davis raise your hand I got I got eight and I'll I'll do that going forward Matt thanks for the prompt um Tara did you have a comment no I want to do the next nomination okay we'll now accept nominations for seat number four the one year term Tara I was also impressed with Richard gioskia and he had a really a stellar resume and I thought his interview is excellent and he also did his interview from vacation and I thought that was pretty impressive as well so I'm going to choose him for a second uh the second uh for the fourth seat okay uh how any others Nicole

[16:02] thank you um I wanted to nominate Greg Hill for this uh two-year term um I was impressed with him having been a wild band's restoration volunteer I think it's always wonderful to have people who have conflict resolution and communication skills I really appreciated how he talked about engaging more youth on this board and I think his Decades of experience as a computer network engineer just really give him an interesting way of thinking about these these bigger issues also I think it's notable that we have somebody with a disability who has applied for one of our boards and I think this is a perspective that we are very often missing in our boards and commissions and so I also think it would be wonderful to have somebody who brings that unique perspective in addition to experience working in this area very good just to clarify Nicholas said one year term thank you sorry about that I had written my notes wrong but well said

[17:01] uh any other nominations or comments seeing none we can go ahead and vote and this time we are in alphabetical order so we will actually once again start with Richard Joseph all in favor raise your hand s three all in favor of Greg Hill I've got six so we get the one-year term going to Greg Hill congratulations next slide Inlet okay so with the landmarks forward we've got one seat number four for a one-year term we've got two applicants would anyone like to make a nomination Lauren thanks um I really struggle with this one because

[18:00] these are both amazing candidates um Renee bringing the background of construction experience within our community to provide a deeper understanding of what the changes that this board requests and how it might affect um the applicant um she was my pick thanks any others Nicole sorry I was going to offer comments so I I can wait on that yeah let's do uh nominations first and we'll go to comments uh nominations mark yeah I'm gonna nominate uh James Lindberg um his background in the National Trust for historic preservation uh speaks well for his uh abilities to serve on the landmarks board and uh I will support him again I won't ask for more nominations uh any comments

[19:01] cool you're just going to know one of the things that I appreciated about Renee was also her work around Energy Efficiency um to me this issue of how Landmark spits with making sure that our buildings are energy efficient as we move forward felt like a really important one um and so I I will be uh supporting Renee anyone else and uh Lauren I think your hand's still up I'm not sure if you want to say there we go Lauren do you want to say something else nope down again all right uh seeing uh seeing no others I'll just uh call myself an echo that we have two extremely well uh qualified applicants here so we're in good hands uh so reverse alphabetical this time so all in favor of James Lindberg oh my God one two three uh all in favor of Renee golbeck

[20:00] we've got six so congratulations Renee one year term goes to you thanks a lot anyway thank you all right open space Board of Trustees we've got seat number three a two-year term and we have five applicants who would like to make a nomination again Tara and Matt I would like to nominate Mason Roberts um first of all his he's he's very he's done a lot of board work he's a rock climber he uses the God he also cares about species and management of the open space so I think he combines the recreation part of open space with also caring about the um the species and all the details that you need to know to to be a well-qualified on the open space board so here's my pick

[21:00] thank you Matt thanks Aaron I'm going to nominate Harmon Zuckerman um a Harman I think reputation sort of precedes him um having been on planning board have been shared and I think what's really critical here is you know osbt needs needs some help um getting back on its feet and getting back to a high function um after what's sort of been going on for the past year plus um so I think it's really critical that someone like Harman can step in and kind of on day one already understand the functioning of boards how it works the relationships with staff um and really get that board operating at a high high level which is what we need in our community and and I'm very confident that Harmon will bring his skill set his knowledge um to really get osbt operating at the level that we've all come to expect and we know that they're totally capable of it's Matt any other nominations Lauren well I just wanted to speak to someone who has already nominated is should I wait yeah let's close the nominations and then go to comments if you don't mind mark

[22:02] yeah I like both the Mason and Harmon but I'm going to nominate John gorsel he's got a very very substantial background uh in the field um and uh I think he would do an excellent job he served on boards before um and so I he would be my selection very good any other nominations uh seeing none if people would like to make comments Lauren thanks um I just wanted to speak to the nomination of Mason Roberts I think you know he is friendly even keeled and really able to balance both sort of the big picture thinking and the Deep dive into the nitty-gritty details and data analysis and I think that that will serve him really well on this board I also really appreciate his ability to

[23:02] reach across the aisle and have meaningful discussions with people no matter how they see an issue or whether that differs from how he sees something so I think that that also is something that we really need on this board so thank you sorry Nicole morning Sam I will be supporting Mason as well um I just want to Echo Tara's comments about his board experience he was really thoughtful about this position both in his application as well as his interview I think his perspective as a young father with three-year-old twins is an interesting one for the board um I really appreciated the lens that he was giving to ensuring Equitable access to our trails and open space and you know to the point about open space needing people who already have five plus years with City boards the

[24:00] open space board actually feels like a really fun high functioning one um to me because they handled an issue that came up that was disrupting their board and so this feels like a board where um you know it is functioning very well as it's supposed to and I think giving somebody who is new to City leadership is a really important thing that we can do here on Council just to make sure we're not kind of just moving people from One board to another but really opening up the space in a way that's allowing more people to come in and serve on our boards and commissions so just um all around I really appreciate Mason I think this is a great board for him to go into and I would like to see us opening up these spaces to folks who haven't served before so that we can bring more leaders into our community thank you thanks Nicole Rachel thanks Aaron um for for flagging my hand I um I do think Mason's an outstanding uh applicant I'm going to support Harman uh for a couple reasons as stated by Matt and just wanted to emphasize that

[25:00] with open space I think um his perspective is a land use attorney when so much of what they do is you know involves land and land use is is a pretty awesome addition to that board so um that's one of the primary reasons that I'm supporting him thanks colleagues I think we got some absolutely outstanding candidates here this is a very very tough decision for all of us to make I do want to just make the observation that this appointment tonight will be for really a one and a half year term until March of 2025. but we have another um appointment that will be coming up in just about six months in February March of next year so I hope that that whoever has applied uh for this this year and a half Position will consider applying for the full five-year term if they don't get a plenty tank at five year term uh in the in the in the spring so I think we're going to get over the next uh half year we're going to hopefully pick up two of these great people thanks Bob

[26:02] um I'll go ahead and call on myself and say I've said a very difficult Choice uh for me the I feel like both Mason and Armin would do a phenomenal job I was very impressed by both of their applications and by both of their interviews um I think you know the the I'm tilting um for reasons that that Matt and Rachel have stated I'm tilting towards Harmon uh for this appointment right now but I'll Echo that um I would strongly strongly encourage Mason to apply again here in a few months uh when this position when the next position opens um in the new year um and then just a shout out a former planning board colleague John gerstel whose family history in the open space area is legendary his parents helped get the initial uh open space tax on the ballot so appreciate all your service John all right seeing I'm not seeing any other hands so I will go ahead and call for a vote are we on alphabetical now yes sir all right so we'll start with John

[27:00] Crystal I got two votes uh now Mason Roberts uh three votes uh fireman Zuckerman all right I'm sorry uh Genie I I saw you raise your hand for for John already so Junior if you don't mind me asking did you want to register a vote for John or Harman in the first round it's all right it's fine thank you okay well I'll stick you I'll keep you with John since that was your your first vote then so um so Harmon let's try again on Harmon because I can get rid of these hands I got one two three four okay so we got four three two so that will mean that uh John gerstal will will drop

[28:00] off as the third place getter vote getter and then I believe we switch to reverse alphabetical um so we would then start the second round with Harman Zuckerman all in favor yeah one two three four five six and Mason Roberts I got three so that seat goes to Harman Sacrament for the year and a half or so to your turn very good okay this is a complicated one not sure whether to start with seat two or C3 but let's let's go for seat number two uh five year term uh would anyone like to nominate someone Matt um yeah I'll nominate uh tell Jones here um as many of you may know tells um sort of a recent partner to become a new partner at the sink and been a manager there for a long time and the sink celebrating their 100th anniversary and

[29:00] if any of you were at the uh documentary for this sync um tell got probably the loudest cheer of anybody uh when he was brought on stage so loved by the employees at the sink um and loved by a lot of people that work on the hill I think he'd bring a great perspective um with with what he he does at the sink but also how he's connected with folks in the community um and so I think he'd do a great job in the seat great any other comments I'll just call myself and say I was very impressed with him through the 100th anniversary celebrations of the sink and think he'll do a phenomenal job so I think we can go by acclimation all in favor tell Jones all right congratulations okay so we have made all of our selections so um I would then uh invite a motion um to appoint um to a motion to approve the appointments that we have just selected

[30:00] so move second all right we got a motion a second any final comments before vote seeing none I will ask all in favor of the motion I got I got nine all right the motion passes unanimously all right congratulations uh to all the people appointed and thanks so much to everyone who applied and do uh definitely consider re-applications if you were not selected tonight we had a wealth of talent available to us and with that um five minutes ahead of schedule I will gavel the special meeting close and hand the reins over to council member Yates uh thank you Aaron uh so just for the record this is the when I'm moving to the August 10 2023 study session uh we have two topics for tonight um both of them going to be presented by Community

[31:01] Vitality let me just make a couple comments before I turn it over to nurio for introductions uh the first topic we'll cover uh and these are both scheduled for 90 minutes uh we may be able to beat that first topic it relates to University Hill revitalization in the second relates to commercial affordability with respect to the hill um when I reviewed the the slide earlier today with Community Vitality I think we agreed that it's a pretty um beefy um set of uh slides and there's a lot of information there and so I think when Regan leads us through this we're going to take a few pauses for questions so so uh don't don't get concerned if you have questions right away because I think we're going to take two or three pauses in in logical places and let folks ask questions of the presenter and then there'll be questions for us at the end uh the second uh presentation I think won't require that if you have a really burning question you need to interrupt raise your hand of course but if you can hold your question to the end in the second presentation that would be great um and then we've got some guests with

[32:00] us tonight um I I we anticipate that there's a possibility there may be some questions relating to um Transportation tonight on the University Hill um presentation it's a community Vitality presentation but Natalie Stifler was kind enough to join us tonight so just know that Natalie's in the wings and ready to answer any transportation related questions you have and then finally um uh the University Hill uh matter has been reviewed by you campsie to to which board we just wanted someone and we do have the chair of the youcamsi board Cheryl Liguori available if you've got any questions for campsie with that Nuri I'll turn it over to you for the first presentation thanks so much councilmember and I'll try to keep it brief because we do and have a beef y or a set of two beefy conversations so tonight we're focusing on our commercial areas and it is uh it is certainly Community Vitality evening as we um as we embark on this hopefully what we're talking about is how we continue to

[33:00] support the over 7 500 businesses that contribute to the vibrancy of our city so it's an interesting evening because we're going to start a little bit more narrow and focus in on the University Hill area and you'll see some overlap as we have those conversations and we widen out that lens and talk a little bit more broadly about the possibility of of continuing to support a city-wide affordable commercial program so I'll send it to Chris Jones to kick us off more formally but also wanted to know that we have a staff member who is not just coming to council for the first time tonight but it's actually coming twice uh and it's a bit of a glutton for punishment and I'm not quite sure how much Chris is going to have to pay her for doing double duty on her first time out but I hope you give Regan Brown a warm welcome as she walks us through a presentation but first I'll send it over to Chris thanks so much Nuria good evening city council Chris Jones director of community Vitality so delighted to be able to be here uh with you all this

[34:00] evening to Daylight some work that we have been talking about for a while um You Might Recall back at the retreat earlier this year of the many work plan priorities that Community Vitality had for 2023. two of them were University Hill commercial area revitalization and so we've been working really hard on that and the other another one of them was an affordable commercial program development and so uh lucky lucky Regan Brown who's been with Community Vitality for about a year and a half came to Boulder from New York City um I'm going to call it a double header it's baseball season we have a double letter and she will be rewarded later this evening but really just want to express my sincere appreciation to everybody who's been working on these efforts and I'm glad to just hand it over to Regan now and we'll look forward to answering your questions and getting some direction from you all on our next steps moving forward so with that over

[35:00] to you Regan thank you Chris and thank you Maria hi everyone I'm Regan it is my first time here at Council but I'm very excited to be here this evening um and I'm excited to dive into Hillary vitalization I want to provide you with an update this evening on revitalization strategies for the University Hill commercial area um as well as our recommendations to implement broad strategies in the near term followed by some longer term strategies that we're looking at specific to the 14th Street surface parking lot and I believe Emily you're going to be sharing the slides right thank you all right we can go right to the next slide into the agenda so quick overview here I'll start with some questions for Council that were in the memo that I'd like you to think about throughout the presentation then we'll dive into a background followed by key considerations that we used for analysis and informed our recommendations

[36:00] I'll share some feedback that we received from the University Hill commercial area management commission followed by an outline of next steps and then we'll Circle back on those questions for our discussion so the first question asks if Council supports staff's recommendation to prioritize broad district-wide strategies for the hill in advance of redeveloping the 14th Street law next we'll ask Council if they wish to direct staff to explore code changes that are specific and unique to the hill and then lastly a question to see if Council has any questions for us about next steps we can go right into the next slide here so I'd like to start by going over some notable characteristics of the University Hill Neighborhood at large the hill dates back to the 19th century it's full of Rich history and qualities

[37:02] that make it unique to other areas of the city it has a really rich music history especially in the 1960s when there were several entertainment venues and concerts that Drew large crowds to the area and this includes two loggies a well-known club and music venue on the hill for five decades which has since then been converted converted into a rental commercial space it's known for its innovative and vibrant Spirit especially given its proximity to see you in that useful student population it's also unique in that it's very architecturally diverse um with victorians Bungalows mid-century modern Classics found throughout the district in the neighborhood at Large and then lastly it connects to really large populations so we have the CU student population on one hand and then

[38:01] a large residential community and it connects it connects them to a small three-block commercial District next slide and so now I want to kind of narrow in on that commercial District the University Hill General improvement district also known as eugid it's one of older's special taxing districts Eugene and some of the key sites within the district that I'll be referencing on this slide can be seen here on the map on the left hand side of the slide it was established in 1970 at the request of property owners who wanted to tax themselves in order to purchase land that could provide customers with additional public parking spaces and one of those Parcels of land is the 14th Street surface parking lot and is the only remaining General Improvement district-owned law in the commercial District Eugene recently sold its other parking

[39:00] asset in 2021 the Pleasant Street law to facilitate the development of the Hill Hotel so ultimately this significantly reduced the number of public parking spaces on the hill and reduced operating revenue for Eugene and as many of us know there are several new developments underway on the hill which include the hill hotel and the CU Conference Center and those will inevitably have an impact on the commercial District but even in the face of this growth and development yugit has experienced a state of economic stagnation for several decades community members have expressed feelings concerns of feeling unsafe residents have described a limited retail mix that caters may be a little too heavily to that student population and then connectivity to and from downtown and also within the district is a bit of a challenge and so ultimately our goal is to

[40:03] formulate strategies that will generate really positive and long-lasting impact for the district next slide so Eugene has a set of ordinances that are unique in comparison to the rest of the city and those key regulations are displayed here on this slide I'll start with the one on the left so due to concerns with alcohol over consumption city council adopted Boulder Revised Code 965 B in October 2013. and in summary this requires that at least 50 percent of any eating places sales on the hill must come from the sale of food and it's important to know that there's no other requirement related to this in the rest of the city additionally these establishments must close no later than 11 pm unless they

