May 14, 2024 — Downtown Management Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Alright we are recording. It is Tuesday, May fourteenth, 2024. Welcome to the downtown Management Commission. I will call roles and done well, here. Stephanie, trees wait. Susan, here. and Justin Kauman. I will now hand the meeting over to the vice chair for procedural. So first is the approval of minutes. Does anyone have any comments, or do we have a move to approve? Minutes. all in 2 groups instruments? Just a few minutes. You move to approve. Still time for a phone. Yeah. Madam, Chair, if you would like. To. Sure, this is quick, fast bike. Ride with me here.

[1:01] My exercise. Okay. where probably we're just a bit too many, too accurate. Okay. so can I have a motion to approve it? Okay, okay, I'll I'll favor alright. Okay. And I did miss speak. We don't have a new Commissioner. Stephanie Peck is on the job. We do have an update. So sorry we do have an update on recruitment later on. The agenda. I promise Susan is happiness. We do have, though, the welcome for Lauren Kennedy. We've seen she's leading our meeting today. As secretary. She's our new Board specialist evening vitality. So trying to provide Lisa with some relief. She's been training

[2:11] Lauren past week, so she's just first round of many mission meetings. And so really glad to have Lauren here. But you'll be hearing more from Lauren. As far as scheduling and and communications for all of our connections. Okay, great. Do we have any members of the public presence city? We have some online, but I don't have any raised hands. If anybody from the public would like to first take. Please raise your hand now. saying anybody's hands.

[3:02] Okay, so let's move on, then, to the consent. Agenda topics will not be discussed unless there are questions posed by the Commission. Are there any questions from commissioners on the consent agenda? I have one question about the community by the program. And how many equipments do we have? That is a really great question, Matt. Do you have any of those stats available. I don't. But I think Regan is on the call to my personal. I do see reading on here. Sorry I missed the question. What was that? How many applicants do we have as part of the community? 5 pilot program I've thought, come out, that's all the publication of it. I wanna see, like, how people how is it received? So. You said, commutify the boulder clean commute pilot program. Yeah, I'm happy to give an update on that. So the the platform launched on April first, so employers

[4:02] in Kjet and Boulder Junction can sign up to participate in which their employees can now start logging their trips and earning incentive funds. I think at this point we have 15 employ about 15 or so employers that have signed up not entirely sure how many employees are utilizing the platform at this point, but I can definitely circle back with you and get you those numbers. But I think about 15 employers so far across cage and Boulder Junction. I just love it on the scale. What is it like? Ibm level companies are about like 2 people, places. It's a bit of a mix from what we've seen so far. Yeah, small and larger companies. Regan. Do you know, if there's a plan from our forensic metaphysite to do like a mid year? Update, maybe something more formal they can do for both Prejud and Dmc.

[5:01] Yeah, absolutely no. They're supposed to provide us with. I think it's quarterly reports, but I'm more than happy to ask them to formally present to the commissions, as well. I'm happy to have that as just a written page in the document to save them from coming to meetings and stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I do have a question also about the ambassadors. is there any rebalancing that will be done in the summertime between the hill, and well given that the hill is not very populated. so the hill investors are funded by the general fund. See you? So that's what's separate. So we don't. We don't try not to mix. We have it. I mean, they only have. They have like dedicated investors. So it's the weather rebalancing and be no investment, and you know the the Moxie Hotel is due to have a soft open. I think the targeting may twenty-third. Now.

[6:00] hopefully, so with the grand opening on August eighth. So really looking forward to hopefully, I'm getting some more traffic on the hill and typically have so yes. And speaking of that. My question is about the Roots music project on the hill. What is that. Yeah, we're partnering with a nonprofit organization called Roots Music Project. They're local, based in boulder they sort of OP you operate as like a music incubator. So they really help local up and coming artists find a presence and a stage and make their name better known. So we're partnering with them to produce a live music series on the Hill events Street this summer, June, July, and August, a Saturday in each of those months.

[7:00] And then one final live music event in Boulder Junction in Depot Square. So there will be 4 events. I'm happy to send you all the flyer for that. And when is the first event? Just so, and and where do I find information. Well, we'll be promoting it more broadly. With our community partners. We just haven't gotten there quite yet. The first event is, let me pull it up. Give me one moment. June, something I just can't remember the exact date. It filmed a music video on the sundance floor. Speaking. I wanna say it's the 28 20 s. There we go! June 20 Si think from 4 to 10 pm. On the event street on the hill. Yeah, I'm happy to share the flyer with you all.

[8:00] I do see between us here for the downtown bullet, and I do want to. Your question on investors. They do ramp up staffing in the summer in the downtown. So yeah, so there's still there is a ramping up. You might hear more about. I think I have another question on the affordable commercial. It sounds like there's been a bit of a maybe I'm reading it as a bit of an evolution where we're now hiring a consultant is this? Is this a new part of it, like working on an Rfp for consultant to design the share space? Is this like a second phase or so early next. So go ahead. Yeah, do you wanna go? Chris? Sure, I'll start, maybe fill in any blanks that we bring up. So really, the next phase and a a big part of our timeline on this is

[9:02] chunk of the funding is Arpa dollars. American Rescue plan. Act. So there's some specific criteria around how those dollars can be used to support businesses that were infected by Covid and working to recover from covid. So not just a consultant to design a thing but design attention. So we're providing some framework for what we're looking for somebody to come in and do. And it's really not a so not looking to hire consultant. Just tell us more of what to do. It's actually more of a a partner, a project partner to see we're gonna put out there. Say, we have X number of dollars available, including K, $2. Your project impacts the downtown and that opens up another bucket of money as well. To see comes out of woodwork with some interesting proposals for us to consider for actual implementation of an affordable project with the criteria. What we're probably using more like a property management company. So folks who are managing properties that have been vacant seeing opportunity and leveraging the dollars city bring to the table to create spaces for tenants.

[10:16] That are more affordable. So trying to to fill in footprints that are maybe under utilized and seeing if there's a property manager out there, or other type of partner like that that wants to leverage these resources with our parameters to rent for someone who got the criteria for the program. It's one place with multiple places inside versus having like, certainly in the realm of possibility, we're we're not being really. We're trying to leave the the lines open. So the folks are actually gonna do the doing because the more restrictive, you know, you say this does sheltie blah blah. Then

[11:00] the folks who get excited about the opportunity. So we're hoping to be an investor in a bigger concept as opposed to having somebody come in and just do affordable commercial really specific thing that we have really strict criteria. So we're hopeful that we'll get some folks come out would work with some interesting proposals for you all to take a look at as we're making those decisions there. Worst case scenario people don't like what we're trying to bring some money to the table on, and then we're we are going probably back to a more traditional consultant approach of of designing the plan. Just trying to get first and foremost, the Arpa dollars need to be obligated by the end of this year. So that's driving me money. Stop. So it was all allocated many years ago. Needs to be obligated by the end of this year, and then spent by the end of 2026. And and then it's yeah.

[12:08] And then we'll be in another economic. Okay? Any additional questions from commissioners. Second page of fund financials. And I looked at the Hill Street Mall. $634 in taxes they gained in January 2024, and I was like what that's because that's supposed to say, use tax. Yeah, that's use tax that's use tax. That's sales tax sales tax also. But so okay, that's use tax. It's a use tax under the top line, then or no, that is sales tax downtown. So both of those are downtown. I'm so sorry I did not catch that. Both of those are downtown. The bottom graph is use tax by downtown, not sales tax by street, mall.

[13:17] So that's my apologies for not catching that sooner. So you have the very top line. In January 2023 downtown brought in $445,000 in sales tax, and $14,400 in Ucas in 2024 and and use tax fluctuates. It just depends on how folks of are choosing to report. So that's it's it's it's this very small part. You're not worried about that number. No, no, no. we are worried, though, about the overall sales tax, as you can see, and was down significantly for the downtown overall not not terribly down for the city, because we continue to see out of sales online sales tax revenues being stable and increasing so overall. The city is not down that much.

[14:09] but for the district that we sold businesses are. Is that just January? Or is that first quarter? That's just January? And do we have February March sales tax? So is a couple of months earlier, because it takes time for businesses to get there. If we were to report on Q. One. Yeah, right now, it would really bad. We think it might be a trend. And it's not just enough. It's better down below because I went to the Town Hall. Still, not as good. But it's not as bad. That was my question on fund financials. Thanks for covering that.

[15:00] How are things in your realm, Dustin, on that? I mean that that kind of reflects. Similarly, our January was kind of down, but it just seemed down. We we thought it was kind of dry. January was a big part of it. those people being housing. Yeah, I don't know New Year's resolutions. Just hit us hard this year. Alright. that's it. Yeah. Okay, patina. You're up next 15 min for the downtown builder partnership Update. Hi, everybody! I'm sorry I can't be there in person, but I appreciate the chance to join you. But virtually, can you hear me? Okay. Yes, Lauren Thomas. Sorry.

[16:00] Sorry we're just pinning you so we can see your face better. Oh! On our screen. That's better. Hello, everybody! Well, I'm delighted to be here virtually with you today. I did wrap up my first 6 months as the downtown partnership. CEO. So it's been a wonderful experience, learning and getting to know all of you. I especially wanna thank the the Commissioners who have any time to come to our joint bid and Dvp. Board meetings. As we started that new schedule, it's been great to see you, and I wanna thank those of you who came to the Town Hall that we had earlier this month. I think that Chris is, might share a little bit more about this when he talks about Placer AI. But I did start out our deck with the monthly pedestrian counts, so you can see March and February here, as well as April versus March, and the good news is that the pedestrian counts were up over last year. And April was up over March understandably. We had a number of really exciting special events

[17:04] in April. The first one that we had was our taste of pearl. So, thanks to any of you who came to that wonderful event. It was the first time that we had that event since 2,019, and we sold out of about 600 tickets, and we had 15 different retail shops and 20 or 30 different restaurant and beer and wine cider and all distillery partners. This is a really important event, because, as you can see, on the slide here, we did a survey after the event. Yo. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. If you're trying to share your screen, it is not happening. We do have your slides. So we're looking at them on our computer. Oh, thank you for. Yeah. Shares clients we do. I I am not able to. Can you advance to the taste of Pearl's Slide? We have them in front of us. Okay, yeah, we're just gonna have to monitor on our own because we do not have

[18:01] oop presentation, or we can. We can give you sharing rights if that would help, or we can just follow along in our packets. So she's a co-host. So she should be able to share. I'm I'm I'm having some challenges. I'm on my phone rather than my laptop. So. Oh, that's okay. We have it on. Hi! I'm I apologize. I'm. All good. We will follow along in our packets. Great. Thank you. Appreciate your patience. So yeah, so on that taste of pearl slide. You can see that. 95% of our general admission attendees agreed that attending tasted pro is not just about a really fun afternoon for them, but it led them to discover a new downtown border retailer or a restaurant a bit more familiar with, and that they revisit downtown to experience that in future. So that is a really important reason why we have ticketed events in addition to our fun. And then the other big event we had in April was the tool, fair and elf festival, so you can see some really cute pictures of what? It was my first time, and I don't think I've ever seen anything so adorable in my entire life. So thank you to boulder for having such a whimsical and delightful

[19:17] tradition. We had a really wonderful representation of diverse entertainment acts. We invited the Rocky Mountain indigenous dancers to come join us. They had dancers, young dancers, and more experienced dancers, and they taught us a little bit about some native American traditions. We also had the School of Rock, so we had some youth music participants as well. And you can see that we had almost 3,000 pedestrian impressions counted that Sunday afternoon. So that was at 8 the year prior. The weather was really beautiful, and so, of course, that helped quite a bit. You go to the next slide. Oh, thank you. Oh, yeah, Rebecca. so appreciate that.

