This economic initiatives committee meeting will come to order and we will pretty much go right to it because we have a wonderful presentation today. Really a broader discussion that this really will engender in the discussion. I can't even say it will start today because it's been going on for a long time. But given the last few months it becomes even more pointed, the impact and the importance that decisions that were made really more than a year ago are gonna, I think, help us emerge even stronger out of all this. But first and foremost, I wanna see if there's any changes to the March 25th, 2025 meeting notes. Our last meeting notes, anybody have any changes to that? If not, then I will go right to kind of the basic setup for the meeting and I kind of alluded to what's happened across the river, but more importantly, the year, more than a year ago, DEI took a look at where we were and particularly Rebecca and her team and said that our economic landscape, we need to get a better handle that. It was post-COVID or at least becoming post-COVID and we knew that that had changed a lot. They engaged, combined to do an economic study of the area relative to others like us, if you will. And since we are home of so many Fortune 500 companies, we know we have a strong and excellent base here and really the innovation and the other things that kind of help drive technology and really industry around the world has a center here. But we also know from our CEO meetings are a comprehensive economic opportunity, our committee for economic opportunities, sorry I'll get that right eventually. We know that the group there of senior executives that we meet with and share and give us some insight and perspective, they're saying hey you guys, there's other things you need to do you should look at. So those are all, if you will come in together in our core focus as an economic initiatives committee, which is to make sure that Fairfax County remains the best place to, frankly, in the nation to live, live, work, learn, and play. And with that, I'm going to turn over to Rebecca and we'll get started. Thank you very much. Rebecca Moudrey, director of the Fairfax County Department of Economic Initiatives. Just to build a little bit on what Chairman Stork had mentioned, you know, as you all know, our department was established about five years ago. We marked our five-year anniversary in the end of 2024 and we're proud of what we achieved. We thank you very much for all of your support and your ongoing support, but we were of course very aware that we needed to take a proactive approach on what comes for the next five years. So we launched this blueprint for the future analysis about a year ago to help the department and the county look forward to best chart our course going forward. And the stated goals kind of blueprint were to respond to a couple of questions. One, what are the primary opportunities and gaps in our economic development ecosystem to support a prosperous, competitive, and equitable economy? And what is the optimum structure and focus of the Department of Economic Initiatives to best address economic opportunities in the short and long term? So we launched this in a time of economic transition post-pandemic. Our intent was to be proactive. We of course could not have anticipated the remarkable shifts and really threats to our regional economy that we're now experiencing. But while all the analysis was conducted in 2024, it's really the most recent analysis and data that we have, and the completion of the blueprint really couldn't have come at a better time. It's timely to review these findings, take the steps that we will do going forward to create integrated forward- solutions that can help us meet the challenges, the many challenges that we're experiencing today, but also position the county really for ongoing economic resiliency and growth. We titled this the blueprint for the future as it provides the detailed framework to make strategic decisions. And our next steps are to work with our internal and external partners to build upon the blueprint and structure action-oriented solutions. So as part of this work, to initiate this work, we engage in a rigorous RFP process to select the Camoian Associates, a firm very experienced and economic development strategic planning. And I will introduce the Camoian team right before I do that. I just like to share the goal of this presentation, which is to share this expert analysis with the board on our competitive positioning gaps in areas for the county and the department to focus on. There is no decision required of the board or asked of the board today, but our primary question is if there are particular areas we should prioritize as we develop detailed actions to respond to the blueprint goals and findings. So I'd like to introduce our primary speakers and the leaders of the blueprintueprint Analysis. First, Rachel Selsky is the CEO of Camoign Associates and has been at the firm for nearly 17 years leading all facets of client project work. She works nationally in all sorts of economic development strategic planning. Dan Gunderson is Senior Vice President and Principal with Camoign Associates, where he leads the Richmond Virginia office. Prior to joining Camoing Associates, Dan served at many state and local economic development organizations. This included serving as CEO and President and CEO at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, VDP here in Virginia. He also served as New York State Commissioner at the Department of Economic Development and also Co-Chairman for Empire State Development Corporation. In Maryland, he was Assistant Secretary for Business Development. He served as the Executive Deputy Secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. And he also led economic and workforce development for Baltimore County, Maryland, and the city of Philadelphia. So a very, very experienced team, and I will turn it over to you. Thank you, Rebecca. Just touch. Touch it. I did it. Thank you, Rebecca, and supervise the store, thank you for that introduction. This is going to be a, we're going to get into the details rather quickly, but I'm going to try to keep the initial remarks at a high level. First, let me on behalf of Commoyne, thank you for your faith in us and your trust. It's been a pleasure to work with Rebecca and her team and many of you over the last, almost a year now. A little bit about Commoyne just to fill in some gaps. You figure that out. Yeah. We need some help with that. We've been, we've been an economic development firm that has been in business. Is it working now? Yeah. For 26 years, we're purposely small. We keep our team small so that we can provide a lot of love to our clients. We like to say that we're the only full service economic development consulting firm in the country. And what we mean by that is we have different service lines that cover the gambit of economic development from being able to tell you what the economic impact of a parcel of property would be to strategic planning, leadership development, targeted industry, market analyses, all the way through to prospect development and being able to pinpoint investors around the world that may be able to align with a community for either a project or a major investment. We complete about 200 projects a year, more than 2000 in the lifetime of the firm. And this includes work in about 46 different states, plus the US Virgin Islands, such things at the large end of the scale, several state strategies, the 20-year strategy for the US Virgin Islands to rebuild it after the two hurricanes. And an economic strategy for the largest municipality in America, Los Angeles County. But we also, probably a bread and butter, is working with municipalities at a county level and at a city and township level. That's where we just, we love what we do and it's all about economic development as almost a higher calling for all of our employees. Here in Virginia we've had a lot of work that we have done. We have been a longstanding consultant with Loudin County, help build out its strategy for data centers. So we know that quite well, but as well as emerging technologies, emerging sectors, we've done the strategy for Prince William County. We've worked with the economic partnership in DC with some leadership training. But we've also worked throughout the state and the Southwest state, a lot of prospecting business development work in the Shenandoah. As we've done work in the Govergenia, is developing a couple strategies for Govergenia. So working out of Richmond, we've really had a strong presence. The goals, so the goal here is to evaluate the emerging challenges over the next five years into chart of course for sustained prosperity. We did this by interviewing a lot of people in the business field, in providers. We benchmarked, as you will see in the report, six different seven really different communities. We had in-depth work sessions with the staff and evaluated the current programming. But before we get into that, what I'd like to do is to start really at a different place. And that is understanding the ecosystem for economic development. It used to be that economic development was viewed very traditionally as bringing in projects and trying to market yourself to the world. Today, ever since really the turn of the century for the next for the last 10, 20 years, it's been about developing the ecosystem and looking at the fundamentals for economic prosperity. How strong are they and what do you need to do to mitigate the gaps? And if you look at it in its elementary form, economic development organizations now are either in this first quadrant of positioning their communities. They're looking at what's going on out there. They're pulling data. They're developing strategies for growth. They're developing collaborative partnerships tightening that ecosystem. Or they may be in this other quadrant, which is what we call product development. Maybe it's workforce. The product is your people. It's the educational system. You're mitigating the weaknesses. Sometimes that product is your sights. You're real estate a Lot of the work will be in that space and then there is the promoting of the product