[41:02] were grandfathered in um and another important note is that it's 2 am for the rest of the city and currently as it stands today there are no restaurants or bars on the hill that are open past 10 pm unless they've permanently closed or adjusted their hours of operation and then moving on to the ordinance on the right hand side so in 2015 Boulder Revised Code 963b was adopted to address the concern that the economic environment strongly favors rental housing within Eugene making it really difficult for other diverse land uses to compete in the mic in the marketplace and ultimately posing a threat to the vibrancy of the commercial District and so in August of 2014 Council passed a temporary moratorium which was then extended in 2015 and subsequently

[42:02] changed to restrict all new housing within yugit to be permanently affordable and so in summary with what I just mentioned the hill is really more it's more regulated compared to the rest of the city and we've heard that from many businesses especially regarding this ordinance on the left hand side here it's in fact fairly difficult to achieve because the restaurant industry really does rely heavily on the sale of alcohol as their primary source of Revenue all right next slide safety has been an ongoing challenge within eugid and the broader Hill Neighborhood um primarily stemming from that crowd and party behavior and so the hill reinvestment working group which was formed in late 2015 to pursue a hill reinvestment strategy has placed a lot of attention on the issue of safety on a

[43:02] more broad level um but we're still seeing that the commercial district is struggling with several challenges related to safety and crime um local business owners have expressed their frustration around certain behaviors occurring in front of their storefronts and elsewhere in the commercial District this includes panhandling loitering public drug use Etc a recent effort to try to mitigate these challenges included a generous contribution from CU providing an additional forty five thousand dollars annually to expand our ambassador program on the hill and so for those who aren't aware ambassadors provide cleaning safety and Hospitality Services downtown and on University Hill and it's also important to know Improvement efforts such as a landscaping project that we completed at the intersection of 13th in Pennsylvania

[44:01] this past year as well as ongoing coordination with the hillboulder Merchants Association on activations and business support and retention efforts but even with these recent efforts there are still opportunities for additional improvements to be made next slide you did find health there is limited capacity to fund General improvements with the district's property tax revenues which amount significantly less than our other Special Districts YouTube relies heavily on the general fund in contrast the city's other Special Districts the general fund transfer offsets you get expenses related to General funding activities such as the eco-pass program and the administration and maintenance of the on street parking meter program

[45:02] some funding strategies that have been raised in discussions all this issue of Eugene fund health and the challenges we're seeing include debrising which would eliminate hugees Mill reduction that results from the taxpayers Bill of Rights and it would provide the city with that full Mill Levy another strategy raised relates to establishing a Downtown Development Authority which could help fund General improvements and additional programs and for those who are unaware a Downtown Development Authority is a strategy used to revitalize commercial districts and it can provide for a variety of funding options including millage and tax increment financing ultimately for public improvements in commercial districts and then there also continues to be interest in the possibility of establishing a business improvement

[46:01] district on the hill so that could provide long-term operating dollars to the hill to support operations such as cleanliness and activations things of that nature and there are many trade-offs to be considered related to the reinvestment of the Pleasant Street Lot Sale proceeds so right now those proceeds are sitting in savings earning interest but delayed reinvestment of those funds only prolongs limited access due to the decrease in parking spaces and the Redevelopment of 14th Street Lot which could ultimately result in additional property tax retail lease or parking Revenue but on the flip side according to current budget assumptions reinvesting those funds in 2025 would result in a negative fund balance for ugit by 2027. so it's important to take these

[47:00] trade-offs into consideration when we're considering any revitalization strategy next slide and then we're also seeing business retention challenges on the hill the commercial District caters fairly heavily to that student population and has struggled for decades to attract a diverse mixed abuses as it stands today there is a 14 commercial vacancy rate and the business mix is depicted here on the right hand side of this slide so as you can see there are several restaurants but also personal care services convenience stores retails such as smoke and skate shops so again kind of catering to that student population and some points of comparison that I'd like to call out although staff is working on on getting more updated data so it's not necessarily precise in comparison but still paints a

[48:02] picture of where the hill stands related to other areas um so the retail vacancy rate for the entire city of Boulder this was in December 2021 was at 4.7 percent and then Nationwide in the U.S vacancy rates across the retail sector hit an average of 4.4 in the second quarter of 2022. so again in comparison to other statistics for the city and Nationwide the hill has a much higher commercial vacancy rate and lastly we're seeing a lot of closures over in the hill over the past year and these include a lot of well-known businesses rosenberg's albums on the hill Sherry's soda shop boss lady pizza and more next slide Eugene has been the focus of several studies over the years some notable ones are outlined here on this slide which

[49:02] I'll briefly go over so starting on the left hand side the University Hill sub-area plan this was a sketch plan undertaken in 1996 to build a vision for the community based on needs around Public Safety connectivity and economic growth in 2011 we were awarded the Urban Land Institute technical advisory panel program so we've been awarded this opportunity for the hill twice now and I'll dive into what this program really is on the next slide but the purpose in 2011 was to assess revitalization strategies at the time for the district and recommendations from that convening fell into various categories such as governance and programming um but again this was over a decade ago many changes have occurred since then on the hill so it's a bit outdated but

[50:00] certainly useful to build upon the 2017 Central Broadway Corridor design framework this is a guiding document recommending Urban Design improvements along Broadway including how to better connect the hill to downtown in 2021 we contracted with economic and planning study and planning systems who conducted a feasibility study on the 14th Street law and the outcome of that they they recommended a primary strategy of pursuing market rate housing which of course faces important limitations given the current regulatory environment and that ordinance related strictly to affordable housing within you did um and then in 2023 our most recent convening with that technical advisory panel that occurred back in June and so I'll outline some key recommendations

[51:00] from their findings later in the presentation and we can go to the next slide I do just want to take a moment here to give a brief overview of what the Urban Land Institute technical advisory panel program is Uli tap for short since it was a really important part of our recent efforts um and again with findings and recommendations from that convening shared later in the presentation so ulit tap is an opportunity that provides a matching Grant from Dr cogg to support two studies in two Denver Metro communities and the program provides awardees with a panel of volunteers with Urban Land Institute expertise to help us work through a pressing typically land use related challenge it's valued at over twenty thousand dollars and ultimately provides communities with recommendations that address a problem problem statement in

[52:02] our case we asked the tap to address challenges that we're seeing on the hill through Redevelopment of the 14th Street lot but also broader strategies recognizing that tackling these challenges that we are seeing on the hill really requires a multi-prong guitar okay next slide so I want to take some time to kind of tie it all together it's important to understand why we're here now why are we tackling this work now based on community and stakeholder feedback to City staff we understood that many of the previous studies are either outdated or maybe they took a little too narrow of an approach on specific elements of the district so revisiting broad strategies deemed appropriate which was really the Catalyst for us engaging with the Urban Land Institute technical advisory panel program again

[53:01] as I mentioned the district continuously has struggled with some of these economic and social challenges that I've outlined from business retention to safety to funding concerns the top brought up a really great point that once people exit the lobby when the when the hotels are complete once they exit the lobby they'll choose to either go right or left either downtown or to the hill commercial area so let's address these challenges and make the hill more welcoming as we start to see this influx of visitors and on that note we see an opportunity to invest in strategies that complement the new developments that are underway rather than waiting to see how they'll impact the district let's leverage them as an opportunity to be proactive and Implement strategies that will be complementary to these new developments and ultimately it's time to act and it's

[54:00] time to respond to this increasing Community desire to see positive change in the neighborhood that is very special to a lot of people it has such a rich history it's a really important part of Boulder's character so let's build off those positive attributes and help it become that thriving place that our community desires so with that I'd like to pause here and see if Council has any questions so far well thank you Regan and so we thought this would be a good time that's a lot of information we thought this would be good time to see if anybody has any questions about what you've heard so far around the history around the past planning around the economics we do still have coming up um a discussion around connectivity and Transportation around um activation around the 14th Street parking lot which Regan has alluded to we're going to drill into that a little deeper so if you have questions about those topics just hold them but if anything you've heard already if you've got questions this would be a great time to raise your hands and see see if we

[55:00] can get some answers Mark first and I'm sorry Matt first then Mark uh thanks Bob um uh Regan you're off to a hot start uh you knock knock that out out of the park um um my question is Senator a little around history um and so I don't know if it's folks in CV or maybe Cheryl knows the answer or or it dates back even further but my question is really around the um that you get I'm saying that right uh the improvement district and it's actual boundaries and why it perhaps didn't expand South to what now is the hotel but there were over half a dozen businesses present for for over 20 some years and so I'm just wondering why you didn't envelop um that space um and then maybe going forward what would be the process if it was the will to expand it to maybe to include the hill and some of those businesses in between so I I'm just sort of wondering why it stopped uh where it did and why and whether or not we could expand if we felt that it was in the broader economic

[56:00] interests uh to do so yeah that's a great question I think I'd like to defer to Chris if you're Chris Jones if you're able to speak to that um absolutely well and I mean it might help to go back to that map those properties are actually in the general improvement district so the map is a little deceiving the only parcel that's not the only commercial parcel that's not in eugid is the gas station um given their the that use they've never expressed an interest to to join the district but all of the parcels within uh the that were formerly all those commercial spaces have now becoming the Hill Hotel those are in the district and I always have been thank you for clarifying that the map was a bit deceiving so thank you for that Chris appreciate it no problem thanks man Mark that was uh a very brave and very good performance uh thank you so much I do have a couple of questions because the the memo on this subject was a little confusing to me

[57:00] we're told that there are grandfather blicker licenses in the district that still permit 2 A.M operation but then later we're told that there are no establishments operating after 10 o'clock what am I missing which is it so anyone any business that was grandfathered in has either permanently closed or adjusted their hours hence why no business on the hill is open until 11 or later and and even the ones that are not grandfathered to two could operate to 11. do you know why they're not taking advantage of that Chris any any thoughts there I'm sure you could handle it but I'm happy to chime in there there are very few businesses left um on the hill that are grandfathered into the previous liquor rules the sink being a very prime example of one um and I think the the business model

[58:01] and staying late given a number of challenges that have been experienced not just on the hill but but everywhere from Staffing challenges to to changing culture the sink staying open beyond 10 pm uh it seems it did not prove to be a good business model if they're not if the district itself is not attracting enough folks to to stay busy and also keep employees in that space beyond 10 pm and so they've adjusted their business model not just not you know not necessarily in response to these regulations but lacking an overall energy and people in the space beyond 10 pm they've elected to to cut back it doesn't mean that they can't expand again uh but lacking that kind of uh group uh energy of of multiple places uh creating that space I'm not sure that that would happen thank you um in discussing the um

[59:00] uh the 2015 code changes that all Hill housing must be permanently affordable can you define um what the concept of affordability means is it a percentage of Ami that is required in all housing units and second point of the question is um how many housing units have actually been produced with those restrictions yeah I'm wondering if we have anybody on the call from housing that might be able to speak to that but if if not I know that the that we do Define affordable housing pretty uh clearly um uh through housing and Human Services and it would be tied to inclusionary housing requirements there have been zero um housing developments on the hill since that regulation was put into place so zero affordable units have been constructed um as a result or after that regulation

[60:01] in place somebody could simply email us uh you know what the the actual requirements are uh per that the 2015 change in terms of what constitutes affordable housing I'd appreciate that yeah we can certainly do that okay uh and just a couple more questions uh in the memo um uh well when we have previously discussed this this issue we were we were told that the Hill Hotel would have a revitalizing effect on the neighborhood as we're looking at new strategies have we changed our perspective are we are we now thinking that that know that the hill was not going to the hill hotel is not going to have that impact that it requires a an intervention on our part well I think the idea again at least at least from my perspective and giving rather than waiting for these new

[61:00] developments to open let's be proactive and Implement some of these revitalization efforts now you know we're already seeing gaps we see the challenges so let's take action now rather than waiting to see how the Hill Hotel will have that impact on the district fair enough last question um uh the the memo discusses the possibility of a a rebranding effort for the hill um are we looking at that as a generator of better uses um because it's unclear to me that someone's going to make a major investment decision uh simply based on a rebranding campaign can you speak to that well in a little bit yes so the language has since changed since we submitted the memo after feedback from from ucmc rather than rebranding the hill the hill already has a brand and we just want to identify

[62:00] it's it's gone through so much Evolution there are upcoming changes let's identify what that District identity is and leverage it and build on it and promote it to the rest of the city so it's more of identifying and enhancing the existing brand rather than rebranding the hill and I'm sorry one one last short question have we spoken to CU and the Hill Hotel operators I mean how do they feel about the prospect of perhaps changing hours of operation for restaurants and [Music] Facilities serving alcohol have they weighed in on this Chris you've had conversations with you unless mistaken is that right yes thanks for the question we do have regular conversations with our partners at CU and they are following our lead in this they are interested in the success of the commercial District they haven't necessarily made a specific statement uh uh a

[63:03] blessing one way or the other is they want to leave leave it to the city to decide what uh what the future of the district is but certainly have not expressed any reservations about possible changes to those regulatory components we have not had specific conversations with the folks building the Hill Hotel specific to the the regulations but we also know that they are very interested in making sure that their properties and their retail spaces in that building can be as successful as possible and what we've learned from the businesses that are already on the hill is that the regulatory environment um does has tended to lead new businesses to look elsewhere first before taking a risk to open up a business on the hill thank you okay that's all I got thanks Mark I think we're going to Lauren next thank you

[64:01] um let's see I was wondering about the sort of financial strategies and are there currently residential units within the commercial district and do those pay to the do those pay into sort of the existing fees so yes there are a number of residential units within the district but given the low amount of the mill Levy that is applied to you know four commercial properties although there is a levy on residential uses as well it's even less so there is some revenue generated from the residential spaces but it is uh by law a very small component of our overall property tax revenue for the district

[65:00] um It just strikes me that not only do the businesses write their profit from potentially having a stronger Urban character identify ability but also you know the residential area especially immediately surrounding and so I was also wondering if there is if we've put any thought into expanding the district to the residential area further or if they're what restrictions there would be on that so thanks for the question and idea the governance around General Improvement districts are are pretty specific under State Statute the current District as it exists is uh was created to assume all the parking liability for the commercial properties so that the land use is in the Hill district didn't get coupled with a parking requirement when you hear about parking code and parking minimums and

[66:02] parking maximums in our general Improvement districts we do not have a parking minimum for any of those Parcels so um using a GID approach for the residential area not that we can't explore funding mechanisms I'm not sure that the just an expansion of the existing GID would be necessarily at the path that would warrant uh exploration versus other other possible tracks that could help set the area for success okay I appreciate that it does seem like a number of the residential areas also you know I think of apartment buildings that have parking lots or no parking lots you know that wouldn't meet our current requirements around parking in that area and it seems like the parking strategy is probably Beyond just the downtown

[67:01] um or between just the retail businesses okay but thank you for that well and and so there might there could certainly be a conversation about an adjacent District but because of the the difference between taxing levels for residential versus commercial uh based on state law we wouldn't necessarily want to have just one big district and then of course there's a lot of trade-offs associated with the governance of of our general Improvement districts as it is um getting folks to uh volunteer to be on commission for example so glad to have Tel Jones by the way but um thanks for the questions thank you that's the other hands I did have a question Chris it's kind of follow up on the discussion you just had with Lauren the is it possible for I realize it requires a vote of of the the property owners but is it possible for the downtown business proven District is illegally possible for the downtown prison District to um Encompass the the

