Community and Economic Development Subcommittee

All right. We are live. It is 532 calls or in this meeting of the Community and Economic Development Subcommittee. We will go right inside another one. Is there any public comments or non agenda items? Say none. So we will go right into item two A and I'm going to hand it over to John Thunderbird and restraining order senior planner to take it away while I bring up the presentation. That's go ahead. So evening subcommittee members and council member John joins and Angelica. Well, first of all as well, we are here this evening to discuss the bliss Avenue conceptual design and development that was prepared by place works. They presented us with some conceptual designs for four parcels that are located along Willis Avenue, and Reese has been working diligently behind the scenes to try to prepare for you and work with Place Works and and looking at how that area can be redeveloped. I'll try to activate the corners. So we're looking at the horror of what's in it. We're also looking at this area. But without further ado, I will turn it over some relief for right here to the presentation. Thank you, Mr. Fund, America and the remaining members of this committee. My pleasure to address you today. It's especially exciting for me because I've lived in this area for the past ten years, and the breadth of a new corridor has always been an area that I think has great potential. So it's a privilege for me to be working on this and being part of the process that I believe is going to transform not only this corridor but that whole area. So with that said, the city has written in place, works consulting to develop the conceptual site plan across mostly owned parcels located along with urbanity. This is close to the Pittsburgh bus station area. The subject parcels are also within the railroad, but plan certainly known as the rest, and it's included in the transit related area. The purpose of this task is to develop design parameters and development concepts that are needed to create a six foot transit oriented body for the service site and West Avenue corridor. The conceptual plan provided by police work is intended to demonstrate a feasibility of a robust, mixed use concept and establish the design parameters and context for developing zip. Follow competition. The city's most. This slide basically shows the city owned properties outlined in the Green left side shows the the fleet, the cocktails or car rental site that is city owned and the other beacon site adjacent to it. There's also city owned and then to street corner. This is also the city of on site. So these we believe would be the spearhead to spur the kind of development and ambition for the area. So what you're about to see is what we believe the city is going to do. But our vision entails pretty much everything that you see in that slide. But yeah, so this slide shows the street views the two sides from the various intersections. And the next slide. Now, this slide shows the concepts that these works have come up with to the left. You're going to see the street side where we have the different uses of also color coded. We had to go this site one and then also a massive study on top. So from a point of view, you see the different uses and how they relate to each other. And then on top you see how we are stuck up and how we have a descend to one another. So you can see the plaza area is a ground level concept where there is a corner retail building and then that one and then a cross one that is also mostly ground floor retail. But there's also a hotel on top of the podium. And the green cautious that you see rooftop looking spaces. But within all these different uses, there's a public plaza that we believe will really activate that area. And then next to it on the other parcel will also be a mixed use structure that has room for retail and also parking for the most part, know on the ground level behind a retail. Then on top of it, it will be various residential types. We have the five story residential and then we also have the three stories of the podium as well. And then today, extreme right corner. You also see mostly a mixed use residential type of retail. And then that particular development will have that open space across the street, which could also serve residents within the residential development. So this is the first initial concept. The next slide. So before we look at the anticipated between the hotel site, just to give you an idea, there's 83 rooms as far as it as is displayed there. And then on the residential side, there's a potential we we're talking about the railroad and other side of 101 units. So it kind of gives you the backdrop. And then on a commercial building, it'd be 23,200 square feet. And there was some discussion before about parking along railroad and making sure that we had more adequate parking because there were going to be some phraseology that relevant uses that were going in. And I remember the discussion before about having additional parking on railroad because there were some adjacent uses besides that don't use commercial uses that could kind of work parallel. We have additional parking on it. So that was taken into consideration with the concept here. So this actually shows the two concepts that we have proposed. The first one is the one that I described in concept two is similar, but in this case we set up a ground floor plaza. That plaza is on top of a podium, so there would be a walk up stairs, flight