Good afternoon everyone. We are now going to reconvene the regular meeting of the Booker Tone community redevelopment agency meeting today on September 23rd, 2024. The time is 4.05 pm and we left off last at the Director's Report in the semester brown. Thank you, Chair Naclas. Stephen Timberlake for Financial Services Department is going to provide us a discussion on parking meters in the downtown various issues that we've been discussing at previous meetings Thank you mr. Timberlake. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Steven Timberlake special project manager for the CRA I'm gonna give you a brief overview of public parking in the downtown Starting with the origins of our program We established the parking meter program when we saw a growing popularity of downtown areas with increased traffic and visitors, which resulted in limited parking space availability during peak hours. Our strategic approach to parking management through a meter-based system. The goal of the parking meter program is to maximize parking availability for businesses and visitors and limit long-term parkers. So every on-street space within the Boca Raton CRA boundaries is currently metered to ensure parking availability and prevent extended stays. We have enforcement available 24 hours a day to ensure compliance. All parking spaces have a maximum limit of four hours. There are a couple spots that are actually eight, but majority are the four. Payments can be made at any of the 100 meters or via the park mobile application. So what does that mean? That means for the last year we've had a total of 553,000 transactions, totally in almost $2 million, over $2 million worth of revenue. The vast majority of our transactions are normal meter transactions that occur at the meter, 351,000 transactions, 1.5 million worth of revenue. The average time purchased is about two hours and seven minutes. Park mobile is catching up fast with almost 200,000 transactions, 651,000, and then we have a grouping of special rates that I wanted to call out here as well. Most of those are either amphitheater events or the post office rate of five cents for 15 minutes that we implemented there. At the same time, we issue roughly 20,000 parking citations over the last year, 15,000 issue roughly 20,000 parking citations over the last year. 15,000, almost 16,000, I want more for expired meters. Totally $556,000 worth of fines. And then the handicap is the second dollar amount with $336,000 with 1,300 violations. So a brief overview of a couple of the more popular areas starting with Maestro Park. We have 163 total metered spaces in addition to the four parking garages. The green bars on this chart are transactions by hour and the black bar is the average time purchased. So you can see we generally peak around the lunch and dinner hours with 25,000 transactions during those time periods and the average time fluctuates up to two hours and 18 minutes at the peak time around 6 p.m. So the Sandboard Square area just to the south of Bynastore Park, the stats for this area includes 68,000 transactions, 266,000 a meter revenue, again peaking around the dinner hour, more so than the lunch hour here, and again peaking with a two hour and 10 minute average transaction. And then further south we have the Royal Palm area, which is 108 total spaces. Again, the peaks here around the lunch time and the dinner time. The time limits generally stay around that two hour time period. So one of the things we can do in our current system is add a free parking option to the downtown spaces. At the meter, you could select your normal rates or you could expect a free rate at whatever time limit we set. Park mobile customers would still have to pay a 30 cent transaction fee that is through them, not through the city. Patrons would be able to either choose a four hour, up to four hours at their normal rate or whatever we set a pre-time limit on for free. Some considerations to consider with the free parking is patrons could select the free rate over and over again without moving their vehicle. We do not have a way necessarily to enforce that currently. We could add this rate to a single area in the downtown, throughout downtown, through several areas we have that flexibility. If we had set the rate at 29 minutes or less the revenue loss would be about $70,000. For a future state our future objective is to identify and implement a technology determined individual space occupancy. The idea here is this will allow us to direct patrons to empty spaces and also allow for us to determine how long a patron has been parked there so that we could offer free parking without having to interact with the meter. We're going to a couple trade shows to see how we can implement that in the near future. That concludes my presentation so I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm gonna start with questions here, if that's okay. So I had asked that this come forward because in particular, there was a couple of businesses around Sanborn Square that had been in business for quite a while. They're locally owned by people and they complain that their business has gone down because they're customers that frequent their businesses businesses don't know how to use the parking meters. One business in particular, the only parking that they have is in front of their store. And they have owned the store for a lot longer than we've had parking meters in place. And now they don't have any free parking for their customers. So I know we've talked about what we've seen in other cities and I was in another city this weekend. So one of the things I wanted to ask about was, I think you put, it's about 900 and something thousand or close to a million dollars in total fines that we've given out. How many, was that paid? How much of those fines were actually paid? I'm not sure our collection percentage. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm just wondering what that is because I see a lot of people not paying those fines. So I just would like to know that. And can we adjust the hours? Are we able to adjust the hours? Like in this different city I was in this weekend, had 12 to 9 Monday through Thursday, and 12 PM to 2 AM on the weekends. So is that something that we can look at? We absolutely have the ability to change the hours at the meters. We have used the 24 hour collections or the 24 hour enforcement because of the mix of residential in the area that if you had a long-term parker that could pay for parking at six o'clock if you turn the meters off at 10 they've got the spot the entire evening and then if they don't come on to 12 they aren't back they don't have to move their car again until 4 o'clock the next day. If they pay for four hours the next day. Okay. So we have the ability to adjust it might, what you brought up in your concerns, one of the issues would be that if we give the 29 minutes free then someone could just keep renewing and renewing without ever moving their car. So I think that's a significant issue. And yeah, the revenue change, I would just wonder what that was if we adjusted the hours. So those were my concerns. Who else would like to speak on this? Ms. Drucker. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Quick question. You said something about a trade show that you were getting ready to go to for what exit I don't remember I couldn't hear the last part of that there's a Florida parking convention that has that has a different That we hope to find different technologies that will allow us to offer timed enforcement So we know exactly when a car was parked Okay, so I've met with a couple companies that do spacing in terms of like if you put your zip code and you're in this area It'll tell you what the available parking spaces are. I've had those meanies So I'll go ahead and share that with mr. Brown so that could start facilitating someone's conversations or if you go to this trade show If you could visit I'm sure with these Individuals because I was just at another city. I was in Maryland over the weekend. And they have that facility we were going into DC. And I looked up the app and basically tells me these are the garages that are available. This is the shortest one. Is this a mount? This is a parking space. It's not the cheapest one or the most affordable one. So there are companies already out there. So I just used one this week. so I'll send it to Mr. Brown. And then I actually had a Zoom conference a few months ago with a company that's doing that as well. And they would use like RGPS mappings or I guess they call GPS mappings, I think, or GMS or something like that, where they would tell you in your downtown where the park is available and they're using this throughout the Northeast and in other parts. So I'll send it to you in advance so that when you get there, you're... The challenges for us has been that most of our spaces are on street and so where parking garage can count the vehicles in their garage spots very easily. The technology we've seen so far for on street actually involves drilling holes and putting sensors in. So that is not... They weren't reliable when we looked at it before. So we're hoping that technology has advanced enough that we can move that way. And even if that's a case against, we always go back to innovation just because we're not doing it today. Does it mean that we can't do it for the future as a city, continues to grow as we continue to do government center as things continue to change with the center for fine arts. The technology that I saw identified individual parking spot as well. So if that means we have to be more innovative how to get there, then that's something we need to do. So again, always for innovation as we look for 10 to 20 years out, just not what we're currently doing today. But I'll show that information, Mr. Brown. Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, matter of chair. Oh, sure. Sorry, I have to win that. Thank you. No, I appreciate looking into this issue. I've also received many comments from business owners and customers who, especially whether it's the coffee drinker or the guy picking up his suits or whatever, where it's a five minute thing and the process for, quote, feeding the meter is longer than the business activity, the transaction that's happening, and that's discouraging to people and I think sometimes businesses. So if we can continue to look at new technology, yeah, I do, I think you have the sensors in the, I mean, in terms of knowing what occupancy is or the fact that you're not declared over time unless you're there for more than 10 minutes, I think you wouldn't necessitate. Yes, startic sensors, I think at FAU also has the sensors and the airports also have the sensors. So, you know, maybe it's a technology that we could start doing Wi-Fi. We don't need hard wiring or something like that. But then also maybe considering, and at a couple of key points, it's just my recollection. I don't know if we have a couple 10 minute spots. I don't know if we have any 10 minute spots. And I think we went from zero, from free parking to paid parking, but sometimes in other jurisdictions, you have some very few, but maybe just a couple, 10 minute spots, where people could just do that quick activity for a retail service. You're not there to eat. You're there to pick up your suit or pick up your coffee or pick up your meal or whatever it is. And so maybe strategic locations of just a couple, 10 minute spots might help us if you guys can consider that. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Wighter. Mr. Singh. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for bringing this up in colleagues for your comments. Just on the last point, on 10 minute spots, I think it will only work if we have new technology. We are constrained by what the technology we have now. And going back to Mr. Timberlake, you said we don't charge a fee for, quote, free parking, but there's a 30-second, 30-cent fee. Is that right? If we implemented the free parking and put it in the park mobile app, every transaction of park mobile costs the user 30 cents. Right. there are that's because credit card if you put in literally a nickel if you walk up to the meter and Selected 29 minutes as your parking time. It would be free, right? There would be no charge But under our current meter several years ago we implemented some process. I think by the post office Where if you put a nickel in the machine you would get that free parking a lot of the Regardless of any transaction you make if you make it at the meter it's whatever the cost is If you make it at the meter, it's whatever the cost is. If you make it on the park mobile app, it's whatever the cost is plus 30 cents. Right, and the reason we settled on a nickels, there was no technological capability at the time to make it zero. So suggestion for that in-term, and which I have a rolls of nickels is well, is carried, put some nickels in your car does save down some time. It's not for 30 cents. It's just you don't have to go through the process, drop the nickel in. And I would encourage staff to continue to work on this. I would not change things in the meantime just because you're not gaining a practical benefit to people. I will say this one thing about parking meters. We did encourage the reason the parking meters are there are not to raise revenue. They're encourage turnover. And the stats are demonstrating that where you've got average times of roughly two hours or less than some key hours. You're not getting people hogging the parking. So that is providing the public resource wherever belongs. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Senator Mr. Thompson. I was going to say roughly the same thing which is, sounds like we keep it the way that it is now. You guys keep tweaking, seeing if the technology can catch up with doing the kinds of things that may make it better. And then we can consider that, but in the meantime, I think it stays. So my final thoughts on it would be continued to be looking at the technology as well. But I also like the idea of a couple short term spots strategically placed. Like Mr. Wigder said, there are places where people run in for five minutes and it's more of a hassle and takes more time to feed the meter. And I don't want businesses to feel that they're suffering because of that, especially businesses that have been there long before the meters have been there. So if we can, when you come back to us after your conference and you look at the technology, maybe you can come back with some ideas if that could work in some places. Yeah, or doing something like changing the times, the hour since we see the peak, is it lunchtime and dinner time in Meiser Park and Royal Palm and mostly at dinner time, excuse me, mostly at dinner time around Sanborn Square, if we can tweak the hours and maybe make them a little later because right now they start, I believe it nine. Well staff starts at nine. Say that again. Staff starts at night. Say that again. Staff starts at night. So that's when we start enforcing. OK, because staff starts at night. So maybe if we can look to what the revenue change would be, and I know it's not about revenue, it's really about the turnover and getting people not to stay there all day. But if you can take a look at that, when you come back to us another time, we can have some continued conversation. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Rucker. Sorry, can I have a follow-up? Absolutely. When you all come back to us meeting when I go to Delray, like their times are very, very flexible before their peak hours. So anything I think there's before 12 or two I want to say in certain parts of like pineapple growth, I'll have to check it out when I'm back out there. So people come in and out and you see them, you see them going in and out of like places there's like a gym there or something. So again, I think it'll be important for us if we have that data of the peak times. I was in Meijner Park recently, maybe last week of the week before, and people were like with the meters, struggling with the meters. I was struggling with the meters because the light was off. I couldn't see it. I didn't have my readers. It was a whole thing And those are not on the mo on the app, right? Those are just on the meters like the ones on the inside minus and apart Every spot on the app, but maybe there was something that I couldn't figure it out. It doesn't matter I mean the place was empty at the time that I was there was pretty empty