[68:01] Hill district if that's the will of the property owners could you connect the two that's a really great question and it is something it's a concept that has brought up in the past um not necessarily expansion of the downtown bid but there is no limitation to the number of bids that can exist in the community so the hill could elect to start their own business improvement district um that has been a topic that's broached in the past and Cheryl might be willing to speak to that actually um but the climate the business climate on the hill has not um been conducive to additional uh tax taxing layers but if we did come to a space where maybe we traded a general improvement district for a business improvement district it's not necessarily an extension of the downtown district but its own bid they could still contract with the downtown Boulder partnership which is a separate 501c3 you know organization so that the um if that seemed right for the downtown bid to support uh the downtown Boulder

[69:03] partnership in Contracting through the the hill bid providing the same level of service that's certainly something that's been discussed in a path that we could see a lot of possibility in thanks Chris that's awful I've seen no more hands for you and when we move on to uh to chapter two all right absolutely you can go right to the next slide so now I'll dive into some key considerations that will inform the recommendations I'll present be presenting we can go to the next slide so we've identified several key considerations that will help guide our work in decision making around implementing specific projects and initiatives on the hill the first being long-term fund health for Eugene ensuring that any strategy um that we develop really contributes to the long-term viability of the district

[70:02] parking and access ensuring people are able to access the district whether through an increase in parking availability or other forms of multimodal transportation is an important consideration connectivity getting to the hill whether through providing better connection along 13th Street or another mode is another key consideration and then lastly economic vitality and resilience it's important that any revitalization strategy contribute to long-term positive economic growth and resilience of the district next slide our recommendations were derived from our most recent convening with the Urban Land Institute technical advisory panel and they take the form of two approaches so one approach that I'll be focusing on are these broader revitalization efforts

[71:01] that staff recommends implementing in the near term and the other approach Narrows in on longer term 14th Street law Redevelopment strategies so we can go to the next three categories that are broad revitalization recommendations fall into which include understanding and establishing a district identity connecting and activating the district and I'll touch on each of these and go to the next slide District identity let's understand establish and promote the Hill's identity to the city at large staff recommends taking time to engage with the community to better understand what the Hill's identity is again given the evolution of the districts of the district and the upcoming changes that are coming online that may impact it once identified let's leverage those

[72:00] characteristics and promote it to the rest of the city in a way that'll make it more identifiable and attractive to visitors and then beyond enhancing the identity the hill would benefit from improved pedestrian weight binding to help create a sense of place and community and help folks navigate The District next slide connecting nuget this suggests improving connectivity to better integrate the district with the broader community improving connectivity along 13th Street in particular aligns with suggestions from other City plans making the hill easier to get to and improving navigation within the district is in need and an opportunity that we've heard repeatedly we can go to the next slide so along those lines of connecting the district this map here was created by

[73:02] the panelists from the Uli tap to really help us visualize how the hill can be better connected to the rest of the city including downtown so as you can see they suggest improved entrances along 13th and Broadway with that direct identifiable connection from Pearl Street all the way to Chautauqua and I'm going to take this as another pausing point to see if Council has any questions thanks Regan so we tell you because um there's probably some questions about connectivity and transportation we thought we might take a pause here um and Natalie Stiffler is on as well so if you've got questions relating to Transportation or some of our transportation planning on connectivity this would be a really great time to ask them Erin yeah I think Fitness is being extremely informative and well organized really appreciate what you're doing here

[74:01] um so just in terms of connectivity there's actually a little outside the hill itself but we've been talking about the very great need for better bike ped connectivity from the hill down to downtown right with so this orange line that threads up to the north do we have we made any progress on thinking or planning on that I know it's can need it's going to need to take a little while but what's the current thinking about what our options are to make that connectivity Chris do you want me to take that one okay good evening Council yeah no problem um I'm Natalie Stiffler director of Transportation Mobility thanks for the question Aaron um yeah so we've talked to a lot about this kind of connection and how we can look at it and I'll also note Kathleen King is here from Planning Development Services tonight as well um Brad wasn't able to be here with us tonight so feel free Kathleen to jump in

[75:00] in here too but you know Brad and Chris and Ali and I and and our teams have thought a lot about just how we can incorporate looking at this connection um in all the upcoming work efforts that we have coming up um and one of the places that this is really gonna I think kind of start to lift up is in the Civic area um work that we are getting underway with a consultant here soon um and the thinking is that we'll do somewhat basically like a multimodal analysis and place making um study because it's more than just like oh we just need a bike connection or a pedestrian connection it really needs to be kind of a broader conversation about Place making we heard that through the tap um kind of conversation and and certainly as we think about the Civic area and that connection from the hill to downtown what do we want to kind of

[76:01] cultivate from a place making standpoint so that's kind of our thinking from a work planning effort at this point that it will be a part of that work which will be kicking off later this year and then going through next year so transportation and planning and um and parks and Community Vitality will all be a part of that effort uh Kathleen did you want to elaborate on any of that um sure I might just mention the the RFP for a consultant team to take that on is out right now and we'll be getting proposals back from folks next week and reviewing those um but it's a really exciting opportunity um the other thing that we're talking about Beyond just sort of the physical components of connectivity and the mobility aspects are the land use and zoning and and some of the the technical limitations of um uses and Redevelopment along these

[77:01] corridors and so we'll be taking a look at that in our work plan next year as well that's it's great to hear that that work is being planned and it's gonna be underway before too long I did notice you didn't use the word Gondola in your answer all right I win I win the race for bringing that up first all right thanks so much the drinking game going on I'll just say one more thing we do we do recognize because I think we've had some internal conversation about this and I want to just kind of daylight it we do realize that there will be kind of a more like near-term immediate um action items that we'll we'll want to implement on like the more nearer term timeline and then there's going to be more like Randy or grander ideas right around um I'm not going to say the word but just Grandeur ideas that will take more time um and we'll want to be able to explore those ideas during this process but

[78:00] recognize that we also need more Immediate Solutions so we're thinking about both great thanks Aaron uh Lauren then Tara thank you um I was hoping you could maybe provide a little bit more clarity around what you're thinking what improved entrance means and sort of what kinds of modes of trans or like who's being targeted with that effort so I can take a stab at the thank you for the question I think this map you know really just speaks to an array of possibilities when it comes to improved entrances so one of our recommendations that I'll be present presenting in terms of next steps is bringing on a planning and design consultant who can really help us strategize these actionable projects in the near term um Chris or Natalie or Kathleen I don't

[79:02] know if you want to add to that that's you answered it very well Regan we really we have not contemplated that work yet because prior to this conversation our Focus had been solely on the 14th Street lot we are just responding to the work at the tap and envisioning different next steps that would explore what does the how do we answer that question what is an improved entrance um and what and how much would it cost and how where does that fit in our priority list of what's possible I can just mention as well that some of the past plans that 1996 plan the Broadway Corridor plan have all sort of hinted at this need for some type of gateway to let you know that you're there that you've arrived at the hill um so that's been a consistent recommendation um in past plans as well thank you yeah yeah similar to Lauren's question the 13th Street Corridor what changes are

[80:02] you visualizing maybe on a more quick but in the weeds um thank you for the question there so there have been a lot of internal discussions about how how can we improve the 13th Street Corridor and just make you know downtown easier to get to from the hill and the hill easier to get to from downtown and I know there have been a lot of conversations around exploring potential ideas one of them being a potential cultural Corridor study um uh yeah there have been discussions internally Chris I don't know if you want to ask that well I would just go back to to what we heard from Natalie and Kathleen about these these planning efforts that are already underway where we act we do want to be answering those questions where our Uli tap uh identified this uh great

[81:00] potential along that Corridor because it connects to so many great assets uh cultural assets uh places that people love to visit and so our next step is to pursue this planning effort that will identify what's the low-hanging fruit what are the things that we can do right away to support these Investments that are coming out of the ground right now at the hill hotel and the conference center really no other questions I do have a question it kind of follows on on on that risk and probably for Natalie Natalie I like the fact that you you're looking at this as kind of two parts to kind of a short-term approach and then a longer term approach can you give us some general ideas on on timing on this I know I know that there's a lot of work being done on the Central Park and East bookend area and I know that that all ties together um there may be a little bit of a sense of urgency around the hotels which will be opening up here in a couple years can you kind of maybe scope that for us what what's your definition of short term is yeah I mean I think that is the piece

[82:00] where and and Kathleen's probably closer to the timeline of the work but we've talked about with Ally and Brad and Chris kind of extensively that we were we really will want to be able to make improvements especially you know to the Arboretum right um as the hotel opens up we recognize that that's um one of those just more urgent items that we want to be able to make improvements to that area to facilitate a more enjoyable connection from um the new hotels to the downtown so that's kind of when I think about the more immediate actions it's centered around that and then the more longer term is that kind of I imagine the more place making type work that Kathleen was referencing related to kind of the land use piece of it and then also you know long term if if 13th Street becomes like a culture cultural Corridor that you know we've seen examples from kind of across the U.S where we could kind of do

[83:02] something similar that really creates this like experience along 13th street from the hill to downtown that would obviously be a much a longer term Vision um that we would work towards so is that hopeful it is could someone remind us what the um current estimated time of opening for each of the two hotels is I was gonna see if Regan uh chimed in the so the hill hotel is due uh to open early next year so 2024 I believe and then the conference center and please somebody correct me if I misspeak is uh due later in 2025. great thanks Chris we won't hold you to those exact days so Natalie were those the type of time frames you were thinking about at least for the some of the immediate and short-term plans and like over the next maybe two-ish to three years yeah great thanks any other

[84:01] questions on this one Regan I think we're ready for chapter three wonderful we can go to the next slide and then lastly under these broad revitalization efforts let's activate the district we're partnering with the hill Boulder Merchants Association on some upcoming events but let's expand on that to plan other activations leveraging and building on the Hill's creativity and energy to potentially Revitalize positive nightlife and other events uh maybe even pulling from that Alleyway enhancement plan that was conducted in 2018 to bring some of our Alleyways to like we can go on to the next slide all right now we're going to narrow in on our general improvement district owned asset the 14th Street lot and these recommendations will really

[85:02] take the form of two different directions which will include maintaining fugit oversight and building a structure on that parcel of land or on the flip side we could sell or lease the lot to a private developer and so looking here on this slide this suggests that we sell or lease the lot through a 100 Year land lease to a private developer in which we the city would determine what could replace the existing surface law in some potential outcomes identified in the tab with example photos on the left tier include a boutique hotel a social club a food and Community Hub they're really an array of options here and ultimately revenue from the sale of the law could be used towards an endowment as a way of offering Eugene that long story that long-term funding Financial sustainability that we're looking for work

[86:01] next slide and then if we maintain oversight there were three recommendations that the top outlined one on the very left hand side here is this maximum parking garage option which suggests a three-level parking garage providing approximately 150 additional parking spaces for the district the other in the middle is parking with retail this really presents an opportunity for a larger retail tenant such as a grocery store which we've heard is needed on the hill suggesting approximately thirteen thousand square feet per floor of a three level structure for retail and then lastly on the right hand side this suggests a parking garage with retail and faculty housing so this could be a great opportunity to partner with CU while addressing some of the retail

[87:02] and parking challenges that we've seen on the hill and I think this is our last pausing point Bob occurred to me if I'm wrong but I'm going to pause for questions and yeah we thought that we might because this is kind of a pretty dramatic uh proposal we thought we might pause here one last time before we we take it home um and hear from uh you can't see and ask questions of council are there any kind of questions that we haven't covered up to this point in time including specifically relating to the 14th Street alternatives Tara so I take it the four uh The Faculty housing would be a hundred percent affordable or am I misunderstanding that so if we see you faculty housing I with the current ordinance I would imagine yes Chris brought to me if I'm wrong we haven't we haven't necessarily developed um the exact funding or pricing strategy

[88:00] for it would be a partnership with the CU so how they would determine affordable housing for the type of Faculty that would want to live in the hill space I presume that that we would probably qualify it as affordable but we would leave that to our partnership with CU to determine pricing thanks chair mark um is it possible in any way to uh quantify the nature of the shortage of parking on the hill I mean nobody likes parking but if we're going to try to attract new businesses on the hill and uh people cannot get there I mean there will be people who bike there and and to walk there but there are people who are going to want to drive there and if they can't get there to what extent are we going to damage the economic viability of this

[89:01] rebranded district with better uses I'll go ahead and take that question thank you for it um I think it's really important to note that CU is building a 490 space parking garage as part of the conference center development and so if we're able to get this right that facility will only be about four blocks uh from the heart of uh the University Hill area so if you think about downtown where we've been so successful of building uh parking assets around the heart of our downtown where people have gotten really used to parking in one place and then using uh their feet bikes or you know other modes of transportation to get to the destination if we're able to get our partnership with CU dialed into a place where employees who are looking for access to their jobs they might not be able to they don't live in town they Transit might not be a viable option for them but they still need a place to

[90:01] store their vehicle it's our hope that the partnership with CU and the use of that facility could translate into a different future for the access challenges that we're currently experiencing in the district because we don't have that type of facility yet has our agreement with the with CU been formalized we do have a formalized Grandview agreement that that does touch on um the availability of public parking at their Conference Center Garage there is probably more work that could be done to formalize it specifically for uh the University of commercial area uses um it does not get to that level of detail would it not make some sense to engage in conversation with University and formalize that understanding before we decide whether or not we can dispense with all or any portion of the parking on like 14th Street lot

[91:01] yes and I think that is exactly why our staff recommendation is to take a broader approach to the district's future and our design and planning it's not just about building um infrastructure in the park in the right-of-way and painting murals it's about formalizing uh these relationships with folks like CU so that if we're able to to um create a different narrative for the folks who are trying to access the space now and the folks who are going to be accessing this space in the future if parking doesn't have to be something that's driving our decision for 14th Street because even if we were to build 150 parking spaces in that space you know on that lot tomorrow that would probably not get us to a place where we've resolved access related issues on the hill and so we do or we are in a time where perhaps we can um work with our partners and shift The

[92:00] Narrative that then can can lead us to a space where we don't have to build any parking at this particular location because we've managed to to resolve those challenges in another way you know because if the conference center is sufficiently successful there are going to be a lot of nights where we may not be able to access it at all um or only to a minimal extent I have no idea what cu's perspective on this is going to be but if we're going to rely upon their parking to be our parking uh it would seem to me before we move too far ahead we ought to know if their parking is going to be our parking we agree okay that was my question thanks Mark math and Tara thanks Bob uh I have a I just don't like building more parking so that's I would sort of get rid of that one phase but we'll get there uh but I like that working on the partnership

[93:01] um my question centers are on activation um and and sort of having been a part of recent activations that took six to nine months and they're a bit light um with the Civic area in West Pearl and 13th I I'm a little I'm a little concerned because it you know um downtown Boulder took took a lot of lead on trying to facilitate that and I'm I'm just worried about capacity and being able to have enough lead time from when the Hill Hotel arrives is open starts bringing people in that we can really truly activate that space in a way that that meets the moment um and so I I I'm I'm sort of curious about are there some resources we need to front load to to get going is there some staffing um I'm just sort of wondering what we need to do in order to really move that forward so that we have the planning done and then plenty of time to