[20:00] If you go to the next slide, would like to just share a little bit of the advocacy and connecting work that we've been doing. Not just at downtown boulder partnership. but also with our community initiatives. We worked with you all and with our boards to advocate City Council for economic vitality and development, to be included in the council priorities super happy to see that come out, and especially towards economic development. They understand that has been sort of a controversial phrase in Boulder before this year. So that's great to hear. We've been working with Regan and looking forward to connectors on advocating for some way, finding improvements to better connect the hill to downtown with the moxy opening. We're really seeing that great opportunity. I attended graduation last week, and it was really rewarding to walk in between the the go from graduation to walk downtown and see some start to take shape. We had 2 business education sessions they were both over zoom on crime, prevention and de-escalation. That's in the last 6 months.

[21:07] And then with folder chamber and visit Boulder, we're continuing to work on a framework policy for addressing homelessness. And I'd like to remind everybody, if you haven't heard about this already. We are hosting with this older and a chamber a almost policy roundtable event on May twenty-threerd at the Chamber, and it would be wonderful if any members of commission would like to attend and I can send out invitation to this group after this. But that'll be a wonderful lineup of some people who are working providers will have public safety officers. panelists with lived experience. And we're going to be talking about some of the efforts that are happening between Boulder City and Boulder County and then, sort of surprisingly, this past month we worked a lot with the economic vitality and business support Alliance to respond to April's power outage, which had a significant impact on downtown businesses, as was a busy weekend, and anybody who's turned on the news.

[22:11] and first 2 weeks of April, or attended a council meeting with public Utility Commission got to see me on screen talking about the survey that we did with the businesses. We tried to get some information about what the economic impact of those Psps were so that we can work better with our with our private utility in the future, so that we can understand when it's going to happen and get the word out and collaborate with them. You can go to the next slide. Just this morning. We distributed through the Business Improvement district 148 flats of flowers. We gave those up to 75 businesses. So you know, the tools are coming out in the Mall, which is obviously sad moment. But we're getting ready for other greenery. The Parks and Rec team is planting the beds, and we've distributed all of these flowers to the businesses for them to care for and keep our spring green. We also are planting 13 planters. That's probably happening

[23:10] either right now or first thing tomorrow morning. In our cloud distribution. We also expanded this year to include the hill a little bit. So we offered some flower services to that as part of our partnership with the ambassador services that we provide sponsored by Ce. Folder and the university people partnership there. and we had a town hall on May second. That had 2 different panel discussions. One was on the concept of the future of office space in downtown boulder, and we invited 4 different property managers and local person who has a lot of experience with this sort of work and trying to help businesses open new spaces re tenant new spaces. That was really lively conversation. And the property owners were extremely candid and also offered their creative and

[24:05] forward thinking ideas for how we can try to solve our office vacancy problem, which is currently Dean Callen reported in the first quarter. It's at 28.8, but some of the property owners on State Town halls. That is probably more like 40 or 50 when you think about the spaces that are least specific to right? So that's definitely an area of concern for us. as it is across the country as we look at what work from home and the change of work life has done to our downtown space. We also at the Town Hall, had a panel discussion on public safety, and we had the city attorney, Chris Reynolds. We had our district attorney, Michael Doherty. We had Sheriff Johnson and Chief of Staff Alistair Evan, from older police department, and they talked a little bit about some of the challenges they're facing enforcement with

[25:05] drug addiction totally met, and mental health challenges as well. Representative Judia model. I sent her Staffer Robin Noble, who shared some of the news that was happening. I'm about efforts that her that she and other State representatives have been making to try to change the path to competency and create more resources for people who are in the criminal justice system. who are experiencing mental health crisis and need to be treated as a therapeutic requirement. So lots of heavy topics at our town hall. But I think it was a really well received gathering and our own Chris Jones, did a fabulous job create presenting some really cool data on place or AI which follows us around where we go with our cell phones in our pockets and collects all this really great information about what kinds of people are visiting and where

[26:02] you can go to the next slide. We also need a debut or, sorry. Okay, our ambassadors continue to work very hard, and Wayne, thanks for jumping in there when the meetings first got started. Our Ambassador staffing has been a little bit slow in March and April, as we were getting ready to gear up for the summer months, but they will be back out, of course. We're looking to hire a couple more people to post vacancies that have come in, and as you can see here from the statistics. They continue to have a really great impact on our community. And one of the things I like to say about the ambassadors is. you know, they're doing their job when you don't see the work that they've done. Because we all want downtown to be clean, and they are out there all the time, really making sure. like using the site. Yeah. For now, Kita, what is. Big belly service every time trash goes. Oh, I love. Patina. Can I ask? Though there's a big, there's a big change. The January numbers are like a lot higher than February

[27:07] numbers. Why is that. So the big belly service. Big bellies are the trash cans that are in the downtown. And so that's the brand of trashcan like Ellie, you should probably change that in her. So it's more clear to understand. I I don't know exactly why it was so much higher than I think there may have been. I I'm willing to get back to you on that one. I'm I'm sorry for not having one thing you'll also see is the the stickers, the graffiti. The graffiti is kind of going up and down. That also includes sticker removal. We don't have a way to track separate graffiti from stickers. So we actually don't have that many tags downtown. But people are putting stickers on like posts and such any other questions on these statistics.

[28:00] No notion. Okay, great and then this is really fun. I hope this video will play for you. But we launched a new advertising campaign, and for the last couple of years we've been really working with my happy place, and there's even that mural on the side of the wall where the new chief of Sandwiches. But we're moving away from that a little bit and adopted a new slogan. And if you could press this and see if it will play for everybody. Without pressing anything. Nurses? Does it not work. Well, oh, wait! I have to also share my sound. We had to do that shared. Change your screen that you're sharing bathroom. Make it this. Expectations are rising. And know. Elliot is our resident. It alright! So fingers crossed.

[29:06] I mean it's and we have no sound. Oh, maybe cause I have no sound lot of James Beards. That's so bolder, too. We have welcome to downtown boulder. We know what you're thinking. A bunch of artsy, flower-loving hippies so bolder. Well, sure there's a lot of beards here, but there's also a lot of James beards that's so bolder, too. We have tie-dye, but also tie to die for local jam bands and locally-made jams, and something for every Hippy hipster, techy foodie outdoor, junky friend or family to enjoy. There's the boulder, you think you know, and there's the one waiting to be discovered. So come, be a part of all that makes downtown boulder so bolder. Like that. I'm still a little bit cheap.

[30:01] Most of the day. E. 5 min ago. Little bit cheeky a little bit. So you know. 8. Become back down. We're just wondering where the type. Alvin. Oh. oh, there's a new Thai restaurant that's opening where the Roma place at the West End Plaza is coming in. Okay, that's that's how that is. Yeah, that's okay. Alright, they got in there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Anyway, that that commercial and other little campaigns like that are going to be airing on different television stations there will be. You'll start to see them under social media feeds, and that's that'll be a campaign. The end of the commercial. I'm sorry. Who made the commercial. $11 bill. And our creative director.

[31:05] Yeah, so that's very exciting. And Elliot, if you could go back off so good, so seamless. Thank you very much. Nancy. The the next big thing that we are looking forward to is our employee appreciation week, and I'll kick off June third. and we're really encouraging businesses to get their employees to pick up a sticker which will allow that admission into all of happy hours, etc, etc. There are a bunch of different activities that are happening, including office Olympics and we started something new this year. We're asking for the best outstanding employees, and we'll have special prizes given out for that. So if you can help share that with all of our downtown businesses, you'd really appreciate it. and on the next slide after we wrap up employee appreciation week, we are gonna start bands on the bricks. So every Wednesday night from 5 30 to 9 we'll have an opener, and then a band play we'll have a beer garden with a beer from Avery, one of Margaritas and offline seltzer and lots and lots of fun, and then Wall Street Arts fest July nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first, and then we're already moving into planning for fall fest as well.

[32:14] So those are just some of the things that we are excited about. About putting together for downtown. and that's some of the work that we've been doing. I also just wanted to follow up I Iain made a great comment. During one of the chats about the big belly hands that you asked about. That's actually they're not the brand of trash can that we have in downtown boulder. That is a brand of trash can that is used across other districts that use the block by block ambassador management program. So that's a if we need to change that, they should say bare bins, or or something like that boulder. Specific trash. Yes, we'll tell our friendship. They need to update their database. see what we can accommodate.

[33:00] Oh, I will. I'm gonna say, listen, we gotta be so we gotta be so bolder here, have our own trash. Can any other questions for me? Do. do we partner with our holder, or anything like that for the pride events at the end of June? Is that anywhere? Activation with Thirteenth Street and Banchale, and one of them. Yes, absolutely so. Our role. I'm really sharing with you the events that we as an organization present and produce. But we promote all activities that are happening downtown. So that includes Bri, which I understand this point. Bringing back a motorcade. So not a full grade. But there's super exciting. We'll be promoting. That also did mention that Boulder Farmers market has started up the Wednesday market again this month, so we now have Wednesday evenings, Saturday morning. And then the programming that the older city arts and culture does through the art in the park program.

[34:10] I'm sure you you have get more information about like when the older symphony is playing folks in there. But we'll be promoting all of those activities at our website. Can I ask you about Case Referral? Are you planning to do this annually again, or we not sure. based on the last. We are. Okay. Yeah, we absolutely are. It was such a success, and people were so happy. It was interesting. About half of the people who came, said that they were so happy to have to be back, and they never, you know, they've been many times before. And then the other half of people had never been. And so they got to have this grant. So we're gonna take both those those newcomers and try to add, the experience shifted a little bit and have it evolved. But we'll definitely do it again next year.

[35:09] Did I miss anything, Chris? I think so. That was pretty comprehensive. It's been a busy couple of months, you know. Thanks so much. The phone call was great. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being there, John. Appreciate you coming. Thanks. Everybody. Like student. No, Kate Chambers. Oh, so Joe, since this regards another conflict that came up because unless our last meeting agenda, you know another conflict on the agenda. So we know we have a packed agenda, for our management actually is a good thing is otherwise. We're going to be here till 9 o'clock. So

[36:02] we can. We can skip that. Okay. First up we do have ben mad here from the city's project management team. He's been our herder of cats and the convenor of multiple departments. The Boulder social streets initiative that you all are familiar with the work that we did last year with the activations on Thirteenth Street. Some work has happened since then. We did have have a study session with Council a number of weeks ago. It's this past 2 months a total, or it might have been a month. Yeah, that river trip. So. But then we provided a a slide deck. Not anticipating that we're gonna get the total. You know, Gale force presentation, but wanted to just give you all update, as at your request, on this work, and and have been here to help answer any questions that you might have.