for for I think I was there like on a Monday or Tuesday for something. So again, looking at those peak times, if I was just going in there now for like an hour, like maybe we got to change that structure. Also, the companies that I refer to the one over this weekend was called Spot Hero. And I don't have information all I have is that I use the app over the weekend. I just did it on Saturday. And the company that I met with, which I do have tons of information on, which I'll send to Mr. Brown, is called Modi. And they use digital, M-O-D-I-I. And they use digital data, curbside parking lots, parking garage, and even private. So I'll send that to you. They did some kind of analysis with other cities throughout the state. They've used universities to Mr. They did some kind of analysis with other cities throughout the state. They've used universities to Mr. Wigdres Point. They use FIU and Ohio State. I'm looking at my document. I didn't bring it up then because we weren't there, but now we're here. So I think this is a good time. We meet with a lot of different people, not necessarily in our processes is the right time to address so I'll send all that to Mr. Brown. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Tucker. Anyone else want to final thought? Okay. All right. So we'll move on from that. Mr. Brown we have another report. Yes. Thank you Mr. Timberlake. Thank you Stephen. Ms. Riley our downtown manager is going to give an update an updated update on the OEs and the sub areas in downtown. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Riley. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Brown, Chair, members of the board. For the record, I am Ruby Riley, Downtown Manager. And today, I was asked to give you an overview on an expanded overview from what you had at the last meeting of the Office Equivalencies remaining. This is the subarea map with all the remaining office equivalencies by subarea as of August 26th. And from that we created an available for conversion and transfer table. So I'll spend a little time on this with you. Each subarea has remaining office equivalencies in the first column in blue. That is basically what you saw on the map. That is all the office equivalencies remaining in each subarea. The first column in that pinkish purplish color is for the application, Meiser Plaza, which is in process. And you can see they are looking to utilize various amounts of office equivalencies, totaling 184, 189 for that project, and that is because they are doing some transfers within sub areas to meet the demands of their project within sub area B, correct? Then the next column in pink is what is proposed based on what was provided to staff for the office equivalencies related to the center for the arts. And they are looking to use over 207,000. So when we took what was remaining and the second and third column away from what was remaining, you see the column in green, which says what's available for conversion and transfer. You can see that subarea A shows zero available. However, there is some office equivalency or square footage, I should say, of 7,929 of traffic. It's still available without a transfer. So, based on the numbers that were provided to us, there is still some remaining with traffic related to it for institutional. In subarea B there is a zero plus zero and that is because the 4,768 square foot of office equivalency is being used on the Meisner Plaza project for retail high and then 83,218 of institutional traffic for the TCAI. We also have available in that sub area 46,199 square feet of institutional non-traffic which has an office equivalency designation of zero. So that's why it's the zero plus zero. That is available for use within the subarea as well. Then subarea C, we have 27, 26 square feet left for available for conversion and transfer. It correlates to 331 square feet office equivalency of office and there's 5.75 residential units available. Sub-area D, E, and F have zero remaining or available I should say for conversion or transfer. And sub-area G would have 26,968 available for conversion and transfer and that comes from 91.95 square feet of OE's of office and 59.75 square feet of OE's retail high. So the bottom line of after these two projects are out, we would have 29,694 square feet of office equivalencies which could be converted to a total of 71 residential units which was a question we were asked to answer. And I think that, yep, that is it. Thank you, Ms. Riley. Does anyone have any questions for Ms. Riley? No? No? Okay. I just have a question, Mr. Brown, you can answer. Do we reserve OE's? No, we do not. The first come first serve based upon when the application is submitted and approved. Okay. So some of the applications that are proposed right now may have to wait until if we only have 71 residential units right now. If they're converting to residential and they have more than 71, yes, they may have to wait until there is a different plan altogether of how we continue redevelopment in the downtown beyond 4035. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Riley. Okay. Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown, do you have any other report? No, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Deputy City Attorney, Mr. Kailer, do you have any other report? No, thank you. Okay, thank you. Deputy City Attorney, Mr. Kailer, do you have any report? No report, thank you. Okay, I'll go on to Commissioner's report, start on my left with Vice Chair Thompson. No report, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Singer. No, thank you. Mr. Drucker. No report, thank you. Mr. Wigter. Thank you. Okay, so I'm the only one with a report and I'm going to make it as quickly as I can. So I have the I have the updates from Miss Riley who we just heard from of events in the downtown over the next couple weeks September 26 at 5 p.m. Myzda Park is going to the dogs literally bring your four-legged friend to bark in the park and enjoy their festivities, including pet friendly photo booths, a DJ, food for purchase, caricature artists, a chance to win a downtown bokeh gift basket, and even a pet psychic. Visit Meiserpark.com for tickets and more information. Here's what's coming up at the Funky Biscuit, September 26th at 7 p.m., a concert to benefit the Diabetes Research Institute with Becca Jane. September 27th at 6 a.m. the Oz Neuutrio featuring Jimmy Haslip and Anton Figg. October 3rd at 7 p.m. Billy the Kid and the regulators. October 5th at 7 p.m. ticket to the moon an ELO tribute. Tickets are available at funkybiscuit.com. September 27th at 9 a.m. join the downtown Booker Retail Library for Bright Mine Storytime. An autism spectrum disorder storytime targeted towards children with AST. Registration and the attendance of a parent or caregiver are required. Sign up today at bokehliberry.org and search the calendar tab. September 28th at 7pm and September 29th at noon, there will be something for everyone this weekend at the studio at Meister Park. On Saturday evening, legendary rap group The Sugar Hill Gang will take the stage performing their hits from the early days of the genre and on Sunday the rock and roll playhouse presents the sounds of Billy Joel for kids featuring the hits of the musical icon performed to let kids move dance and play while familiarizing themselves with rhythm and song learn more at the studio at MeisterPark.com. September 28th at 1pm Corvina Seafood Grill presents their first ever oyster rush event. Dive into a wide array of oyster delicacies, expertly crafted by their executive chef, Jeff Tunks. Indulge in their open bar featuring a selection of beers, wines, and their famous frosé, and groove to the rhythm of live music until 4 p.m. Secure your tickets at CorvinaBogetown.com. October 3rd at 6 p.m. the City of Booker Retown Night Market presented by the Recreation Services Community Events team is back at Sanborn Square. This monthly event showcases vendors featuring delicious food options, sweet treats, local artists and crafters, live music and more, the Night Market Series is free and open to the public. Learn more at MyBoka.us. On October 5th at 10am, bring the family for fun, free, centennial Saturday at the Bocoratone Historical Society. Called centennial for the museum's special upcoming exhibit, Bocoratone 1925 to 2025, fun, free Saturdays include free admission during the event, as well as a free children's craft led by local talented artist, Michelle Sherman. Go to bokeahistory.org for more details. October 5th at 5 p.m., the art world and the craft beer world collide at the Boquerton Museum of Arts, Art and Al Suarez. This annual event will give participants the opportunity to mingle with fellow beer enthusiasts, enjoy live music, and discover the museum's latest exhibits. Brewery's participating include barrel of monks, prosperity brewing, saltwater brewery, crazy uncle mics and more. Food will be available for purchase, get your tickets at bokehamuseum.org. On October 7th at 7pm, Beardgarten Boca hosts music bingo with host Wilma McAwesome. Wilma will lead you through the bingo game on your cell phone using the rock star bingo app, playing snippets of your favorite songs while hoping you know what they are and marking them off on your board accordingly. This is your chance to test your musical knowledge to win great prizes. Learn more at the Beardgarten Facebook page at facebook.com slash Beardgarten Boka. Thank you, Miss Riley, for those. So my very brief report is just to remind everyone to sign up, sign in and stay informed. I wanted to just put these up so everybody could visualize them. Please sign up for the circuit app. We'd love for more people to start using it. It's a great app. The cars are getting used, but they could be used a lot more. And I think once you start using it, you'll realize how wonderful it is and wanna keep doing it. So you need the circuit app downloaded on your phone. Please visit downtownboka.org for all the great events in the downtown. Please also put the MyBoka app on your phone. Just go into the app store, look up MyBoka, you'll get all the information about your wonderful city. And then, this was the last one, the Alert Boca, and I actually put it on my husband's fellow last night, to get all of the alerts, including emergencies, weather, and bokeh PD alerts, text Alert Boca, one word, no space, to 38276. If you put a space in there, you're gonna end up with alerts from another state. So one word, alert Boca, to 38276. If you put a space in there, you're going to end up with alerts from another state. So one word, alert Boka to 3-8276, you'll get all the information that you need. And last reminder is to please everyone support all the businesses and the small, locally-owned businesses that are in the downtown. I appreciate you supporting them. If you have any ideas or any questions, please reach out to me. I'm available by my email, by text, by giving me a call. I'd love to hear from you. And with that, this meeting is adjourned at 4.34 p.m.