Whether that's nationally or globally and then packaging Helping bring the investors in and make sure that they can acclimate to your community. In a sense, that is the fabric. So when we took a look at Fairfax County, we did an extensive analysis of its ecosystem and we found at least 70 different organizations that were in this space. Most of them were in the product development quadrant. Working with workforce, working with small businesses, maybe your incubator would fall into this space, your universities would fall into this space. The EDA has long held the bottom two quadrants here, promoting and working with VDP and others to package and to bring in the clients but it isn't that first quadrant where there has been room for growth and that is what DEI really was all about. Tell us how we what we need to do as a county to keep the competitive edge. So what sets Fairfax apart? You know this, the unparalleled expertise in government solutions, decisions for the nation are made here, the solutions are developed here, that will not change, how it's done may change, will change. But the location is always going to be here. It's a top location for corporate headquarters. We're gonna get into this in a minute, just how strongly ingrained that is. And of course, the home to 10,000 technology firms, there are very few places in the country that can even come close to being able to have that kind of an accolade. So one of the things we did was to compare Fairfax County to other counties in America that have a similar profile. And you're going to look at this and you're going to say, that doesn't quite look familiar to me. Let me describe what we meant by this. In choosing these counties, we were looking for counties that were nearby, or adjacent to a major metropolitan city or cluster. counties that had roughly the same size, they were very strong in technology and IT that had many of the same assets. And these were the ones that came up. Colin is outside Dallas for worth. Fulton County, of course outside Atlanta, Denver, Cumber County, middle sex is Boston, the Boston area, and then the Silicon Valley. These were the six that we chose. We then developed our own index to compare and contrast Fairfax County against these others. Now keep in mind these seven, if you include Fairfax County, these seven are the crem to look crem of top performing counties in the nation for IT and emerging technologies. So please keep that in mind when we look at, is it highly competitive or less competitive or uncompetitive, you're comparing yourself with the best. Now, in looking at that, a couple things stand out. Fairfax County is number one in terms of its IT and its headquarters talent pool. That explains why there are so many HQ headquarters and IT companies. And it's number two in terms of its business climate that makes sense for Virginia is regularly ranked as number one or two for business in the nation. It is slightly behind the others or kind of right in the middle. And again, this is the crem-to-clerm in terms of its quality of life and overall kind of economic growth. But there are a couple of areas where when you compare yourself with these other counties, you're realizing that they are growing at such a fast pace. They are emerging. Three of these counties are mature markets. Three of them are emerging. And it's the fast and emerging counties that we need to be aware of and we need to be aware that they are attracting more investment in terms of foreign direct investment but also in terms of venture capital and they are also further ahead in some of the innovation metrics that are so important today, such as patents and the university knowledge and the spillover from universities into commercializing product. So, this gave us a good basis for understanding how do we put in comparison all of the wonderful things that we know about Fairfax County when we are tasked with keeping that competitive edge. So I'm going to turn it over to Rachel. Rachel's going to walk through some of the finer points of this data. Great. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, everyone, for having us. It's really great to be here at the towards the end of this project. Dan, his work referred to talked a lot about IT and emerging technologies as well as corporate headquarters. As part of our work we did a deep dive into two primary pretty large clusters or groups of industries and sectors. Those were corporate headquarters consulting and services as well as IT and emerging technologies. Really to understand what are the current conditions, what are the projected conditions, and what role can the department play in helping support, build, and grow those industries. So, there we go. So, leading first into corporate headquarters, consulting, services. You all know it's an absolute historic strength here in Fairfax County. The county has three times more employment or employment concentration compared to the national average. Corporate headquarters are absolutely attracted here and always have been. The historic growth has been impressive between 2018 and 2023. They added these industries added 13,000 jobs, increasing by 22%. It's a very important driver of the economy with over 10% of the county's employment being in these headquarters, consulting, and services sectors. However, it is important to note that the data here obviously does not take into account the recent impacts of the current administration, and so that has not yet filtered into this data, but it is our best available data as of right now. And so I think there will be continuing impacts on these sectors. It is also important to note that although there has been historic growth, the projected growth, even in our data that we had we're using from through 2024, the projected growth for the corporate headquarters consulting and services sector was projected to slow down and be slower than the other comparative peer regions. So this is an area of concern, something we should be paying attention to, as well as identifying how can we make sure we're retaining and supporting the existing corporate headquarters that are here and establishing and maintaining the environment that made it so attractive in the first place. So that is corporate headquarters. The next one is information technologies and emerging technologies. Again, a very important sector for Fairfax County, Dan mentioned the 10,000 plus technology firms. Fairfax County has about 40% of the overall states, IT cluster, representing 16% of all the jobs in Fairfax County are in these sectors, contributing at 25% of the county's gross regional product. Again, you can see at the bottom of this slide here some concerning data points as we look to projection around the growth rates of these sectors. They, the DC metro area is projected to grow substantially slower in these IT and emerging technology sectors compared to the comparable regions. This gets to what Dan was talking when we see those emerging regions that are growing at such a substantially faster rate compared to the DC area. Again, hitting home the importance of retaining, maintaining, supporting, and attracting businesses in these industries. You have the assets, you have the workforce to support these industries. It is really about focusing in and making sure that they stay here in Fairfax County. As part of our work, we did conduct a landscape and assessment looking at nearly 80 different business and community support organizations that are all playing some role in those core economic development functions. So trying to identify where there might be overlap or gaps in terms of the economic development ecosystem. Through that work, there was a series of opportunities that we identified that could be addressed. So certainly, continue to coordinate process around sharing business information about as it relates to business retention and expansion. Continuing to expand assistance for businesses to help them remain competitive and pivot and innovate, especially in the current climate. Development of strategies for really vibrant, special commercial districts and business districts throughout the county and greater resident and business awareness of the really strong economic development strengths of Fairfax County so that the people who live here understand the opportunities that exist right here in the in the county. There were two others you can go to the next slide. There was definitely a conversation around the importance of supporting real estate development opportunities to create a diversified tax base, as well as creating those nodes of development. And finally, ongoing need for really understanding the economic and fiscal implications of development and understanding what are the highest and best uses of different development opportunities as they come through. So really enhancing the analytical capacity as you're making decisions. Through the process, we also conducted interviews and stakeholder outreach with businesses, stakeholders and county leaders to understand from those who live and work here, what is on their mind, what is driving them every day? And from that work, we heard a really clear consensus that the competitive advantage that Fairfax County has is not something to take for granted. It is something that will take consistent, strategic and deliberate action, collaborative across the many organizations that are doing this kind of work. We heard from business leaders about the importance of affordable housing as well as maintaining educational excellence to be a place that attracts and retains talent. And we also heard a desire and a need for greater equity across Fairfax County in all ways as well as a recognition of the importance of collaboration. There are many organizations doing really great work in Fairfax County. How do we make sure that there is continued collaboration? No single entity can address the many challenges here and so bringing those strengths together will really help strengthen that complex ecosystem and build opportunity. Just giving us a time. Okay, so that leads us to... That leads us to where do we go from here? And we're going to quickly, quickly go through what... When you see the final report, you'll realize hundreds, a