[37:05] With that I'll hand it over to Ben. Give a brief update on the report. Thank you, Chris. Hi! Everyone my name is Ben man about key him and I work with, and then the Public Works Department, and have been the project manager for Boulder Social Street since about August of last year. But this work has been on for that, as many folks know. as the beginning of this kind of started, or at least this iteration of boulder social streets started after West Pearl was reopened and was very We talked about both and staff at council and amongst community, and what step was charged with was, How can we best continue best to activate our streets in the downtown area. And then, as we'll kind of preview coming up. How can we do that in other parts of boulder as well?

[38:04] And as also, as Chris said, there's a whole lot of material here. All of these slides are very done, so you can always contact me afterwards, and then I can provide you a lot more information. You've also got a little report that we have presented to council. That also has a bunch of attachments to that as well. So anything that you want answered. We can help into that for you cause I'll be kind of just going through these very quick. But So in 2023 Council had asked us as staff to come up with a plan for the summer of 2023, and what we had came up with, or what we had resulted with was a series of outdoor events, and some other kind of tools that step could use at a later date. and what this kind of survey us was a pilot for what we could do in the future in downtown spaces and elsewhere. Just so we can start to put together a framework for

[39:03] other folks to do it. And the 3 different kinds of themes that kind of our evaluation results were around was economic vitality connectedness, both socially and through transportation as well as inclusivity of both kind of the demographics. And then the kind of posts that are coming in and visiting downtown patronize these events. So the 8 different events are kind of shown up there. And we had a total, about 1,800 attendees over all of the different events. The most attended ones were Melanie Funk Fest and the the Boulder Street Suffer. I was gonna ask about that, if you don't mind. They were treated as kind of like one overall initiative, but it seemed like those 2 events were like a lot more successful than the rest in terms of numbers was that the felt sense on the ground? And was there any takeaways from?

[40:03] Maybe there is an interest in continuing some events, but not the whole. you know. Program of having events all the time. Sure. So one of the things that step and this will preview some of the stuff for our 2020 forward will be more about kind of the infrastructure on how the city and kind of process folks coming coming to the city, wanting those kind of events. And then Kristen kind of speak to it more. But I think the the focus is for the city to cut, toe, kind of step back on the event, planning portion, and more. Have it be an organic way for folks in the community to come with kind of full fledged events to us. sure, and I don't wanna steal any of your your thunder on the actual recommendations what was learned from last year's activations. But and we also share that concurrently with this work evaluating these specific events are obviously special events going through a strategic planning process.

[41:04] That led to some similar conclusions. As part of a subset of recommendations around streamlining processes for certain areas in town that are well. Equipment to be more turnkey operations similar to prostate model 4 bucks, the prostate model. So a lot easier to do an activation you don't have to do a traffic, control, study and plan and hire Colorado bear case to come up a bunch of infrastructure to keep you from drunk at the Event street on the hills. Another example of infrastructure that's well positioned to be more of a turnkey operation. We don't have that Trinity operation developed. Yet so part of the recommendations of the boulder social streets work and is to take a look at what are some processes and office special events that can be streamlined, allow community partners to to more readily come to the table to make

[42:10] process in order to do it, and that that folks are. So we're trying to see what we can do to support places where we have a furnace traffic control plan to the Event street. It's pretty standard for West Coast Street, Mall. Pretty standard Thirteenth Street, maybe, with some slight modifications, can also be really a standard turnkey space. So our next steps are to use some resources to pursue that recommendation from the offices, special events, strategic planning work support. both social streets or other. You know, anybody who wants to activate spaces also include things like the neighborhood block party trailer. Which, might be pretty turnkey as well as other activations and spaces like the

[43:03] outdoor dining buses. How do we streamline some of these things that activate space? And yeah, so am I. Hearing that it would be more of like a rentable space, like like as you would rent other boulder parks and rec like a a venue, where, if you want to do the prepackaged traffic control. And here's where the tents are. Gonna go in the stage. And Yada Yada. Then, if that fits with your what your event is, then the the approval process is much more truncated and more efficient. Whereas if you wanna do a skate park on Thirteenth Street, on the hill that is outside the bounds of what we're going to prepackage. And that's gonna still be a bit more sophisticated in our approval process. But trying to, you know, create that standard term key set of of typical operations for some spaces. Yes, for things like the 20 Ninth Street Mall closing. Is that still more that property management company to do that. The city has a 0. That's private property.

[44:08] So it's kind of like a unique if city rented event space. And do you see it being used and good to both of you for something like recurring versus one time? Because I think the part that was interesting for me. Reflecting on this is like I I thought the soccer was the most appealing least for me, because I saw this like a this could be a recurring thing where that space is huge could actually be used. and by kids who might not be able to like afford. You know, the standard Saturday soccer camps right? Or maybe they just kind of some, you know, play. It felt like it could be more recurring thing. Some of them felt less recurring, less sustainable. And I'm curious if the rented space you think would have a recurring or one time nature, both to it. That's the hope, and that's the direction that we got from Council. I mean, the fact of the matter is, cage funds paid for all the activations last year was a lot of money for 1,800 participants. And it was paid for by the downtown business community.

[45:10] And so Council provided some pretty clear direction, and they didn't want us to continue to be, you know the ones, you know, underwriting activations. But what can we do to make it so? If there is somebody out in the community who sees that as a need, they don't have a mountain of paperwork to get through to make that thing happen? And so it's more about smoother facilitation rather than you know underwriting and party planning. We're kind of skipping through to like the end part of what's the next steps in the future? Is all the streets but one of the based on kind of what you're talking about there. One of the thoughts I had was like any one organization may not be able to buy out all the Thirteenth Street or the Mall for their one event. But

[46:00] when it's city's talking about facilitating being coming forward. Could you connect people who are like had inquired, and Jesus too much? But if, like 2 events that could be copacetic with each other, and you could help be a matchmaker. I saw Matt raise them. But first I want to say, you know, it's actually not that expensive to do an event? In a space that's well to. We didn't sound like we rent out the public right of way for events. What gets expensive, is paying for barricades. Put the road closure signs up paying for the police department to provide another layer level of safety, especially if you're trying to keep cars from coming into the space depending on the size of events, and that there's all these other requirements related to public safety, and and those are the things that start getting expensive. It's not just the physical use of space that depends on the size of the thing that you want to do, but the bigger the thing that you want to do you're probably already gonna have the partners because they'll let. We also don't want folks to, but up more than they can share. So

[47:06] the community, you know, community members who want to come together and do a small event on Thirteenth Street. We wanna make that easy. If you're going to do a multi 100, you know, class with a class, a event, a class, a event like a boulder boulder. Expo. Then you better know what you're doing. And so, because we we want to make sure that it's serving, not just the folks who are attending your event, but the the folks are impacted on the street as well, which is another thing on the West End, on the streets. Matt. Sorry. No, it's great, because yeah, it leads to where my mind is that of the programmatic assessment that we did with special events had real 3 3 categories of ways that we can make improvements. One we talked about, which is the efficiency of the permits process, and these improvements. The infrastructure is another thing. But the third thing is support the way that we support the community. And so there's things in those recommendations like what you're talking about having a special event staff

[48:08] we're there to, you know, bring in a new event and talk them through the process, and and to be a navigator, but also things like sponsorships. If we wanna target where events in this community can be most welcoming or best represent this community, we should also be able to have ways for the city to support the types of events and the way that they happen to make sure that they're safe, accessible and website as well. So all those things. So the sponsorship part that's interesting, too, because I know, like every organization is trying to hit up social seasonings and 18 other places around town, over and over, and like. You won't speak on my clearing house like kind of like the way that I'm community. I'm sure that you know. Cycle.

[49:00] No, the community building nonprofit organization. whatever teeny foundation community foundation operates kind of like for nonprofits, but kind of helping connect the nonprofits to the events. When you're talking about having these navigators, you guys are gonna get a clock for kind of requests, you know. Luckily, Justin Greenstein is really good, and knows this community well, and so to to be able to have a new neighborhood event that really wants to do something great for the community, and that you know, sort of fits in with the same framework. And where we're heading, we definitely should make those connections and see what we could do to support that. So yeah, I think that's one way you don't need duplicated because the partners. But I'll yeah, I'll connect partners, make making sure people understand the opportunities, have everyone chance to take advantage absolute. The other part I saw when I saw the navigators part is

[50:03] just as I think about the building that's across the street from me, and we keep as in Dmc. We keep caring about like planning and and getting facilities. approving restaurants and stuff like that is. And he did this like halfway. He's a manager person also happened on there. I don't know how complicated it is for planning to approve a restaurant or retrofit a facility or something like that. Could that philosophy also be applied into planning? So there's someone who who's inside the city gunning for sure. Thanks for the question. Slash suggestion. I would, you know, and I'd like to run right now. We have special events as an army of one Justin Greenstein, who he would really like to be able to operate in that way.

[51:01] The the reason that the Planning Development Service Department is able to do that is because of their permit fees. So they use permit fees to pay for staff to walk people through. It's still hard. Yes, and it's paid for through permit fees. And so we're in this space of like. if we we could start charge. Some cities do charge event permit fees. That boulder does not currently charge to help support the staff that helps with the event permanent process. But that makes events more expensive. So trying to to balance the need. And that's why I think that again the turnkey packages, if we were, if we can just say, you know somebody comes into the plan department with they wanna build an adu, and they have crayon drawings. That's really challenging. If we had a turnkey adu that that. Guess what? Here's a city of older design approved. We've already gone through. And you just need to figure out how it's gonna work on your parcel, then

[52:03] not that we're not. I'm not suggesting. But so what we're trying to do, at least from the events side is, can we help provide if somebody comes in with a crayon sketch of their event that they want to do. It's like, Thank you. Here's a you can do that. And this is what processes. Or if you use this process in this space here, all this work is already done for you, and it's a lot easier to do the ones that are mentioned in the packet of like La, and or something like that, was the other one something like it. There were just a couple of slides away from it. They talked about like having kind of mimicking with those. Do not do they charge for events? And yeah, it's you guys, are you guys know what you're doing. So love everything you played out here. I really like where you're going would worry that they're going to take up a lot of time, and it's gonna cost us any more money than expected

[53:14] for every project it takes longer and at least 30 to 50% more than expected. So I guess my curiosity around this is, how do we make this sustainable city. while older residents do love to improve increasing taxes year over year, like the cost of living and everything increasing, and eventually gets back to people themselves. Right? So even if the city covers it like that's coming from a budget that is eventually going to be funded by the people if it keeps growing year over year. So for a lot of these programs I know we also talk about. Let's keep the price. Well, at the same time I worry about sustainability cause. Then that gets back to every day, build a residence eventually, right. And so I'd be curious if there's a price in in like sustained like. Say, we're having events. We don't know how many events will have. But in a future scenario th those events funding a person that would then help with those events I'd be curious to hear