of stairs that brings you from the street out there. And the reason why we thought this would be interesting to explore is that you can see off of railroad you have traffic that is cuing on to get onto the freeway. So we felt some kind of separation between all that traffic and where people are hanging out would be appropriate. So you would have retail on the ground floor, but then you would also have a plaza on top. And eventually we're going to show you some images that could see what that looks like. Now you see the hotel has been pulled all the way to the corner. So that is actually going to mark almost like I would call it an anchor to the entrance, you know, into that particular area. Whereas the other iterations would go this recessed looking space on top of the retail area. So those are the main differences between the two. But the option to also allows more retail along all of the ground floor as opposed to the Brooklyn retail in the first concept. Next slide, please. So my sense that it shows the different special arrangements and vertical stacking or the different uses, the purple color again is the hotel, The red is the retail, the gray is the parking. You don't see much of the parking because they are all behind the retail. The gold is the medium density residential and there's a three story on top of the podium and then the of the orange is the five story residential. So we'll be asking you in terms of which of the two concepts that you prefer. And then I think the pinkish cover is actually the plaza area. So in there, just on the surface, on the ground floor, it comes all the way down. The second concept is on the podium level. Mentioned next slide based. Now, this is the other development at the corner of Harbor and once again is ground floor retail and upper floor residential. The lower of the the lower in terms of height, it's the one that is closer to the street. And then because of the freeway that that falls on us, the orange is closer to the back with a huge central courtyard that would provide usable open space as well as rooftop spaces in the green area as well. Next slide with Mr. Masson on that same development. Next slide. Okay. So this is kind of in terms of how one rendition shows how these structures are going to relate along with avenue, this space in between shows, the restaurant and all of the other uses in between. So that's the relative distance between the two structures divide and we've kind of brought them closer doing up a little bit. So you can see how they stack up against each other. Next slide. This business of the concept of what option two, where that plaza is on the upper level kind like. So you see the taller might be that hotel and then retail on the ground floor and then on top of that retail could be hangout place where I work. You want to go and get a glass of something. So in the details here, this is kind of telling the story as a domestic. So you see the five stories and you see the old audio, you see the underground plaza and you see the parking. So the parking would be in recessed behind this. So you can walk in to the parking, you can walk through the actual area, kind of like the open space that the public plaza would have some decorative murals. We're thinking trying to create it, activate that space where it becomes a public space. So the idea of the public space is to make it complete with all the amenities. So people who work and live in this area could also mass there and congregate and have a place to go afterward instead of having to go somewhere else and either shop or eat or die. And they could do that all there at that location. Thank you. The next slide, please. This slide actually shows another building concept in this case. That corner there emerges in that corner is actually open. It doesn't have any penetration. It just opening. You can just entering there. Then you see some kind of flight of stairs that takes you up to the podium level. So this is also another concept that we could explore in terms of the option to. But option one basically is this no podium. I mean, just retail and then the plaza on the ground floor, actually. Now, that's I don't know what happened to it. So yeah. So that next slide I did. So the next slide would actually if you sometimes if you visit rooftop hotels and you have that open space area where they have a fire pit and they have a little lounge area and they have some outdoor patio structure and tables and seating and stuff like that. But in this case, this would be more hardscape and it would fit within the decor or the actual. That's what we're talking about, the podium. That was kind of what we were talking about it in the restaurant. I want to put this slide, but you kind of will pass it around to give the idea what we're thinking about this. So staff is requesting feedback on your proposed initial concepts from the City committee and like I said earlier, it's exciting for me to to be part of this effort to see the whole Avenue new corridor response. And I believe you must be too. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Maurice. Thank you, John. As Ruiz mentioned, we want to be back on this. Before we do that, our level said a little bit and then also addressed the group. This is very preliminary and this is plan. Well, we will take it a couple of steps further. Our intent is to basically provide a deliverable that looks like this with a vision board that has an idea of what we're looking for. The goal here being that if we sort of can identify what we have seen in this area, then when we go out for an RFP, when we seek a developer, we try to find somebody that maybe can do the entire LA. We will have a baseline for what the city expects. So there's nothing said. So we're not doing secure as of now, none of that. This is a very preliminary idea to get your feedback and your vision of what you all want to see here. And I think before this exercise is done, we will visit the entire Planning commission and the entire city council because we really want to make sure that we're getting everybody to weigh in on this. So when we do bring forward a project, so what the city wants to see now, the elephant, or at least one of them, is this is Paul Ruiz's reference in three or four or five stories. But realistically, when we look at seven, when you when you account for the podium parking now, that's all it is. Why we want to have the parking. We want to be real estate about what's doable. Two floors of underground parking, especially in extraordinary was not doable. Two floors of podium parking is doable. When you do that, you still have to account for the density that the Railroad Avenue visitor plan allows for and what realistically somebody is going to have to build for this kind of expensive parking to pencil. But we want to hear back from you all. If this is not what you envision and what you want to see, as much as we want to hear what you do, like we want to hear what you don't like and the ideas that you have so we can take those back is your reference. How many stores is the hospital again? I'd say that's a good question. I want to say six. Yes, 75 or six, but I think it's six. You know, I would estimate that a seven storey building because you are going to have taller plates as well. Call this level plates or a bottom floor for residential. It adds to the esthetics, but it also is what's necessary if you're going to have that retail. We said retail would be reserved for the office, hopefully restaurants right like that. That's what we're going for. Realistically, some sort of building with a first floor plate that's 15 is going to be probably close to eight feet tall. It's this fall. But with that said, I want to open it up to the subcommittee members before we open it up to the public to get some feedback and answer any questions you have. So we'll start on this side with Vice Mayor Gillings in our initial thoughts and where we've been in other iteration. As we're looking at the concept, can we share just a little bit about the shift and adding the hotel into the mix? I know last hour went our meeting. It wasn't included, but now we're looking at it. Is there in terms of why move in that direction? Is it feasibility, Is there just interest? There's that time to that, that component is there. definitely interest from the city and we continue to hear from developers that they see 1 to 2 more hotels working in the city of Pittsburgh. Timing is everything on this, but I think we would like to start with what we would like to see and hear from the developers as to what they see. It's very likely a developer might come to us and say, Look, we don't have a hotel arm, we can't recruit somebody. Is this a sticking point? And that's going to be something that the city council ultimately and the property is going to have to decide. But, you know, there's a good likelihood that there's going to be a significant affordable component as part of this affordable components bill pay property tax. So when we start looking at that, okay, how is the city going to recoup, you know, and continue to stay solvent? And one of the ways we do that is to bring in users that are going are going to generate money. TLT is a significant revenue for the city, so we would like to propose a relatively small hotel, we think, and what we're hearing that that could potentially work and it would add a real estate component on that corner, but it's not something that's set in stone. So that's not what anyone would like to see. They revisit that. In terms of the two concepts, I do appreciate the elevated plaza for the fact at least it is some type of component autonomous operation right there at the intersection next to Highway four. I think that's the other elephant in the room in terms of traffic and that this is one of the most busiest intersections in the city. I know we talked about that last time right before the subcommittee. We're just looking at the design. So I don't have a lot of issues. We've already been talking about the density for a while now in terms of the 300 units, I'm not opposed to the hotel, the elevated plaza. I would prefer over the on the floor at that corner. I guess to your point, the other larger issue for me is the massing. Specifically when I look at the harbor and lists I like, it all looks just connected like this big block. And I know if that can be broken up in any way, that's all going to be one building or 15 separate the two or three especially. There's this longer one that's curving. Just thinking of the massing. I know, like I said, we're going up. This is a big change in terms of the look, the feel of a suburban city like Pittsburgh. But this is what essentially has been committed to with the rural average specific plan. And these conversations around this avenue. I'm appreciative of the parking that is being included because we know that's always a major thing. We're still looking at how it's going to turn out with what we have on