So, this is joint meeting with the City of Gainesville to order for March 24, 2025 and 1 o'clock. All the City Commission order. Okay, and then we need a motion to allow Commissioner Cornel to participate virtually. Extraordinary circumstances. Okay, thank you, got a motion. second, those in favor of the most vulnerable virus side of our eye. The adoption of the agenda. Got a motion and a second. Those in favor of the motion will buy the sign of the agenda. The adoption of the agenda? I did. Got a motion in a second. Those in favor, the motion will be by the side of our eye. I'll try to get those opposed. Same time, motion carries. I dare you. Citizen comments through the motion. None? Okay. Mayor. All right. Do we have motion to adopt the agenda? Can you sit here? Do we adopt the agenda in a second? Okay. All right. Motion to second. If any, please come in. All right. I'll favor please say aye. All right. Any opposed? All right. We have a agenda. Okay. I just want to hear it. It's on your screen now. Okay. Yes. No. Is that? Yes. I had no idea. Let me go ahead and introduce it. Yeah, I'm going to introduce the notes that I'm getting a chance here. So the V thing on the agenda today is required by our Memorandum of Understanding between the city and the county for the GCRA. It requires a report once a year. And so that's what we're here to do. Madam Manager, did you want to make any introductory? You're just going to miss the fifth., I did. Very good. All right, let me introduce the Rick Smith, director of our GCRA. He will walk us through this. And you all feel free to ask questions. And we have good interest to have my cake. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I'm happy to be in front of other commissions again. This is an exciting time for GCRA. we got a lot to report on projects moving forward. I first want to draw your attention to the packet that we provided you. It should be include several items that are going to be discussed today. This is the official interlocal or not, excuse me, the annual report required to be submitted before April 1st. We also have a most recent version of the Downtown Ambassadors report from January. We'll be talking at some length about the Ambassador Program. And we also have representation from the Ambassadors in the audience. I'm going to have them come up and introduce themselves at the appropriate time. This gives you a little history of the CRA, which is our ancestor agency. The city has been doing redevelopment activities since 1979 and G CRA when it was formulated in 2019. It's just an extension of that same effort. One good thing about the GCRA when it was formulated, it allowed us to consolidate into a single district. And it allowed us also to move funding anywhere within the district where there was a priority need. That was not the case with the community redevelopment areas, which tax increment financed and they were restricted to geographic areas and the most money was in the areas that probably needed at the least. We now have a more equitable distribution of county and city resources to focus on East Gainesville and downtown. These are the five transformational projects for GCRA. We have been pivoting into these five main projects, consolidating revenue from other funds or other programs and focusing on these five. We have cornerstone G Tech at $25.9 million, 8th of the Mwoldo, $13.7 million downtown, $12 million, Hartwood at $5.7 million, and $2.3 million for the Fifth Avenue Pleasant Street, Heritage Trail. Bear in mind that this is the total revenue, total budget projected through FY29, and that's not cash that's currently available for use. Let's go first to cornerstone with the $25.9 million budget. It does have funding from other sources. As you can see, the $4.1 million from the Federal Transit Authority Authority to help pay for the RTS transfer station that we expect to be built or to be ground broken on by the end of the fiscal year or the end of the year. We also have 4.5 million in ARPA funds that was used to assist in building the U.F. Health Clinic on the site. You can see the estimated uses of that $12.25.9 million in addition to the four-minchend costs. We have $3.8 million for road construction and infrastructure for the Cornerstone Project. We had about 450,000 in mitigation at Cornerstone Phase 2. That would include tree and wetland mitigation. 5.62 is allocated for, million is allocated for G-Tech renovation. About a little over 225,000 for design and 220,000 for white electric property. We have set aside 6.98 million for development incentives for a lot for which we are going to be doing RFP for growth shortly. And other development pads, as you see, shortly we have several of the development sites. This is cornerstone phase one, with site planned in 2015. The GTEC building you see there is A, was built in the year 2000. So it preceded the other development proposals for the site. Site plan created potential for close to 50,000 square feet of parcels in the zoning which is UA would allow between five and eight stories to be developed on the site. Some of the things that we've accomplished in FY25, since the fiscal year ended for FY24, we launched a Food Trucks Cornerstone initiative in January. We're undertaking construction documents, design documents, or walk-or-architectTech refurbishment. Plan for the rest of this fiscal year is to complete the infrastructure network for cornerstone phase two. We look for that to be complete by June. Release an invitation and negotiate for a grocer and spring our summer. Prepare a market study to identify the range of marketable uses on the existing development pads. We look to begin construction of the G-Tech refurbishment. No later than beginning a fall of this year, and we'll be beginning construction on the RTS transfer facility probably by the end of the calendar year. We also are developing plans for the cornerstone market that will support local entrepreneurs in a pop-up format where we can have weekly markets to supplement the food truck initiative. Our next project is the Northeast Eightth Avenue of Waldo Road site. Back in 2022, both commissions approved expansion of this site to west of northeast 14th Street, which will pick up the GFR facilities identified there as G&D, also the recreational facility, Martin Luther King and the the the back field area. So in the beginning of 2023, Parks and Rec with the assistance with the assistance of financial assistance from GCRA, hired CH Johnson to identify potential economic development uses for the site based on renovating the MLK Center with 40,000 square foot addition, building a 5,000-seat citizens field with track and synthetic turf proposed five ball fields with lighting and synthetic turf on the northwest corner of the site with a thousand parking spaces They presented this proposal in October 2023 to the City Commission City Commission charged us Gcr with evaluating or or hiring a firm to do a land use study and financial analysis of what could actually do build on the site. We put out a task assignment and eventually hired NB5 formerly known as CHW and June of 2024 to evaluate opportunities to rearrange the site to assess the the mixed shoes development potential along Northeast Waller Road, develop street scape designs for Northeast St. Avenue, and Northeast Waldo Road. And then the term in the five from this analysis has determined that only two tournaments sized fields could be developed at this location. Do you want questions as you go or are you wanting to wait till the end? As we go, I would prefer Mexico, Houston. So you said it was evaluated for a mixed use potential. I assume that that evaluation didn't come back with a good potential. That's why you're... It's kind of psychonstrained at this point. Okay. You know, there's not a lot of access to Waldo Road except at the current parking areas south of the ball field, which is why we have not included it in the assessment. So what we have accomplished in FY 2025, most of the work done by NV5 has been done since the end of our reporting year. They engaged in internal and neighborhood stakeholder meetings from October and November. Conducted a public workshop with about 130 attendees at the M.O.K. multi-purpose center in November. In December, they briefed all of the city commissioners on the findings from the first stakeholder engagements in public workshop and they presented a conceptual site plan based on all that input at a workshop number two at the MLK Center February 18th also brief the Elatua County School Board on March 12th and in general policy committee meeting in March 13th. Out of those last two meetings, they're developed an agreement between the school board and city commission for the city and school board to enter into negotiations on the status and treatment of citizen's field, funding arrangements, and someone had, those meetings have not yet taken place, but they're expected the next couple of weeks to be initiated. So, planned in FY 2025 is developing the preliminary streetscape for Northeast State Avenue and Northeast Waller Road and prevent a final revitalization plan for the project in this summer. Is that the end of that? Can I ask a question about that? Certainly. Original budget was a very high number. Oh, it's 52 million? Yeah, but the budgeted amount for this project. At least for GCRA is about 13.7 million. Right, so is there a prioritization of the projects or is that like based on the community meetings and the commissions? We are still in that process of coming to a final plan for evaluation. There'll be costs associated with them, prepared by NB5, so the commission can figure out what the funding needs are for the different facilities. We do expect citizens field, either as a renovation project or a new construction project to, you know, to probably between six million to 10 million for renovation, and about 30 million for a newly constructed facility. So it's important, let me interject that we were missing a piece, that because this is the GCRA report, you can see what's been budgeted through GCRA. There's also many centi-side through wild spaces, public places, hopefully through agreements with the school board, because if we're going to do citizens field the way that they would prefer to be done, then they're going to need to participate. And they're aware of that. I mean, I don't think there's any misunderstanding there. But GCRA's financial participation is only a piece. And not a small piece, but probably not the, certainly not the majority of what it's been