[54:15] in the future. Sure, I mean, we've some other things we've explored, at least in the downtown district is, do we charge a $3 flat rate in the garages at least on Saturdays supports activations. You know, you know. Fund that that does that. Well, I I do. I do think we should. Re, obviously, I I know I push for that. And I want. And that's a side topic. But evaluate, if that's working like, does that, are we actually just leaving money on the table there because people aren't really going to the garage anyway. When they do, maybe they'll pay anything because they're that's the only option for them. And so we're really not. It's not having the impact that we thought would have driving more people, because people really want to upstream. Sam's not here right now, part of the realm of authority of the downtown Management Commission is to a separate price for district owned facilities. We did entertain a flat rate a couple of years ago. Of course

[55:19] city council serves as the official board of directors, and so the the proposal died. Counsel but we would love if that was the will of this Commission to revisit that some work that we that Sam is helping to lead in evaluation of our parking products and we could certainly. Bring that back. Yeah, we don't want you to represent it, but we do want to fully understand it. So if there's anything that you thought, didn't you know? Come across in the reading of the slides? Yeah, I think, some of the other points kind of shown here, where the events that did get put on

[56:08] there was more women and more children were present, and they, I think, as we also heard in some of the community engagement felt safer. Some of that was just more people pinging around. But then some of that was the environment that these, you know the organizers put together? oh, yeah, that. Then this is the slide here that 2 thirds of the folks felt felt safe with these public events. trans, is not actually that height number of feeling saved. I don't just don't know how much we should, how much, how important that is for everyone to feel safe, right? Like I think we want the overall perception of safety. But right to feel better. Well, define your staff, maybe again, cause we're like

[57:02] 65% more than annual for 65% total. Sure, that's something that we can provide for you. There's like, I said, there's there was a lot of evidence that. And I didn't get that more detailed question for you. Yeah, I'm I'm you know. There's there's mix here, because if the public is perceiving that to feel safe there's be no one house people around that's not reasonable to like all live together in one shared space, and to start to feel comfortable. So there's, you know that that's why I'm saying, like the goal should definitely not be 100 there, because that includes, you know what we're actually trying to work against in terms of an inclusive space. So there's somewhere, there's some balance right between. Yeah, the question might be more effective with the control group. That's you know, folks who've been asked intercepted, that aren't and events right during a regular time on Thirteenth Street, and see. That's closer to 50, but it's like half than it is 100. So like half of people feel scared if you say that right the other way to state that fact. This is a deep plus.

[58:11] Was this at the night event or the day event? I think this was talking about events overall not specific to one I think I can both listen. I know Stephanie's really, that's one of your main things is safety. That's one of the things you really and I think we all agree. But, like I know, that's I don't need to put words in your mouth. I think we wouldn't mind understanding a little bit more detail around that, because, like. that's actually not that strong number and set in the scheme of things. And yeah, it doesn't have to be 100. But 2, 1, 30 people not feeling safe? Or How is that? Answered, is it okay? Kind of like down at the bottom? There's those bar charts that have, like all the I would not suggest that somebody didn't respond. It makes that it makes feels the space feels safe, doesn't mean that they don't feel safe.

[59:17] and the other the other third are neutral. I don't feel okay. I'm not gonna leave but now. but it's such a big step. But I'm sorry for that. No, I I I care about it to in increase the perception of safety which I've used that in the past, because sometimes, when things are spaces are empty. It's cold. It's dark. like these impacts like feelings of safety. They don't. Actually, they don't. Often there's not more crime or less crime, right? It's the perception of there's not a lot of people around. So if something bad were to happen, no one would hear me scream sort of thing like, but that doesn't necessarily mean at that moment, or more or less than safe. So I think I'm curious about these events, because they're feeling empty space

[60:10] that, like presumably would make people feel more safe. regardless of whether or not they are or not, if that makes sense. And I think the other statistic that the team was looking at was the increased prevalence of women, children attending and being around these places, those numbers that were shown up there were compared to Thirteenth street or in these other spaces on a normal day. I don't know if there's much the other point. Just wanna make sure is that this didn't hinder vehicular traffic around Thirteenth Street, where all of these events were and that increase the amount of folks that were walking and walking, taking transit, and taking their bike to these events. Most prevalent for folks that already live in boulder but it was increase

[61:02] I can essentially skip to the end as we talk about what we will do. So as you talk before boulder social streets could. that could be a one stop shop, or all of these different things that we've talked about outdoor dining? a block party trailer, special events, or or it could also be a way to better facilitate these. community individuals and organizations. That want to put it events together. one of the ways that they gal, who is our design? Consult for this? Put a user journey on here. Which a lot of these steps are things that we've already talked about so far. This was a mock again. Flexible schedule. But something to put this together as we'll top up for something forward

[62:03] is that it'll take about a year to get kind of the problematic things put together, and if all was to go get folks on board and get these that's facilitated through whatever this new process may be. long time. Well, I would note what we heard from Council. You know as well we did get some mixed feedback from council. There they are, and there's interested in us. Doing a bunch more activations and more than planning, but really narrowing and spending on any significant amounts of money they did really narrow in on this process improvement for activation. So it's really what we're working on now is, you know, what is that next iteration cause? There have been folks Cross departmental team has been coming better and coming together on a regular basis to manage this project where we are working to likely ship that into the regular special event with you, team process and focus on process improvement, using our resources in that in the realm of discussing today. Not so, not necessarily at this scale.

[63:28] My only concern is like, if I guess we'll see what the applications are. But there probably needs to be some curation like if it's supposed to feel like an organic neighborhood thing. you know. If if everyone's just like applying to sell stuff. it won't feel like that. I think. So. There is gonna like fall fast to me. Doesn't feel like a neighborhood event right? Giant, like huge thing. So the question is like, if who applies and like. It's almost take some time to see how much curation you'll have and how much applicant still have. I'd be curious to hear. Excited

[64:04] absolutely. And I will. As if I didn't say before, for this future work on both our social trees. I will remain the project manager so I can continue to come back with updates as we get them. If you wouldn't mind. You don't have to present next time. But I wouldn't mind the slide that breaks down the safety thing like kind of in a poor granular way, or just the raw stats or something. Yeah, that's something that I can find and sent through invitality set. Because we've got there's a lot of data and a lot of stuff that's behind all this. And so I can find that very. Thank you. I have a suggestion for you. I used to do events for both bookstore and during the Harry Potter book days we We always had parties. One year week. We always had midnight release parties when my book was released, and we had an outdoor one for one of the events, and it was super well attended.

[65:03] So you might talk with them because they're especially my kids events, because that's children, space really small. They can't do anything in that space? So they might be interested in participating in some way that the permitting process. This was like 1990, 8 or something like that it was difficult having gone through it, but they they might be willing to participate and bring that stream back. Thank you. I appreciate that. How big is it shelter? Update from new?

[66:00] Are you. Hi, good evening, Guy. My name is Megan Newton. I am the policy advisor on homelessness for housing and human services for the city, and working on the day center. Just to give a brief recap. The Day Services Center was a city council priority in 2022 we did a lot of community outreach, and then kind of went through to get a service provider and then find a location. And it's been a a bumpy road, but I think we're almost finally there. And so the day center is intended to be a space for folks to feel welcome and for for the service providers to meet them where they're at. So it'll provide basic services like showers, bathrooms, laundry. storage, but then also has more intensive services around behavioral health substance, use respite all the way to housing the State we were able to apply for a State grant. That gave us 30 housing vouchers to attach to this project. So folks accessing the services will have some direct access to increased housing.

[67:06] We have partnered with boulder shelters, so will be located at Boulder shelters north on up on North Broadway. So they will start staying open. They're not staying open on the weekend, so we're not calling it a 24 h service, but during the weekdays it will essentially turn into a 24 h shelter but the folks who are using the day services don't have to spend the night so folks can come in and just grab a shower and go or come in and access services, even if they don't choose to spend the night. But our hope is that this will help engage folks who are reluctant to use the shelter. This is intended to be a much lower barrier service. And so folks don't have to commit but it's an intended to be an outreach service, and so get folks engaged in services, get folks engaged in shelter, get folks engaged in housing ultimately. Where we are in the process is we have signed the contracts with boulder shelter. So they are working with all their logistics, logistics around some renovation of the space of flight renovation. Luckily, it's a purpose built shelter, so it's it can't easily be used for this purpose as well. But also hiring and staffing up. It is kind of a heavy lift. But the hope is that they will be ready for a full open and mid June. So

[68:23] it's been. I feel like I've said it a million times like any day now. But we are. Finally, I feel like getting to the point where it realistically is going to happen in the next handful of weeks. We have had a lot of conversations around transportation. Historically, there's been a free bus that operates. They pick up downtown. Take folks to the shelter in the evening and then bring them back downtown. I think we're kind of trying multiple iterations to see what works best. We our funding an additional bus. So everyone's queuing isn't queuing up at one time, so there'll be 2 cycles of free buses. But then we've also given a pretty sizable line. Item on just bus passes in general, so people aren't queuing up at all. So it's

[69:08] better for folks, so they're not all in one place at one time better for and better for the clients that we're serving, and that they're not waiting for a specific time to come and go, but rather that they can come and go as fits their schedule and fits their needs if they're working, or whatever that might look like. But we've had a lot of conversations around the transportation as well. There were obviously at the beginning. There's an attempt to get it in a more central location, and that didn't work out. So when we did move it up to North Boulder, and there were some concerns that, it not being in the central core. we have focused quite a bit on transportation. But also kind of a lot of this will be, we're we're we haven't done this before. And so we know how it's worked in other communities. We know mostly what to expect, but we're not quite sure, so there will be a lot of reevaluating in the first 3 months, 4 months, 5 months. To see what we need to change to make it better, utilize, as well as if it does have any unintended consequences that we're able to address those as well.

[70:09] But that was just my very brief update on what it is, where we're where we are at with it. Are there any questions. I have 2 questions. Do you know about the cost per day to have the day services center open? We don't have it broken down by day. The total investment from the city is 1.6 million handle annually. Annually. Okay. And what are you most excited about? And what are you? What's the biggest question mark for you? I'm most excited about originally the real, I think, when the conversation was happening at the Council level, it was really about having a place for people to just be And so I'm really excited that we're able to put those services in place, plus, sir, additional services that haven't been in the community. So when we're talking about behavioral health services, oftentimes engaging and service, those services are difficult outside of an emergency services process and so trying to look at ways that we can lower barriers for folks to access. Can they go up there and get an injection for their for their mental health medication as opposed to having

[71:22] having to go into an appointment schedule just being able to provide the services that people need where they're at and the community partnership piece of it. There are a lot of organizations. I talk with faith faith based groups regularly looking for ways that they can contribute this and just kind of having that space that people can come and serve folks who may not have a space. So again, meeting people where they're at folks in the community wanting to give back question marks are the utilization again. I think we've often heard that folks don't want to access the shelter, and so they won't access these services.