the railroad. Now when it comes to bargaining with the commercial and residential on railroad. So I imagine that once again, not only for the commercial component but for the people that live there, but parking for people that visit and everything else that goes along with it. So we want to keep the parking component. I appreciate once again the inclusion of the open space with a rooftop. Open spaces will be that brings another dimension and some of the things that we've been talking about when we're looking at density overall with state legislation is, is this the minimum that it is? Is the 116 units per acre or is that something that we're calling for in our local zoning? Are we tied to that as far as the number of units per acre, if we did want to reduce potential density, and I know that we start talking about the delivery and personnel for development at that point. So what is there a minimum floor that we have here in terms of the units? Right or no? Is the short answer. The fact that we control the site, we have a lot more ability to say, look, we want you to construct this, but as part of the purchase and sale agreement, we like to limit certain density. As if this was only privately owned, we'd probably be talking about or the amount of density they have, But we do have a little more control. I would say the hotels are a good example and while I do think the hotel would be great if it was something that didn't really generate an interest from from this group, just allowing that hotel to become residential. I mean, realistically, when we talk about the total density, we've got about four and a half acres where we've got 300 plus units for half acres, but a big portion of that, about two acres of that is hotel retail parking. All of a sudden you eliminate that three storey hotel and you shift some of those residential units over. Okay, Now you really like the density, the realistic density there. And so that could potentially be something we look at. And by the way, I'm more than happy to bring back multiple iterations for you to consider. You may extend the work period of place worth, but if we're not working on the entire one, which is in 40 minutes, 3545 emails, which right now I'll hold off on the rest. A councilmember bit. Just to echo the first thought, it's always the traffic congestion, but I think we can also use the zoning as an opportunity to to push more for alternative modes of transportation like bicycle lanes. Electric scooters really start pushing more. I think where we envision the future of Pittsburgh, it's also we envision Green Pittsburgh and I am excited about a project like this because of how close it is to like LMC, how close it is to the BART station, bringing new jobs, potentially office buildings and buying. Every time I see this, this concept, I see it in Fernhill already theater on creek and and I do see people using alternative modes of transportation. And so I know the public concern is always traffic, especially in the mornings when we take our kids to school early in the railroad corridor. But I think if we can also work this project along with a concept that would probably expand rail road to make it more biker friendly and safe for the kids and families to just get to and from school every day. You know, I don't know our bicycle guys out here today, but he would love that sentiment because, you know, we're just working together with the district to pushing that that drive for kids to want to use public transportation. And they know sometimes it's not feasible, like on rainy days or, you know, when the weather outside is key. But looking at the tri delta concept of these electrical, I don't I don't even know what to call it, like little aircraft like the on Star Wars or shopping carts. Yeah, but, you know, just, you know, maybe making like a designated lane that will take people to and from those similar corridors. That would be something that I think would help with the traffic congestion in the mornings. Absolutely. Councilmember thing to your point, you almost want to and I say this a little jovially, you all want to make it harder for people to use their car is to run an errand right now. But if they're going to go to the grocery store, you almost want to make it a little circuitous to get across the street to the grocery store, encourage them to walk, make it, make those things more pedestrian friendly, to allow them to use alternative ones. More on that. Yeah, I think I envision a community where, you know, for those who have it more difficult to to run errands, you know, have a neighborly program where we help seniors with their groceries or getting the stuff that they need and then using green, green transportation to get those errands. And so that I, I definitely like the idea of building something like this, but also with some parameters in place to keep traffic that low levels really think about the safety to get more traffic typically involves more car crashes, pedestrian incidences and so we want to make sure that a project like this also includes the correct traffic signals and pedestrians to avoid any potential fatalities to turboprop imagery in along with everything we've heard so far, I prefer to think where we still retail being almost like a barrier between traffic and everything else happening where these are. So I also think there should be walking in and out and also an opportunity for local industry and traffic to go to. And also in a way where we're not suggesting any