there. But we're unable to really address the other pieces today. So. Okay. We have Commissioner Cornel with the question. Peace, we're moving. Thank you, Chair. I'm sorry I'm out there today, folks. I appreciate you for letting me participate. And Mr. Mayor, Mayor Courney and Rick, thank you for extensive backup. This is, you know, I know I say this every meeting, but it's just really nice to see the level of detail that you're providing us. My question is really kind of a carry on to what the mayor was just talking about. I had heard and read about the school ward's potential involvement in accessing additional funding sources to the state. And I just, if there's an update on that meeting and the general policy meeting about that, I'd love to hear it and I'm encouraged to hear that those talks are being had Thank you, Mr Thank you So I'm happy to give some update some of the update on things that are outside of what what Rick does the school board had a meeting last two weeks ago now and Asked charged rather their their staff with talking with city staff and and at the GPC meeting a week and a half ago, the city commission charged the city manager's office to work with school administration. Because last week was spring break, they have not had those meetings yet, but we know that there will be decisions on both parts to be made. We haven't made any of those decisions yet and we don't even really have a good list of what those decisions are to move forward with. So I'm always right to say, here's what we're going to do and here's what it's going to look like because somebody's going to insist that, well, the mayor says that's what it was going to be. And so I want to be real careful that we have not made any of those decisions yet. But that is one of the sets of decisions that will need to be made, frankly, that isn't even before us yet. The very best news, I think, about the entire eighth of Waldo process is that I'm starting to hear a little pushback, which means people know in the community that things are actually happening. As long as there was no pushback, it meant nobody believed it was actually going to happen. But now we start to hear good questions from the community, so that tells me that people are understanding that yes, this is real. That's really the best information I can give you at Commissioner Cornell. I don't have a lot of specifics beyond that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Go on. With the adoption of the Downtown Strategic Plan back in October 2022, GCRA had a final A framework in which to invest part of its budget into the revitalization of downtown and during the course of the recording year, the GCRA has been very I've been making that pivot. Back in January of 2024, with the City Commission approval, GCRA reallocated about 12 million in its budget to implement the strategic plan. It created and seated a Downtown Advisory Board. This was the first advisory board for downtown since the downtown redevelopment advisory board under the former CRA rubric. It's comprised of seven members. A lot of them you're probably familiar with. The major stakeholders in downtown have been active in downtown life since we've been revitalizing it. They've been meet the first, excuse me, the first Tuesday of every month. They have been meeting ever since. They have passed a budget. They have, you know, opined on various programs that I'll be discussing with these commissions about. All right, let's go through these one by one. One of the commission's agenda, City Commission's agenda's request was to create a downtown events program pilot in order to fund some of the smaller scale events in downtown. The GCRA allocated about $100,000 towards that,000 towards that end. It's a very small grant, a straight-up grant of about $5,000 per event. Ultimately, there were 18 events that have been funded since June of last year. We reopened the event budget at the beginning of this year to finish off the remaining trance of funds available. So all $100,000 available has been used to support downtown events. The City Commission approved the Block-by-Block company to support its investor program. They did so at the August 15th meeting. I'm not going to speak too much about it now. I've got several slides and I want to introduce the leadership when we get to that point. The downtown advisory board adopted the downtown strategic plan budget. Up about 1.885 million. I'll be showing you the contents of that as we go forward. There was also a survey of a Downtown Needs Assessment. I'll talk a little bit about that. That was done in late summer. in the early FY25 time, the GCRA began creating a downtown, permanent downtown events program and amending a business improvement grant program tailoring it primarily to the Fifth Avenue Pleasant Street and downtown service area. It shows you funds available for downtown. They include, or they are minus the appropriations and expenditures that have already been made. The downtown strategic planning budget with the ambassador program is basically a $3.1 million appropriation that we have set aside. So it's not reflected in this budget here. Same with the college part if there was a $292,000 allocated to the FY25 for the ambassador program and what we call the West University Avenue area. As you can see is the FY25 operating budget. Major highlights include a $350,000 contribution to the Grace Marketplace supporting 20 beds and Grace Marketplace the grace marketplace. At on 39th Avenue we have looked at the utilization rate of those beds and it's close to 100 percent each night. We're very happy with that number. We also find close to $300,000 the public works downtown detail or as we call it there, the downtown clean team. That would include both public works employees, as well as contractors who do the cleanup on the weekends. You can see the ambassador program contribution there of 719,000, and this is specifically for the downtown. It does not include the West University corridor, but that includes 520,000 devoted to safety ambassadors and 199,000 to the clean ambassadors. And then we have our marketing. And we have a question by Cornell in Commissioner Prithi. Certainly. Oh, thanks. Thanks, Chuck. I was just going to say after this slide, I very much appreciate those three expenditures for grace. The Public Works Downtown team and the Ambassador Program. I think it's a great use of funds. And I'm seeing a difference, and I hope that it continues. Thanks, Chuck. Okay. Commissioner Prisya? Yeah, I too appreciate the program. I think one thing I would like to ask the city to consider, and Nalga also asking my commission to consider it. I think that the bed's program is a really great program, but currently right now, the way that it's structured is those are 30 day beds that somebody can be in without any kind of case management and I think it's causing challenges because those people aren't necessarily plugging into the case management and the wraparound services and the things that are necessary to like transition them into housing and transition them and mental health counseling, all of those pieces. And so I think as we look at that program's success, I think thinking about how we could add that case management level or that lower that 30-day threshold and ask that we as a group of folks think about maybe funding the case management portion of that as well so that those people aren't just in and out showing up at seven and then leaving at seven in the morning and not being a part of sort of the long-term strategy of getting those people off the streets and into housing. So that's not a criticism, it's just that I think it's just a less learn as we go, but that strategies might be, and I know that will be a bigger conversation with great staff as well, but I just want to put that out there. I think we might want to think about that as we move on to the success of this program and expanding it. Thank you. I just want to put that out there. I think we might want to think about that as we move on the success of this program and expanding it. To finish up the budget, we have about $100,000 devoted to downtown events and the business improvement grant program has about $332,000. I'll get into that, you know, talk about that program in a little bit of depth here. We rebranded, as I mentioned, the business improvement grant or big program, as we call it, so that we've broken into two cycles, competitive cycles. We created a rubric where we evaluate and prioritize which grant applicants were more worthy of receiving funding based on the priorities identified in the rubric. We wanted a competitive cycle because of the limited amount of money available. Instead of as we used to have it which was first come first serve, of allocating the funding. Over the from December 1st, you had a grant cycle from December 1st to February 1st. We received probably 12 applications. Ultimately only six received funding. They would have included a couple of bed and breakfasts in the southeast historic district, the Mount Oal Mount Carmel Church in Fifth Avenue Pleasant Street, and also the Florida Theater on University Avenue. Get into a little bit of the downtown needs assessment. We had a very robust response to it, about 1,400 folks, which was double the number of responses we had to our downtown strategic planning effort, engagement effort back two years ago. 200 of the respondents lived within the boundary. 182 were business owners. thousand were thousand were visitors from outside of downtown. So that was good to see what people think and what they need to downtown to be like in order to visit. Some of the key findings we had, provide services to the on-house population, address vacancies to support businesses, safety, cleanliness, walkability, and activating downtown with events. With our budget, especially through the ambassador program and our event program, we've tried to address a lot of the needs that were identified in that survey. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. It was recently in a small town in Georgia where they had taken the empty storefronts and read the city had actually paid a stipend to those store owners and used those to do city presentations. So they walked down the street and you could read about things that city was doing. Which I thought was really innovative. I thought it was a nice way to utilize the store fronts and engage the population while the places are in transition. That's the top of our mind with the GCRA. We're developing a program of how to deal with anti-store fronts. Can we do it through culture? Can we do it through official, as you mentioned, performances or simply wrapping it where it doesn't look so foreboding and forbidding? So, some of the activities we've accomplished since October, we've launched the Downtown Investor Program that went live on December 2nd. We amended and launched the Business Improvement Grant Program. I gave you the statistics for that. The next round for that program will be in August. We'll have a similar amount of funding, including rollover from this year's prior cycle. We finalized the design and funding approach for the streetery in February. I'll talk to you a little bit more about that. And we amended the Downtown Events Program so we would have funding available for not only small grants, but also larger grants where we seek through solicitation, major promoters of events to come to the city. That will be a competitive process, so it will be evaluated by the Downtown Advisory Board and will be coming to the city condition, whatever the selection has made. Well, we have planned for the rest of 2025, the downtown event program, launch the second cycle for the big program, complete the construction drawings for the streetery. We expect that to be September or October and then begin construction in fall or early winter of this year. Let's talk a little bit more depth about the downtown ambassador program. I mentioned that it's a three year contract with two, one year rights of renewal. It currently costs about a million a year to fund the mostly operational aspects in the ambassador program. About 85% goes into salaries, benefits, etc. The first cohort of the workforce, I've mentioned this before, but there is repeating. Nine of the 14 members that were hired had experienced some degree of homelessness in their life. So I think they bring a bit of empathy and understanding unique to them. Some of the things that we look for out of the program are these safety engagements where they're basically on their everyday duties. They circulate throughout the district, interacting with the unhoused population. We're very pleased with the success that the Ambassador team has had. Safety escorts, providing escorts to those who walking late at night to the cars on the fringe or periphery of downtown. Documenting and reporting is very important. It was specified in the scope. You've got a copy of the latest report that we have available. It's been well recognized within the Block-by-Block organization as being of the highest quality. This is a company that has 170 clients doing the very same activities they're doing for us. And then finally downtown cleaning on the periphery of downtown, out by Porter's quarters and the power district in Sweetwood Park. This is the Avastor service area. Doesn't occupy all of the downtown environment that it does pick up where most of the activity is. At this point, I'd like to introduce the leadership of the Investor team. We have the Operations Manager, Kaleep Gamble. We have Eric Davis, who is the outreach coordinator coordinator focusing on household issues. And we have Jason Stewart who is a regional operations manager. He works in Ebor City and downtown Tampa, but he has been great service to our team here. And also we in absentia is Jason Hatley who helped to start up the the program back in September through December before Jason Stewart took over. He works with downtown vision and Jacksonville lose Scott a very stellar record. You like to come up and say a few things, Khalif? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You guys see what? Yeah, that's good. So my name is Khalif Campbell. I am the operations manager. They're going to bring you a better. Oh, okay. There we go. All right we are. So my name is Cleef Campbell. I am the operations manager for downtown games and ambassadors. We are currently comprised of 10 safeties, two cleaners and one outreach coordinator. Rick pretty much hit on our district and what we do. Most of the time you could find this and bright Highlighter green shirts if you haven't seen us yet. We operate on bikes. We do have a Company truck that we also use and we're also on foot so at any time You know you can give that number a call and you guys also have the pamphlets with our Duty number and there we operate from 7.30 in the morning to midnight and that is seven days a week. So at any time we're available if you do need us. Rick did mention that we have a security aspect. Pretty much if anybody is downtown they are feeling unsafe about where they need to go. You can give us a call and we will escort you to wherever it is within our district. As far as the cleaning aspect, we do have two cleaners that are around downtown everywhere, cleaning whatever it is they can. Most of the times they do have materials and tools on them so they can tackle the graffiti stickers and paint graffiti. That way they're not shuffling back and forth to the office. And as Rick also mentioned, our outreach coordinator, Eric Davis, is working directly with the unhoused population to get them services that they do need so they're not on the streets of downtown Gainesville. Eric has about 135 clients that he deals with in downtown that are un-house. He's been able to put in 25 of these folks into permanent supportive housing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So Eric, may I ask you a question? How do you all divide up the time then that the work hours that's a lot to cover for that small group of folks? Say you know I'm sorry. Okay, you're talking about the hours that you all are working. Yes, ma'am. You know, and how do you all cover all that? Oh, so we have. Seven days a week and that's a lot. We have a rotating shift, so we have three schedules. schedule. So we have a morning shift that is from 7.30 to 4 p.m. And then we have a mid shift that starts at 12.30 and they end at 8 p.m. And then we have a mid shift which runs from 4 p.m. to midnight. Well, I don't know. So it's a rotating shift. Yes ma'am. Thank you. Thanks for all the work that you all are doing to help University clean. You mentioned all of the housing that you're doing. That's like an unbelievable number. Like almost like it's a really powerful number. So it's wondering if you could share like your strategy for finding permanent supportive housing. If you are you working through the continuum of care? Do you guys work on your own? Do you have your own batch of housing that you're working with or landlords that you're working with? It would be great to potentially cross train and understand how that's happening because we have we are what I'm talking with a lot of How many specials were really experiencing a corn-junk permanent support house? There's not enough housing out there for the people who need it. So it's exciting to hear what you've done. Yes, sir. Hey, can everyone hear me? I'm a'm Ms. Wheeler. So I'm Eric Davis on the outreach coordinator. And so actually to update the numbers a little bit, I think I'm at 160 people in the P.O.I. system. And 31 people have actually been housed as of today. And so I think the most pragmatic and realistic approach to ending homelessness is going to be creating spaces that don't exist. And it's actually something that I started doing back in 2018 at Grace. I was there four years. And then the prior three years from taking this position, I spent as the director of housing services at St. Francis House. And so when we look historically throughout the country, college people can go anywhere and they can run a room in a fully furnished, all inclusive space, right? That includes high-speed internet, streaming or cable, sewer water trash and electric. And it's like a pretty affordable amount right it's typically between like five and eight hundred bucks most of the time and so if we look back before then single-room occupancy is something that existed when we were an industrial nation and when people would travel from town to town to work at different mills they they could run a room. They called them rooming houses. So I just look at the historical context and then I looked at the reality when I first became a case manager at Grace and they were like, how's people? And I was like, okay. And then I quickly learned that the majority of people that we work with are on a very fixed income. So it was either create something that didn't exist or just accept defeat and I wasn't going to do that. So basically what we're doing is we're getting out and befriending private property owners and then selling them on this dream of you're going to rent your property out anyways right. Passive why you own real estate So what if we could get your properties rented and We could create a space to create these pseudo family environments for people who otherwise may not have a choice And when you give it to them like that and then it's a win win And so just continuing to nurture and develop those relationships really is the easiest way because it also allows me in real time the ability to work with somebody and if they either have their money saved for moving costs from working or social security or we're able to access through the help of grace and other social service providers moving costs assistance, then we can literally take someone that same day and put them in a home. And so that also overcomes all the barriers that typically are associated with keeping people in homelessness, like bad credit, no credit, you know criminal history, maybe an older victim. So being able to overcome all those barriers with the help of private property owners has been a very effective tool that we continue to do to this day. How are you all handling like the wraparound case management for those individuals? Because many of them have been chronic, they've almost for a while and they have challenges with you health or other just finding jobs, things like that. Correct. And so, to me, that's always going to be the piece that is missing a lot of times in any social service industry is having like a case manager specifically geared towards people who are high acuity. And so since we are downtown and a number of these properties are downtown, it has given me the freedom and flexibility to be able to kind of provide some of those services, but also getting people in touch with other things like career source. Every Wednesday actually at the downtown library branch from 1130 AM to 130 PM, they have an entire room they're dedicated to job searching, interviewing, resume building, interview, technique, stuff like that to help folks get