Brian here Mr. Farmer here Mr. Scari Absent Mr. Zamp absent Miss Watkins here you have a corn Mr. Chairman. Thank you Can I have a motion to adopt the agenda I moved to we adopt the agenda second You public comment Okay Mr. Dismann. Mr. Lewis. Aye. Mr. Brian. Aye. Mr. Farmer. Aye. Mr. Scari's absent. Mr. Zemper's absent. Ms. Watkins. Aye. And again, any public comment? Okay. No presentation, all right, action items. Before you have the minutes for the work session, can I have a motion for approval? I'll make a motion to approve it. Second. Great. All right. Now, are you ready? Revitalization grant? I would like to take a vote. I'm going to take a vote. Second. Great. All right. Are you ready? We have an organization. You want to take a vote? I'm pitching it for Bernie. I want to make sure I get it right. Mr. Dishman. Mr. Lewis. Mr. Brian. Mr. Farmer. Mr. Scari's absent. Mr. Zimp is absent. Ms. Glockens. I thank you very much. You're all set All right. Good evening. On May 30th, 2024, Greg and Jessica Brooks owners of Ash and Olive leasing space at 107 South Railroad Avenue for their new restaurant applied for revitalization grant through the economic development authority. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks are requesting $20,000 in grant funds to make updates and repairs to the current building. Just as an overview, the revitalization grant is designed to support reinvestment and distress or historic properties and scoring priority is given higher to those projects considering significant restoration for properties in a high visibility corridor. So let's take a look at where Ashyn Oliver is located, our business owners Greg and Jessica Brooks, 107 South Railroad Avenue which is currently functioning as the depot as part of Cross Brothers Grocery. So you should be able to see those locations. The Ash and Olive revitalization grant application includes an estimated cost of improvements for $43,482 with five significant projects. Vestule, vestibule revitalization, gas and propane tank installation, adding a bar countertop to a previously built and already constructed bar, which I'll show you shortly, and building infrastructure and then also exterior painting. Their grant amount is requested at $20,000, which is the maximum that you can request for a revitalization grant. Right here, we'll just break down. I want to make sure that all of the estimates and the information should be found in your agenda packets. So the best of your revitalization is $3,272, installing new flooring and two new doors. I've included some pictures here so that you can see. We've got a flooring tile sample that just shows you the entryway. They'll be redoing the floors and then two interior doors. Installing gas propane tanks for $2,900. Those will go in the back of the building where it's noted on your screen. These gas propane tanks will support the new gas fired brick oven, which is required for their business restaurant plan. The bar countertop revitalization at $4,080. They have already completed the project of framing and in building and extending the bar at $3,800. So that project has already been completed. And this just gives you a breakdown of the stone, inventory, and the labor. Here's some pictures of the interior that show the bar that is currently built and extended and also shows you the plywood top that's there. They will also be doing some building infrastructure for $19,600. They're going to be updating the capacity for wiring and plumbing. This is going to give the opportunity, this is going to make the building safe to operate the new restaurant equipment and bring essentially the building up to current code. They've also requested funds to do exterior painting for $13,600 and listed here Power Wash, scraping sanding, pudding, all of those things, caulking, reglasing, and painting. You can see the pictures in front of you. The color has yet to be determined. These are proposed colors, but not final. And just wanted you to know that there are additional projects. They have a significant amount of pre-done work, completed work, and investment in this property. They've retiled the bathroom, built and extended the bar, purchased new dining furniture, already repainted and retiled, retiling and redoing the brick oven, also purchasing of the brick oven so they are looking at about about a $200,000 investment. I think more so. Financial plan and projections is 16 members will be open during their approximately 60 hours of their week average pay of $17 an hour and then also offered two weeks paid time off. I have some information here with their financial plan noting total of projections capital requirements and projections and then also looking at the expenses. So the estimated cost of improvements, $43,000, $43,482 to complete those five projects. And they have requested $20,000. And our subcommittee got together. It consisted of Mr. Dishman, Mr. Lewis, and Mr. Trescarri. The word heard the project and grant application and unanimously voted to award the funds. Mr. Dishman? We reviewed the application with against our list of attributes that they needed to meet and we felt they met I think every one of them except for maybe one. But they didn't need to meet all of them, they just needed to meet enough to justify the grant. We view it as a big improvement to bring something like that into downtown, historic area, with an improvement to a building not only from the outside, but the inside, bring in more food revenue and tax revenue and bring more people into downtown, which would help other businesses. It was pretty unanimous that we recommended to vote for the $20,000 grant. Any other discussion? I have a motion. I'll move approval. Second. Second was Mr. Farmer. Thank you. Mr. Dishman. Mr. Lewis. Mr. O'Brien. Mr. Farmer. Aye. Mr. Scaria's absent. Mr. Zimp is absent. Miss Watkins. Aye. When will you open? Yes. She. Yeah, she'd like to speak. Okay. Yeah. You can speak. Pardon? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. She addresses the board now. Mm-hmm. Hi. I'm Jessica Brooks. My husband Greg regrets that he cannot be here this evening, but he is the one who is over at the depot. Every day pouring is heart and sweat and into this project. Thank you so much for considering this grant. We are so excited to be here and to have discovered Ashland and to be putting down some roots here. This is a really special place and we hope to create a very special place with Ash and all of. It's not exactly close to where we live now, but the fact that Ashland is so special and has made such an impression on us, it's really worth us being here. So this is a big deal to us, and we really appreciate your support. Now to your question, we hope to be open. First week in August for functioning, but we would do a soft opening and then do a grand opening a little bit later, maybe a month or two, but we want to get open as soon as possible and start reading the community. Maybe you had any trouble hiring? Not at this time. We've got a couple of the bigger priority activities happening with the infrastructure of the building. So I want to get those checked off and kind of out of our hair and then do some additional hiring. But we have a couple of local folks that we have formed really good relationships with and we're really excited to partner with and bring on board and they should be familiar faces to you. You're very welcome. Yeah, this is. Welcome. Thank you so much. and be familiar faces to you. Very welcome. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This space was used for some event things too, I believe, like art shows and things like that. Have you heard from those people about changing the space? We hear some comments from time to time more based out of curiosity. We, we, there are aspects, many aspects that we plan to incorporate and keep in place, the art being one of them, so that that will be something that sort of transitions. Of course, we can't accommodate the entire quantity of art, just due to the furniture that we're bringing in. But my mother is a local artist and so the arts are very close to my family and I and we intend to continue to celebrate that and do other events as well. Continue the event aspect with art openings and things like that to create some interest and activities. As far as event rental, we will be engaging with Chris STEM, who is the Crossbrothers owner and Oakdale, if there are events that are larger, we can partner with him to move them there or if it works out to buy out the restaurant and have an event event that would be great. Elate is also a new space around the corner that can hold smaller events but we hope to get creative and continue to do events that are open to the public as well. Any other questions? I hope that you guys like pizza. Thank you. Would you like pizza? Yes. Great. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I'm really excited. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Tresha's report. If you wouldn't mind. In your agenda pocket, you should have a Treasurer's Report copy. And this is the May ending balance was $474,824.57 cents. We are now looking at, that is with two recent grants that have been paid out, $7100 for a revitalization grant for Christim and the elite property that Mrs. Brooks had mentioned. And then also $20,000 for Duncan their demolition is finished. So we are now looking at an unallocated balance of $325,000, $351,000 in 57 cents, numbers. Okay. That's all we need. Okay. I would like to at least point out that the allocated amount of money currently out there for that does not include obviously the revitalization grant will have $103,000, a little over $103,000 allocated for grants, awards. Three questions. Thank you. And now economic development update. You have a quick bulleted copy right in front of you. I did put together a short presentation because I thought there was some important things for you to see or which I was excited for you to see if, or if you hadn't been around town to see them. We have a few new business licenses from May and June, Brightview Auto, which is located at 703, North Washington Highway, and that is just an auto mechanic repair shop. Sunshine, massage spa, and junction drive, which is an junction shopping center, Ashland Junction Shopping Center, and Ashland Nails and Spa just applied for a new business license for a change in ownership. So not a ton of activity happening. We did have a business Q&A for the Hispanic community, so I have the opportunity to sit down and do a live Q&A business information session with Teresa Lopez, who is a fantastic community leader for the Hispanic community. And we discussed all of the different ways that the town and in addition to other resources that were available to the Hispanic community, opening a business can be incredibly overwhelming. And so it was really a wonderful opportunity to find resources and to offer them to this just underrepresented and underserved community. And so yeah, it was just, it was really exciting. And sorry, I lost my train of thought where I was going with that. Sorry, I lost my train of thought where I was going with that. Yes. So, oh, this is the other part. We now have our business license application is in Spanish and will be available on our website. So we're very excited about that. And then another, let's see, we are partnering with Randolph Macon and downtown Ashland. We have been invited thanks to Mrs. Watkins. She has done some partnering on her part, which we're really grateful for, but welcoming over 600 freshman families over three days at RMC's registration days. So we will be there in person on Friday tomorrow and then Monday and Wednesday of next week, welcoming freshman families and just really extending that warm welcome to those families letting them know that Ashland is here and all of the great resources that we have. So we're really excited about the upcoming opportunities. And in fact, we have recently been invited to participate in family weekend in October. So we've marked our calendars for that. And we're moving right along. So we're really excited about that. Thought I wanted to give you a grant update. Chris Demolate, that grant was paid for, awarded $7,100. Project total is there. And it's been completed and approved. And the reimbursement has been processed. The space looks fantastic. So, and the Duncan Demo Grant, so that building is gone. It's been completed, so the project is well on its way. And I was out there today and you can see that they are steady working and putting in the footers and it's going to be exciting. So that project total was over $40,000 and they were awarded $20,000 and that has been processed. Fantastic. The outsourers go on. It's exciting. I'm so ready for the sign to be gone too. The title I know. Ashlyn Garage, Route 1 Enhancement Grant, they were awarded $845 for a stained glass window design and installation and that has been completed and the reimbursement has been requested. One 12-haired progress. You can see those guys working hard on the roof this week. They had a great dry week to get some work done. They were awarded $6,650 with a project total of at least $28,300. The project is