[72:05] I come from a space of as a direct service provider, and so I'm I'm less hesitant on that. Mostly folks do want these services. And so they will go to get them. But you know that's kind of thing has been left as a question mark. And obviously we've had a lot of engagement with the neighbors up there. And so hopefully we're able to mitigate any concerns that they may have. because that's been a you know a hurdle as well in these last few months. Thank you, Megan. There are. We have diversion kind of the programs as part of this. Like diversion in the in the as far as how's our homelessness goes, or diversion. Let's allow them just support services. Let's say. Right? Yeah. So we'll be. We've got an Rfp out now to contract with the behavioral health provider and it'll look like having staff who are trained clinically trained in the space while it's open entirely as well as some actual provider treatment provider, an Md. Or nurse practitioner, or somebody who can prescribe that will be providing direct services up there at the at the day center.

[73:19] So you've got the money. Now you're just doing an Rfp. Correct. Yes. And then heavy. Mac, I don't need to know what all the answers are to this. But have you mapped out like what success looks like, and what's what's a miss? So you can measure it. Right, and when we did the public outreach it's a little bit more all over the map. I think we often measure success on people accessing services. So folks that traditionally have not access service services access these services and ultimately leads to successful housing access. That's how we measure almost O overarchingly all the success on our programming, from outreach to navigation services to sheltering services.

[74:02] The goal is that they all be housing focused and that we want folks to exit homelessness. I think there has been some conversation that it will hopefully pull people out of public spaces. that one will be hard to measure. I think so. I that's an ongoing conversation. Thank you, Megan. Thanks, Megan. Yeah. Good job and good luck. Thank you. Alright on. Item C. I'm gonna get things over to Elliot. Maybe we'll move quickly. I know. Don, you're at the Town hall. So you've already seen this information? But we wanna give you a preview to some new data that we have access to through a platform called placer.ai that utilizes cell phone data to analyze visits to Geo fenced locations that we get to, we get to

[75:08] create ourselves. So we're going to be providing quarterly updates. This is our first one. So just knowing that we have a lot of other items on the agenda. Certainly we welcome your questions, but know that every quarter we're gonna come back to with reports. So if you have some things they're like, oh, you know, really would like to see this next time. Either you can have in your packet. You can email us, just wanted to try to knowing that this data really interesting and can open up a lot of cans of discussion. And knowing that we wanna make sure we have time for our other items. Just wanna preface Elliott's item. With that he is going to be taking a lead on our analysis in his role. As our city major business services on the creation and reporting out on these sets. So Ellie, over to you. Thanks.

[76:00] So we'll go quick. So we have some time. But as Chris mentioned this, this comes from place about AI, and we're looking at kind of our 3 Geo. Fence locations here east boulder, east, downtown boulder, grocery and west, and kind of looking at those in the key. One area. A lot of this has to do with the visits, and we will get into a lot of the details here with the 3 ge open areas. So not completely caged if you will. The downtown commercial district. But it is very encompassing of a lot of that. We can. Look here, these are some of the main metrics that we come up with. So you can see on the very far left side of the screen in purple. Is that downtown West End? And then we have the East End on the far right? And you can see kind of some of the visits. Yeah, did it exclude people like driving or biking past. So cause that would really skew the data. Yeah. So unfortunately, well, I guess it's kind of more on the mobility side in terms of like the actual visits, more than greater than 10 min

[77:04] stayed in the area. So if somebody was sitting at a traffic light for 10 min, not paying attention to their cell phone. Then. Yes, they were counted as a visit. But yeah, so that's kind of how it, I think, distinguishes the the the visits. So yeah, you can see some of the metrics here the average dwell time. So going back to that like, how how long are people actually on average staying within these locations. Is there the fourth light above from the bottom. So you can see, you know, West End, as it's kind of always historically been a little bit more busy. And you can see some of the visitation numbers here as well based on that. But you do see the year over 2 year increases on the East End as well as prostate Mall. So again, kind of going back to that recovery, Covid. More and more people coming out, and hopefully, we can get some more office visits. I'll get into the metrics on like where people are coming from. And where they're going to here in just a minute, real quick. So on this one, I'd like to know that the square footage of the full screen well, Gefs area is larger, and it has the most number of estimated visits.

[78:13] but the West End has the most number of visits per square foot, so within the East End. You'll be saying that we look for dive packet. But it's lying behind the other areas I was. I'm most curious, and I know I have to go in like 6 min. And the interpretation of the data like is that because it's just a higher concentration of restaurants for square foot and like. So that's why. And because there's so many people in a small space, right? There's not enough restaurants on the East End if you'd like, you know, to if if that's what we're like, kind of trying to compare to. Yeah. And I think we also have quite a few vacancies here on the East Side as well. There's quite a few like. If you look across the street, there's quite a few vacancies just down the road. There's a couple of vacancies, and the density is thinking about West. Pro. So the the density of the office buildings

[79:12] on, you know, Pearl Street, Mall and West is a lot different than the density that we have on the East End. And you'll notice that the East End is busier in the morning with between snooze. And for this craigs there seems to be more of an earlier morning. Population here on the East End. Then we see on the the West End. What's PIN visits? So those are the actual counts of the folks who have the cell phone that has the apps that are tracking. That's tracking the behavior. So they use that number to extrapolate out the estimated number of business and all the other demographics. Yep, something else. It's on the East end that we don't have on the West End. It's a big parking structure. So we take up a large square footage in this parking structure, which is great. We provide that part, we can access but that also does have a little bit of an impact on that.

[80:05] So here's a year over 3 years again that first slide year over 2 years. So you can see some of the changes there and then. This is kind of looking at. The visit trends over the course of that first queue Q. One. So when our other P. Times and when do we kind of see how it correlates. You can see that downtown Pearl Street have very, very similar metrics, and then kind of going back to Chris's Point. You got that East End. That's a little bit different from their metrics. So here's a little bit of the demographics of people who are visiting. This is just the Pearl street model. You can see the Median household income, the educational level ethnicity, and the people per household. So again, this is kind of aggregating all that data coming from the cell phone information. Thanks, actually. And so this isn't necessarily cell phone information. What? So what it does, where you live, where you work, based on where your phone is spending a lot of time at nighttime versus a lot of time at daytime. And then it's then comparing that to census track data. So

[81:13] American community survey. And so they're they're making some assumptions based on the typical demographics of the communities that you're either working in or living in your cell phone is not telling them about your conversations. 10 min. That's right. So here's a little bit distribution distribution graph of that household income again, using the the 2022 census data is basically where this is coming from. And then you can kind of see here the education, distribution. ethnicity. And then also that household size. Kind of distributed across the the graph. And I'm pretty sure what we did here is it's captured. This is called capture, demographic, not necessarily potential, demographic. So there are 2 different things that we can look at. What we shared here is these are the the guest, demo what things are guessing for the demographics of the people. Currently?

[82:21] There are other metrics that we could look at as far as potential demographics if we were to, you know, work with downtown the partnership on that marketing to attract different demographics based on where we're already seeing people come. That is not unmet potential. Oh, thanks, Stephanie. So here's the market landscape. So this is kind of like where people are coming from to get to Pearl Street downtown area. You can see a lot of it's coming from our neighborhood communities or neighboring communities. Excuse me, long Mount Louis Phila.

[83:02] In a lot of those areas. But people, even as far as like Aurora, are coming here as well. And we have this data for the entire country, so we can see where folks are traveling from anywhere in the country. But the heat map obviously is hotter closer and then kind of in that same vein. So pre and post trips to the downtown area. You can see I've had private prior side where we both majority of the people are coming from other. So this is aggregating the data. And it's kind of classifying it, categorizing it. So it's not like super specific but the the bulk of that is coming from those other categories besides home hotels and casinos, restaurants, etc, so that can include office that could include work and include different different types of education, those types of things. And on the post side you can see that the majority of people leaving Pear Street are going back home

[84:01] is kind of what we're seeing there. Here's our daily visits, so you can kind of see the Peak visitation throughout the week there. Obviously, most of Saturdays tend to be very busy. With Friday shortly followed behind it, and Sundays thereafter and then the rest of the week looks like it's relatively pretty well stable with the West End, especially even Pearl Street has a little bit of stability, as does the East End. and here's our hourly visits. So Chris, Chris mentioned that we see a little bit more visitation on the East End in the mornings. So you can kind of see how that distributes over time here. From the 8 am. To to noon. Timeframe. You can see it kind of has this trend that goes up till about one, and it starts to taper down in the evening. Whereas the West End and Pro Street Mall kind of build up more throughout the afternoon and kind of level off into the evening.

[85:02] Once I had to zoom in. So that's gonna make it. And here's the visit duration. So this is how long people are. Typically staying within the area. This is in minutes. So you can see, there is a pretty large distribution of people who are staying greater than 150 min. So probably think your workers people who are actually working in these areas rather than just visiting and you can see the bulk of that is going to be on the West End. So kind of back to that whole. There's more restaurants, there's more businesses, there's more occupancy on the West End, so more staff, more people are staying longer, and people tend to sit neat longer than they do, the, you know, ice cream on the Pearl Street model, or, you know, shopping in the exactly. And then here's the visit journey. So this is kind of where people are. Have the roads that they're taking to get to Pearl Street. You can kind of see that how it all plays out in the maps. So this will be great, for you know us for thinking about those district connections and community connections. How do we get. This is just unfortunately, right now, this is just vehicle traffic. So we're not well, all traffic but it's not delineating, cycling or walking, or scooting, or whatever. Maybe it's it's just all traffic coming in here. So that's why a lot of it's actually on the streetways.

[86:20] Hopefully, it'll make some updates distinguish their modes of transportation. Yup. so that's really all we had on the placer AI stuff again. We'll update those quarterly and we'll try to pull in some comparisons as well. The Q. One. Q. 2. Comparison. Q. 1, 23. Q. 1, 24, et. Cetera, etc. Just the way. The place are AI set up right now. We we could, I guess, drawn it, we boundary around the entire downtown rather than east and west and pro street. But this was just a nice way to kind of break the ice. So we provide all this for all of our commissions and the the districts of which those commissions are in. That's really what we're focusing on right now, just because we want to understand the impact and kind of changes over time within our districts that we manage but

[87:13] we do tend to geek out and look at data across the city. And this platform is largely used by shopping centers it does not work well for high density areas with all buildings cause they try to use it for businesses to understand to how many people are coming into target or bloomingdals, or whatever but if you're in a big, tall building, you don't know whether somebody is there for your ground for use, or working in the offices, or living in homes above? And so the 20 Ninth Street has been using this research uses for their shopping centers. We've had. We've been using cell phone technology to get this type of data. But we've had to pay outside consultants, who who do all the analysis, and it takes some time to learn all these things and compare it to demographics.