hundred pages or so of detailed information and data. But really, where do we go from here? Or to use the tag line for DEI right now, the Department of Economic Initiatives, navigating what's next, right? All right, navigating what's next. First, we need to be keeping the eye on what these competitor regions are doing and being very, very strategic and tactical, targeted with our resources to make sure that we're investing in the right things to keep the competitive edge. In this we'll mean a focus on the infrastructure, but a very strong focus on innovation and elevating its appeal here. And then the report talks about the role of the department in particular. So what you're going to see now are some of the recommendations. The top line is going to be what the county and all of its partners need to be focused on and then the second part is what the department itself might be able to do. We've broken this out into built environment, business environment and community environment. I'm'm gonna let Rachel talk about the business environment. Or built environment. Or built environment. I'll start with the built environment. This is really focusing on modernizing the infrastructure connectivity and really creating the environment that is needed for economic and resident needs. So you'll see in the strategies, we have lead, administer, and support. This is the role that the department would play. The department, we're recommending the department take a leading role in analyzing the real estate market and quantifying the impact of development. We're recommending that they continue to administer the economic opportunity reserve, playing a little bit of a different role than leading. And then finally, the department should tell you a supportive role in supporting other organizations in their effort to create housing. So all different levels of touch for the department. In the business environment, it's really going to be important. Remember, top line is what the county and all of its partners must and by county, let's use small C primarily, what the county and all of its ecosystem must focus on, and then below that, what the department. The county must differentiate its high tech, that it is a high tech hub. And in particular, with those emerging technologies in particular, and continue to foster a thriving start-up ecosystem, supporting the people that the organizations that are in it, and building a strong regional brand, yes, nationally and internationally. But this is also important internally. So many residents are not aware of the very, very unique position that this county is in. And what that means for their children and for our graduates of the schools, that the opportunities of the future are in Fairfax County. And that is something that I think the county can do a much better job at promoting and then strengthening those relationships with the headquarters. Rachel said that we're going to be seeing an uptick nationwide in headquarter growth particularly in our competitor areas but we're going to see it slowing down here in Fairfax County. So this is going to become as much a retention strategy as it is an attraction strategy in that area. And then incentivizing innovation. This has not been an area that the county has been involved in. And I'm not talking cash grants necessarily. I'm talking what must the county do to make it more attractive for firms to invest in our and D facilities here in Virginia versus any other facilities that they may have elsewhere and the monitor in learn from our competitors. So to lead things that we see the department doing providing insights that can influence the policy of the supervisors here and of the county, being that brain trust to know what's happening and to provide you with some very sophisticated detailed information on an ongoing basis so that you can make the smartest decisions possible. And then secondly, evaluating over the next six months or so, the establishment of an innovation program type of approach that is going to have the most impact. Lastly, community. Thank you. And so community environment really is about creating the places that we all know and love, the special places, the reason people wanna live here, work and learn as the supervisor said. So here are strategies around the department taking a lead in establishing a network of community-based groups to drive economic development efforts locally so that they can, it's a very big, complex county with a lot of different needs, local organizations that really know the community taking the lead. So working on that, continuing to administer incentives for identified redevelopment areas, and finally, continue to support efforts to create walkable mixed-use neighborhoods for the county. With that, I will hand it back to Rebecca to take us. Just really quick. Thank you so much, Dan and Rachel. Before we open for questions, really briefly, you know, our next steps as a team are to take this fantastic set of information and begin to develop more detailed proposals or actions to really meet the goals or meet the gaps that are presented here working very closely with our partners in the county and out the county outside the county and Develop those proposals to work with leadership and then and then bring to the supervisor Supervisors as we consider implementation. So with that I think we're open for questions You. Good. I'll turn to the chairman. Very good. Thank you for the presentation. I'm glad we went through this exercise. I think as it was stated at the beginning, we have a lot of assets here, but our greatest concern is being stuck in neutral. And to be able to continue to be an economic leader in the region and in the country means we have to rethink what we're doing and who's doing it and what the roles are. And so I appreciate that. I do have a number of questions I'm going to try to make them quick, but on the Fairfax County competitiveness by metric slide, I'm just curious as to what components went into the quality of life. That seems to be an all-encompassing category and frankly that is probably one of our leading marketing elements is the quality of life components of Fairfax County. So I'm just curious what the ingredients below that are that pushed out a three rating. I'd be happy to go with that one. So we have a number of different data points that that fed into this. Some of them include things like the cost of housing, the cost of living index, the education system, all of those were different data points that factored into that rating. I get I get the- I think it's too loud. Well, no, I get the affordable housing piece. And as it was referenced, I mean, you heard the business leaders talking about the importance of affordable housing, as you mentioned, but also education. And just about every education metric, we're exceeding the nation on. And so that's why I was curious about that rating. I'm not debating it. I just wanted to know what the criteria was that went into that. On the slide where you have information technology and emerging technologies at the bottom, you have the cluster growth by metro area and you emphasize a couple times during the presentation about how the DC metro area, and I notice Montgomery County is one of those communities you analyzed, and we're always going to be way ahead of them, thankfully. But when you look at the DC Metro, they're obviously in that. They're in that same challenge of the 4%. What I'm curious about is why? Why is the DC Metro area not expected to grow anymore? Is it because it's more built out than in those other areas is that what is the DC metro area not expected to grow anymore is it because it's more built out than those other areas is it what is the reason why you would have Dallas Metro at 22% and DC Metro at 4% What's the leading indicators the reason why? life. The main reason is because the three that are above you in the overall metrics, they have more space. They have more room to grow. They're growing at a faster clip, so it's the rate of growth. And in those sectors that we're focused on, the IT and the headquarters, they're seeing more successes than we are primarily because they're still growing out. Fairfax County is built out and that does limit some of this ability, but it's the rate of growth that we're looking at here. Okay, and obviously that drives the attitude towards emphasizing retention a little bit more later in the slides. I mean, that's got to be one of the real. You're absolutely correct. Okay. And then I wanted to ask one other question because it jumps out of me on the built environment piece, I get a little concerned, and maybe this is the right conversation for us to have. Maybe I shouldn't be concerned about this, but when I look at under the lead category, we have, Chair of our planning commission is here. We have a very long historic track record of how we evaluate land use cases. We do not have a internal department that reviews those proposals for economic development impacts. In fact, as you probably experience, we have the EDA in essence completely staying out of that process. And then we have county staff reviewing elements of land use plans, but not necessarily economic competitive elements. Is that abnormal in the research that you've done in other jurisdictions and in other jurisdictions that we're being compared to? Is that seen as an additional layer onto a long process to get economic development to happen. Help me understand that lead part, the recommendation under the Department of Blue Print of reviewing project proposals for economic development impacts. Sure, I can take the first and then if anyone else wants to chime in. So yeah, I think the purpose of that is really to help the board and decision makers really make informed decisions considering all the various implications of development. And there are other places that do require an impact analysis, a community impact analysis that would consider the economic impact. So jobs, earning sales, the multiplier effect of any project in question, but also the fiscal implications of the development that is being proposed to understand how does that then impact the local municipal budgets, school districts, tax revenues, all of those various