[94:00] implement because I think that's where we got squeezed uh for some of the downtown stuff was just not enough time to implement and we didn't quite have a partner not their fault but just didn't have the capacity to take all the things that we wanted to do on so from those lessons I'm just wondering how have we learned and what's our ability to adapt so that we can knock this out of the park thanks for that question I would say you know luckily in in the meantime we have a really great partner on the hill the hill Boulder Merchants Association that's been planning and executing some events on the hill and we were planning to continue to work with them in 2024 we have some funding dedicated from arpa money for commercial area activations on the hill and we're planning on working closely with the hillboulder on that um in the longer term I I think you know that's why we're having these discussions around exploring these different funding strategies for the Hill from a Downtown Development Authority to a potential bid so that we can you know have the funding

[95:01] resources then Staffing to put on these additional activations we can't hear you I'm sorry I was read it I know I appreciate that response um but I'm my concern is some of those funding strategies are going to require time to actually fill those coffers and that's to some extent time we don't have for long term 100 agree but for what's needed in that next nine to 18 months I I think the city and the university are gonna have to pump that resource in rapidly and so I just I I want to make sure that we knock it out of the park um and and I'm until maybe I see more I I'm I'm sort of reserving whether or not I have confidence we're going to get there I just want to know that we have a really solid plan um in the people involved to do that because I know how hard it is to set these things up so um I really hope that we can put the resources in place to get this done right absolutely I agree uh Tara and then back tomorrow

[96:03] so the 14th Street Lot Redevelopment didn't you want to push that back to see how it went with the hotel so is this kind of like just how we're feeling at the time or did you is there a reason why you want us to tell you how you feel about these three options now I'm just curious thanks for that question so and I'm going to get to this on the next slide summarizing our recommendations and our next steps we see we see redeveloping the 14th Street law as a longer term strategy ideally over the next three to five years okay so we do want to see what the impact from the new developments will be and it'll give us time to kind of create this broader strategy that'll help inform the Redevelopment of the 14th Street lot at this point we're really just outlining the array of possibilities okay so when you were when you you have grocery here did you do research that or did somebody did the Consultants that there's a

[97:01] grocery needed because I'm thinking about the whole foods that was at Baseline that closed so I'm not sure um if these are just suggestions are they suggestions that people have thought about deeply and also studied and got metrics on or um what's your thoughts on that studied in box on I would say no um again just kind of going back to that these are the array of possibilities I mean I've heard from various community members that a grocery store could be great on the hill but again it's something we would certainly analyze and study further before moving forward with something like that thanks Tara Mark first I apologize for taking another shot at this um a couple years ago we stood up the hill revitalization working group which has members from a local community businesses cu cu students um and others as well

[98:02] um have you been coordinating at all with them in terms of the kinds of recommendations you want to make and should you not if you have not so the hill revitalization working group I believe a few years ago it I can't remember the exact date but it kind of became focused on the residential Community rather than the commercial District um Chris do you know more about the history of that well I I I I it was stood up in in the wake I think of of the uh the Riots of a couple of years ago um and it has done a lot of work in terms of noise ordinances and trash ordinances and so I think they have a fairly deep understanding of the challenges that occur in this district and I'm just saying you know I would

[99:00] think it would be profitable to engage with them to see what their thoughts are on some of this so yeah thanks for the question we absolutely included um members from the the neighborhood the hill revitalization group uh that's focused on the neighborhood in our tap stakeholder process as part of our public engagement work if if Council supports this uh broader strategy development for a district-wide improvements um as part of our engagement process we would certainly include conversations with the the neighborhood group as well as you can see which leads up the commercial side of the reinvestment strategy and CU both students and administration among many others from Community connectors and what we're really seeking tonight is prior to this evening there had been a capital Improvement project approved for 2025 for redevelopment of 14th Street lot with

[100:01] planning dollars already allocated and we're suggesting that instead of of going down that track of of just focusing on Redevelopment of 14th Street um uh because we can only have so much capacity that we first want to take a step back um have that engagement with the various stakeholders in the development of the district-wide broader strategies before we pick up the the torch for the future of 14th Street Mark could I call a kuya on your point for first time so Mark brought up something that I was also interested in and he brought up that sort of revive the revitalization working group and I appreciate Regan pointing out that it's been very uh uh a homeowner focused revitalization and and less so maybe business and economic revitalization and I'm wondering if this is a time for us to maybe pivot their focus a bit so that when they do meet and as they continue because we just did

[101:01] a package of a bunch of ordinances and a bunch of things from their recommendations and maybe there's a sense of feeling idle since we have tackled that stuff and maybe giving a new cause to say no we we would love to engage but we want to Pivot you towards economic vitality and what this revitalization and activation look like um so I'm wondering if that's something that that we would would um Institute or we would sort of set forth for them or or what have you but but I think overall all of those engaged on the hill we might want to Pivot them so that we're kind of more uniformly focused on economic vitality and and business revitalization Matt if I can colloquy back um I think they're still working on some ordinance changes but other than that I think the pivot might make a lot of sense and I colloquate too yes um but just I I agree with Mark's point that I think there is still work to be done on the residential side but also if

[102:03] it kind of predates my time but I think that the the origins of and you know the name kind of spells it out but the origins of that work group were more focused on um the the economic Vitality side so I don't want it to be seen that uh this group has not already done that I think that was sort of tackled first and then we got into residential and we're now seeing some of the fruits of the labor of that first part with with these Hill hotels coming online like that was an outgrowth I think of the early work they did so not trying to um squash any Community participation but it's fun to give that history as I as I think it exists I saw Bob nodding so maybe he'd like to call it way too because he might have been on Council then well it looks like Nuri has the answer well I I don't know if I have the answer to the past but I just wanted to confirm that they are indeed continuing to work we are working closely with them on a chronic nuisance ordinance and have a couple things down the pike so just wanted to share that that is in fact uh their continued Focus

[103:00] and Rachel you are right and Aaron can confirm this the the group was originally formed to focus on Commercial Redevelopment and particularly around the conference center on the hill I think they pivoted to Commercial and and I think what we're suggesting is they may want to Pivot back to the commercial side of things once they finish their work on the residential side is that right Aaron foreign anything else from anybody else on this okay well sticking with with Chris's baseball analogy I think Regan were um about the eighth inning of the opener so why don't you bring us on home for the first game bring you all home let's go to the next slide all right so in summary staff recommends uh prioritizing broader strategies and then near term would benefit the district in that rule enhance District Vitality it'll generate that positive economic

[104:00] growth that we're looking for while also providing you did with an opportunity to again adapt these many upcoming changes with the new developments additionally it gives us time to focus on creating this broader district-wide strategy that I mentioned earlier will help inform a reinvestment strategy for the 14th Street lot so again kind of looking at that work as a longer term effort over the next three to five years next slide the University Hill commercial area management commission is of course The Advisory board for Eugene we have Cheryl Liguori on the call if anyone has any questions about the feedback that I'm going to share but they've been very closely involved in all the work we've been doing on the hill including the revitalization strategies that we're exploring and they've shared some really valuable feedback that is important to consider so next slide

[105:02] you can see emphasized how the hill is a very special place in Boulder first and foremost it has a lot of positive characteristics despite these existing challenges that we're seeing so let's Leverage What makes it so special and unique and not forget about the Hill's history and potential there's a desire to better integrate the residential neighborhood with the commercial district with the CU student population so let's create that zipper rather than divine the hill needs local Champions it needs strong voices that are advocating and committed to the success of the neighborhood again back to this idea of identifying the hill brand it doesn't need to be rebranded but let's leverage its unique and eclectic nature to enhance that identity that can then be promoted to the city at Large and then lastly parking is a continuous

[106:01] challenge but necessary um if we want to move forward with these broader strategies including more activations we're going to have to navigate and figure out how to accommodate the influx people given the limited public parking on the hill next slide we can go right into the next so next steps that steps identified Community Vitality will facilitate coordination among other City departments planning and development services transportation and Mobility housing and Human Services and more successful revitalization on the hill requires cross-departmental involvement so an immediate Next Step will include collaborating with other City staff to assess the roles and responsibilities we'd like to develop an RFP to secure planning and design consultant services to help staff identify feasible and

[107:01] actionable projects that can be executed in the near term so projects that align with these broader goals of enhancing the identity connecting and activating the district um and ideally could be implemented over the next one to three years and then lastly any revitalization efforts will of course require input from the broader community and stakeholders um so we'd work with our communication or engagement Department to help us with Outreach and soliciting Community feedback including engaging with our community connectors and residents see you the youth opportunities Advisory Board and more we'll also plan to check in regularly whether you can see counsel other boards and commissions to ensure that we receive feedback and Direction and ensure progress on these efforts next slide

[108:00] all right we can go to the last slide which is just circling back on those questions for Council does council support staff's recommendations prioritize the development of these broad strategies in advance of exploring site-specific Redevelopment options for the 14th Street law does council wish to direct staff to explore code changes in upcoming annual work plans that are specific and unique to the hill and then does council have any questions about those next steps well let's uh let's I'm just calling people and ask them to answer all the questions in one in one statement Mark is your hand up to start us off run mute Lauren actually that's an accident but I'll take advantage of it um I am very supportive of doing all of these things but the only thing that troubles me is there's an implication in the staff memo that we might be

[109:00] considering going back to two o'clock um operating hours for restaurants on the hill and I just want to remind people that there was good and sufficient reason that those limitations were put into place and uh I I'm hard-pressed to see how that will be and improve I understand the challenge it creates for the restaurants but I am hard-pressed to see how that will be an improvement for the hotel for non-restaurant businesses or for residents so I would want to be very very careful about that and one last comment um it was with respect to the 50 50 sales of food versus liquor um you know having done probably more than a hundred uh commercial restaurant leases in my day that's really not that unusual a covenant to enter into um

[110:00] most landlords want to ensure that their tenants are operating you know a a higher end kind of establishment than you get with somebody who's generating 60 70 percent of of their gross receipts from liquor so the you know we can do with that what we will but let's not um let's not feel that that's anything very very unusual because it really is not in the in the world of commercial restaurant leases nice that's all right Nicole then Lauren thank you um yes and yes for me I think it's a really good idea to do some engagement before moving forward um in some different directions here one of the things that I'm kind of excited about is the opportunity to think about how we could use a space like the 14th Street lot and just the hill in general to really build more connections between

[111:01] the people who are living on the hill between the folks who are non-zio Affiliated and the people who are CEO Affiliated so this seems like a really nice opportunity to think about how we can design the space in a way that will bring people together um that to the point that my colleague has brought up about um changing the hours for restaurants uh I am actually less concerned about that and um I sort of wonder whether we might have better luck with creating a better residential environment if we eat more concentrated people so they weren't necessarily in their homes drinking and outside and things like that but we're rather in spaces not only where where it was more appropriate to kind of be gathering socially at later hours of the day but also in places where there's somebody monitoring alcohol consumption so um so that to me seemed like a good thing also I think for conferences um you know one of the just with my CU hat

[112:01] on for a moment one of the things that some of the folks that are really excited about on the research side of Campus is having a place for these larger scientific conferences and having some hours to go later it's really the time when people all around the world can gather and sometimes those meetings do go really late as you're planning the next Grant or something like that so anyway just uh wanted to add that as well thank you but thanks thanks for all this work I'm excited about where this is headed instant call Lauren than Matt thank you um I'm I agree with Nicole on yes and yes um I have some caveats or concerns um I think or things that I'd like to see one of the first things around Transit and parking is I'd like to see a branded sort of Transit uh bus connection to you

[113:00] know off-site parking or something around like trying to Brand some of the parking options for people's just so that that's clearer for how people might get to and from um that area it might you know as it was mentioned in the packet it's already a very highly served area with buses so it might just be making some of those connections more explicit for people um in terms of District identity and I think this speaks a little bit to you know some of the high level of regulation in this area I really would like to see us open up and allow for more creativity in this area to kind of it feels like the businesses aren't totally allowed to bring forth a strong identity right now I mean there's a lot of things that play into that but looking at relaxing some rules so that the identity piece can really be from

[114:01] the businesses forward as opposed to like trying to come up with a branding idea that we're like sort of pasting uh around um and then with the connection piece and the entrances for me I see connecting 13th Street with downtown I'm really excited about kind of looking at an arboretum update and that piece of it I'm not so excited about trying to do signal changes at those entrance intersections or things like that to me the heart of the district is really away from Broadway a little bit and I think that that's okay I think that once that gets energized people will um be drawn there without a big sign that is like this is the entrance to the hill

[115:00] um and then with the activation I think that you know from on the business side you hear this in Resort communities all the time and because it's because they rely so much on student s for the businesses in that area I think they have a similar issue right with their kind of downturn during the summer and so for me the activation piece during the summer is probably the most important to make sure that we're drawing people up to that area when students aren't there because it's delightful to hang out on the hill in the summer um and I think we just need to remind people of that I know in our future item we're going to talk a lot about or a little bit maybe about food carts and food trucks or that was in the packet at least um and I wonder if there's a place for those kinds of things on the hill as well um just to kind of help bring that

[116:00] street level activation up thanks that's all I got thank you Lauren Matt and Tara thanks Bob um and yeah I'll just finish off by saying uh Regan you made it through the nine inning game well so so thank you so much um and we can just stay on the baseball analogies all night on that one um I want to start with perhaps maybe with the lowest hanging fruit is here um and and it maybe counters a little bit with my colleague Mark um you know there's some basic psychology to this with regards to uh the liquor and the ebb and flow and noise and sound and trash and what we've been playing more or less whack-a-mole with which is no matter which generation of students come in they're going to want to have fun they're going to want to express themselves and having fun and when I was a student we partied on the hill we went to the rack went to Teresa's we've been to the sink like there was places you could go to have fun and then when the night was over if it was at 2 A.M you went home on The Hill we shut that down

[117:00] um with BRC 965b and where'd they go they went to their homes to party and now what are we doing we're playing whack-a-mole we're trying to increase ordinances daytime nuisance have more enforcement because of course they got shut down from the hill and they Spilled Out Back Westward on the hill so I I think that makes total sense from a psychological perspective we want to we can enforce all we want or we can just provide younger folks a place to be and that commercial area of the Hill makes perfect sense it worked when I was a student there's no reason why it won't work for for future generations of students and those that want to enjoy that um so so to me the lowest hanging fruit is just to Simply rescind BRC 9-6-5-b because at the end of the day this is also an equity issue why would we treat these businesses any different than the businesses in our rest of our community we've deliberately handicapped any business that currently exists or wants to exist on the hill I mean that's unconscionable when we think about

[118:00] wanting to boost economic Vitality especially on the backside of covid and even double especially if it's even a phrase restaurants and Hospitality have been impacted the most and have the longest road to recovery so I I to me there's just like a very simple thing we can do here scratch the thing that shouldn't have ever been placed to begin with and bring back equity and let businesses have a chance to thrive to me that's just simple easy good governance for us to do and I'd love to see us pursue that um uh with regards to activations um so I like number one I like number two um that point on the the liquor law I think is something we need to do really quick it doesn't need engagement like we can just do this and Lead um and get that show on the road as I said my piece on Activation so I hope we put the resources in to get that done right um I'd like to see also make uh streamline the events that event streams the only one we have in the city and it needs to be TurnKey it should be like a wedding venue where you like Say Hey I want to use that event Street for 100 people and it's like boom boom boom here