[88:03] play what place or AI does really automated it. So we just draw again a geopense, and that. And in seconds we'll do what used to take us a lot longer to to analyze and compile. So and for not a whole thing actually, first price pay for it. So far. So yeah, just an annual license fee for the city and everybody at the city of Boulder email address. is able to log in. Maybe it's even as commissioners you might hear it, have you? Okay, you're Mike. Oh, bless you! So, looking forward to continue to share the state of the, we're just still, we're learning a lot that this is just a a tip of the iceberg of of what's available on the platform. And they they're evolving technology every day. So there's always new stuff coming out. So could you

[89:05] condense it to an individual location like you could see how many feet are going to then share. Yeah, the smallest footprint that will process, this 5,000 square feet. So a lot of this, that's the thing is a lot of businesses from real stream. Already. They've already been using this, and they've already Geo fenced their business as well. Target has been using this our target versus every other target across the country. And people joke that it's the busiest target in the country. Is not this target in the country, but it's the busiest target in our 10 mile or 15 mile vicinity. it's a super target. I mean, that's you think that super target in Louisville. But yeah, because it's so big. But yeah, anyhow, our whole foods is not the number one in the country but is the number one in the State? And as is the trader, Joe's in the Portland State. Anyhow, there's a lot of interesting stuff. Yeah.

[90:07] alright. Should we move on across district consulting with that? Probably. Yes, mass over to you. I know this is a topic that we've been talking with you about. For a number of meetings. There's been more work happening. But I will ask you that maybe we can fly through the grace sent possible and get to the final questions for the Commission. Yes, and I will go quickly. And I apologize. I'm trying to pull up because there was a spelling mistake. Yeah. So no problem. But otherwise still the screen. Oh, yeah, I think there's there was a reason. Oh, no, but see. this doesn't slow slows down. Paul. so yes, we've we've heard some things about this. Heard some things about this before, but we're we're really starting to ramp up what we're calling district outlooks now.

[91:10] rough packages. So I I want to walk through just a couple of notes that we haven't talked about yet. I'll I'll skip ahead to make sure that we do this right there. Okay, so the questions that we're gonna ask at the end is just if you have any advice about the scope, any recommendations on stakeholders, and then to have someone volunteer from Tmc. To represent advisory panel. The first 2 questions we don't have to discuss here. You can send in an email to me, Chris, and we can get your feedback that way. So we don't have to spend a lot of time. But definitely getting your inputs important. So if we don't have time today, do think about this, and we'll address it. Make make sure that your input is is incorporated into next steps. But A real quick summary of why we were doing this now. We talked in the past about the fact that there's new opportunities.

[92:09] New hotel on the bill that there's new challenges. There's safety challenges across the city and the transportation challenges. That we've retired some debt, and there's new opportunities in that regard. But importantly, since we talked last time, is that city council identified in at the Retreat one of their top 11 priorities is the connections between commercial centers and neighborhoods and the quality of life in our districts. And so we have elevated that up in this work to make sure that that that becomes an important part of the outcome is understanding that. And I'll talk about that again in a second. But, we're also sequencing how we address this to really make it. Clear the questions that we're asking. So we're starting for from vision. What is the communities, the businesses, the property owners and the districts.

[93:04] the people who use these districts, what is our vision for what programs we need, what we need to build what we need to take care of. Most importantly, to create those conditions, great connections, great quality of life, a a long term building projects that are gonna add to the vitality of these districts. So once we understand the vision, though, we need to narrow that into the the specific elements that we need to accomplish and then prioritize those. Once we have that prioritization, we need the tools to accomplish this. We need the long term financial outlook, the governance improvements in order to make sure that we're most effective and most efficient in accomplishing the vision, and then may not need any policy changes. But if we do, we need to understand those fully and bring those back to you so that you have the levers you need to pull in in order to accomplish that another way to look at this work is current state purchase versus future state in those different categories. So in thinking about vision, infrastructure, governance

[94:10] tools. We need to understand the vision immediately. And what needs to happen in the short term, and then over the course of decades. So we're also taking a look at it. From those perspectives. Think I showed this last time unbelievable. Right? that it. It's it's really about the tools being in balance, that we have our finance tools taxation and revenue on one side. And then we have our vision on the other side. And how do we make sure those things stay in balance so that we're collecting it as money to accomplish goals? Not too little, so we can't get them done, and not too much so that we're over burning over burning taxpayers. This all linger on is because Generally it's worth understanding. But we are talking about very different circumstances across our 4 general improvement districts. They were designed to accomplish specific goals

[95:12] years maybe decades ago. And they're in in time to review them. And this is the actual chart of tools on that taxation side, that we we need to adjust. And so the the things that are are definitely jumped out at us already is University Hill. The taxation is the revenues that are collected from taxation are so low it doesn't even cover what we want to accomplish today. And Boulder Junction is collecting tax revenues for a transportation infrastructure that has changed and it's not represented today. And so you can see that there's there's little minute changes that result in little impacts on each property owner that have a big ripple effect down into what's effective. And

[96:08] Chris Elliott, while I'm here, I don't know if you wanna sort of deepen that understandable. Only if there's questions from my commissioners, I'd say, you know, we know the downtown is our most successful district as old as us, but a completely different set of circumstances. So we the community. The city continues to look at the downtown model is the the pride and joy of a Gid approach to solving Problems district. How it's played out in other parts of the city has been really our our biggest challenge. So we're well positioned for Kjet and Dmc. To to chart, you know. Charge confidently into the future and have some conversations about possibilities. Our conversations with our other commissions are gonna be much more probably challenging in the sense of in usually their appetite is bigger than their stomach and in Boulder Junction there's a conversation some folks would like to see a reduction than the levy, and some folks are like, Hey, let's do more. Let's buy bus services, and and exactly so

[97:14] to, you know, navigating a an interesting realm over there. So anyhow, I'm looking forward to this conversation and happy to if you have any initial questions on this, that we're we're starting. So when you talk about the scope of work that we need to accomplish, this will be finding a consultant first of all, community engagement is, gonna be very important to understand that vision. Make sure that the tools that we are to accomplish vision are palatable and are gonna work for people who actually have to pay taxes and to park those. But I also wanna point out that we do have already lined up several categories of engagement. We're gonna take advantage of the expertise we have with the city and engage with different departments. Oh, we're going to be consulting with you and the other commissions for the districts. Keeping you apprised of situation reaching out to people in the community stakeholders who are most closely associated with each district, and creating a process through conversations, through surveys other tools to make sure that the the community has their voice in that vision element of it.

[98:25] From that engagement and from the vision that's built, from that that we're gonna have a set of data tools to flesh out exactly what the circumstances are and how the best respond. And of course, recommendations for approval of the plan will come to you. Come to the other or commissions in order to serve your function to recommend to city council what actual actions to take. And I guess also here. we want to also make sure in this, in this moment, where we're examining exactly what it takes to really improve activity in the job improvement districts. There are lessons to learn for all of our activity centers across the city.

[99:11] And so we're not exactly sure how this plays together. But we're definitely gonna have a step in this process to learn those lessons and ask the questions we need to do generally about all of our commercial centers, and how to make the quality of life connections between them really robust. and then finally project schedule. Things are happening. Even yesterday things were happening. But we're looking for a couple of things. We wanna sequence this. Well, the Bull Valley comprehensive plan is queued up for city council to talk about. There's other things particularly in conference planning things like examination. 15 kind of neighborhoods and some other conversations that are gonna be going on. So we wanna make sure that this falls in and integrates well with those other efforts. And so that process will go on before later this year.

[100:05] probably. Q, 3 Co. Third quarter of where we start the engagement. Actually get this project underway. And we have a preliminary deadline. We do have to have some things immediately. And talk. Talk about some big wins that are early. But really we're looking at the Budget cycle. So that when we come to you with some of the recommended solutions, we're doing it in sync with the 2026 Budget development cycle. So this will start to get implemented fully after Jennifer contract. I definitely have some questions. But again, in the interest of time, you said you could maybe talk separately. Then I don't want to cut anyone out from my questions, or any questions that y'all have either. Do you have question interviews? Well, I guess my over writing responses. That scope seems very, very big, like quality of life. That means something different to everybody in this room, and I'm not sure that

[101:10] the city can do a whole lot to improve my personal, besides giving me much money when you get to the engagement part. I think, to have people to be able to give valuable responses that needs to be. I appreciate. Yeah, that's a that's a great observation. And I will say that, you know we're we're kind of hit high level here. The narrowing that we've done so far is that there are. This is not going to sound very narrow. well, let me put it this way. Cajet built parking garages before that was its purpose and successful results of it. The question we're gonna ask is, what do we need to build for the future?

[102:01] What do we need to program in the future? And how do we have the tools to accomplish that. Now, there, like, I said, there's lesson learned and in in asking those questions, and we definitely want to take advantage that. So there's like these typicals that reach out into other places. But at the core, this is really that question. It's it's a plan for what we want to do with this, these investments over that long period of time. We'll take care of what we have vision for the future. But specifically, you know, the big question becomes, what do you want to build? Because when we talk about governance and programming and stuff, those are things that have like sort of shorter runways. we really need to know if we're gonna build something like, Oh, I don't know a train station at Boulder Junction. that's something we need to talk about right now and start to plan for. So that's going to be the things that could. Really. I think that putting it that way makes it easier for me to understand. Okay? And kind of wrap my head around and and start thinking about. Okay, what are what are my answers to that? But those questions. But rather than we want to make your life better, what can we do, you know? So

[103:07] the quality of life phrases when we inherited from the Council's priority conversation. So we've been. We've also been trying to, you know, it's like we have a puzzle piece to the overall council priority. We're trying to fit it in. But it's for the wrong puzzle. Appreciate the the perspective, see it because we want to be really strategic with the resources and the the purpose of the districts that we manage. Of course, there's the moment you say plan there's a lot of other folks who want to get involved and wanna have a conversation around. What about the Western City campus and and North Boulder and the mesas shopping center? And are, that is, outside the boundaries of the work that we are here to do to serve the districts. But we have to have a Yes and approach to it. So that's

[104:03] why we it's starting broad. But being making sure that the districts get out of this work what we really need, which is specific, strategic, measurable, achievable goals for the parcels that we own and the buildings that we own and need to maintain, and then maybe some future parcels that we might decide. We want to own and build something there. Cause when I look at the cause, I got to set like, I agree, this is hard to answer this, because it was so broad. That's like kind of like, how long is a piece of string? Question? Kind of thing? But when I was. you know the near on slide 82 of the deck is the one right before your balance, like you know what's a near term vision elements. I needed addresses, council priorities. In a way, we we've heard a little bit about it, and it's kind of comes of in our in our conversation today as even what those are but that's what I was kind of like understanding what that vision was a little bit more to be able to apply that into here. But then I was thinking of like goal settings. I didn't, really.