pieces. So that is something that other communities do. Whether it's seen as like another layer of regulation and process probably by the development community, but if it's something that can help make informed decisions that looks at today but also tomorrow in terms of how do these decisions impact the future? That is something communities can decide is important to them. OK, it's interesting because it's one that we probably would want to drill down on a little bit deeper. Some elements of what you just shared are things that do get reviewed now. And I think this goes back to us being strategically thinking here about who owns what, what part of our overall process and vision is owned by what entities. And it's good because I know that's the very question that one of the very questions that we're trying to solve for for here. And that's why I wanted to ask the question of how that's handled in other places. I'm not protecting our process or criticizing another's process. But I was just, I'm very curious and definitely want to learn more about that. And then lastly, very last because this has been a bone of contention of mine for a long time. The county executive is probably tired of hearing it. But one of my takeaways and you had it categorized in the build on a strong regional brand component of the business environment, but one of my key takeaways from this presentation is something that we've been talking about for a long time and are doing a little bit about, which is I don't think that most people who live here understand what special place we have here. And it's, you know, we don't want to take it for granted because we always want to be thinking about the future and staying ahead of the pack. But I think ordinary people that live here don't think about it that way. And it's particularly pronounced among people who've lived here for a long time. And that's where that take it for granted piece kind of comes back to bite us. And I think there's a lot of space, a lot of space still out there for us to be marketing and telling our story in a more sophisticated, robust, maybe simpler way about the assets that we do have here and the things that are working. And I believe, you know, what I've heard from the voices of the community piece that's in here, the good news is many of these things were well aware of. Certainly affordable housing, certainly the importance of a high quality public education, a system, or things that, you know, this board takes so seriously and knows particularly in the affordable housing area that we are tens of thousands of units behind Demand for housing, which is one of the drivers of the cost of housing and frankly It's a really good problem to have in some ways But it's also a huge challenge for us in the affordability area and so I you know hearing hearing them echo Those very things I think for all of us is it's really a good confirmation of why we're spending so much time in the space of particularly those two areas. So thank you and look forward to reviewing the final report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have Mr. Parasapal check, then Mr. Parasapal's to ask. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all so much and I love that we've got the boroughs or background here. And I think we can definitely focus on what's great. I also think it's really important to understand what isn't working, right, where we all are following behind. I'm trying to find a data because I know I saw it recently on the census of the 30 to 50-year population that's been out migrating from our region, right? And so I think my question, as we look at all of these things together, I mean, I was sitting here saying it's housing. It's housing cost of living, right? We know people are moving to Richmond or to Atlanta or to Texas or to places where there is housing, So I think what I find would find really helpful as we bring this all together, especially following our very sobering presentation from our budget committee this morning is, where do we put those resources and where do we understand that our barriers, right? Are we trying to, at this point, build more jobs? Are we trying to track and retain a work force? Are we trying to have different types of housing so that people who bought a home for maybe $200,000 or less, 30 to 40 years ago are able to find a place to retire within our community so that they are able to sell that house to a family. I think those are the areas where I'm wondering as we go through and I think you've alluded to quite a few of those. And I can say as someone who one of four siblings and none of the others choose to live here, it is a challenge. You know, I think we have to be honest about that. And understand, is it how much of it is our communication and how much of it is what are the things that you're getting if you move to Richmond today, right? What are the things that you're getting if you move to Austin today, right, that you don't get here. So I think those are the big questions as we have to like bring all of these voices together and as we hear different What are the things that you're getting if you move to Austin today, right, that you don't get here? So I think those are the big questions as we have to like bring all of these voices together. And as we hear different messages from our multi-generational community, whether it's a development project, whether it's a new investment, how do we start to bring all of our strategic planning from this lens? I'm really excited to see this and to see that you've been lived in most of my favorite places. How do we make that? Make this have that cool factor that we know is there and is there in some areas and in such a large county, right? I know LA is also really large but has been built out longer than we have or has built its characteristics and its sense of community much longer than we have. So I don't know. I think that's what I'm excited about RDI looking at this because it's not gonna be the same in every part of the county, right? But how do we tap into the strengths, whether they be people, community, spaces, public, private, all of those in each part of the community? And what are those things, whether they be transportation or access to safe walkability, trails, reliable bus service? What is it that helps us have? Be more of an attractive place and that feel like you're just stuck in traffic or in a housing debt I don't so I don't know if that's something you're seeing as trends or when you're talking about this larger view of economic development If I'm understanding it correctly. Oh, I believe you're understanding it perfectly That's what we mean by integrated economic development understanding that all of these things make for a more attractive region and becomes the primary. You know, when companies are looking where to site facilities, let's say the higher site selection consultant to do that, that site selection consultant, if they're worth their money, is going to have at least 125 different factors that go into this decision. Quality, quantitative, and qualitative as well. And so everything you've just mentioned goes into the site selection process. So therefore, why shouldn't your economic development approach be integrated as well? So we 100% you know subscribe to that view. What you will find in the full report are the gaps in the current ecosystem from the economic development. So we pull out economic development and we say as good as it is there are some areas improvement. And they are being able to have a much more cohesive, structured approach to business retention and expansion. Right now, the economic development authority does a phenomenal job in focusing on high growth companies and some of the established businesses. But let's face it, there are only so many resources to go around. And with tens of thousands of businesses, you have to be using the best technology available to be able to periodically get the voices and be able to bring it before the CEO group or this body to understand and trade that information. Let's all get access to that information and be able to make better decisions. A financial incentives, we've known this in the county has been proud not to have to be able to provide incentives. But there are dozens of ways to slice and dice that, revolving loan fund, where you're returning that money back into the fund to be able to distribute in the future is an incentive. So there are very different ways to do this, and that could fit, I think, the character of this community. Nobody's really focused on sites in the future of development of sites and what are the priority sites and how do we target that, particularly when we look at all the different commercial corridors and who's really focused on that? Scott's doing a great job when there's a special initiative that needs to happen to be able to get it done. But what we're suggesting for the department is to have more of a role in doing this. Chairman, you talked about evaluation and evaluation in economic development is usually taken from the spin of a business investment, but very few in the profession as a whole, it's very bad economic development profession. looking at a holistic approach to impact. Its sustainability, to impact. It's sustainability, it's impact on the environment, it's impact on your budgeting, your schools, your public safety, and there are ways and economic development is moving there. They're not quite there yet, but I think Fairfax County might be able to dabble in beyond the cutting edge of some of those decisions. And then we've already mentioned the end-county marketing, making sure that the people understand what you understand and what many of these businesses understand. This is the place of the future. Thank you. And I think you alluded to that a little bit. My only pushback and I guess recommendation is, and probably because it just finished reading the book stock about the history of zoning, and how many things we've added to the ability to build, and how that has gotten us our mobility stuck and added to our inequities is, I think there's a way to look at how we prioritize or focus or look at redevelopments of sites at this point are then a lot of new development