[119:01] are the specific things I want to do 150 boom boom boom treat it like a wedding venue make it as simple as possible for anybody to activate that space and then lastly I agree with Nicole conference season when I was working at the University we had the number one funded NASA funded Public University in the in the country we couldn't host any NASA conferences here at CU and it's because we didn't have the space for it now with that we will and those were all summer based conferences so the ebb and flow I think will be really well that the Summer's low for most businesses on the hill that's what hurts them we bring conferences in that Rising tide floats their boats so the seasonality of those conferences I think will be a great great addition but I don't think it'll have too many impacts on parking because we already don't have the students so when summer conferencing comes up that parking need is diminished from from that from that need so I think we'll be in pretty good shape there but otherwise great job Regan uh Chris you got yourself some a good staff um and that's it for me appreciate it you know Matt you're so shy and

[120:00] ambiguous I'm not exactly sure what you just said thank you for your passion Matt Tara you're up I'm Matt I'm so glad I go after you because I'm equally as passionate we have I have to ask myself are we trying to make the hill businesses suffer on purpose why are we making it so impossible for them to succeed first we have the 50 which is nowhere else in the city is that right Regan nobody else has that 50 correct yeah and they have to they have to close early it's almost like we're saying I don't know why the hell isn't is not I is not a great place anymore but we gave you all these rules but why isn't a great place well that's one of the reasons why it deteriorated so for me they said they want a partner and I say I don't know about you all but I definitely want to be a partner I want to make the hill successful again the I believe that the success as far as The Branding goes so yes get rid of those I think as as a council we've always wanted to uh get rid of as many

[121:01] obstacles um as possible for stopping businesses from succeeding and so I hope that we can do that tonight as well as far as branding I would say it's the chicken in the egg situation where if we take away the obstacles and the rules that are making it so difficult I'm hoping that the hill will make its own brand it fun or funky one thing we don't want to do is like fake branding right where we have a cute sign and Lauren you know you and I discuss another meeting and we say oh the hill is so cute but it isn't cute right now I mean it just isn't so having a sign telling people to go to the hill right now why don't we release it to be everything it can and then see how it turns out and then we brand it according to how it became hopefully fun and funky because we don't have that right now um let's see I said that I said that don't have anything else

[122:01] um I did want to say that I was particularly thrilled that CU supported the hill with that Financial um uh financially by helping with the ambassadors and I think that's going to be a big help I didn't get to actually ask did that program start already and if it did has it been successful has it helped at all it did start and it's been very successful so far we actually just had a meeting on the hill recently with the Merchants Association and local business owners and the ambassadors themselves of sort of meet and greet um which went fantastic and I know that community members are really thrilled about it oh good and I just I think I'll end with um I've said this before this is our opportunity of a lifetime we really only have a year to make this place great people can go they can go towards downtown or they can go towards the hill right now they're going to go downtown um and so for me I want to com I want to commit to doing as much as we can as a

[123:00] body to help them to go towards the hill commercial District that's all I have to say Chris did you want to try them in well I just wanted to acknowledge it and I know you mentioned this region that Cheryl Liguori the chair of uh you can see and the CEO of Z2 entertainment the owners of The Fox and the Boulder Theater she's on the call I just wanted to remind council members if you do have any questions related to your comments uh for her um uh if you'd like to provide that opportunity oops I forgot to say one thing I don't know about two o'clock but I know whatever it is now is not good so if we could reach a compromise so that the neighborhood is like fine and the businesses can Thrive I think that would be a good thing thanks Tara and why don't we take a pause before we get to Rachel um Aaron and Junior and and Cheryl you've been listening to a lot of this and and I know that you can't see in your group I just went through uh quite a bit of this work any reactions or any

[124:00] comments you want to share with us Joe thanks for the opportunity because I um I'm actually at a fundraiser at the moment and we'll need to jump off this call so I'll I would love to answer any questions um you know I think first of all I'd like to thank the city for a couple of things and I think um the biggest uh game changer for us is the ability to have the hotel and that started when city council um allowed the Hill University District to be carved out of the height restriction and that was what almost 10 years ago that predates the University Hill uh working group um so the university Hotel would never have been able to be built if city council didn't assist with that and and also um the generous general fund transfers

[125:02] to keep the district alive we know that's a heavy lift and for many many years in studies we have talked about ways to make the district sustainable and we will continue that conversation um I want to talk briefly about my experiences on the hill I would like to say that most of the raucous rioting untoward behavior that the city attaches to the University Hill commercial District really does start an end in the residential section so I think the the district itself has been kind of unfairly punished for um what happens in the residential area even the riot that people love to talk about it started in the residential section

[126:00] um and and then move toward the hill it didn't start in the commercial District um I can tell you for several people who are at this fundraiser and and Pete Turner who owns Illegal Pete's I've personally asked why won't you come to the hill we had many intercept studies and many conversations with residents what would you like to see on the hill that would draw you as a resident not just a student resident but as a resident of the hill and they've all talked about a better sit-down restaurant a microbrew and all three of them had said why would I go to the hill when nowhere else in the state do you have to have 50 percent of your sales in food and if you talk to any finer dining places it it isn't um maybe a lease issue but it's an

[127:02] operational issue that um that's a hard pill to swallow it's not it's not a result of people wanting to just pour alcohol down our students and and the idea of having supervision is is a great idea I think you know marked from the sink they chose to close early I think illegal Petes and the Fox Theater probably the only people who operate till or can not always but have the ability to operate until two in the morning so I will say that regulatory barrier is very unfair and it it has definitely stopped I called Peter from illegal Pete who was going to go into potentially the albums on the hill space to expand and maybe have a small music

[128:00] venue and make it um you know make the hill a little more active there used to be three or four music venues on the hill and he specifically said no I'm not gonna stop at 11. I'm not gonna have to worry about my percentage of food to alcohol so it is truly you know Dave query said why would I go up there Kevin Daly from the Mountain Sun Group said why would I go up there um it is truly it it has an impact and I think if we were to have businesses like that whether they stayed open till two or one or midnight as you see a lot of downtown businesses close um it it could really be a wonderful thing to draw some of the families down to the hill and um and feed the students as well something other than sandwiches and pizzas and and things like that so I do think that's

[129:01] really important and thank you to you know to Matt and Tara and Nicole for kind of understanding that the creativity um is not all tied to alcohol service and that it does allow businesses to explore their greater potential there I think we are connected already we see one of the first things on you can see was lighting and safety for me and we did we did get Lighting in the student walking corridors the students abandoned the hill when the additional restrictions and businesses started to close and so they just moved down to as I I don't know how many of you go out late at night and the West Pearl District but they've just abandoned the hill and they've moved um moved downtown and any anybody who goes out at night on a Thursday in

[130:01] downtown Boulder probably knows that um so I I do think that there are we are very thankful for the work that's been done um I think you can see has asked for parking forever um because the perception is that it's difficult to park on the hill um we are a 600 700 capacity venue um putting my business um manager hat on and it is it is challenging for my employees to get home after work for um patrons to park and drive around so I do think parking is a real challenge I love the idea of a grocery store when you have Alfalfa's gone and you have Whole Foods gone a place for students and residents to be able to walk down and

[131:01] grab some lettuce and and chicken for their for their dinner would be a lovely thing the university does not contribute to the uh Financial um pot so to speak so I think a another um another business would be great um but I I do we we do have challenges and those of us on you can't see and the business owners the hill Boulder has one part-time employee and three businesses that participate so the hill the idea of the Merchants Association is um is not a true Merchant Association it's one part-time employee who gets were funded by the city for that and it's the same for businesses that participate and

[132:00] do everything on the hill so we'd love to see bigger businesses so when I hear activate I'm like who's going to activate the same four businesses are tired of doing the heavy lifting for the past 20 years so that makes me a little nervous but I I do think activation once we have um once we have a better Hill um feel and it feels safe and it feels clean I think activation would be great um so those are those are my thoughts and I I will say thank you for the work that we've done I think um I'd I'd love to see um greater consideration for some of the true challenges one of them being the regulatory barrier um and then we know we have to get off the the generosity of the general fund and I think property owners are

[133:03] a challenge on the hill it's a when you look at 14 occupancy over such a small District that's a that's a big percentage for such a small number um so we really want new businesses and it's hard for us to attract them well thank you Cheryl and we'll let you get back to your fundraiser um but thanks for sharing the view of you campsie well I'm I'm available if anybody has uh just a few questions for a few more minutes or or I can step off now feel free to stay on because I think we're finishing up our comments and we'll see if any of our final commenters have questions for you so will Rachel and then Aaron thanks Bob and thanks Cheryl um I don't have any questions I super appreciate it and agreed with your perspectives um and I line up pretty well with what most others have said except no offense

[134:00] um Wallach I did not line up with you tonight on this I also wanted to appreciate um Cheryl's mention of albums on the hill I think many of us missed that store so thanks for mentioning them tonight um my dog's breathing right into this of course I'm gonna look walk around and see if I can get the dog to stop barking um the code limitations on on liquor licenses on the hill never made um a lick of sense to me so I would actually Fast Track that one um I'm not sure if I missed some sort of an exemption mention but I cannot imagine how a hotel could uh maintain a bar without being able to um you know serve after 10 pm or I don't know what everybody else does in hotels but usually my interface with Hotel food is is is after 10 and is um probably a little bit heavier on the drinking so um that's hard I just don't understand how that could work um on the hill working group which I was

[135:00] a part of for a few years um I I often repeated one of my mantras of like well if we're telling people no here we need to have a Yes somewhere else I think we've worked hard on saying we really don't want students to to create a lot of noise um in the residential neighborhoods and and there's a couple ways that I think we can get at that one is I think having um establishments that they can go to where it is a yes later at night because I do think students are gonna you know people of that age are gonna do what they're gonna do and also as a mom of Cu students um especially right now with the um you know fentanyl overdose epidemic and such I would really prefer that our kids are using substances honestly in front of uh trained staff than like in basements um I don't know as much about the building and uh affordable housing restrictions on the hill so I'm not suggesting that be fast-tracked um wanted to note that at a conference I was in in Barcelona

[136:00] um this ties back to I can't remember who was talking earlier about sort of getting people um to to want to visit the hill if you have a choice something maybe it was Tara um they were sending texts like in real time they were seeing like where they needed kind of crowd control and to maybe incentivize people to move from one part of the city to another with coupons or like discounts or things so just lift that up as maybe something we could do to incentivize people go into multiple different kind of tourist spots on busy days in our city especially but also maybe just if there is an area that's within community vitalities umbrella maybe that's something you could look at what Barcelona is doing I think we obviously need um some you know the transportation links aspect it's going to need a lot of future engagement and discussion and tab check-ins and things like that and um it's just going to be a little bit of a Debbie Downer and point out a couple terms that were used tonight that that were either confusing or I think maybe or not terms that we're using anymore so when is grandfathering I think the the

[137:02] term that we're using now is Legacy rather than grandfather just societally um and then activation I think that that gets used a few ways by the city um you know as as an example I've heard it in City presentations as a sort of a term of art of making a place less inviting for homeless folks I've also heard it as a place where you are really encouraging pedestrian and cycling infrastructure so I don't and and one person that I talked to today was actually confused by what we meant by that so I would say maybe there's a better word that we could use in the next presentation than activation depend I think you mean it in the second way in this presentation but I'm not 100 but I think that's what it is and so maybe um just be a little crisper but I think it's great stuff um Regan welcome to the city a year late thanks for that awesome presentation and introduction um and and I'm a yes and a yes on the two questions thanks so much thanks great um so we'll have Aaron Juni uh second

[138:02] helping for Tara and then I'll uh wrap this up so we can move on to the second presentation Aaron okay well I'll I'll be uh pretty quick because people have generally expressed my thoughts already so uh uh Regan and team you all are doing a phenomenal job I think your Suite of recommendations are absolutely On Target um so I'm definitely supportive on yes and NES on one and two and just a plus one to my colleagues who've mentioned about the alcohol service on the hill that uh that in a regular serving alcohol to Young to um people over the age but younger folks in a well-regulated environment is is preferable to these um House Parties that have been getting out of hand so I think that's a good step to take going forward and as well as the 50 50 rule so I think equalizing these rules um out with the rest of the city makes sense and I think that can be productive for the hill and the overall the residential area going forward so really like the direction you're going and thanks for a great job

[139:00] thanks Aaron Judy you're up you know thank you for this presentation as well it was very thorough I might answer to one and two is yes and yes um I appreciate the comments or at least the part of the presentation when you talked about Community stakeholder engagement I think that's very important as part of um this project Cu uh businesses on the hill and integrating the residential Community uh to the commercial District I think that's very important as I've seen on Council for the past three and a half four years there's seems to be uh some kind of tension between the residents there the students and also the businesses I think ensuring that that relationship is very strong is very helpful to the work that we do uh yes on the broad revitalization by staff um and I just wanted to add I remember when

[140:01] I first ran for Council back four years ago I remember community members and many businesses on the hill um has been asking for the activation of the streets and Alleyways um and planning for more events I know that Rachel mentioned hey let's change the word but aside from that community members have been asking for this so I think it's it's about time um it's been a very very long time community members have been asking for those type of changes it would be helpful we have a you know we have a pretty big university uh that's right there and we have all these students so I think finding ways to get the kids involved as well it's very important because you know sometimes when I think you know when I think of the noise issues on the hill I really do think a lot of these young people are bored not to make excuses for them but I'm seeing if we have more opportunity is to engage them more things for them to do right

[141:01] there on the hill I think they might be less they're you we might we might right because I don't know the cause of why there's so much noise aside from the fact that young people make noise um but I think keeping them busy through other activities in the community might be helpful um yeah I think it's you're doing a great work keep up the great work and I do believe that the hill could be self-sustaining and draw community and businesses but we have to put in the work and that work really is through the activation that Community has been asking for for the past four years so keep up the great work and um thank you for the presentation thanks Judy uh territory did you have a follow-up comment it's actually a question but first junior thank you that was a great comment I loved it um yes two things first of all boss lady Pizza I miss you so much that's first of all secondly I just have a question not really double dip possibly a double dip

[142:00] but not really my question is to Cheryl is that her yes Cheryl do you think parking wise I know it's a problem with your employees and that makes me sad so will you be able to last until the Hill Hotel parking goes up or is there any way to do give some immediate help to that situation Chris is there something we can do in just the next year to help those employees um find a place to park they Park in the neighborhood our patrons and our employees Park in the neighborhood I always Park in the what I still refer to the Jones Street uh parking lot which is the 14th Street lot um many of our patrons don't know it's there so um that's a great thing but for the most part patrons and staff just circle around the neighborhood

[143:00] looking for parking and that is easier in the summer and during our very busy season in the fall in the spring it's much more difficult and they have to walk much further late at night to get to their cars foreign I feel like I I want to respond as well in appreciation of Cheryl's experience and her employees experience and and terrorist question there are a lot of uh Dynamics related to The Parking Challenge on the hill um including the fact that we don't have um regulated parking outside of the commercial District so there there are um free parking uh conditions on the residential streets directly adjacent so that does lend itself to folks searching for free parking there is an element of course that we we sold off the Pleasant Street lot that reduced the amount of paid parking available in the district

[144:01] for folks who are attending a concert or getting to the hill for other purposes we do have already established arrangements with CU when it comes to some permit parking in the Grandview area already even without the new structure um we continue to also become concerned and wanting to provide good service to the businesses in the district and and we have the 14th Street lot right now it is it is paid uh short-term parking only we do not issue permits for that lot there is possibility that we could um explore some permit-based parking for certain times for that space because there are times of the day and times of the year that it is very underutilized um but I just wanted to mention that that there are possibilities we could explore I don't have a good solution for you right this moment but we know that these are challenges and we want to work with the businesses to to navigate a