of the corners are just getting in and out of that. There was one slide where there was an alternative with the stairs and going in and out of do we back to the point where was like the view of the world And it was a very loving and then just this one back, Okay, so this one. So these are would not be my preference the way the first two levels are outlined here, mostly for security purposes. I feel like this car, even though it's like the barrier, should also be open and visible just to avoid any kind of safety issues and concerns there. And I feel the way it is structured in this provision, it's almost like creating like horrors that are out the door and we don't want that. And similarly for rooftop access, those were interior exterior designs that look amazing. But I would want to start with something that is accessible to the public because anytime so, you know, if we're thinking about it on a higher level, let's find use that is equally inviting to the public with less inside or I don't have any issues with the height as long as there's no structural concerns with that. I think just being the welcome, those are do you are seeking to grow the highway? I really do. Esthetics is more important than anything else, so esthetics and safety would be my priorities for something like that. See if we can add a component of having more place for residents to socialize that be that will be the added value of that. But I'm just thinking about tradeoffs right now. It is open like so we're not going to give the use of the restrooms and residents socializing in these areas as these are. Now. Speaking of what happens to the businesses that are there right now, are they reasons that are about doing so? We can think of gives you other uses or what's the plan for working with them? Very good question. So there's two businesses that utilize portions of this site on the far corner over here you have lead auto sales, which as a lease that's currently up or running over with the city. And so we would need to provide that notice for the agreement that we have that will say they are well aware of what we intend to do. And of course Leigh Sales has their own plans for and timeline for their business, but we would have to provide a notice and they would have to relocate and we would probably work diligently to find a place for them to relocate in Pittsburgh because they do generate some revenue for us. This has actually been completed, abolishes, and now it is the parking lot that we currently lease to treasured for overflow parking. And so it'd be the same deal. We look for the lease we have therefore we're aware that the city intends at some point to sell this property to provide a notice, but utilize that and these two are not utilized at all. I will say a crazy idea, but one that we've already floated publicly would be to figure out how to relocate warping in the idea to this area right here, freeing up this parcel, giving them ownership of this location and access to part is a fantastic location for them. Right on railroad there. They should have a new state of the art restaurant. And this would also free up this parcel for additional development as part of their concept of disclosure. I know it's good to hear the city strive to be a good partner to these businesses by offering for them. The real estate, I'm sure, is much appreciated. One more thing for me, the hotel as a concept right now, I usually say the market will self-regulate and we will do whatever it takes of the space to do their homework and figure out whether that's something that is feasible that will in this particular case, with a recent development and a number of bills we currently have, I would like to see a lot more data before I get supportive also in this space. Okay. Thank you. Here's your answer. This similar idea, a number of years, and we're going to use separate underground parking in like elevators or car visibility on the area is kind of out there, which is something that I've seen in person in different cities nowadays or something like this or travel, as everybody says. I think that we're not just on railroad, not just out of harbor, but looking at what is and how it's going to flow. Complex is really important. I still think the best ideas to do with this kind of block of Pittsburgh that we have was one way to help you way and is that they were able to merge so much in the middle, so much everything that they leveraged it. I think that on the car placement this is this opportunity that these like in the city of Ferguson thinking of the the plaza of the hotel restaurant right there. I like to chase center like this past week and walking and we kind of take it upstairs or around in there, put into kind of a more protected area from traffic, from people walking by the street completely makes the place. And we feel this because we have restaurants, we have music, we have a wonderful Christmas tree, like something that says it all over. So I think that's a really good idea that street and kind of create that this entire I think you can accomplish it. You say that's the center pushing that straddled this whole entire thing. This is going to be something that is somewhat singular. And that's where it has its own feel to it when you're in this part of the city. I see that potential. It's unlike anything that we have currently. And I know that when we've seen it all and like this happening to other cities, there's been a lot of pushback. And then something that's completely