in our area, mostly redevelopment, and how we look at that, like you said, more holistically, right? The impacts, the inclusiveness, the environment, the community, and trying to maybe streamline rather than add another layer, right? A bureaucracy to it, so but yeah, thank you. Mr. Friselusk, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll start by saying I appreciate the work that's been done, put together this proposal and I'll say I can see where there are definite opportunities to delineate the role and responsibility of the economic development authority versus the role and responsibility of Rebecca Maudry in her shop. Because I think there's some specific things that you've put even under this lead designation that when I read it, it just resonates to me that this is more under the economic development authority in terms of conducting market analysis and analyzing fiscal implications of commercial vacancies for policy decisions to me that seems like that's more appropriately there. So I'm just wondering, are you providing some details in terms of where the implementation strategy should go with some of these sort of recommendations that you're putting for it? details in terms of where the implementation strategy should go with some of these sort of recommendations that you're putting for it. I'm just trying to get a sense of is that a part of this analysis and a part of what you're going to be presenting now. I'm going to let Rebecca answer that, but I will say in the full report, there's the full report, yeah, there's a much more nuanced breakout between the EDA and DEI as it has been now and as it is proposed, as well as gaps in areas where other people, other players may fulfill those functions. That might be where I'm going. I think what I'm suggesting is that in my head as I'm looking through these, I'm seeing that line of demarcation and I'm starting to move things over into their respective bucket. But I'll let you know. Before Becca speaks, just remember that we are looking to pivot, be spray, and change the way we're thinking about our approaches. So this is not something that we're saying should happen like right now. It's just a concept that she's developing. Sure. Yeah, I don't have much to add, but. Right. Right, so I mean, we really appreciate the analysis and the findings from really a third party expert in this space that we can then use. It's a collectively to analyze, understand, and then determine best approaches and responses. And partnerships, right? I think that that, I mean, we are a small department, and so we partner across the county, across the region. And I think one of the things that I really appreciate about this effort is understanding kind of that holistic approach and how we really need to collectively move forward to fill the gaps and build on the opportunities that we have. Yeah, and I'll say I just appreciate really this business and environment section talking about, you know, the startup ecosystem. This is an area that we've been talking about a lot here at this board and really trying to push in ways to better support our entrepreneurial base. And I'm going to acknowledge here we're making some progress in that regard, but I'm going to be clear in saying, there's a lot more that we have to do. And what you basically identified here is that there are things that can be done that better support that ecosystem development and better support the growth and development of those companies. Because if we're smart about this, those entrepreneurs are going to be the companies of the future that will help us fill our real estate and expand our commercial tax base. This is a logic, a very linear sort of approach that makes infinite sense. So I'm just excited to see that that's part of what you're suggesting. Now, I'm going to maybe push back on something you said about incentives. I mean, I think you're right. In the past, we've been in a position where we've not had to be as aggressive on incentives because we've had better support. I believe from VDP than we currently have today, so I'm going to make an argument. I'm not in economic development today. I was in it for 21 years here in Fairfax County. I did a lot of the large projects, a lot of the entrepreneurial projects for the county. So I've seen how over time we've not had as much support from the state. And I think that means we've got to come up with a plan as to how we're going to be able to fill in those gaps because guess what? In those other markets that you've listed as being ahead of us, they're going to be more competitive. They're going to say, we have a package. We have this program and process for you if you come to our jurisdiction. So if you don't come here, you're not going to get that package. And that's something that I think we do have to be thinking about and position ourselves in a way where we can be as competitive as possible to try to win some of those opportunities. Thank you. And I'd just would like to make two comments on incentives. This report makes it very clear that we're talking about incentivizing innovation, research and development. What's not clear here, and this is what you all, and with the help, I believe, of Rebecca's department in the EDA, you're going to have to wrestle with is what kind? Are these discretionary? Are they as right? And that's where the devil is in the details. And as somebody who has signed thousands of incentive deals and is quite frankly if I had my trousers I'd be an anti incentive person. You have to do this right. You have to focus and what Fairfax County needs to do is to go to where their're most competitive where it's going to have the most ability to make a difference but also where you're going to be able to stop some of these other regions from taking that away. The majority of net new jobs in any community is going to come from sustained high growth businesses. Usually 50 to 100 employees, the Ben and business for over 100 years, they will represent over two thirds of your net new jobs in most communities, yet they represent less than 1% of all employers. Somebody has to be doing a very good job, Victor understands this. Somebody has to do a very good job of being able to make sure that they understand where they need to go next, how they're gonna scale and how Fairfax County is gonna help meet that deliverable. Correct. And we believe heavily that it's in the innovation in our ND space. Yeah. And last point I'll make is that I would argue that you're right. I mean, we're trying to expand the companies that we have here and to your point, probably 75%, 80% of the jobs that we have in creation in the county are going to be expansion opportunities. And roughly 20-25% are going to be new companies that are coming into the market and growing organically in some way. So the question is, how do you pull on both levers? I'm making the argument that we've got to be pulling on that new ecosystem, getting those new startup companies to come, but then to your point, because we did both. And that's what I did when I was at the EDA. You're pulling on those larger companies, I helped them stay in Fairfax County, because believe me, they don't have to stay in Fairfax. And then those little smaller emerging companies too, you've got to pull them back, because someone's calling on them from other markets and saying, you would be better served to be in our county or our city and will you consider moving. That's the point I'm trying to make. That's the opportunity for us. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you. I have supervisor Wauke-Chan. I don't have any other hands so just then we're going to move on to the next presentation this side here otherwise. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the establishment of the comparator counties. It's obviously a difficult thing to do. Just looking at some of them, I think most on here, most of these counties you have as comparators include the major city that they surround. So Atlanta is in Fulton County, Dallas, I think is in Collin County. And I don't know whether your analysis was able to suss that out. Suburban Fulton County versus the city of Atlanta. Really my Gumri County is the only one on here that would this the kind of similar kind of governance structure that is a standalone suburban jurisdiction outside of a by the standard of the other Localities here a small City right comparing Washington DC to Dallas or even Denver So it's it's a challenge to think, get those comparisons. Right, but I still think it makes sense to benchmark where we can. I guess kind of the question that I have and because this project began some time ago, you didn't sign up to answer question, I'm going to ask. But I think our situation today is a mature, successful, built-out market that is facing an economic shock, right? Economic dislocation generated by the major employer in the region. And what are the case studies or the comparators of similar markets that have survived such a shock, adapted to it, and then thrived after that fact? That's kind of the situation that we're in today, which is a different situation than we're in when you started this work. So I guess my question for you related to this work is what did you discover that would answer that specific timely question for us? It's a good question. And you're right, we weren't signed up to deal with what has been occurring over the last 90 days, not even 100 days. It's hard to believe. We were saying this morning that, you know, thank goodness this work did begin nine months ago, because otherwise you'd probably be in the market for a consultant to say, what do we do now? And you've got the baseline. You've got all of the work here. The same work would have been done six months from now as what we're presenting to you today pretty much on the base and understanding the assets. And the good news, the good news is the future is in this IT emerging technology space. That's not going to change. If anything, it might actually be some accelerant that has been placed on it. If we do it right, and to do it right is to keep ahead of the others that don't have the extra burdens that you're facing now, but they will have the same opportunities. And so we need to look at that innovation space in particular and be focused on advancing the AI. Be aware of those companies that understand quantum the quantum technologies and how that's going to change things. The satellite and the communications that are prevalent in this County right now and how that's going to change the way we communicate in the world and how we defend ourselves. Those kinds of decisions are being made here. Keep those companies here. Attend to their need for more research and development and innovation and you'll be able to ride this out. out. At the same time, make sure that the message isn't one of doom and gloom, but just the opposite. That the opposite. and you'll be able to ride this out. At the same time, make sure that the message isn't one of doom and gloom, but just the opposite. That the opportunities of the future are here. Make sure the children and the parents understand that. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Too much. Could we get a copy of the full report? That'd be great. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. We're wrapping up the full report and we'll be sharing not with supervisors. And just this will not be, as you might expect the last time we have this conversation about Blueprint. And this is really the kickoff of it in many ways and there'll be further conversations among all of us. And really over the course of the next, I would say, six six months to a year as we get comments and recommendations from the county executive and deputy county executive and our director about where we're going and how we should be doing that differently if you will or at least the same going forward I Am going to close this piece with just to say something I think we all recognize which is that we absolutely have an amazing opportunity in this area. I mean, we have not only the infrastructure that's almost second to none, particularly if you look at the internet and all the pipes that come through this area and all the opportunity that comes with that. There's no doubt that we have the will and I think the competitive will and as well as the success history, if you will, here that I think can be a key part of that. I think the issue is what kind of vision do we want to take forward to address what's happening across the river? Is that changed dramatically from the vision we've had? Or is it something along similar lines, but we need to go maybe a little bit this direction in that direction? So is it a tweak? Or is it more of a wholesale shift? I think that's this report will help us to get a better handle on that. And frankly, what do we want to become? Because it's always what do you want to become? And I don't think we're necessarily interested in becoming some of the areas that you've listed in your report but we recognize that we need to be aware of what they're doing and how it might impact us if nothing else. So, and I want to know what those other three in the top 10 are. So, but that's it. Thank you very much. Appreciate your help, Dan. Rachel. Thank you very much. And we'll move on to the next presentation, because we are a little bit behind. We've got about 25 minutes overall with the Recreation and Entertainment Authority Economic Initiatives report. Scotta, are you gonna move right to you? Sure, sounds great. All right, thank you, Chairman. Scott Sizer with the Department of Economic Initiatives. Here with a number of colleagues who have assisted in this review. Chief among them are Emily Smith with the Office of the County Attorney, Joela Hate with the Department of Management and Budget, and Miriam Conley in the Department of Economic Initiatives. So today we would like to review a potential tool to assist in a specific sector of the county's economy. We've heard a lot about the economy today, but this tool is related specifically to the tourism and entertainment sector. At the board's direction, staff reviewed how this tool's been used in three other jurisdictions in Virginia. And would like to share those examples and how they can inform potential future considerations of similar tools and Fairfax. So tourism and entertainment is a significant sector in Virginia and in Fairfax County's economy. There are different aspects to the overall tourism sector, including sports related tourism, which is about 10% of the total pie in the state as a whole. Fairfax County was number three in the total size of economic impact for tourism, with 3.3 billion in economic impacts in 2023 alone. Employing about 25,000 jobs in Fairfax County in the tourism and leisure industries. So looking at sports tourism, which is related to travel primarily in overnight stays, from any different sporting events, that sector has continued to grow tremendously over the last decade or two. In June, the Board of Supervisors Directed staff to review the Public Recreational Facilities Authority Act, which is a relatively new act enabling the legislation by the General Assembly, allows local jurisdictions to establish an authority to support entertainment, arts, sports, convention centers, and other tourism-related needs. And to that end, staff spoke with stakeholders and reviewed three specific jurisdictions of Virginia to evaluate creating a public recreational facilities authority and support those different jurisdictions use of sports and entertainment tourism. So big picture, staff identified four key findings for consideration of this tool in the county. First, it needs to be a clear objective and mission focused on tourism. Each of the three jurisdictions will highlight had a long history of community recreation entities and providing recreation opportunities for community members, but they each decided to create a new organization focused on generate economic benefits of tourism. Second, they all had a dedicated funding mechanism, or a liable funding mechanism that was directly related to those economic benefits, again, primarily related to lodging taxes or meals and food tax beverages as well. Each of these were tailored to its initial purpose and a partnership. They weren't created in a vacuum, where they were outcomes of property acquisitions or partnerships or creation of a facility, and the responsibilities of each of these continue to grow over the years. But they were really based on that initial defined goal and objective. And then finally, each of these entities required the ability to enter into long-term agreements for land management, revenue sharing operations. In the end, they needed the ability to make decisions in an inter-term agreements with partners, users, and stakeholders for significant capital investments, or even just scheduling and marketing of events years out. So the three sites that we looked at were Henrico County and Historic Triangle and then Chesterfield County. So first we'll start with Henrico County. They created a Sports Entertainment Authority in 2022. That county determined to build a 185,000 square foot indoor facility. It delivered it just two years ago as the Henrico Sports and Events Center. So in that case, the county acquired the property, financed the capital construction of the facility, but determined they wanted a separate independent entity to manage the facility operations, scheduling, marketing, and then develop additional opportunities and partnerships from that core piece of property. And so again, you see some resources there, primarily funded from portion of the hotel occupancy taxes and a tourism improvement district. The historic triangle area, which is the area encompassed by the City of Williamsburg, James City County and York County. Again, in that same time frame in November of 2021, they established the historic triangle recreation facilities authority. This is another independent authority, but in that case, the jurisdictions really wanted an entity to be created to own the development of this new recreational facility. Again, it was very similar to the Henrico County example. It's a 200,000 square foot indoor facility. But they wanted this entity to manage the financing, construction, management, marketing, operation of this large regional sports center. Also part of what was required in that location was it was not any one entity. It was these three different jurisdictions. And so they created a separate authority to help bind those three jurisdictions together in delivering this good that benefited all of them. Again, it's supported by staff in those jurisdictions with funding for the capital debt issued by the authority, but repaid by future revenues from the authority as well as backed by the City of Williamsburg. And all three of those jurisdictions contribute to operational costs until such time as operations cover the full cost of operations for that site. And then finally Chesterfield County, Chesterfield evaluated the use of this tool but decided to do it differently. They actually established a brand new county department, the Department of Sports Visitation and Entertainment in 2023. Not a separate authority but a new department in the county. They have a recreation and parks department, but determined that they needed a catalyst for public facility development, economic development, focused on driving those tourism dollars and visits. Also, this is a pretty unique case. They acquired the River City Sports Flex, which was a privately held piece of property, about 115 acres with nine synthetic turf fields, that started as a public private partnership with the jurisdiction, and then they ended up acquiring the site in total, and really wanted to have an entity to be able to drive sports tourism, support there's heavy local usage there, but really to drive the tourism and market the site. Also note, I guess earlier today, we shared a lot of economic information and they just issued their first annual report for 2024. Their biggest market at the River City Sports Complex was from the DC Northern Virginia market. There's about 225,000 visits to just that facility, generating over half a million hotel stays from our area specifically. So with that, I wanted to highlight a couple of the comparisons that we see between Fairfax County and those three jurisdictions. I think all four of our jurisdictions recognize