jobs. And so basically, just learning of the services that are available and how to connect folks to those. Another thing is in the state of Florida if someone's experiencing homelessness there's a form through the state that I actually carry around in my backpack and I filled one out today to give to a young man so he can go to college for the first time and his tuition and fees will be waived. So people actually have access to free college education. It's about learning about these tools that exist that may, a lot of folks may not know do exist and then helping them become knowledgeable of those tools. Also, you know, connecting folks to whatever services they may need. And so two of those 31 cases ended up needing assisted living facilities. But again, if I was to pass the buck and like, so go here do this, you know, one had dementia the other had Alzheimer's, right? And specifically the one gentleman who had Alzheimer's, he had been very successful financially throughout his life. And he, when he ended up back downtown, he was actually in a permanent supportive housing program. And so, because of his cognitive issues, he could not remember where his social security was. He could not remember where his two pensions were, one from GM and another from GE. So again, it's like put on the detective hat and go down the rabbit hole. What we did, and he's now an in-assisted living facility. So who's we? I guess that's what I'm asking specifically. Are you doing the all-in-case management? Yes. And your team? Okay. Thank you. Yes, my word. You're welcome. It's a pleasure. Looks good on you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Yes, my work. You're welcome. Looks good on you. Thank you, Mr. Brown. That looks good on you. Mr. Chair. Yes. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Casey. I have a question that probably they can ask. The safety escorts. What are y'all's experienced with that? Is this people late late in the evening or is it spread out during the day what types of suits need the safety escort? It's typically from 6 p.m. to about midnight is when we start getting the calls for service for safety escorts. Primarily it will be the downtown area and since the kids are fluctuating back and forth between school we do get some calls for service down on the or West Avenue. Okay, thank you. Okay, Commissioner Quinnell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 31 cases is really a great, great number. I really appreciate what's happening downtown with the city right now, with this program and with the folks that are actually doing the hard work You know each case is unique it requires empathy it requires trust and You know if I were there I'd stand up right now and hug both y'all. Thank y'all so much These conversations bring me back to the need. You were talking about finding places, you know, that are not there making available. This is one of the things that I keep talking about this of the property across the road from your plans. The eighth and Waldo property, at Edmund's Jones, Edward Jones. There are office spaces in there small enough that wouldn't accommodate anything more than a bed, a place like a rooming house, you're talking about my great grandmother, the random rooming house. That facility there has so much to offer in terms of what we need and addressing some of these needs, as well as the community needs that we're talking about. If you all haven't seen it, I understand our staff has seen it. It says it needs work. Most of these places do when they change owners. They do need some work. But it's so vast and what it has to offer the community and what we're trying to do for the community that it's worth looking at. The other place that we have housing opportunities that we keep somehow not able to access is talk a chale. There are dormitories, there are cottages there to accommodate the special needs people that you found. There are those two gentlemen, or those two clients that you were able to work with. You know, there are opportunities on those two sites that would accommodate a whole lot of the population that we're trying to house. And I don't know, you know, I'm having a hard time understanding why I'm not able to get people to go look at it. I think our chair, you went to look at it. Do you see that the way I do or do you see it as not as too problematic to take it on as a solution for some of these things. I think it's a... It could be done but you know it boils down to resources and that's the...I think that that's the major issue in terms of resources being available to be able to do that and to have it done. I think that that's the key. I think that the property is going for like five million dollars and so where do you get five million dollars and then you have to renovate it to bring it up to standards and all of that stuff so that's that's the most okay we'll look at it from practical stuff okay but I mean it could help it could help but I mean it could it's willing to get in there and do that HUD has already told us that they would go into Tucker Charlie and he'll be Herpes those buildings there. Oh, can you talk about Charlie now? No, I didn't even ask about I didn't even ask about the other one. You know, I mean if we're using it for community housing There got to be resources out there too that would help to accommodate and I'm just saying don't throw it away before you look at it. Don't you know, this happened to us at Cusco Willow. When we were voting several times about not getting it, not getting it, and nobody had even been to see it. And so I would just encourage you to go look at it if you hadn't. It's not that hard to get somebody to walk you through it. all of of these rooms that you're talking about, there is a whole one wing of it. It's just office space. And there are small offices. There are big areas. There are kitchen areas in there. There are bathroom areas in there. You can divide it up between, you know, whoever you want to. However, it could be divided any way you want to. But I would say don't throw it away until you go look at it. And it may be if it sits on the market that long, you'll get a better price on it. And if somebody needs a write-off, maybe you'll get all I'm asking you to look at it. Just look at it. It won't cost you anything to look at it. You are all looking at me with dead eyes. I'm telling you what. I think several of us have been out there. Have you seen the show? Okay. And toward it. Oh and toward it. It is a vast facility. It is that. I think it was the former health department. Yes. And it was something else. But and something else. It was the boys club at one time. Yeah. It. Come in there. Long time. Yeah, it is huge. It is huge. And at the time that I went to look at it, the owner was interested in swapping it for the Thomas Center. Interesting. No. I'm interested. No, no, no. No, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. Yeah, that's when I went to look at it, but it's in the vicinity too. It is right across the street from where you all are trying to develop the building. Right, right, right. We just don't have five million. Well, somebody's got to do. Somebody's got, OK, then the other issue with Talk of Charlie, I think that Hutch worked on that for a very long time. There are a lot of state constraints there. So I think he dedicated his career to looking at it. Well I've been working on it since he left. Okay, okay. He handed it to me and I've talked to everybody that I can and they're very protective of it out there. But I also see an increasing need for a large range of special needs populations. We're having a huge autism, you know, autism is a big impact on a lot of families. Kids who are aging out of foster care, kids who can't be placed in foster care. I mean, it's the big enough complex it could be divided. I just want you all not to just, you know, not consider it because, you know, the state may see someday that they don't want to bother with it anymore. The University of Florida may not want it, you know, so I just want us to be ready to jump when the opportunity presents itself because it's a massive opportunity to expand the services and to expand job opportunities for our community. The end. Thank you, sir. Mr. Book. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I'm very familiar with the property. It's been many uses. Like Commissioner Chesson said, the issue with zoning and land use is a big one. But we do that. Don't we do that? We do that. That's us. So, at the next point. Okay, go on. I'm sorry. I won't interrupt you. I'm sorry. I got your passion back. I always kind of think when you look at big parcels, you're right, there is ownership and there is property that can be basically occupied in Takachali. So that's true, because that already has capability, it's already built in such a way that has housing and that's different from the Walter Road Quarter, which would involve a lot of of stakeholders there For example, I would never move forward on something like that without talking to DuVol, are from porch community Lincoln of states North Lincoln Heights and there because they are big partners About what occurs right in their backyard. So for that piece that to me would would start with, what do those communities right there start with? The Takacalli idea, which I know Hutchwell's work on, is an innovative one, because they already have the components of living space. There. Now, it says Mike, Mike, two cents. It is good property desirable property in a lot of space. I will. We'll go to the road. I. I'm turning it back to it. So we have we have seen. I heard you that's all I'm asking. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I'm just trying to turn it back to the downtown area, Mr. Director, I feel like we have a lot of good components. The ambassadors are working. I think I'm supportive. I think probably everybody around the table is supportive. It comes with a price tag, but it comes with a price tag that's changing the culture of downtown. So it's worth it in my estimation. When you talk about the culture of safety, cleanliness, those are key for people to come downtown. Then we've dealt with Southeast First Avenue, and we've rerouted it, redone and reconfigured Southeast First Avenue, which looks terrific as a CRA component. We're working on a streetery component. We have garbage receptacles that have sustainable components. I see our, what's your title, Dr. Zuh right now? Chief Resiliency Officer behind them. So we're doing some innovative things in the way that we do with trash and recycling downtown And I just think we have a lot of pieces that are working downtown including a park right next to it a historical center of Museum that are making that a Real welcoming and vibrant space and so I appreciate what the CRAs do and as it relates to downtown with a lot of components, not just this one, but good job. I think the strategic plan really has helped guide us in the decisions we make and that priority that we place on them. We focus more on the operational aspects of downtown, the clean and safe part. That was very highly emphasized by the commission over the last two or three years and I think the ambassadors are helping to implement that. I agree. I agree with your real quick. So it sounds like this is a great update Eric because I think we talked a lot about the ambassadors and we weren't exactly clear about some of those opportunities that we just weren't quite aware of. We know what race does, we know what some of the city funding towards race does, we knew what the county does with permanent supportive housing. And but we also, within G-CRA, we've got some of this back towards grades with those support services. And we knew that investors were going to have some impact with our homeless neighbors. But this is really good to finally, to hear some of this, it sounds like it just opened up an opportunity For ambassadors to do a piece that perhaps grace doesn't do normally or or as in depth It sounds like you had some opportunities some creative you been opened up to some creativity Which I really like the county does does it slightly differently with their permanent supportive So I think this is a really good example of like it's all hands-on deck and we have because we've made this, a very large commitment from G-CRA dollars that the city made it. We're tapping a resource that wasn't naturally in the plan of perhaps grace in this volume or the county's permanent support of. So, and I think there may be challenges, it may not be perfect, but I think it's a really good example where because we have made the investment and it sounds like y'all are really, particularly Eric, you have really taken this as a personal, you know, a real, I don't know, a personal, a car as a mission. It sounds like we're getting good results out of it and so I really appreciate you and all of what the downtown ambassadors are doing because this is a really good up guys. We're digging way into homeless policy as opposed to just G-Series R.A. But the G-Series are the master of the downtown ambassadors are doing because I this is a really good up that we're digging way into homeless policy as opposed to just G. S. R. A. But the G. S. R. the the master of the downtown master plan and particularly the survey said this is this is what downtown is to us cannot be separated from how we deal and how we support our homeless neighbors. So I feel like ambassadors are really achieving that. And so we don't want to bore all with every last homeless policy, but it really is where these two things are coming together. So I think this is, you know, the city manager and to Rick, this is really, this is really, really accomplishing it. I think what a lot of people wanted out of ambassadors that it wasn't gonna merely be saying, oh, tell them most folks to move on. And this is we're really seeing the data. So this is great. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Josh. So we've gone far afield of the update, but I do wanna address a couple of things that I've been mentioning. It is worth driving home the point that the City of Gainesville does not have a homeless services department. We don't do that, we're not equipped to do social services, certainly speaking. That is, the county does social services work and you all have people who specifically do homeless services. We contract with primarily grace but also with other organizations and through what we do with the downtown ambassadors, there are now that there is now yet another organization who is involved and each one of those organizations takes a little bit different tack on how this works. As I think Commissioner Willis was was alluded to. Everybody's got an approach to it. It's not that any of those approaches are wrong. They've all got different charges and then different approaches based on those charges. Eric and downtown ambassadors have been able to take a little more entrepreneurial aspect to the whole thing. And that is something that the others I'm sure are paying attention to but it is limited by the number of housing spaces the number of homes available. I want to specifically address that yes Tachali is a great opportunity should the state ever feel like they can give up some of those maintained, well maintained homes that exist there maintained and unoccupied for many, many years. That would be wonderful. That would solve a lot of problems in our community should the state decide that those are available spaces. But right now they're not. We have a variety of plans that we could set into work within weeks to use those spaces, but they're not available. I would say, and I said this jokingly, but I'm very serious, if the county wants to invest and the Jones Edmonds property, nobody's stopping it. We would have to, if we were going to do that out of, we tend to look at programs or at presentations like this and see millions of dollars going by, these are all committed dollars. I mean, we have made commitments to spend these money in these ways. And for us to find the money to go by a space for five million dollars, and then go find money to staff that because that has to happen too. He just opened it up and said, okay, there's a place to live. You got to staff it then. For us to do that, we got to not do a bunch of these things that we've already said we were going to do. And I don't see us going down that road to say, nope, these are great ideas that we've We're just not going to do it anymore because there's really great space open across the street. I feel like I need to express it that bluntly, because yes, it is a great space, and I've been in there twice. I walk through it with their realtor. It's a fine space. I also don't know that taking it off the tax rolls as a smart decision, would be a smart decision on our part. It has been, you know, for most of the last couple decades, it has been a revenue-producing space for the City of County and the School Board to be able to do other things with and has brought people doing highly paid work to East Gainesville. And I'm not sure trading that out for low income homes is the right thing to do with that space. I think a better use would be to continue to have people being paid well to be there to spend money in the community. I think that has large long-term implications that are good for everybody. But there's a sign on the property and anybody who wants to take a look at it and make an offer, certainly welcome to, we're not stopping. You would love to see someone making an offer on that property. But it is unlikely to be the city of Gainesville. I'm on one vote, but I don't think We're heading that direction. So thank you. Thank you. I'm just glad you're doing it. Twice. Twice. the city of Gainesville. I'm on one vote but I don't think we're ahead in that direction. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. Thank you. Certainly. Hey, Chuck. Okay, Ken. Got you. I was just going to add one more thing. Yeah. To add the floor. Sure. Yeah, before we move on, I want to also kind of echo what I just heard the mayor say. And Mary Ellen, I am scheduled to go see that property. I do think that's long term. I agree with Commissioner Book that that would involve a lot of stakeholders and a lot of long term planning and resources and like the mayor I'm not in a position to commit that with the county. I think our commitment is plain and and very clear with the city right now with the programming that they're doing. One thing Eric mentioned that I hope it wasn't lost because it was quick, but it was spot on is that because he's on the front lines, in addition to interacting with empathy, he has the ability to also interact with the supply and the single room occupancy and the landlords that are renting out for 400 and 500 a month. And that is really short term and long term the key to dispersing our unhoused population within our community. And so, you know, when it comes to making this investment, I'm with the mayor and with Casey on this one. And we are making an investment. We are the biggest investment of the CRA. I mean the county is the investment. I'm with the mayor and with Casey on this one and we are making an investment. We are the biggest investment of the CRA. I mean the county is the investment in the CRA and I very much appreciate the same bachelor program and how they are reaching out to the unhoused downtown. That's the purpose of the CRA to house folks and eliminate blight. And so I just wanted to make that point because I agree with what Casey said. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir. Eric, did you want to thank you? Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Well, I'll skate through these statistics. You'll find them in the report you have in hand. I just like the color schemes I think in match well. There's Eric doing his best. And we have received some praise from folks since the beginning of the program from the Continental and Empowerments, UF Innovates, as well as the McGurrman Management Company. I've all found it suitable to comment favorably on the work they're doing. I'd like to thank the staff for the investors for coming in today. I thought it important that the City and County Commission got to meet them. County can be our city commission met them back in December when they kick off. I want to talk about the street rate. That was another major milestone for us this year. Back in September 2020, I believe it was that the city commission established the street rate in response to the pandemic in order to get some outside dining. I'm trying not to impact the downtown restaurant too much. August 2022, the commission made the streetery a permanent presence in downtown. In 19 or 2023, city sign to contract with JB ProB. Prode to put together some conceptual designs over a nine month period with the basic charge of correcting existing problems, making the street flexible and programmable and closed, as well as being agnostic on whether it would be a temporary or permanent closure. I think they achieve those in quite well. You're all aware of the difficulties surrounding the streetery in terms of the grading, the pondering after a storm event. So the work that we hired JB Pro to do was first and foremost to take care of the problems as a street. What they came back with some of the high points is basically a curbless street where you can go from one side or the other without tripping over a curb. You have street lighting and fully programmable tree up lighting, which allows for a more festive environment programmable that you can change. The dimming, raising or lowering the light, light, we also can have different color schemes based on the seasonal event that you're trying to promote. There are 40 power receptacles that are plugged into the design, partly the pun, for events and programming. Currently, you need to bring your power with you if you're a you know a vendor or a boot truck out there. You have an expanded area for outdoor seating You have retention of the live oak trees and the planning of six others in areas without a canopy and you're reconfiguring a of the state attorneys parking lot to allow to allow exit on to Southwest First Street rather as it currently exits on to Southwest First Avenue. And then finally you have retractable ballards and adding planners and furnishings. At October 26th, GPC meeting, GPC approved in concept the design to permanently close the Southwest First Avenue between South Maine and Southwest Second Street. They instructed us to have public engagement which was held December 11th, 2024 at the hippodrome I believe we had over a hundred attendees opine on the various designs and materials that would be used December 5th and the January 7th the DAB made a recommendation on the streetery and a February 4th meeting of the G crab that would be-CRA advisory board. They made a recommendation as well. In February 20th City Commission reviewed and approved the proposed designs by City Administration, instructing public works to go forward with a construction design documents with JB Pro. Talk about some of the programming capacity. Markets or festivals up to 72, 10 by 10 pop up tents, 16 food trucks could contain a 20 by 30 stage at music festivals, and combinations of the above with less 10s or vendors. So we're getting the program ability and the flexibility that was desired up front. Stradery costs and funding, about 3.2 million. You can see the costs are allocated there. Some recommended funding sources are the GCRA fund balance, local option gas tax, as well as the tree mitigation fund. The next steps going forward will be final topographic and utility survey underway. Maximum price identified by October 2025. Commence construction on late 2025. and then complete construction mid-delay 2026. Next project we have up to describe as a heartwood neighborhoods at 34-unit subdivision. City has been serving as developers since 2018. October 2022 is when we first broke ground on our first house in Arwood. A lot of activity has occurred since then. We've had 15 homes occupied in FY23, 11 dreams to reality for market rate homes. Three market rate homes were for sale at the end of the reporting period in October 1st, but I'm happy to say we closed on them over the past two weeks so now we have all 18 homes built they're now occupied we have currently 16 lots remaining to be to be developed yes yes yes what what were the sale prices for the market rate homes? the neighborhood of? The last one sold, we had to lower the price from about 319 to 275. That's okay. And you did okay? You did okay? We did okay. Honestly, nothing in the neighborhood was selling for more than 230,000 within the past six months so we were we were well over what the price point was for the area. Since we're developing nearby it's adventurous. Thank you. So what we have remaining to do for this year is to work with our architect and builder to value engineer the remaining the rest of the lots. We want to maintain the same look and feel of the exterior. So there's not a you know a dramatic change in what the exterior product looks like. So that value engineering will curl the interior furnishings and fixtures of what have you. But maybe a little change. A little change in the architecture so that it's not all the same. It is, there is enough variety where we won't be confronted with the same house being next to one another. And it's better than a lot of subdivisions I've seen there. I have a question. On your previous slide, you said the average cost to bill was $300, $2,000. That's my expensive. Well, it has been rather challenging the last year and a half with interest rates and construction costs being driven up. Probably going to get worse too. I believe it will. I think that's a safe bet. So how do you market? Well, with the last three that we sold, we had to take a loss. And that's where we're going to kind of sharpen the pencil with our architect and builder to bring down the price, more commensurate what the market will bear in terms of house price. All right, thank you. So if I can interject at this point briefly on that we arrived at this model because that's what the neighborhood wanted and and that's what the City Commission we then put from the County Commission at you know three four years ago at this point yeah yeah let's let's move forward move forward with this. So that's. That's all right. It was even on the commission. Yeah, it's a market rate. So we've had further updates every year. We we talk about this. So that that's how we ended up where we are. It's not where it all started, but it's what folks said they wanted. And this is what market rate rate is and probably toward the low end of market for new construction so okay commission to Cornell thank you mr. Chair I completely could hear you how about now yes okay yeah thank you Chair. Now, I agree with the mayor here on this one. You know, we are waiting on the RFP back on the 13 acres to the immediate east of this and looking for market rate housing residential neighborhood. And it should it should meld kind of nicely with this development and hopefully help it, but the market rate is market rate and so I think Realizing that and and go ahead and moving that unit makes a lot of sense Thank you, mr. Okay, thank you Yes Just a couple more slides I want to talk a little bit about our northwest Beth Avenue Pleasant Street here at Australia. This year we signed a contract or this reporting year. We signed a contract with community community planning collaborative out of Jacksonville who have done several heritage trails throughout the southeast and in other parts of the country. We have been having neighborhood engagement sessions ongoing since March. They've created a committee of stakeholders within the neighborhood to help drive what this projects going to look like. We have asked them to submit grant applications to support augmented reality, where you don't need a physical structure to identify the history or gather the history. You just go with a QR code, and it'll provide visual information for you. We've also modified our business improvement grant program in order to to focus on the Heritage Trail businesses along Northwest 5,000 out. So this overview is where we are. We have a draft trail plan and that CPC has been gathering. We'll be going out to workshop sometime in April to present that plan to the community. We hope to bring the final plan to City Commission for the final trail plan and budget approval and then go out to RFP to identify a vendor who can fabricate and install the landmark or the markers. We look for the project to start and earnest physically in late 2025 and by May 2026, the fabrication installation should be complete. And finally, the Gainesville Airport Gateway Project in October of the City Commission approved $100,000 to match what the County Commission approved to develop a master plan for the Gateway and the corridor. We'll be working with County staff to identify a vendor to prepare the plan We'll also be putting out requests for stakeholders to Serve on a steering committee where we they can help guide the product of the plan And finally the implementation of the plan and with that I'll be happy to answer any additional questions. I'd also like to thank my staff who did yoga and work helping me prepare this. Back to they were the primary authors and generators of the product you have in your hand. One of them is two of them here. Mo Diel, you know Mo, and Daniel Blumber. He was the primary author of the document, but we had lots of other help back at GCRI. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions? I have some questions. Well, first thank you. Thank you for the verbal support. Like Mr. Cornell, I really appreciate these updates and meetings. I appreciate that the broader communication with staff and keeping us up to date really helps to for us to be able to communicate the impact you all are having on a day-to-day basis of our constituents so that when I hear they're like, what's happening anyway? I can say actually a lot and be able to have the backup. So thank you very much for this. It's really helpful. On the The Heritage Trail, I did have a question. Is any of the budgeting for continued operation? One of the things that I find happens a lot with these types of projects is they get installed and they're beautiful when they're first installed. And then five or 10 years down the road, they aren't so beautiful anymore. And unfortunately, nobody's budgeted for sort of how to maintain those things over time and so I just and I for one to actually have that issue at US with another project that I have to oversee so it's it's top of mind these days so what's the operational plan? We would be turning these over to the Parks and Rec and we had been talking with Parks and Rec about the funding needs for ongoing maintenance. It's certainly top of mind, if you will, for us as well. The consult that we selected is given us different types of materials and construction techniques to prevent tagging, but also to ensure ongoing maintenance and durability. Well, yeah, not to get in the weeds very much, but I would very, very, very much emphasize investing in that material front. Like, it's worth every penny because it makes a huge difference in how long it lasts, how much UV it can take. If it's a gray versus a picture that can be sprayed on, those sorts of things really, really do make a difference. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also, very good presentation. I appreciate all of the detail also. I have a quick question again about the Downtown Ambassador Program. Is there are there cards or any, how do I share that safety number with folks? Is that posted down 10 places that I haven't seen it? We can get you some of the collateral material that would take people quickly to the ambassador's contact. It might be a cool thing to have business size cards or something for people to have in their wallet side. I believe they distribute. They visit businesses every day. And they're contacting our distributors. So the bars and places like that have the information that I have some out of town for young young people coming so I was going to share the information. We have lots of those cards so we can share with you. Okay great thank you perfect thank you. Thank you for all the up to the direct. I also just want to thank the county commissioners in the county. I know it's been, I was counted up 40, 40 some odd years since we first started. The first CRA in 1979. It's striking when I go through all of these from Puzzles Creek that they have a new downtown college park. The goal of this is always been for both city and county tax dollars that are within a specific area to be reinvested back in that area to have capital projects that are within the city working together as one partnership. And when you look through all of these, I mean, through all of the weeds and through all of the stuff that we are going through with the ambassadors, all of that, all of these have been revitalized significantly I mean, Fifth Avenue Pleasant Street since 1979, that was huge. When you start looking through downtown and figuring out when things started to move, it was a direct result of creating tip funds in downtown that were reinvested into downtown. We would not have anywhere near the downtown that we have if it weren't for the creation of the CRA, having staff down here. just thank you guys for hearing us and if you guys have any thoughts or ideas or anything related to the CRA, we appreciate your partnership with all of us. Okay, Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, I'm really sorry I can't be there today, guys. This is a great update. I feel like the decision we made six, I guess, six years ago, five or six years ago, to really focus the investments to downtown and east of Maine are starting to happen. I mean, this whole presentation, E-Headie, Artwood, the downtown investments, eighth and Waldo. This is what I envisioned, at least as a county commissioner, making sure that the county dollars investing with the city to many of commissioner Eastman's points is exactly what I envisioned. So thank you for the work, for the report, Rick and and manager Curry and really the leadership of the the city commissioners I really appreciate it and look forward to the update when we have the next one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I would be like whatever but I to Brian's point I guess I just want to say that I I do really appreciate everything that's going on and to on the vacant spaces downtown and the vacant spaces that are around. I do think that that's something I'd like not I know these millions are committed I get that but like I would be something that I'd love for our joint boards to talk about and think about like what are some of the strategies that we could do maybe it's maybe it's not this money maybe it's some kind of future money or resources but I do think thinking about the way in which we support our existing small local businesses to gain access to affordable retail space and vacant buildings could be a really powerful way for us to do economic development and revitalization and supporting our sort of growth management strategies of having mixed use so I'd love to chat about that both in our activity centers at the county as well as in in the city centers and it's something that I thought a lot about and I think I'd love to talk more about it. Okay, Commissioner Chess. Are you taking comments now and other. This is on the. We hadn't got the public comment yet, but we just getting the commission's comments, I guess. Let me presentations. I fell one in to follow up Commissioner Prisya, Mr. Chair. The really great idea that it's just kind of been out there because Franklin City has not funding to work on it is the idea of creating a fund and there was some conversation years ago with with chamber commerce and with the University of Florida about kicking into everybody kicking into a fund similar to the CRA but not the CRA That could lease out some of the empty spaces and sub-least them at a loss, a subsidized rate to folks who otherwise would not be able to ever rent those spaces because many of those spaces are not built out. And until either a national client comes along with the resources to build out the the the Grand Floor Retail or some other organization builds it out. They sit unbuilt until by time. Because what those many of those buildings, the financial covenants that come with them indicate that they have to have long term leases and that they're not going to build them out themselves. So there is a need for some creative decision making on that, but all that flow is from having funds available to get time. Thank you. Okay, if there aren't any more comments, we go to public comments. I mean, public comments. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'll never comment on this. Okay. This is public comment on the item, right? Yes. This is this public comment on the item, right? Yes, on the item. Yes. Yes, please. All right, as you all the line up, please. Thank you. I first want to... I wish Eric was still here, Eric from downtown ambassadors because I want him to know the next meeting of the Housing Authority, the Lachikani Housing Authority, is Wednesday, April 4 at 5 o'clock, 7 blocks up the street here at the Costa house and getting landlords to open up is been one of our hardest nuts to crack. We really need to pick his brain. And you talked about a food hub or for the East Side Development of food hub. It was maybe a year and a half ago. There was very serious talk about the food line space and a food co-op. And it seemed people were really interested, really serious. And then I don't know what person on high command that never talk about that again. So I really like to know why that went away, because it's still desperately needed. And it's like in the building is sitting there with nothing it certainly is a great opportunity so I wish you would bring that back. I like what I'm seeing and the other areas that are talking about the developing. I've heard of the CIA being a little bit I think so I think they're doing some good stuff. I hope that, well, in your general public comment, I'm going to say something about our uncertainties that are coming. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jan Schupperd. I'm the myself, the people's representative for years. I started in 1979 when I moved here hoping to be a mayor or commissioner of this city and to bring the ideals that you're now bringing up. These are visions and ideals that I had back in 79. These are things that we've been kicking and can down the road for the commissioners and mayors to stumble over, but not activate. They're not activating because they're saying that we don't have the money. Well, they have the money today. Really need to look over the amount of managers they've had, their expenditures they've had, a true audit done of the city finances, expenses that they've expenditureed to take and get a true look of what our city needs so that we can take and build on it. This AARP work project is something that should have been done back. I'm going to say seven years ago and this here is something that would have helped East Gainesville the talk of Charlie's topic. That's something that's been kicked down the road also. The people there have no voice and so we need to make their voice be heard by having, and now look of what we brought here today. It was an excellent ideal and submission towards the future. This homeless ideal, I haven't seen a girl at a bit. We have John Carmichael, we have other people in there that have just, on my point, pooled the money away and not actually helped the people. If you talk to the homeless people, give it homeless people a voice, then they would be able to take an answer, give you the answers that you need to know to take and grow and help them to take and have more. There's another outlook that's going to hurt you. There's a trailer park called Lamblater. Now they call it Bedrock and Pinewood Estate. That there is a factor that is going to hurt the city. We're going to put the people there. I'm one of those people. The benefit is unlawfully and now I want to seek an attorney. But attorneys won't represent me because I'm not a Democrat. I'm a Republican. Republican. Rebuild efficiency personnel and that's what's needed to be done. Okay, thank you, but thank you. Thank you. Hello, Patricia Lee here and this has been an interesting conversation. First of all I want to say that an ask of a property is not necessarily what has to be offered. I don't think there's anybody sitting around this table who has ever paid about a car or a house at the price that it was on the sticker or that was asked of them. So I'm wondering why we sitting here talking about a sales price when what we need to do is talk about how we can solve the problem that this particular property can solve for us. And it can solve multiple problems. Second, no one would want to put another tax-as-the in a lot to a county. It's got too many already, and especially not on the east side. So, but why would we overlook a property that could generate millions of dollars in taxable rent revenues if we were to put a viable mixed-use project in place, I know that you all must understand it, because I'm sitting around the table, looking at people that are very highly well paid folks around here, so I know you must understand that. And here again, it is on a major thoroughfare that would support the kinds of activities that we will put in there that would include residences because it is a large property and it can accommodate a lot of things and a lot of things that have been issues for East Gainesville for decades. But it won't just benefit the residents of East Gainesville, it didn't benefit the South Carol County, the state as a matter of fact, and beyond, as well, all of those new people that are coming in here that need and would want to see this kind of thing. For what? I can even be my right now, I was right so fast. The passive tax income that generated that you use that come from the citizens