[145:00] positive track forward so that parking isn't the thing that prevents uh success in the long term thanks for those observations Chris let me try to um at the risk of getting it wrong let me try to summarize what I think I heard from my colleagues uh and first of all I agree with with pretty much everything that was said uh so I'm not going to repeat uh it's been said I heard some comments around exploring Financial District options to ensure the sustainability of the district and that could be any number of things from expanding the boundaries of of you did to perhaps creating a DDA to maybe create a bid I know the staff is looking at all those things and it sounds like there was enthusiasm to continue that work it sounds like people were uh supportive of the staff's recommendation to wait on any significant changes around the 14th Street parking parking lot until we see um how things shake out here and particularly with the 490 spots coming up available on uh the University's property and maybe a

[146:01] direction to staff to firm that up a little bit more um as that parking lot gets finished um I I heard some enthusiasm to uh directed to to Natalie to keep going on the short-term Transit Transportation Solutions with the goal of of having some temporary or short-term Solutions in place in time for the hotel openings um I heard a few people comment that once the hill revitalization working group finishes its um its work on the residential side that they return to the original work and be a engagement tool for uh staff when it comes to strategy on uh field revitalization which is probably got started several years ago and I heard uh a pretty significant majority of folks wanting to explore um code changes anything uh folks that I missed was it a good recap Chris have your hand up I just

[147:00] want but if folks have anything else to add please but I also wanted to thank you all for the great feedback on all this work I heard the word fast track from many folks um I would love could if if you don't mind could we maybe just get a thumbs up on if we want to attach the word fast track to um question two full stroll pull there maybe some hands is this regard to code changes in general or specific ones that we've discussed specific to the liquor rules in the 50 50 food yeah I'm just counting seeing something yeah I think we certainly heard that Chris and I think we'll go back and talk to CAO and with our planning and development services director but we certainly get that there is a great appreciation and support to

[148:01] move that forward um and we will uh perhaps come back to you and let you know timing or what that will take it oh sorry yep uh just just to be clear by fast track we're not talking about circumventing public processes here right just to move forward with those uh relatively quick but quick basis but would still include some Outreach and public hearing and you know all our typical stuff we presume engagement is involved which is why we want to go back and talk about that and we also um uh want to make sure that that fits within the work plan um certainly pnds and city attorney's office is doing but we are happy to get back to you on that but we hear we hear um a majority wanting to move in that direction and so appreciate that I think the direction here has been really crisp I just want to thank Cheryl as well Cheryl that your input was very helpful I appreciate it thanks for your service on the board yeah and thanks to the

[149:01] other staff members uh Kathleen and and Natalie who were here um let me test what Nuria just said did you get did you get what you needed I certainly did yes really appreciate the feedback and Direction very clear we are finished with game one of the doubleheader Regan you don't get to go anywhere because you're pitching the second game are you sick of me yet we're not sick of you we're we're loving you and so just give us some more of that on the second um uh presentation by Regan it's relatively short and it it it's pretty streamlined and so our suggestion is maybe we hold our questions to the very end if you guys can and we're a little behind schedule now but I think this is going to go pretty quick we do have a guest speaker who's gonna help Regan with this who she'll introduce here in a few minutes but let's let um Regan and her guests get through this all and then we'll have our questions at the end and then she'll ask them questions for us Reagan's back to you great oh maybe while the slides are coming up

[150:00] just to intro this a little bit we are so delighted to have been able to um continue this conversation it's been part of uh conversations in Boulder around development for many many years now as far as the the need for affordable commercial and some efforts over over the years to accommodate that in certain instances we're so delighted to have been able to work with the CU real estate Center and in exploring ways to take the work that's been done over over the years to the next level and so Regan has worked really closely with the c real estate team and a number of grad students who have who have helped with this work over the past 12 months and now we're just looking forward to daylighting all this great work with you all and seeing about uh steps forward so over you Regan thanks Chris and yeah just to reiterate we're really excited about just and in summary this presentation will outline the context around the cost of doing business in Boulder as well as our recommendation to

[151:01] develop an affordable commercial pilot program we can go to the next slide so quickly the agenda here we'll start with those questions for Council that were in the memo dive into a background the analysis that informed our recommendations I'll I will outline some next steps and then we will Circle back on those questions for discussion so we have two key questions for Council this evening one does council support our recommendation to explore the development of an affordable commercial pilot program N2 does council have any questions about next steps all right diving into the background here we can go to the next slide so I'm going to start by outlining some high level context and some of the issues that we're seeing today Boulder is home to more than 7 500

[152:00] businesses the majority of them 96 being small businesses which is defined by fewer than 50 employees and our community relies really heavily on them they provide jobs for local residents to provide critical goods and services and generate sales taxes to help fund city services however businesses face an array of pressures related to operating costs and leases with particular emphasis on this triple net lease Arrangement which most of the city's small businesses are tied to as a tenant in commercial space triple net lease Arrangements pass through property operating expenses property taxes and insurance onto the tenants so this is an additional cost on top of the base rent and is an important consideration when thinking about doing the cost when thinking about the cost of doing business in Boulder and I'll dive more into the factors that impact these

[153:01] costs later in the presentation covid-19 exacerbated a lot of these challenges from the temporary closures that businesses face to social distancing requirements Staffing shortages the pandemic again exacerbated many existing challenges creating even tighter profit margins and the effects of the pandemic are ongoing so while some businesses have largely recovered others continue to lag especially that small business community and then lastly it's important to know that this is not a new topic of conversation the idea of affordable commercial has been called out in existing City plans prior Council meetings and a subject to explore further on City staff work plans the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan calls out the rising cost of commercial space as well as the city-wide retail study and other City plans and I'll reference some of the language from these studies during the presentation

[154:01] we can go on to the next slide all right now that I've provided some brief high-level context let me expand on what the city is doing currently to help offset some of these costs starting with the first bullet there for over 50 years the city has leased commercial space to small businesses non-profits Arts organizations at below Market rates and this is managed by the community Vitality Department facilities and Fleet and Parks and Recreation in downtown Boulder alone Community Vitality manages 12 commercial spaces owned by the Central Area General recruitment District also known as cajid including commercial spaces on the ground floors of our district-owned parking structures so one of those retail spaces you can see here on the right hand side of this slide at 1500 Pearl Colorado Glassworks is a woman-owned small business that recently

[155:01] leased the space last year we issue a limited number of mobile vending cart permits each year to enhance the vitality and the visual appeal of the Pearl Street Mall and these permits are issued for both retail and fast casual dining options and they're targeted at that entrepreneurial small business startup community the community culture resilience and safety ccrx tax was approved for a 15-year extension in 2021 it specifies that 10 of ccrs tax revenues are dedicated to support non-profits with um emphasizing tackling the space affordability challenge 30 Pearl which is now called Boulder Commons so to help address the high cost of leasing commercial space the city included a below Market commercial pilot

[156:00] in one quadrant of the 30 Pearl Project being developed in partnership with Boulder housing partners and so the Covenant requires that half of the commercial space or approximately 9 300 square feet will be believe will be leased at the low Mark market rate rents as a pilot administered by the City's community Vitality Department in a similar Covenant has been developed for the Macy's Redevelopment site at 1900 28th Street within the 29th Street Mall which will require no less than 7 500 square feet of commercial space to be charged at below market rate run and then lastly and most recently beginning in Fall of 2022 we engaged with the CU real estate Center and a group of graduate MBA students with the aim of having them research and conduct stakeholder interviews to identify strategies that enhance the availability and

[157:00] affordability of commercial space in Boulder and so I have a slide later dedicated to their research and findings which will be shared here shortly and I'm excited to pass it off to Charles Biddle Porter at that point who was on this call and he was part of the student research team we can go to the next slide and I'd like to just take a moment to talk about the community benefit project which is an important initiative that's been the topic of discussion in Council and prior years so Boulders Community benefit project is a tool to ensure that new growth in development contribute positively to the community it requires that developers provide permanently affordable housing when adding additional floor area to a building up to that City's Building height limit of 55 feet in June 2021 City staff proposed to

[158:00] amend the land use code to implement Community benefit phase two this would have added below market rate non-residential uses as options for developers requesting additional height or floor areas as opposed to strictly affordable housing but the ordinance was not passed in Council advised staff to focus on funding for affordable commercial as well as simpler ways to achieve the community benefit of the low market rate space and so since then discussions have continued about the potential for finding other ways to fund programs for affordable commercial including using a similar construct how the city funds permanently affordable housing nothing has been brought to council since but it's something the city particularly planning and development services has explored and discussed next slide

[159:01] all right let's dive into the analysis that staff is considered as part of the development of an affordable commercial pilot program we can go to the next slide so I want to start by going over some key factors that contribute to the cost of doing business in Boulder City policies related to the built environment help shape the form protect historic and environmental resources and preserve neighborhood character and ultimately contribute greatly to the availability and the cost of commercial space other key factors outlined here on this slide include the demand for commercial space property values property taxes assessed on Commercial properties the resources such as cost and time required to develop or redevelop commercial properties and then lastly the costs associated with building materials

[160:02] so it's important to make note um of the built environment the policies and the factors that contribute to why the cost of doing business in Boulder is so high including those triple net lease costs and next next I'll go over some key points from Newmark groups Denver office which is a commercial real estate services firm so we can go on to the next slide so the graphs you see on this slide speak to the total square footage of commercial space in Boulder this includes office industrial and Retail the horizontal or the x-axis depicts the year and the vertical y-axis is square feet so as you can see it's remained relatively flat over the past 15 years increasing in total by only one percent from 2008 to 2022. and then during that time just to break

[161:01] it down a little further the total square footage of office increased by six percent for industrial space it decreased by three percent retail space increased by four percent over the last 15 years next slide and while the supply of commercial space has remained relatively constant Numark vacancy rate data indicates demand is fluctuated again the year is depicted on the x-axis and the percent vacancy rate is on the y axis so most recently vacancy rates decreased slightly between 2021 and 2022 after increasing quite significantly in 2020 due to the pandemic um and the mean vacancy rate over the past 15 years for office was 10.6 for industrial 6.7 percent and for retail

[162:02] that mean vacancy rate for the past 15 years is 4.5 percent next slide all right and these graphs compare the low and high range of commercial lease rates in Boulder over the last 15 years with again the years on the x-axis here and the least rate per square foot on the y-axis and I do want to call out that this data has not been adjusted for inflation um however it's the one published and updated source that we could get for this type of data so looking at these graphs commercial lease rates over the past 15 years have also fluctuated and very widely by sub-market and the type of space but in general looking at these graphs commercial lease rates from 2008 to 2022 show an overall increase in the lease

[163:00] rates for office industrial and Retail in 2021 rates were as high as 62 dollars a square foot per year for retail space in Boulder and while the highest lease rates for office and Industrial declined the highest rate for retail increased in 2022. and then it's important to call out the median rate so for downtown Boulder in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 32 dollars a square foot um medians are not depicted on this slide it's only the low and high so I wanted to call out that data point there and since this data does not account for inflation I'd like to call out one other data point the average annual growth rate for the high retail lease rates was six percent from 2008 to 2022. while the average inflation rate during that same period of time was 2.35 percent

[164:01] so that tells us that retail lease rates are increasing quite significantly even when taking inflation into account and overall with this data some key takeaways here are that the supply has remained fairly constant with fluctuations in demand but an increase in the need for commercial space from 2021 to 2022. and undeniably we're seeing a continuous increase in the cost of commercial space particularly again that triple net foreign so as part of our analysis we also research what other communities are doing as it relates to implementing formal affordable commercial programs and I'll briefly run through each of these in Portland Oregon an affordable commercial tenanting program referred to as Prosper Portland provides Equitable access to

[165:00] space for emerging and small businesses in the form of reduced rent tenant Improvement contributions and technical assistance the urban Redevelopment authority of Pittsburgh offers rent relief to small businesses through landlord grants while in Oakland Main Street launch offers more affordable capital and small business loans and then lastly Detroit's Motor City match program connects businesses with landlords to further facilitate accessibility to commercial space so ultimately as we look into the development of an affordable commercial program it's important to consider best practices and strategies in other communities that may be facing a similar challenge of the cost of doing business in their cities next slide and so again most recently the city partnered with the CU real estate Center to develop a proposal around this issue

[166:03] um so I'd now like to introduce Charles Biddle Porter an MBA student at CU leads who's on the student project team he'll present a brief overview of the team's research and findings and proposal for the city thank you thank you Regan hello everyone I'm very honored to uh to be here presenting my team's researcher to you all so thank you thank you very much the opportunity um as William mentioned I've been working alongside a few of my MBA and msba classmates uh for the past year exploring um what affordable commercial means and working towards developing an affordable commercial assistance program uh that we've called Thrive folder for the city to potentially Implement um to help small businesses and ngos so I would do my best to stay high level with this but I'm very happy to sort of take any questions at the end with Regan um and I believe you've all received our report in your memo

[167:01] um so feel free to ask any any sort of clarifications towards the end but in our research we interviewed a number of sources both public and private a few of uh whom are actually on the call today um so thank you for taking the time to speak with us uh we also examined successful programs such as Prosper Portland across the US to learn sort of what had worked and what more importantly what hadn't worked for them um and sort of the takeaways that we could put into our own program the primary goals in our research were to address the increasing cost of space for businesses in Boulder to offer support to small businesses and ngos to increase the diversity and inclusion rates of Boulders commercial districts so to dive into the program itself uh we've broken five border into two key components the first is that of space and this would see the city enter into a master lease agreement for a unit on on the market and they would then sublease this to micro tenants and these micro

[168:01] tenants would be small businesses and ngos the city would be able to secure a lease uh that some of these small businesses wouldn't be able to for example so that's one of the advantages uh straight off as well and the tenants um we would be set set should be specifically from uh Boulder the Boulder area um but this is obviously a program to implement uh by the city of Boulder um the least run time we set We Believe should run for about five years at which point we feel the city should conduct a formal review this review would either see sort of the current participants uh be able to re-enroll and continue with their support from the city or the opportunity may be given to new small businesses and ngos that are in need although we would like to see all participants organically graduate this program within that sort of five-year period we would we found this also addresses uh the need for smaller space as well as more affordable space but this uh micro

[169:00] release inside Master Lease would offer it's important to note that tenants will be paying the market rate for their space where we've made this affordable is not directly in subsidizing their rent but instead looking at the costs on top of a lease so largely sort of under operating costs for example this is your tenant Improvement your common area maintenance your property management and with our model that we developed during our research we found that uh under our recommendations uh we could reduce the overall cost of a lease by around 20 percent which is quite significant for these small businesses and that brings it down to sort of 80 overall um although we did design our model to be dynamic as uh as you want to scale the program you may want to increase or reduce funding sort of as as you see fit and the model that we created um allows for that local examples of this sort of space uh in the city of Boulder itself would

[170:00] include boxcar coffee which some of you may be familiar with there's three businesses in that space um Avanti or Rosetta Hall and it's a similar sort of uh idea as to what we'll be going with here the second component that we put into uh describe Boulders and Education and Training component now this component will be free to all participants and uh it's not exclusive it will be available to all small businesses and ngos in Boulder this is going to be a collection of largely existing resources that the city already offers or that are maybe offered by ngos um collecting them all under one umbrella and creating new Partnerships uh or leaning on current Partnerships such as with CU um we envision sort of optional courses being run by CU and through discussions with some of the CU faculty we've gauged there is there is interest and potentially helping put on quarterly seminars for small businesses and uh and ngos these seminars could be sort of on any topic that is deemed relevant or voted for by the small business and ngos