the importance of tourism and sports and entertainment to our economy. Those three identified a real need to integrate efforts to help drive partnerships between public entities, nonprofits as well as private owners to really enhance those opportunities and attract tourism to benefit the entire area. And they saw a need to build on existing opportunities and a very high demand market, both from their local regions as well as from areas that they could attract for tourism. So a couple of key differences. Fairfax County has a very mature, complex system. But you have an existing park authority. Those jurisdictions did not have park authorities. They had local departments. Those jurisdictions also, and it's a little bit of a difference of what we heard just earlier, where Fairfax County, you know, we've been Fairfax County, but I heard the recommendation a moment ago about continuing to brand our regional efforts in both of these jurisdictions, but the historic triangle and the greater Richmond area. There are regional destination marketing organizations and there's been strong regional partnerships. But really what you're seeing in each of these areas now are trying to have those individual counties or markets differentiate themselves within the region. And so you have some of these are now becoming new destination marketing organizations for their organization, where we already haven't existing one and visit Fairfax. Again, those three jurisdictions had public investments and assets that were acquired for tourism, either built or newly constructed. And then they've leveraged tax revenue from tourism for investments in capital and operations of facilities in addition to marketing. So, a couple of key recommendations if the board were to consider moving forward with an entity or some additional support for sports tourism and tourism and entertainment industry. I recommend that the scope should be on tourism related to those entertainment investments. It needs to be able to enter into those long-term contracts and agreements with partners both to help attract large capital investments for new facilities, as well as to be able to market to partners and users who have multi-year commitments that they're usually evaluating as part of these attractions. Second, governance is very complex in Fairfax County, as we've heard. And we really need to engage with all the existing stakeholders. And I think what's really critical is being dependent on a specific facility and a specific outcome related to the partner of the stakeholders. There are a variety of examples that we could go into, but it really depends on who the landowner is, what the primary outcome of the facility and who the major tenants may be to really drive the structure of an organization and how to format it. And then finally, investment, if required, should be related to tourism generated revenues and a dedicated source of funding aligned with those goals. So with that, I know I was trying to be quick and fast and get you to your Della's tax district meetings next. So I'll be happy to answer any questions. That's God, great job. Appreciate that and I'm going to turn to the chairman. I appreciate Scott's presentation. There's definitely some things on here. We need to be thinking about more. I guess I've been to the Chesterfield site. So I know that one pretty well. I've also been to the one that's under construction, at least driven by it and the historic triangle. And I'm not as familiar with the overall communities that those are in. So do they have private sector competitors? I mean, obviously, every time I go to the St. James, it's heavily people in this area, but they also generate a ton of hotel stays and people coming from really all over the East Coast, at least, to the St. James for tournaments and things that they hold there. They've hosted professional sports. They had the professional lacrosse league tournament there over a week and a half. And so I guess help me understand how the private sector pieces fit in in these other jurisdictions from a comparison standpoint if we can. Sure. So in a couple of different ways, and again, with the initial getting away from the initial construction of the facility, but with these entertainment and Henrico's a good example. So the Henrico Sports Entertainment Authority also now partners with either nonprofits or private entities, tennis clubs, golf course, a local YMCA, to also help support attracting additional tourism type events if those facilities are seeking those. And then in addition, they also administer in Chesterfield County as well. Administitors, a capital fund that is invested, basically from proceeds from transit, occupancy taxes that they are then able to utilize for a sports tourism grant that not only applies to either publicly owned lands but also privately held facilities as well to help with upgrades and make them more attractive, more marketing for different types of tourism events. So in essence, they're seen as part of a network. They're not seen as there's not friction between them. There's not a competitor. Correct. And either they're seen as helping to support those businesses to grow and expand, or they see some spin-off from, you know, you bring in the AT-810 women's tournament in Henrico County, and then there's benefits to some of the other adjacent. Yeah, I mean mean I asked the question because obviously we all want to bring sports tourism and more of it into Fairfax County without a doubt. But I've said this from the beginning, I'll repeat it here, not if it displaces the needs of our own community. And one of my concerns is, you know, when the St. James hosts those events, they're not taking something off the ledger for Fairfax County. They're hosted specifically during times that are not really times that our community groups would be utilizing the facility as much. So knowing that we have groups going outside of the region for these tournaments, it's going into facilities where they have more facilities than potentially they have the human demand for within their own county. Here we have an enormous amount of demand that's unmet and that's why tournaments like why I have to travel to Chesterfield. field. And so I think we just need to be cognizant going into this that a main driver for us first should be making sure that we're adequately and completely serving the needs of the people that are here already, our youth groups and other groups that use our facility, our adult leagues, and making sure that we're sure it up on that. If, through a sports tourism mechanism, we could be building even more of those facilities, that would be great. But I just don't want us to lose sight of meeting the needs of the people who are already here as priority one, priority two, obviously bringing in sports tourism and being able to take advantage of those opportunities. And priority three is making sure that whatever we do, if we head towards this direction, it's done in companion with the private facilities that already exist throughout the county that in many ways are remarkable in their own right so that they're a partner organization and not a competitor. And I think one of the advantages that some of these jurisdictions have had that they've created these entities for the specific facility, but that you're absolutely right. It's a member of that ecosystem. And so that now sports authority is a natural place for a private sector to look versus, all right, well now you've got to go talk to this private elementary school or this public school or this other entity. That sports authority can help make those connections and foster those types of relationships. In my last question, because you just peeked my interest in one other thing, and Supervisor Smith will enjoy this one. We have challenges, significant challenges right now with FCPS and Facility Use. Do any of these authorities and any of these locations since you mentioned schools? Do any of them have any type of interaction with the school facilities, and are they a part of the program in these jurisdictions or are they completely off limits for the purposes of the authority? So I would say specifically, I know the first thing that the Henrico does every year is they book all of their high school graduations. So one of the major primary benefits of that large convention center or event space is hosting all of the high school graduations And then they do work. I don't think I will have to get back to you on the exact relationships they have with their local school system In terms of access for gyms and school fields if that's what you're speaking to it is what I'm speaking to because we have More than any other jurisdiction in Virginia and yet we have challenges being able to gain access to them in friction that sometimes exist between school uses and county user groups which are coming from the same population of people being able to have access to those and I'm just, you know, in dealing with that friction I'm just curious if there's an example somewhere of a third party that oversees that type of scenario and can do it successfully. And maybe the answer is no. It's just a curiosity question. Is that a ancillary benefit of establishing an organization like this anywhere else, or is that never, never been done before and touched before. I think, again, reflecting on the discussion we had with Henrico, that is a role that they play in both that they have a service that they provide to the school system in terms of those graduations. And I know they've made connections and fostered school use of local YMCA to host their events as well. And so they're in that ecosystem. OK. I'm watching Chris Leonard's facial expressions to give me some immediate feedback to sitting behind you. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On a kind of related piece of this is this work that you did, there's so many more elements to this in one of which is just the types of facilities fall into, you know, sports tourism and or entertainment, et cetera. So what, and I, I was at the VICO meeting where we had so different entities present, that was very, very helpful and all of them did a little bit differently, some were rural places and obviously Enrico was part of that. Was there a process that you saw that folks did to identify what next steps might be if you say yes, we want to do more in this space? I think it's very clearly the focus being on tourism and then economic development related to tourism, especially then the revenues that that new facility or that new well that new facility generates related to tourism sort of driving back into that. So that was a core number one for each of those. It was very clear about why they were building those facilities and while it benefits the community and it benefited existing I think just feel county notes that 66% of its users are local county residents. But the purpose for that facility to be built was not just necessarily directly serve those county residents it does that and it's an important piece but its primary goal was to generate economic development related to tourism. And then the second piece in addition to to being clear about that, then having that dedicated source of funding to be able to have a revolving fund to help make those investments and grow the system. The term facility itself is kind of what I was getting at because some of those facilities were limited and others were pretty broad, from multiple fields to indoor spaces, and particularly in Febra's County, we have a number of those that we've talked about for decades. And I'm always going to the indoor track facility, which we, my mind, desperately need for our community in lots of ways. And I know there are others related to that, so I'm not trying to just single that out. But the process that was used to identify the facilities that should be part of this overall entities focus? I think they've each been different and unique. Some and maybe our kind of executive can speak a little bit more to some of the history of the historic triangle one. They really came out of some of those hotels in the leisure industry who really wanted to have a larger convention center or a larger space that could continue to help grow and support their industry. Some others came from specific users. You've mentioned sports teams or other types of teams that want practice facilities or other kinds of facilities and they can be a core tenant. And then it's how does that facility not to advocate 10 months out of the year? And how can it serve the community? And what kind of other benefits can be generated? Just to add to that about the historic triangle, there is a one-cent sales tax. It was dubbed the Tommy Tax, which helped the hotels and bringing in sports tourism. They have a dedicated fund source, York County, James City County, Williamsburg, all have that same sales tax that goes direct to what Mr. Siser is speaking about. So they have a guaranteed revenue stream. And that's how they're able to build what's happening now in the historic triangle, and then support it. And then when you have the facility, people come. I do remember that War Hill Sports Center has probably 12 fields for soccer. They're killing it with soccer fields, but there's not a lot of indoor facility space that they are now going to have. So, you know, they have that fund source to be able to do it. And they're not competing. Basically, it's what I hear you say with the right funding source. You evolved that based upon the opportunities that. Yes, I believe the sales tax initiative came about in 2016. All right. Thank you. Sir, I was a rearman. So there are meals tax in Henrico County? Yes. Is there a meals tax in the city of Williamsburg? There is. Is there a meals tax in James City County. There is there a meals tax in York County Yes, there isn't one in Chesterfield But I just like to note that four of the five locations that are drawing people in from the outside To go to their sports tourism facility are also Generating revenue out of the meals taxes paid by those tourists who come into those locations Just just like our meals tax would potentially, if we were to pass one, would potentially generate $0.34 on the dollar from non-residents. Thanks. Well, they may generate more than 34% on the dollar because they have that too. So thank you, Supervisor Walkershaw. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate your work on this. There's been a lot that has gone into it. And I don't think I'm revealing anything because they've talked about it publicly. My kind of interest in this came out of the possibility of a partnership at some point in the future with George Mason University, which could involve athletic facilities, but also arts and entertainment facilities. And I wanted for us to do this work so that we would be prepared and have this conversation in case an opportunity like that with George Mason or some other entity becomes more serious in those discussions progress. So I think this has been really, really important and valuable. You know, obviously the lesson here is that the recreational facilities authority is not a magic money machine that just all of a sudden generates tens of millions of dollars to build new facilities. It is potentially a tool to partner with entities inside or outside the county to do more. And the only thing out, you know, most of the focus tends to be on sports. And I think that is what it has been used most often in Virginia, but it's not just sports. It's also arts and entertainment. And it may be that for us long term, there are more opportunities in that direction than with sports because as has been noted we we have a park authority that can and does a lot with respect to sports and if they wanted to and we wanted them to put a lot more money to making facilities even more tailored towards sports tourism. the decision we can make. We've had that conversation around Audre Moore and the Rec Center and the new Audre Moore Rec Center and the new Audrey Moore Rec Center will have some elements that will help with sports tourism. But if we had 20 or 30 million more dollars, we could do more, right? That's kind of where we are. But I think this could be an important tool for us to have on our shelf and in the toolbox if a project or a partner comes to us or we identify one in the future. So I think this work has been valuable but I think as the presentation notes the authority needs to be structured for a specific partner and a specific project at least to start and today we don't have that partner or that project. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and partner in a specific project at least to start and today we don't have that partner or that project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Scott, for this presentation. I was thinking about all of this. I was thinking about all the emails I get from different constituency groups looking for more fields, looking for more areas, and there's obviously a congestion at times with everyone trying to get an ability to use these fields here in Fairfax County. So I think a couple of things, one, I think public private partnerships are something we need to be looking at more. I think Mr. Walken-Shaw's idea partnering with George Mason, I think that that's very possible. I've spoken with folks at George Mason and I know Supervisor Smith has been in meetings with me and Mr. Herady around this. So I think that's something as we look at potential revenue funding streams for the county, we need to really expand what that means. And Mr. Walken-Charles Wright, I mean sports is part of this, but arts, entertainment, brings jobs, could bring jobs, could bring even more tourism to the area. So I think that this is obviously something to look at. I don't know if this means an entertainment district or what this means, but I definitely think it's something worth looking into. Thank you. Thank you. I think there's obviously a consensus that there's opportunity here and for those of you who know about Potomac Banks and tourism task force and really the work that we've done for 70 years and the opportunities that are there and frankly the limitations on what we currently have because of it does require ability to market and not only kind of create a cohesive presentation that then would attract people because there's more than just one thing going on. So having those sports fields and sports facilities and entertainment all together, particularly in an area like North Virginia which has some of the other elements, I think could be incredibly attractive. And I know that we're losing some of those opportunities to other areas because we don't have some of the facilities, frankly, that we need that would be effective and are being able to do that. So I am very supportive of continuing this effort and not, and doing it more expeditiously than not. So with that, don't hear and see any other comments. Appreciate very much the presentation Scott. Thank you. And just to want to remind everybody to wrap up here. We have, first off, again, thank you, Scott and the DEI team Rebecca. I think great day. Lots of different elements we're working on and frankly, and that's changing. Ever changing and if we have any doubt about that, we have a EIC have another EIC meeting because you all love these so much. But April 8th at 130, this will be a follow up to our last meeting where we learned really about the federal reductions and kind of the impact on Fairfax County. The intent is to kind of the next iteration of that, what other options opportunities. We've particularly invited our regional as well as our federal and state representatives to come and share their data, share their assessments of the impact or meanings that this has for us. And we will get more out as we get that agenda more, I guess, clarified. But there is that same day which is part of the challenge, that same day delegate Bolva in the committee that was set up on the federal workforce and funding reductions is also meeting that day in Arlington. Most in the afternoon, but I think they have some afternoon meetings, so we hope to frankly benefit from some of that. I think Mr. Chairman, you're going to be there in the morning. Maybe you can share back with us in the afternoon, any particular insights or thoughts that we need to be wherever considered. So with that, I thank you all. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.