[105:12] It asked a lot of questions, but I didn't necessarily. What is community vision for the future. That's maybe the best one that comes to like, what are the goals? And but I didn't really see one that was like everyone agreeing on a direction. Okay, was maybe part of it. And so that was maybe one of my broader comments to try to keep it at high level. But then, like maybe a couple of things that are probably not applicable to this document, but that are maybe just like one step later. But would be like among those goals, balancing local economic growth with like working from home versus tourism, bringing people in from out of town and things like that. So

[106:01] the answers to what are those types of goals will impact. What do we do? And I was just gonna say, this is what this is, why we're hiring consultant to actually lead. This work is Cross Departmental, and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. And so our intent is to hire a team of folks who are really good at working with different stakeholders and asking questions. But we're not the first person that for people to contemplate. Hey, what are we gonna do with these resources that we manage? And so we're gonna be bringing somebody on who's really good at having stakeholder interviews and understanding what are the problems we really trying to solve now and over the next 10 to 20 years, and how we're going to leverage resources that we have access to? Do we possible to solve those problems which will a lot of things, she said. So right now, we're just trying to form a scope that attracts the right firm to come in and help us with all these questions. And our intent is to find somebody who's just, you know, fantastic who will. It will all make sense once we have those pieces in place

[107:11] was again going back. So I hear you. my one little comment, just to kind of keep barrel through all this stuff real quick. on the quality of what is quality of life meeting like we talk a lot tonight about safety. And that's something that comes up to our board. And it's it we've we've actually changed our priorities to address. Safety is a really high level one. And so to me, that's quality of life my work on drug court boards like by helping the least. We all rise up and so helping with day centers and rehab and stuff like that. But then, kind of like what we're talking about to you like safety and stuff like that. So that's quality of life to, you know, is into a lot of this is like, how do we make it so people are comfortable to do. Lot of people won't write the bus if there's a lot of homeless people around something stuff like. So you got competing goals again.

[108:05] Maybe the one last comment I had on this was on the last slide of the timeline, you know, in the past week. Denver's come out with a hat 1 billion dollars to revitalize downtown. And how did they get so ahead of the curve to be able to have an announcement of a half 1 billion dollars to do kind of what it sounds like. This is in broad sense, and they're doing it now. And we're gonna do it in in 2 years. We're gonna have an idea. They somehow moved faster. Yeah. And I I don't know. I don't have an answer for of course I appreciate that. I I think my, my reaction to that off the bat is, there is going to be a step in here about basically just making a list. We have some things that are underway, you know. And we should really raise those up and give those attention to say, like, there's some, you know, affordable, retail, affordable commercial pilot? Answer some of these questions, you know, and so we should like Re, understand where we are, with some things that are existing.

[109:11] And then also add in things from a couple of different departments that align with this plan, kind of drive us in a direction. So I I think that there's going to be some of that you know. I think there's there's a little bit of envy for a strong Mayor government that could just come in and say new priority. Everyone's working on this jealousy. But you know we we also want to take it advantage of like being careful cause, you know I think not. Not that Denver is not but one thing that I'm really excited about this is taking our time to understand it fully, and then have a playbook, so that the conversation we're having, and you know, a year and a half from now is like great recommendation. 3, 6, 9. Let's do it, you know, and then we'll feel, you know, like that's going at the right speed. But we'll have to like muscle through to get there. So not a good answer, Justin, do you have any?

[110:08] No, I'm just kinda here to see where this all goes. Okay, Susan, did you have anything else, cause? No, I mean not. I don't need to take up time with it. So I mean that my main comment was, so this fast name. Do we have any advice that if Stephanie's not here, so she might have or not, I don't know what stakeholders would we recommend to be contacted and serving on a committee. And are there volunteers on the Dmc. Just so we get the group thing. Part of it. Do do me there. Do you have stakeholders who would be recommended? Be so? I don't know that I have anyone. You don't know, Gotcha, you know I'm I'm going to go to the people. You probably would have already thought like chambers and economic councils absolutely stuff like that. So I would have like my neighbor down with the way, who's got a Phd. In this exact like I would be interested in

[111:01] helping, but not as a Dnc. And today this is invigorated me to what great to dig into it. But, Justin, do you want to do this? I mean, if you're feeling invigorated, are you not integrated on it definitely am as well, but I mean that you're a good info gathering. We layer so far. Well, as a business owner. Fan of property owner, I feel like I have, like my own stake in it, but I also. at pursuing this word. I feel like I could play favor to and not disrepute myself. 2, so I'd be interested to how much time? Well, we're we're sort of working that out. I don't want it to be a burden on anyone. So I think we will be able to design that as proof

[112:00] and find out the best way to do it. And it doesn't have to all be in person meetings monthly's. In order to accomplish these things, we can utilize technology to a great effect. So we will make sure it's designed by you and your colleagues to be most effective. Yeah, certainly not more than a monthly meeting. Over the next 1518 months. but yeah. But somewhere in between. You know that also fits both in the Dmc. To. So I'm intrigued. But okay, so, moving on quickly. Sorry to cut you off. No, and thank you for the advice. We'll definitely take that into the next steps. Appreciate that. I would like to introduce Sam Bromberg, who has been working with our team on a questionnaire or downtown parking and access related questions really trying to understand? What folks' experience have been, especially since we've installed the Kayla's garage. So in any smith this year she was very instrumental in helping to write

[113:10] the questionnaire and analyze the data with help from our intern. Who's left us. But yeah, I'll hand it over to you guys to report out on what we're seeing. Sounds good. Thanks, Chris. And I did provide the slides in the packet, so I might go fast over some of them, because you can go back and look at the numbers later. But since it's been 6 months now since we've implemented metropolis. We wanted to check in and engage with the public to learn about their experience with that metropolis system downtown, and parking and access generally. We had 446 people respond to the questionnaire, which was, live on, be heard boulder from March 20, fifth April fourteenth. it was distributed via direct email to grab permit holder as a business newsletter from downtown boulder partnership, city boulder, social media Channel city boulder next door, city Boulder, E. Newsletter, and through the arts and culture, newsletter and social media.

[114:12] We learned a lot the valuable insights from what the public had to say, and I'll be presenting on some of those key takeaways tonight. So we collected information about who the respondents were, including their age where people live. how often they travel to downtown boulder their primary reason for traveling downtown. and if they're traveling downtown for work. what type of work do they do for those who do work downtown? We asked what products of ours they currently use. We were happy to see. There's very good utilization of the ecopass program. There's not high utilization of the 3 for 3 program, but that could be due to the pretty small number of service workers who responded to our questionnaire.

[115:11] We asked all questionnaire respondents how they usually travel downtown on a typical good weather day. The vast majority are still traveling downtown, using personal vehicle, and the next most used transit mode is Viking. You're curious of bike or scooter. Parking was perceived to be an issue. Some comments reflected that bicycle source security was a concern which may have been why some users reported not always being able to find convenient bicycle parking for the Scooter parking. We plan to share these results with our partners, and transportation and mobility? To evaluate whether additional line roads could be beneficial? We asked all respondents to rank, their parking preference downtown from one to 6 with one being most preferred, and 6 being least preferred, most responded, that they prefer to utilize on street parking wherever possible. That's the lower numbers that represent the preferred rankings. Here

[116:16] we asked all questionnaire responds, oh. this! This was a comparison between those people who are traveling downtown, how they're traveling downtown on a good weather day. Oh, oh, I think this just made it in my slash. Your choice. Sorry about that. There we go. This question is about the overall Boulder Park garage experience to help inform future priorities in the garages. Most respondents felt that the garages were well located, easy to find, and the greatest area for feature improvement is around the perception of safety and security in the garages.

[117:00] Respondents who indicated that they had parked in the garages in the last 6 months since we've implemented metropolis were then asked about their experience. Overall. The perception of metropol of the metropol system is very mixed. This could be partially explained by the number of questionnaire respondents who come downtown to shop me versus coming downtown to work. You know the frequency of their of their travel. As a selling point of the metropol system is in the subsequent visits after your initial registration. This slide shows the intersection of those responses. So the frequency of travel with, you know the perception of metropolis and how it's improved. The experience. And there's a small correlation between the frequency and visitation and the positive perception of the garages.

[118:00] No, the questionnaire. We included a few opportunities for user to write in users, to write in comments about their parking, access, experience downtown. Some of the common themes that we heard where that users were confused about whether weekend parking really was free and what the requirement to register with metropolis was. While that parking is free. There was several comments which suggested that folks had parked in a privately owned garage operated by metropolis, thinking it was a city owned garage, and then we're confused about the fees being charged the one on fifteenth and spruce in particular. Many questions why we have so many different systems, for on street and garage, parking, or express the desire for one unified system. There were frustrations around technology difficulties, particularly for older adults. Many were frustrated that they had to download an app which isn't actually requirement for metropolis. Several response would like to see more affordable parking options for downtown service and retail workers.

[119:03] Some expressed surprise over hid fees. I have in quotations because the service fee is included in our advertised growth pricing. But people maybe didn't understand, or the the pricing isn't quite clear enough for the users, because a lot of people mentioned hidden fees. And many community members commented that they no longer want to park in the garages due to comments on the next door app, and they specifically said the next door app. regardless of whether they had already used the metropolis system. So just to summarize and contextualize, 15 people express that the metropol system was aegist. I say the invitations because that was the word used. They mentioned that older adults had challenges with Arab technology and concerns around being scanned and using QR. Codes. 42. People had challenges with the metropolis customer service. They mentioned that they couldn't reach customer service representatives when they needed assistance as well as frustration. With the fees being charged.

[120:05] 100 responders reported challenges with the metropolis, sign up experience, some due to misinformation. They cited the need to have a cell phone, general confusion around how to register, and many people were confused about the requirement again, to download that 43 comments included misinformation about how the system works. This included confusion around parking when parking is paid and free in the garages, the registration requirements. And again. Yeah. And then 72 comments expressed frustration with parking downtown overall included, including the number of parking systems in place. Some expressed preference for Park Mobile wondered why we didn't have Park Mobile in the garage or metropolis for Australian, and then there were a couple of comments about the cost of parking downtown in general, and we got 30 com positive. Got it. So some people actually like it, which is good, and they reference the ease of access to that gates, and you know the time saved by a wedding, you know the ticket and paying with the card every single time. So there were some people were really pleased.

[121:13] I wouldn't know comments were not required. So use the comment. You know, Space, we did share this survey on next door. So to be like I'm a Nextard and Reddit, and all these in I I posted on Reddit the other day, but I mean they they're not working with a lot of municipalities. I we might still be the only municipality that they're working with. They do operate garages in many other cities. Most of those are privately owned

[122:01] and it seems like mixed bag. But to be honest, we don't. We don't really know for sure. And we just heard today that they're going to be soon expanding potentially. Okay. So they will be finalizing their acquisition of ISP plus, which operates 3,000 some parking properties across the country. That's number across the country. A lot of them airports. Sp, plus manages all the Rtd Park and rides so we will slightly, very soon be seeing more metropolis systems which will help our operation. I did hear today that we have 85,000 people who signed up for metropolis through boulder garage which is more than Denver to a lot more garages here than they have in Denver. But certainly not a small number about 50,000. Those are regular users.