[171:01] to make sure that they're receiving sort of the education training that is relevant to them and that they feel is is important necessary but um I've done a high level of review sort of out of it as as I possibly can I mean I head back to Regan um and again I'm very happy to sort of try and try and answer any of the questions you may have I know that there's quite a lot of detail that we can go into with this um but I'm going to pass back to Regan to let her continue with her presentation thank you thank you so much Charles um and I would just like to add that you know findings from the CU proposal and Report do align with suggestions from subsidy plans such as the Citywide retail study um which indicates that one way to decrease tenant occupancy costs is to reduce the size of the space being leased so this is certainly something that that's been of Interest or at least discussed within the city for some time all right I'm going to try to take us

[172:01] home quickly here we can go to the next slide so now that I've outlined existing policies factors best practices and Recent research efforts I want to kind of tie it all together and narrow in on the issues at hand in our current Focus so the cost burden of commercial lease rates continues to be a challenge this isn't a new challenge that the city is facing the cost of doing business in Boulder and loss of retail diversity as a result of that has been an ongoing topic that City staff and and Council of contemplated for several years now several existing efforts but time to formalize our approach as outlined previously the city has undertaken various projects and initiatives to tackle this Challenge and the development of this type of program is outlined in existing City plans the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan highlights the importance of a diverse

[173:00] economic base explicitly stating that the city and county will further explore and identify methods to better support local businesses by addressing Rising costs of doing business within the city including the cost of commercial space CU research led to creative and unique ideas that staff would like to explore further we're really excited about our recent partnership with the CU real estate Center and student team and the ideas and proposals that came out of that research project so let's explore the strategies that were brought to the table further and then lastly we do have a pool of funding available through American Rescue plan act funds to address the high cost of doing business in the city as well as Central Area General Improvement dollars in District dollars in capital funding so let's leverage those resources to build a program that'll have lasting impact and I'll

[174:00] touch on those funding resources more in our recommendations we can go to the next slide and on to the next so staff has outlined some next steps that we think we should prioritize if Council supports the development of an affordable commercial program these include partnering with a program administrator to help with the development and administration of a program conduct thoughtful and intentional Community engagement and utilize those arpa as well as those Cajun funding resources that are available to us and I'll touch on each of these more in depth so we can go to the next slide so we recommend that as a 2024 annual work plan item Community Vitality development RFP to partner with a community organization to assist us in developing and administering an affordable commercial

[175:00] pilot program the intent would be to work with an organization with experience in providing opportunities for local entrepreneurs and small businesses to help us further explore the concept of potentially offering shared commercial space or multiple strategies to address the burden of high commercial lease costs and this could include assisting staff in developing program goals identifying commercial leasing sites for a pilot program Etc and there are organizations in the city already doing this type of work so let's leverage existing efforts to formalize our approach for example the Boulder County Farmers Market is a key organization administering a Marketplace for local entrepreneurs and Farmers to sell their local food and goods to the community this concept could easily be replicated but within a commercial space for small local retailers

[176:00] and ultimately given the nature of this type of work partnering with a local organization would provide an opportunity to increase City staff capacity while providing that additional expertise and perspective next slide and this ties in and leads to our next recommendation which would occur as part of the scope of partnering with an organization which is the community engagement component it's important to note that this has been an ongoing discussion with several stakeholders and organizations within the community for years Boulder chamber the Small Business Development Center again the farmers Farmers Market there's this broad interest from various local leaders to address the cost burdens to local small businesses and so let's continue to engage with our Civic leaders but also the broader Community we utilize the city's racial Equity instrument to determine potential

[177:01] benefits and burdens of a proposed program and develop strategies that Advance racial Equity within our city we'd engage with our community connectors and residents to elevate underrepresented voices in the development of this new program and we'd conduct broader Outreach not only with local organizations but community members at large to ensure that what we're developing is meeting our community's needs and desires and contributing to the Vitality of our city next slide and then lastly as part of our recommendations we'd like to utilize these funding resources so we have the approximately 380 000 identified in arpa funding to develop a pilot program responding to the rising cost of commercial space which needs to be encumbered by the end of 2024.

[178:00] and the city's budget also includes a hundred thousand dollars annually in funding through the Central Area General improvement district to support Capital Investments that would help address the affordability of commercial space in the district so the current balance of that funding is four hundred thousand dollars we see this as a key opportunity to implement a pilot program within the boundaries cage it and utilize those funding resources next slide we can go on to the next one all right next steps so similar to Hill revitalization this would be a cross-departmental effort with Community Vitality sort of taking the lead so we coordinate with other City staff and departments to identify roles and responsibilities and work plan items beginning in 2024 we'd like to develop an RFP to bring on

[179:01] this community partner this program administrator encumbering funds ideally by the end of the year and beginning that work in 2024 so with that said we'd really like to start working on this linear term Drafting and finalizing that RFP is an immediate next step in 2023. we'd conduct Broad and Community engagement again utilizing the racial Equity instrument and then lastly of course stakeholder check-ins with boards and commissions with council with updates likely being brought to the table by quarter two of 2024 with the goal of receiving feedback and direction to ensure success of a pilot program next slide all right we can go to the last slide here just circling back on these questions for Council does council support staff's exploration into the development of an affordable commercial pilot program and does council have any questions about next steps

[180:02] thanks Rick and thanks Charles that was really great um let's do this let's um see if we have any questions about the presentation for Regan or Charles first and then after we get through questions we can start answering your questions I see Tara's hands up and then Lauren uh real quick Charles why did you decide on five years this was where we came to um I can't point to a specific piece of research we thought that five years was a kid on the Wheel to look at seven years but there is not a hard stop at that five-year Mark we felt that five years was long enough to be able to look back at business records and financial records and be able to establish whether there has been Positive Growth where there has been change um but also wanted to ensure that the city wasn't locked in a long for a long duration um forever business maybe is

[181:01] stagnating and isn't growing um we wanted we thought we sort of landed on five years being being the magic number for that um yeah Lauren and Mark thank you um in our packet there was a mention that this program that businesses would need to be two years old and make ninety two thousand dollars a year I think to be eligible and I was wondering where those numbers came from and also kind of have a question of you know that there is also a shoe repair business was brought up as like an example of a business and I just wonder if we're not encouraging a shoe repair person to incubate their business like in their residence or something like that that is a little problematic because it's the

[182:01] chemicals associated with that thank you for those questions and I think the criteria that you're referencing was from the CU proposal the 92 000 annual revenue and then being in business for at least two years and Charles maybe you can speak a little bit more as to how you you came up with those numbers you know at this point they're really just suggestions and we would certainly conduct Community engagement and work with a community partner to to establish that criteria yes yes I can so those those numbers were we were looking at a pilot program um and felt that if we could give some guidance as to the businesses you should be looking for for that specifically for that pilot um we set the sort of the two years um there because we wanted for a pilot program for our first ever instance of this to make sure that we felt we want

[183:00] the businesses naturally what all businesses to succeed but we want the businesses to be in a position where they are established and they do have um a couple of years of operating um this could then potentially be changed after a successful proof of concept um but we felt this would give a better chance to the pilot of success the 92 000 that was sort of we worked backwards so for this we deemed in the selection criteria that for a business to be in need of affordable space the cost of rent uh to that business should be 40 or greater of their gross revenue so we then looked um the exact number we looked at I'm afraid of slipping me but I believe it's in the report we went backwards and we looked at what rent what the average rent is per square foot and basically worked out okay how much revenue will they need to be making in order for it to be 40 um and that's that's the number that we came to thank you mark

[184:00] the map um looking at the total occupancy cost at 75 percent across the city the numbers in the in the memo they range from thirty dollars to forty eight dollars that's discounted um have you projected what kind of tenants are going to be able to afford even that I mean are we simply going to get law firms and accounting firms at a discount or are we going to get um the kinds of businesses that we would really like to Foster and give an opportunity to I mean it's not as if the rent is going to be negligible I apologize council member well can you can you repeat that or we're in the memo were you referencing those occupancy um I don't have the page handy I just have my notes there was a a discussion of

[185:01] occupancy costs across the city by different districts Boulder Valley Regional Center eugid baseball Central Area General improvement district then when you take 75 percent of those numbers you get rents as I said between 30 and 48 dollars and I'm just you know even at that level of discount I'm concerned that we're going to not be subsidizing businesses we want to subsidize uh but in effect just making cheaper office space for um more well-established businesses and yeah so just to clarify sorry vegan is this that it's time to sort of the program that we were putting forwards um you're talking about in terms of participants and making sure that it's businesses that we want there um that they're in need is that sort of the question that you're asking that that is in fact the question okay yes so within the selection criteria we um we looked at other areas as well um and

[186:02] other requirements we also felt that a selection committee should be established for this um and that there are the general guidelines sort of the 40 of your revenues um as as cost of rent um two years in business more than one employee um outside of that we also want to consider a big part of this as well was choosing those businesses the businesses that are important to Boulder that whole sort of Boulder's identity that um the businesses that make Boulder Bolder um and and that's an important part but it is quite hard to quantify so we felt the best way to do this would be um creating a selection committee uh to oversee sort of the selection for the participants into those units um and they would also naturally need to consider sort of the business mix of the area so they aren't upsetting um another business next door for example if they're going in um but we felt and we've spoken with a number of people

[187:01] um a number of stakeholders who willingly said they would happily sort of sit on a committee to try and help uh help with this you're not at all concerned about picking winners and losers in a commercial real estate context and that that's really what we're doing here you can set out some numerical guidelines but at the end of the day we're picking uh winners and losers and I'm not sure that's our appropriate function yeah no I I completely hear you and we would want to approach this in the most Equitable way possible I mean I I think about the program pop-up Denver and how they have a they have a selection process an equitable one that they follow and so part of this process of developing a program would be looking into already existing programs and what are the most Equitable ways that we can go about this well I'm happy to have have you try to

[188:00] put together a program I'm just you know raising some issues uh have you identified ongoing funding after the first year or so I mean is this going to be a do we have a source of permanent financing other than the city's general fund or is this under the God will provide yeah thank you for the question at this point in addition to the art of funds we have the ongoing 100 000 annually in Cajun funding for Capital Investments as it relates to addressing affordable commercial programs Chris I see you unmuted yeah I would note that those aren't those are not ongoing funds that's why we're exploring a pilot first that we have a five-year pilot um we certainly part of the criteria of the creation of this program would be to um focus on Revenue neutral or or Revenue positive in partnering with these um the businesses that are selected to

[189:00] occupy a space um we certainly would not want to be exploring uh programs going to create an ongoing general fund burden but rather a program that is is designed to to create that Community benefit if not just in the the general improvement district um for that long-term funding strategy and and well at a hundred thousand dollars a year um how many let's say 2 000 square foot spaces could we actually um accommodate I mean it doesn't seem like that's going to stretch very far that is a question that will yet to be answered through the development of the program that we will explore those types of questions uh with you all in the months to come I would I would request that you explore those questions because I think it's it's important for the viability of the program or its General

[190:01] application thanks Mark Matt thanks Bob um just real quick I mean on the point of winners and losers um we're seeing mostly losers because our Market is unsustainable so I'd rather us be in the business where we're helping those have a chance of succeeding so I I'm not sure I agree with um that sort of dire State um I take something over nothing um my question has to do with sort of the market rate and it sort of pegs a little bit with where Mark was going about is that sustainable and I'm wondering if we own this could we then Implement our own sort of either rent control or stabilization because I'm worried that if we Peg it market rate and yet we'll still get some of that affordability on the other side I'm worried if the market catches fire we're we're taking everyone else on on a further unsustainable journey and so I'm wondering if we can Peg things as a percentage of market to keep it pretty close but not quite there and and how we

[191:00] can do that and was that it part of any of the assessment um from Charles and his team on how we could Implement tools that are prohibited at state law for other things but I think we would have the ability to ourselves but maybe I'm wrong that we couldn't do that but but I I was under the assumption we could if we wanted to that's certainly something we could look into I appreciate you bringing that up I'm not I'm not sure if it's something we could do or not but at this point the proposal at least from the CU team is kind of just talking about subdividing larger spaces into these smaller spaces and covering those overhead operating costs which would ultimately make it more affordable but that's certainly something we could look into because I understand that point yeah I mean just half a percent less than Market may get us to a more sustainable thing like it doesn't have to be much but it can be just too much to make people a little more competitive and feel a little more secure financially as they try to enter into this pilot right thanks Matt Nicole then Rachel yeah I just have one quick question thanks again for the presentation

[192:02] um I'm expecting that we're not going to be too committed to um the exact details that we've been asking questions about like the size the length of the least how much percent we're doing until we get through the engagement process that will include a much broader range of people I just wanted to make sure that's the correct assumption precisely yes there is no developed program at this point we're really just seeking support and Direction on moving forward with developing a pilot program so it would of course include that thoughtful intentional Community engagement partnering with a local community or organization that has this type of experience to actually finalize these sort of details great um thank you I'm really looking forward to seeing what what you all come up with and thanks for working to address this issue it's a really important one thank you Mr Cole Rachel actually you're showing me there you go

[193:00] thanks Bob um can you hear me I yeah we can hear you again computers really glitching am I here not here I'm not here but I'm hearing like what I'm hearing just plow ahead I'll Circle back to me I'm gonna add can you hear me now I just heard you I'm sorry bad internet on top everything else tonight for me I'm gonna mute okay Rachel we'll come back to you maybe um when we do comments I don't see any other questions I do have two questions and these probably fall into the category of I don't know which is perfectly fine answer but if you don't know uh Charles or or Regan um I I ask you to consider putting this into the bucket of things you're going to look at um but if you know tonight that'd be great to do one region you spoke early in the presentation about the drivers

[194:01] for high commercial um rants including you know real estate taxes increasing costs especially in inflationary environment and just the landlord's General desire to have a return on investment for its property I wonder if there's a fourth Factor here and that's commercial linkage view about five or six years ago we put in place a what would that police at the time the second highest commercial lake HP in the country where we charged um developers of commercial property a pretty hefty per foot rate one time pretty hefty perfect rate and I get the fact that that was only applied to new commercial construction but uh the Builders of those commercial construction presumably needed to have higher rents to cover that commercial linkage fee that they paid on a one-time basis which in turn could have could had an impact on the market even those properties that were existing do we have any sense right now and if not could we add it to our our checklist about to what extent commercial linkage fees are

[195:00] driving high cost in Boulder yeah I appreciate that question and we can certainly do more analysis initial gut reaction I would I would say yes especially if we had the second highest commercial linkage fee right in the country but we haven't done any in-depth analysis or engagement on that but we can certainly add it to the to our marching orders thanks Reagan and this is probably the second question of my two probably Falls in that category as well you had some pretty dramatic um numbers as far as the the the increase in uh rates of rents and I know they want adjusted for inflation but we could still you know we can kind of back into a three or four percent inflation rate and kind of figure out what that is in real dollars but I'm kind of curious as to how we compare on a percentage basis I know Boulder's always been more expensive than its neighboring cities but I'm kind of curious as to how we compare a percentage basis to our peer cities and I'm thinking our peer cities just up and down the Front Range so that's really