to run the, what government is supposed to do as well as the extra things that you promised to do to try to make your neighborhood and the lives of your citizens who elected you better. It's not the only source of revenue. There is a lot more money than you all have or have ever had. But all it takes is somebody wanting to go after that money who would be willing to collaborate to get that money. Because there are even some foundations with billions of dollars in assets, more money than the county city county city combined that we could go out and we would be willing to work together. And since I'm listening to all of these negative things about what we won't do and what we can't do and what we don't have the money to do, it kind of goes back to the frustration that these things go people have. They don't want to do they're not going to. So it's just why it's hard to help. Thank you for listening. Oh, and I'm going to applaud the homeless self-decided folks. They have a great program and there's an open-table program that incorporates the churches that help them with what they're doing. But if I want to think about that, too. Any further citizen comments? If not, are there any county commissioner comments? I mean, a thing about this presentation or... Basically, county commissioner comments. Oh, okay. I do. I do. Yes. I spent Saturday with welcoming the folks from the world masters. And we have people from all over the world who were coming to us. Very nice countries. And you know what? A lot of these folks are not wealthy people. They're just working class people who saved and saved and saved. It's the last meeting to come to this community. We have a list list of things that will do better next time. When we have people come into the community. But one of the things that I was well aware of that we didn't have the transportation they're used to and they're home countries. And so we really need to work on transit. They want to see the community, but out at celebration point, it's hard to get downtown. It's hard to get here to see Depot Park, because of the transportation issues. And so what they're having to do in order, if they can, they have the bus, the transport is right there. But if they had passes, if we, I was aware that if we could have given those people passes, they could have gotten on the bus at any time to go anywhere around the community, and that might be something that we need to look at by sickles. They were asking if we had bicycles, that they could get on and go to see the rest of the town, because there are a lot of, sometimes there's two or three days between their their events and so they wanted to get up to the springs and they wanted to see the butterfly garden and of course that closed the day after they got here which is unfortunate. They want to see, let's see the things that you know the track we were hoping to use at Cone and that was closed because of repairs you know our timing we work together, I think, better as to time these things out for each other. There were no calves and no ubers at the airport available to bring people in. And that's just because we're small town community, we're not used to having this world come to us. You know, and so, you know, we're making a list of things that will make us more amenable to travel coming in. We had, and one of the things to bus pass is at the stage, the stage evidently we had some miscommunication with the city too because we were going to use a city stage and then a week before we didn't. So I'm understanding that there's a lot of communication that needs to be approved across the university and us because there were opportunities the university could have helped us a little bit more too. But it's going great. I'm going great but we're very much much aware that people coming into the community who were working in high spring or trying to get housing in high springs or a lot of it because it was cheaper. Our prices are high, especially as we try to accommodate, our UFAT at the way that families and people coming in. But I don't know if there's any way that we can accommodate groups like this any better or not. But it's going to be a big discussion that we're going to be having. They're here until next Monday. If there is something that you all have in the city that we can disseminate to them with bus routes, we didn't have anything like that that we could give out to people, you know, is to where people would take. You know, we're learning, we're learning. But... to them with bus routes, we didn't have anything like that that we could give out to people, you know, as to where people would take. You know, we're learning, we're learning. But they're also giving out awards at 10 o'clock every morning in front of Sporeers. I think it is down in that area. If any of you all would like to come, give an award to somebody's neck, put it around there. They would love to have us come do that. And I got to see the 80-year-olds running hurdles yesterday morning was amazing. I'm just telling you. But their events are free. It's an amazing thing. So come when you can and take part. Because like I say, these not wealthy people. These are old people looking for fun and kept themselves up. We had 100 years old people there who really are 100 years old who are working. I mean who are doing this kind of thing and it's remarkable to see. And they're having such a good time and they're bringing their whole families. And I really like to be to sit down down but transportation has really been a problem. There used to buses and trains and gentlemen trying to get up to high springs asked if there was a train. We go up there. So we had to try to move him from the area where there's a man from Poland who was working construction in Ireland. And he didn't speak a lick of English and he was traveling by himself. So we were able to get him extracted from high springs, get his money back in his pocket, and then we were able to find him housing here, too, to get him closer in. But that was the kind the troubleshooting that we were doing. A family of seven who was up in a latch away and didn't realize it was so far away and had to pay $40 for an Uber for one trip in. So these are things that we're learning that we will work on for sure. But you all come. It's really exciting to see these folks. And they're just here just to have a good time. And they want to see the springs. They want to, some of them are even going to drive down to Miami in a couple of days. They have here not realizing how far down that is. But they do. Please tell them. I know. I know. I said, well, there's a train, but you have to eat but anyway. but it's exciting to see and they're here to have a good time. And if you all can, go down, you know, give out an award 10 o'clock in the morning. Every morning. Thank you. Isn't it here? Okay. Okay. I guess that turned out to be near to any of the citizens of New York. Cynthia, okay. Thank you. Well, my comment was going to be to say congratulations and thank you to the County Commission for landing the World Class Athlete. This is quite an event where the first in the United States to land it. I don't know if this is an annual event. Can we? Two years, every two years. So if they give us two years and come back again, we'll have all of these curbs worked out. No, that's a great idea. That's a great idea. And they tell us that this is the fastest track in the country. The ones who've run it, they've run others. We've had, I've heard that, and I'm asking for more feedback so that we can convince our constituents that we didn't make bad decisions. So I think if we get this again, I think perhaps a better coordination between the staffs and the tourist development council, but this is phenomenal. And thank you for bringing it to Gainesville. Put us on the map. Yes, definitely. Commissioner Chestnut in two years will have some events over eighth and Waldo. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very forward thinking. Oh, really? Because we can use it. No, we can absolutely use it. Can any of you? I just wanted to ask if we might be able to get an update at our next meeting on the East Side Urgent Care Clinic that we both invested in from University of Florida and if we might also ask Meridian to give us an update on how the Central Receiving Facility that we both invested in is doing if they're seeing the numbers, what kinks they might need to have worked out. So we could keep those, I think both of those projects were successes that we did as collaborations and I want to make sure the operations and implementation of them were as successful as the capital investment. So we have already, we've asked for for that update from UFF health and we get that one to make sure that you all have it So we don't have to wait for the next joint meeting but one Sure one very very positive thing is that of course the urgent care center started out as an urgent care center But the response has been tremendous. They've had to add primary care. Great. Starting at 8 o'clock in the morning. That's fantastic. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is, it's related to some of the conversation about homelessness and SROs. But just, I don't know if the County commissioners were where we did, city, we did update our SRO ordinance to make it a little less restrictive about, I think it was the number of bathrooms. Just to make it more feasible that somebody in the future particularly could do a new build or renovation because the previous code was just a little, I would say, a little out of date, a little more restrictive, a little more thinking, less the old school boarding house and more what maybe modern people might want out of their own personal home versus people who just need to just roof over. So we did that was about a year ago or eight months ago and so we'll see how that you know comes for whether we have any action on that but we did update that because that is something that City staff was already working on and aware of as over our overall you know look and some some members of the community to come forward to talk about that. So I just wanted to make sure that was in that conversation because I don't remember now if ours no longer matches with the county, but I'd have to look into that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Okay. All right. Any other comments? Okay, hearing none. At this point, I want to thank you all for excellent presentation to us in terms of the update of the CRA. And at this time, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.