ongoing. They should be finished within two weeks. I spoke with the property owner, Alicia Milton, today, and she says they're almost finished. We do have two outstanding grants, Stanley Construction, which expires in October of 2024 and McDonald's for Route 1 Enhancement Grant that expires in December of 2024. We also have an EDA strategy follow-up. You have the notes that are there in front of you. So the notes are provided. If you have any questions, we can certainly discuss them. We will be having a strategy session follow-up to be determined when I can work out a date and time with Will Cockerl and all seven of you. Yeah? What will be the, I guess, focus or sort of a gindo with that next session? What are we going to be looking at there? Yeah, so I think we'll be going through all of the notes specifically and finding out, you know, and looking at the graphs or looking at, you know, what really stood out and then finding those, like, core buckets that the EDA has found that they want to focus their efforts on or in. And then how do we go about doing that? And then there was also a discussion of really establishing a mission and a vision. And so really getting that kind of nailed down so that the EDA has that guide moving forward. OK. Yeah. Thanks. Any questions or discussion for me? Dan, do you have anything from town council? We had a short meeting but I have a lot to discuss. So we referred the Iron Horse Business Park Planning development to the Planning Commissioners to review. And so what we're going to see is the applicant is asked for the chance to either develop that park. This is east of 95, so you can get an ideal on 54. They've asked to have both the opportunity to have an industrial park it with commercial and or if you will a data center with technology park and I believe it's to leave the art their options open I don't know we've never had something like that before where we have an applicant who's asked for two things at the same time But only one thing can be built so I I'm not sure what planning we'll discuss on that, but that is something I think for an EDA, something of interest because it's a lot of opportunity of things to come. Has the economic analysis been provided for us to see yet on each project? That analysis has been provided to the town manager. But not made public yet. I think it's public. I don't know where the information is. I've heard that when I went to the meeting, I asked to see that and it wouldn't make public yet. Okay. Well, it may not that I will definitely ask about that. Make. I can tell you from my own deep dive, it is a financial boon if it becomes a data center in areas where they've had data centers that were established that's somewhere between for every dollar that the the locality spends they get about $12 back and I went to the meta facility in Henrico in Sanston and I talked to their administrator and he said it's been a win-win all the way around and there's been no negatives that he's seen yet from it so yeah that would be interesting to see. I don't, it really depends on which people they attract. Or people which businesses they attract. But yeah, I will definitely ask our manager to supply that. We approved a rezoning from our one to M1 of the North Ashland area. This is between the vitamin shop and Jamestown Road. And I'm excited about it, to be honest, because it has a potential of allowing us to, at some point, be able to afford a traffic signal there, if the businesses come in. There's no housing next to it. It's all commercial. It makes sense to be commercial. So to have that M1 loading, but I just want to clarify that M1 now does not allow distribution. M2 allows distribution. We change that about two years ago where M1 doesn't allow distribution. So I just want to clarify that with people because sometimes I can get confusing. If they hear M1 and say, oh, there might be another distribution. It's not going to be that. It will be your typical industrial businesses that you would expect to see. We clarified language for our sound ordinance so that everything matches before we had different ordinances and so that went more like 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and then some said 8 a.m. So anyway, basically you should not hear sound at your house from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. That's the generic answer. And so we have ordinances in place where the police can enforce. So that's just something to be aware of. And something for businesses to be aware of too, that they should not be doing anything that causes sound between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Our meals collection was slightly down last month, which was the first time I've ever seen that. I don't know what that means. I don't know if we just didn't collect it fast enough or it wasn't, but it's just the first time I've ever seen it and our Part one crime was slightly up for the first time significantly up and when I say significantly we had 28 offenses in one month total That's but for us that's a lot so Basically what it tells me is we just need to lock our doors I know we feel safe I know we think everything's safe, but just lock our doors. The more we lock our doors, the less likely it is that people who don't live here who come here won't think it's easy to do things that they shouldn't be doing. And RMC is applied for some cottage dorms and that would be on Henry Street if it gets approved. I think it went through planning, it's coming up before council next session. And that's basically because they have 600 freshmen coming in, which is the first time they've ever had a class that large. And so yay for them. So that's pretty exciting. And this Saturday we'll be recognizing Juneteenth at the college, at the fountain, from 12 to 5. And I've already had people tell me that, wow, it's going to be super hot. Well, there's got lots of tree canopy there by the fountain. So it will be cooler than the being on the street. So it is something to consider. And that's, like I said, a lot to share. I know it was a short meeting, but that's all. Any questions or comments? Glad to entertain. Any comments of written glow fiber will be finished running? Ooh, yeah, I can't speak for glow fiber. I am justly waiting to have it myself, to be honest. But I do have some neighbors that have it. And they said it's worked exactly I can suppose to. But I don't know exactly when it will come online. It's supposed to come online sometime this summer. But I mean, it's a private company, so yeah. All right, well thank you so much. Thank you. Any other discussions? Me, Jerry.