[123:03] So I know that there's some more stats coming. But overall I'd say that we're despite sentiment of some overall. I think we're we're very pleased with the outcome so far. And what we're saying and what we're hearing from, especially our regular users, and the folks who are paying for permits folks are using the garages regularly are seem to be much more likely to be big fans. Yeah. it's it's hard to engage with the entire public. Right? Yeah. And I'd say, also, since we've put this questionnaire out, there are complaints that actually seem to quiet down. I think that you know the there's that initial learning curve, and folks who get frustrated and they voice their frustration, and then they move on to the next frustration. Whatever that may be. And there was very few that got escalated to city council like in this grant scheme of implementing brand new systems and making big changes.

[124:10] That was a a big win. There's people who like have small rights and grievances that they're reporting to us through this survey or questionnaire but none of them were so bad that they got escalated or caused big problems. So I think overall is. it's been positive. So we do have takeaways, our main takeaways. But that misinformation continues to proliferate around the metropolis system. This really was the big one for us. Is we just for so so many people comment things that just weren't true about how it works. And so that's that's big one spread through next door. And and also word of mouth. Most response were fairly positive about the Kj garages. But there's an opportunity to work on a perception of safety and security which I think we probably already know. There's so strong preference for on street parking over garage parking, and there's a perceived lack of affordable parking products for downtown service and retail workers.

[125:14] I I would add another takeaway that the park, mobile and metropolis, the 2 apps are causing problems teaches us. Yeah, is there an opportunity anywhere we're under contract? Is there an opportunity to roll it into one in the future? Currently, Mobile does not offer a pay for what you use option. They do offer a prepay, and some cities are using that. But prepaying for parking then leads to an enforcement function, and people getting taken in the garages, which is not the direction wanted to go. So in the event that Park Mobile is able to develop that pay for which you use option, I'd say that we would be interested. But that's that's a big reason why we went this route instead of a few that could do that.

[126:07] Yeah, the post page is very convenient. I apologize because this slide was added just this afternoon, and it wasn't in the deck that I sent last week. But just wanted to share a quick update on severe rear performance. Of the garages for Q one, specifically so this shows 2023 avenues in blue, and 2024 revenues and orange, and if you'll recall from last year revenues, so I didn't thank you for do this due to the transition, in part because metropolis bills, holders on a different schedule to how the city used to bill permit holders. and it took some time for metropolis to get permit billing on track, which is why you see a higher number in Q. One. As it was making up for that permanent revenue deficit from last year we are still seeing a drop in visitor revenue displayed on the graph as transient meaning non permit holders right visitors, although total visits were also down year over year. Q. One by about 8%, which includes both paid and our paid parking sessions.

[127:12] The dip and re visitor revenue is made up by the violation revenue collected, which doesn't have a 2023 comparison, because we didn't start collecting it until we transition to metropolis overall. We are man budget, as expected. I would say that we're fairly close to the revenue neutral that we were shooting for, if not, maybe trending in a upwards direction. La! I'd say there's also some other costs that we don't have. The amount of customer service staff that's required to manage permits. Issue permits. Bill permits all that. That's a cost that we no longer have per se. So now our customer service staff is able to provide different customer service. So there's some other expenses that you don't see in these specific itemized that we're actually decreased because of us going to metropolis. So overall, I'd say we're actually performing better. It's not hand over fist better, but it's it's so. It's better than horse

[128:13] better than zoom services. not the red. We are pleased with the outcome so far, and the projections are are positive. So next steps that we'll be looking to the 2025 budget to explore potential recommendations based on the results of the questionnaire. So those could be, you know, additional marketing and outreach thought you and then I'll open it up to questions, or feedback. If there is me. see how it performs the rest of the year before we really dive into that further. maybe one thing we just earlier. You talked well. I had a sentiment that maybe you were interested in examining, paying on events.

[129:01] No, that's Stephanie, Stephanie. What do you do you want us to examine that I wouldn't see him. How this performs for a year. Yeah, I would say, now, yeah, we we discussed that kind of a thing last year I wanted to get your opinion. Yeah, I will say, summer is going to be a good comparison, but I think we'll have a lot better data and a better understanding. And now we can pull in other data sources as well. Not just parking. But we have that place or AI platforms. We could see visitations, we can compare it. We have more information now to give us a better insight to what's actually happening backwards in time. Can you do it later. 2,017. So you can actually be like you could lasso something from 2 years ago and be like how to do current over a couple of years.

[130:03] Okay. so next time I'll come back and I will make sure that I share it with Passeray idea as well very soon. So I think Regan's update will be very short on the downtown. Universal connections. Yes, I can make it quick. I do have slides, but I I don't need to share all of them. But I do want to share a map. Here. Give me 1 s. I did see a slide on Reddit today about the connections between here and there. What was it. Alright connecting downtown to the hill, I can skip through a couple of the intro slides here. This is really just a reminder of the purpose of the work, and that we're really trying to improve connectivity. Both through improvements to the physical landscape as well as implementing better wayfinding between the hill and downtown.

[131:09] So with that we have made some progress on our temporary wayfinding signage in and around University Hill and downtown, as well as on the key corridors connecting the 2 districts, so that includes Eleventh Street, thirteenth Street, up the Arboretum path and Broadway as well. An example of the way. Finding signage is on the right hand side here. just as a note that there will be several other landmarks that the signage points to. This is just one example. And there will also be several signs along the key corridors that simply point to downtown this way on one side in the hill this way, on the other. So just kind of those 2 destination points to really help those unfamiliar navigate between the 2 neighborhoods.

[132:01] And in terms of the timeline. All the signage info is with our designer, being finalized with the hopes of printing and installation on the city lamp post by by or around Memorial Day, depending on how long our final feedback and the printing and installation takes. But that's kind of our goal as it stands right now and then this is a map of the locations where the signs will be installed. You can ignore the numbers there they correlate to an excel spreadsheet that I had going but again, as you can see, a lot of the signage is along Eleventh Street. There on the pedestrian scale lamp post, going up along Broadway, and then from downtown, going up Thirteenth and the arboretum path. and then super quickly. Here just some other efforts, as it relates to connectivity and broader efforts. For short term efforts. These are more so related to things happening within the boundaries of the hill. But things, I think, are important for you all to be aware of. The first being the installation of a creative crosswalk going across Pleasant Street at Broadway. Adjacent to the moxy boulder.

[133:19] We're gonna be working with mural artists. They're submitting proposals working on them now, and we'll be making our selection towards the end of the month on what we wanna paint there for the Creative Crosswalk. And then I already mentioned Roots music project. So the live music series happening on the hill this summer and in Boulder Junction I'll be sure to send that flyer around to you. All. Other city led initiatives, civic area phase 2 which I've mentioned in the past, and I know you are all all aware of, led by the planning department, with support from other city departments. That includes an exploration of connectivity improvements between the hill and downtown later in the year will be, we will begin to investigate what a cultural corridor might look like along Thirteenth with connection to Pearl Street.

[134:07] and then again led by the planning department improvements to the Arboretum Park and the district's outlook analysis that Matt referenced earlier and then looking ahead, thinking about strategizing a longer term, wayfinding strategy between the hill and downtown. Something a little bit more engaging and larger scale. All right, that's all I've got for yeah. Any questions. This is maybe somewhat off the way finding thing. But a lot of hotels have those little things like things to do around town, and you know the the hotel Channel Kansas City provide anything to the electronics and all the hotels and the Conference center and stuff so that there's fortunately we have an organization called this Folder. That does that stuff. All pleads all of that. Yup. Certainly a partner that is possible.

[135:02] I think this looks great! I'll I look forward, seeing them up and working. Thanks, Regan. Thank you. A Thank you. Alright! This will be really, really quick. We have 2 eligible applicants for the 2 vacant seats well, vacant, and and wanting to be vacant. Expired. And so presumably it all goes well with the council appointment. We've already done interviews. And they went well, so presuming Council desires to move forward with both candidates. both teams should be filled by the next meeting. first property owner, and they found another one, but and he applied in time, and then I found another one didn't apply in time. Well.

[136:02] the sources. So, Erica I can think of as the owner of savvy she's been on Dmc. Before, and she left town, and now she's back and wanted to get reinvolved, so she's best an experience. And the other gentleman another business owner. Can you remember? I can't. It's sorry it's 6. Yeah, I'm not. That's not something right sorry. awesome. And if it is right, then we would ask that you at least join us for the very first part of the next day. I like to do a passing of the baton, or thank yous and appreciations if that's okay with you. Tuesday, July sixteenth.

[137:00] just to confirm it, was Andy. Oh, see, there it is. You're building faction. Yep. that concludes matters from Seth. Thank you. Vendors from commissioners. Let's see council priorities. I'm not sure where that came from as far as a matter, for maybe it was a customer understanding what they are. Maybe it should have been hold up to like what they had their meeting, and I know they have their priorities. They did. There was a number of prayers, ones that pertain mostly to downtown Management Commission are, and you've heard about it already that economic fatality, economic development was overall for the city, highlighted as a as a priority. For the first time in a long while

[138:00] And the commercial area, connections and quality of life improvements is the priority that they also plus. There are a number of other priorities, of course related to affordable housing, homelessness. There were an an environmental focus. There were 10 plus. They were supposed to have 10 priorities at the end of the tree. They came up with 11 and I don't know. I don't have the other ones out. Top of my head is I am Kim as well. Such quarter training or Ontario member. That's yeah. Yeah. But the ones the big ones for us, certainly that good with the priorities. That you all communicated in your letter are related to the connections to the hill and then, when it comes to the economic vitality, the a big component to that is the commercial vacancies. So certainly loud and clear on

[139:03] desires from council in that regard, and we'll look forward to working with you all, and sharing that for but then budgets have been hit, too. Wasn't one of the last meetings? Yes, and then, as you're seeing from the numbers through placer and our sales tax revenues. It is these are not super rosy right now. Not that we haven't been expecting this, you know, once inflations when inflation is high, government revenues go because we're a percentage based game. When inflation flattens out then things get back to status quo. So we've been anticipating this. But it doesn't mean that we're not still trying to keep up with a living wage and trying to maintain all these things that have been started as a result of the Harper funds that got dumped in and didn't have inflation. But anyhow, here we are on the other side of all the decisions that we inherited

[140:01] several years. It's we will need to be really thoughtful and careful, and it's all about trade offs. So fortunately, though, I'd say again, with the dids, we're property tax based, and we're more enterprise because we have revenue generating business operations. So we're not as vulnerable to the sales tax challenges that the rest of the organization has. But it also means that folks are gonna be like, oh. maybe downtown can pay for that. And so we want to be really thoughtful and careful about that, because we need to be setting appropriate about what the purpose of the districts are and benefiting the district and the taxpayers in the district versus what's role to say? Provided for everyone, whether you are a business owner resting each visitor, or whatever appreciate your time. So sorry for such a action. Packed agenda we just it was our last chance.

[141:14] Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Work on the air conditioning in this room.