[196:00] who we're competing with for commercial tenants you know Longmont and Denver and some of the other towns up and down the Front Range that businesses can could choose if they were trying to decide you know am I going to go to Boulder or am I going to go to Westminster or Denver or Longmont or whatever and and while our rates started a baseline that's higher I'm wondering just from a percentage standpoint are we are we high in going up faster or are we High and roughly the same rate as our peer cities in the Front Range and again if you don't know put it on your checklist yeah I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head but we can certainly look into it for the development of this program Chris I see you are muted yeah well I actually I know that Charles and his team did take a look at that I'm not sure if Charles is is ready to speak to it right this moment but we can certainly refresh um our stats and thinking around that uh question because it is important yeah we did look to it but I have to be honest I can't recall the uh the exact findings it was possible sort of

[197:00] preliminary market research um I believe we included some of it in the memo but um yeah I can't recall uh the exact answers if I'm honest right now it's fine that's fine well as you look into this if you get a green light from from console it'd be good to have that as part of your uh your report Rachel do you want to give it another go with any questions and then we'll we'll turn it to to comments um okay well I I kind of tried to rethink of them as as can you hear well first can can you hear me now yes we can great um so two things first you know often when we're talking about adding something to the work plan we we have a lot of discussion about trade-offs and that's a big you know like usually you gotta let go of something if we're adding something and this feels like something that we um are a little bit revisiting you know kind of but not not precisely but from something we looked at it 2021 and and I remember feeling pretty um bummed that staff have done a lot of work on

[198:01] um Community benefits president you know look at affordable commercials so I would be I guess just two things I I make some explanation if possible how how this is so this how this got from planning to community vitality and and like it does seem also still Tethered to planning but we're not talking about trade-offs there and if we are kind of able to kick things over to community Vitality like this Council have a choice in what we to errors Rachel we're kind of losing what else might Community Vitality BS and everybody's Frozen yeah we got the gist of it I think Rachel so I might take a shot at that can uh take care of that foreign

[199:00] I'm going to try to take a shot at answering what I think I heard in that question is related to staff capacity and passing the Baton of this work knowing that that this has been a long-standing conversation in the community and largely carried through um conversations around uh development and and um the impacts of of higher density commercial development in the city and the impacts that that has on viability of existing businesses that get displaced so um Community Vitality knowing that our role in the community in supporting that micro um business Vitality component particularly in our general Improvement districts but also in the city as a whole um we saw an opportunity based on working with the arpa dollars and knowing that some dollars have been set aside by my predecessor on this this topic and that's why we're here today we do see some space in our work plan to try a pilot program and we'll want to

[200:00] explore that and make that happen and so delighted to have Regan here and our partnership with CU to help make it a reality because we do know and acknowledge that it's coming up in a lot of our sub-area plans East Boulder Community Plan calls out the concept of affordable commercial as a strategy to mitigate the challenges of Redevelopment but we need to we need to have better parameters and a better understanding what do we mean when we say that um and Community Vitality has an opportunity right now to to try something it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to solve all of our our problems in this area um but we're excited at this current opportunity and we'll see where it goes thanks Chris Rachel do you have any other questions uh well I'll try and be brief I I guess I appreciate that and I'm I'm supportive I'm still again just uh I I I don't

[201:01] I don't know that it makes perfect sense for us to not weigh in on um I guess if Community Vitality has like extra time to add to the work plan like what are the other options for what we might want to look at like I was talking about saying safe outdoor spaces which really does have an impact on uh you know businesses in in the areas that Community Vitality Works in and like is that a space that Community Vitality could could be doing some work and so it just sometimes it feels like this is this is uh something that we are are constrained on in terms of you know staff time and limits and sometimes it it seems to like drop out so my question is just how how does that how does this with with some other discussions where we have to do the trade-offs so so um athlete thank you happy to take a stab at it

[202:00] um so a couple of things right uh there's a variety of work plans right there's a lot of things that staff are doing that are part of their work plan um what we ask when we go into Retreat so the check-ins with council is what are your main priorities right and we often use that um sort of Iceberg metaphor for whatever it's work that there's a lot of stuff going on in the city um that does not necessarily go to um Council priority areas and there are different pieces of some of the council priorities and the work plans that we have that impact different departments in different ways right this is something that Community Vitality certainly has heard um through their Community conversations with local businesses and there's a need that was a great opportunity to partner with CU and they have an opportunity to build that into some of the work that they are already doing um slightly different than perhaps when

[203:00] we're talking about adding something to oh pick on pnds because Brad's not here today but when we're talking about something in that vein that they have so many Council priorities that they are trying to bring into fruition so there is a lot of work going on in the city and that conversation about trade-offs and certainly we'll have um the conversation on safe outdoor spaces is less involved with this department but requires that when it involves a department like HHS that has so much on their plate and so some of that is it's more art than science and it just depends on what it is and the capacity for staff um to take on certain initiatives thanks Maria uh and Rachel just texted me that she's now um offline her box still shows up and she's she's been booted she said she's gonna check out for the night um let me suggest this as we roll into Nicole Mark and Tara for their final questions why don't we combine questions

[204:00] and comments if the three of you don't mind just your ask your final questions and then roll right into your there's really just one question which is does council support staff's exploration of the development of an affordable commercial pilot program so if you could you wrap up your questions just say you know yes or no and why and then we'll come back to anybody else who hasn't hasn't commented thanks Nicole thanks Bob um yeah and I just Nuri I think you you pretty much just answered the question that I was going to ask in response to Rachel's point which is that we're not talking here about the council work plan and adding anything to the council work plan this is really staff kind of given that our staff are super creative and Innovative and just sort of recognizing that this is a need it's something that they need to um be working on to enact their Department Mission this is something that they are looking at I just just wanted to be clear that I'm understanding that correctly I think that is correct and sometimes when we are moving forward with with new programs we want to get your feedback we want to make sure that we're listening to some of the conversations you are

[205:00] likely having in community but this is an opportunity for um some work that is I think overdue a bit in terms of how do we support our smaller businesses in community and a proposal in partnership with CU that staff is trying to bring forward and wanted to hear some feedback oh thank you and yes I I do support moving forward with this project I appreciate the collaborative aspect of it I appreciate all the plans for engagement to firm this up a little bit and bring it back to us I'm glad we're going to be applying the racial Equity instrument here and talking to businesses out there and I just just want to Echo I'm hearing similar things to what you all are hearing and that's especially true for our minority women-owned businesses people who would like to open businesses but the price of space is just prohibitive and they can't and we're losing out on a lot of innovation and creativity because of that so so I'm really excited about all

[206:01] of this one of the things and I don't I'm just going to raise this just something to think about I would love for us to start thinking not just how we are doing more to support women and minority owned businesses but how are we supporting businesses that are in line with the mission and the goals that we have in the city so businesses for example that are helping us move toward being more of a circular economy helping meet some of our climate goals like zero waste businesses those kinds of things too I think this could be a really interesting opportunity um to start bringing in some of that kind of thinking of is there a way that not we're not just incentivizing kind of the type of people that we would like to be creating businesses but the types of things that we see a need for now and and into the future and I just kind of want to give out a shout out to our financial team because I think the work that they did around the ccrs tax and thinking about how to implement that that engagement work

[207:01] in my mind was really well done and and I'm really looking forward to I expect something similar is going to come out here and I'm just so excited to see what you all come up with so enthusiastic yes thank you more final questions and enroll into your comment well not a question um if if Community Vitality has the bandwidth to do this I am more than happy to have them be as creative as they can um I just want to point something out however in 2021 um the proposals that we did not move forward on were based upon landlords uh offering discounts on their rental levels in exchange for consideration in terms of [Music] um uh commercial development linkage fees but it was the landlords that were providing the discounts to tenants the major shift in this proposal is that you're simply saying let the city pay

[208:01] for it and that's an interesting shift but strikes me as a program if you bring it into being on a large scale is going to be quite expensive to us and it's just another program that we are moving forward with with unidentified sources of funding um I thought the the prior proposal in 2021 did not strike the proper balance between what we were getting and what we were giving up in commercial development linkage fees but in some ways I might prefer it to um simply turning to the city and say you pay um that's a little that's a very different uh concept than what we did a couple of years ago and it seems to me it's not the most imaginative way of going about this um you know having us pay for stuff is is sort of our default response to everything and I'm not sure that's the

[209:01] appropriate thing to do here despite the fact that we all want to uh provide more affordable commercial space I'm just not sure you've hit on the magic formula yet and I would say go back and and keep considering and you know let's get a program that's going to work for us in a more sophisticated way than simply saying um the city will write the check because we're always writing the check so I I urge you to do this I urge you to move forward but I'm not sure that you've um uh really you know hit it out of the park quite yet thank you thanks Mark Tara and then Aaron well sorry to disagree Mark I think this was absolutely fantastic and I'm so excited Charles I'm so excited about so many things you said um one of them is the attendance graduating and the other one that is very exciting is the education part of

[210:00] this whole thing but isn't it true that if we charge market rate that the cost won't be so bad for the city I mean isn't that the reason why we're charging market rate so we don't lose money that's that's exactly right and that's why we put that in there because we didn't want it to be a huge burden on the city's finances we set a program where you would have the option to fund to whichever degree that you saw fit um but something that ultimately the city can get more attractive lease terms and just by simply breaking the space for example of 2 000 square foot space into four pieces it's more affordable for all all four of those businesses that are in that space because they can share the costs themselves so that's exactly right yes yeah so it won't cost us hopefully anything maybe it'll be just like a known you know just a net cost no difference anyway I love Avanti and I love Rosetta Hall those are my favorite they're so Innovative and this to me sounds so exciting there is this

[211:01] um Shopping Center in Mid Florida I went to like 20 years ago this I think it's called the flea market and it's exactly this concept and it gives Opera it'll give the Opera opportunities to people that to have not had these opportunities like Nicole said because they just they they have great ideas but there's just no way for people to do anything with them and I believe that if we remove some of the burdens the rules the obstacles all these things businesses will will surprisingly be very creative and so I think this is I'm so excited this is my second I was excited about the first thing we talked about I'm just as excited about this I'm happy here that we have the staff capacity I also want to bring up that I'm pretty sure we have talked about this as a council that we have been talking about finding ways to have a commercial space that's affordable for like two years or a year and a half and so I think this is a great opportunity and I'm thrilled to see you that you guys are taking a part of it part of it and I want to end with

[212:03] we always talk about us being more welcoming as a city and so I think this is a great opportunity to do that I can agree with you on that no I'm just kidding you can't um I I think that the triple net portion of any lease is is a very considerable expense it is not going to be no cost to the city it's going to be a subsidy by the city um unless we're buying the building and of winning the triple net cost and and that's an extreme expense for the city but if we're simply leasing it uh somebody's paying the triple net portion of that lease whether it's real estate taxes utilities Etc and if we don't pass that on to our tenants which obviously we don't want to do we are paying so it is not really accurate to say that it will be no cost to us so Charles what do you what do you think hey folks let's not um let's have a

[213:00] debate let's just yeah each person girls is not a referee here um let's just you know uh Terra centerpiece Mark you counted it let's um it's 9 30 and we promised ourselves we'll be done at 9 30. so let's hear from Aaron Matt Lauren if Judy wants a way and I'll comment and let's wrap it up Aaron great no I really recommend you all for this work I think this is an exciting program I think it's very clean designed and thought out so uh yes I'm definitely in support and just want to mention an example of uh that we can maybe draw some inspiration in is there like what they call them farmers markets and like the Atlanta North Carolina area which are you know big buildings and they have little stalls with little businesses and usually food-based businesses or I think about the incredibly vibrant um Mexican markets you know where again small stalls in a bigger space and so I think this could be a really great opportunity for some members of our immigrant communities who might have a harder time um affording

[214:00] startup costs for their own space so I think that could be a good kind of inspiration and focus for us um as well so anyway I really like where you're going and um look forward to seeing this move into action thanks Aaron Matt and Lauren thanks Bob um yeah I think we're headed in the right direction and I I really appreciate uh the thoughtfulness and intention to get us going somewhere noticing the need um I'll um staff you've done a great job but I'll say a special kudos to Charles and his team uh with CU Boulder and I'll just say that this should be the norm I think we should be leveraging our partners at the University and departments with expertise and engaging what are clearly going to be some some young uh very successful professionals uh once they grad once they leave um their education and so if it's not here in other departments I would just love to see US expand that so neria however you can help help Foster that I think this is a great thing for us to keep

[215:00] doing so um Charles and your team thanks for blazing the trail and I hope we get to keep it going thank you guys thanks man Lauren yeah I Echo what Matt just said thank you so much for coming and chatting with us and putting this whole presentation together we always talk about wanting to partner with CU more and it's really exciting to see it happen um I love this idea um I also want a plus one Nicole's mentioning of you know maybe also looking at businesses that are doing things like circular supporting our circular economy goals oh it's late um and but then I also just wanted to bring up that you know because Brad's not here and pnds is so slow and doesn't have anything to work on um if you know I love this idea of the smaller commercial spaces and the sort of natural affordability that's sort of

[216:00] what we're looking at a lot on the residential side um is there any way that we can prioritize developers doing that on the commercial side um because I think you know I've seen a lot of our commercial spaces right now have been designed to only be subdivided into fairly large spaces and I think that that is something we want to see taking over all of our commercial new commercial space thanks Lauren uh Juni and then I'll go and I think we'll be done I just want to say since I was you called on me Bob um thank you for the presentation I thought it was great and I support the direction of staff and that's all I want to add for tonight thank you thanks Jenny that was nice and concise we appreciate that um I'll just um maybe uh summarize my comments into four C's I wrote down four C's and this

[217:02] is the things I'd like to to learn from staff as they as they kind of drill into this Perseus causes what are the causes of high rents I mentioned commercial linkage fees could be one of them could be other causes I'd like to understand better what are the causes of high rents number two comparative I like to understand I understand that we're more expensive than other cities but are we going up faster the same rate as other cities and so that would be helpful for me third is the cost somebody's gonna if there's a subsidy here somewhere somebody's gonna pay for it whether it's the landlord because we talked about that a couple years ago maybe it's the city I just want to understand big picture cost because I think somebody asked a you know really good question well just if you subsidize 2 000 square feet um you know and you only have a hundred thousand dollars to spend that doesn't go very far so what would the costs be to the city or whoever's going to pay for and then the fourth C final C is consistency uh which is my cheater way of saying sustainability uh you know once we back into the cost we're we're it was coming from the city where is it going to come from is it 100 000 years is a million dollars a year what is it what is it we have a lot of subsidy

[218:01] programs out there we just approve the guaranteed income program for low-income families and uh if we're going to have a program that's going to be sustainable I know we're going to have a five-year pilot we're talking about um but where is the money going to come from after that so I'd like to hear all of that as part of the initial study um those are my comments um any you're right at 9 32 we're only two minutes over any any importance you gotta say them because you're going to regret it tomorrow morning comments okay good thank you for cooperation Charles thank you so much for being here we really really appreciate it Regan you pitched a double header all 18 Innings that's fantastic welcome to the city and you did a great job Nuria and Chris any final comments I think just thank you for your feedback and I assume I speak on behalf of Chris too that we got great information great feedback we will come back to you at some later date as we continue to move this forward but appreciate uh you joining this journey with us

[219:00] a great got job guys I think we're adjourned for the night see you all next week great job thanks Bob [Music] foreign