different is going to be a different town. The height is concern going basically eight storeys or anything right there on the main water in the heart of the city. What you're going to see is you can see it from the freeway. You're going to see it when you're driving your kids to high school, it, it's going to be totally different. And that it is a recommendation is on the harbor side. So I'm looking at how kids use it to travel to and from school, a boat traffic, a lot of groups that don't necessarily put on sidewalks as it currently stands. And looking at the residential development that abuts harbor, I think creating more space for the multi-modal transit people, kids on bikes, skateboards, whatever, on the streets and providing more spaces in the sun approach is very to develop. And the idea of a hotel, especially with what's going on across the land and we are finding a number of hotels which are also providing convention space because that's another to bring in revenue or looking for opportunities to work with. That especially to find somewhere is within walking distance to the hotels that we're proposing, which I love. The park is always a perfect fit for you. This always will be like parking or putting it out, right? So it's not accessible to people that are driving or walking or so I see a lot more work to how it currently is, but in general is going to be a lot of hardscape, right? That a lot of running as much available so it will get more opportunities to engage the I with that because as just a people somehow in general I think they they're wonderful owners Before I open it up for public comment, anything else. Right So you know is there any public comments from the public carried away and on this? Yes. Mr.. CROSBY All right. So the easy ones, is this going to be groundless? Is it going to be sold off an individual parcels will be a condo set up or the curb for the commercial? Yeah, no, for the whole the whole thing. So the residential is almost certainly going to be for it. So those those will all be for lease the the retail is interesting and we've had some conversations and we'll continue to have those conversations about what makes the most sense because what we don't want is for a developer to come in and basically developer pro forma where they build commercial and just basically write it off. So you see it's Siena, so you see in other places. And so the first way to combat that is to make sure that it's a complete what's wrong with it. But the other thing that we've had discussions about since it is our RFP and we get to negotiate is can the city have control of this or can we require that they bring in a a partner who would oversee the commercial portion. So rather than saying, okay developer X like we get that you do residential, you do great residential, but you do not have your own commercial arm. So therefore you have to have a partner who is going to do this. So but potentially, if you would just say hypothetically a lot in the out of new to that corner, they would own that little square. You have the hotel homes, there's the residential homes, There's that all being. Yeah. So if that's the case, I would highly, highly, highly suggest you do something like Chabon's and Creative, The ideas or the kind of governance. So we don't have a crowded expo situation, a Walmart situation, a blue Saigon shopping center situation, because otherwise it's going to go to crap. So that's that the traffic. It is what it is. My concern is people already don't come to oldtown because it's too much friction getting there. And now we're going to put a massive block of whatever. So would really like to see something that makes getting to all of town not from this project, but from the south side of town just more convenient. It's a huge it's a huge hurdle right now, even coming from, you know, Oak Hill, San Marco area, talking with people. I did I was walking neighborhood one day and knocking doors and just ask people and they're like this is you know, comes down to traffic. So this would make that even more challenging per se. So I don't actually have an answer, but just throwing it out there, the height of the buildings, they probably have to be that high for it after all, for this to actually get off the ground. And you could argue it's both sides. But all those residential units on California now have their view of the hills eliminated. And so that's going to impact their property values that are unity of being close to this impact is a positive. I don't say no, but it's definitely an issue and also say we don't have the all of the affordable housing in one section and make that because it's a recipe for disaster. And then if we can figure out a buyer in their own situation, then I would be really concerned about having anything open and fancy. I mean, I was at a conference in Atlanta about a month ago and there and we were in the CNN building and buy everything. And as soon as it gets dark, everything just locks up. And the only was in the area restaurant, every hotel, every every venue. And that's what's going to have to happen here. It is. Until either policies are in place. It's just it is what it is. So like that open two story thing I agree is not I would be concerned about it. The commercial, I would assume that it's probably being set up to service the residents. So like that kind of stuff. So I think the parking is probably okay. As far as the town. Yeah, that's my initial initial thoughts that the setting up of the idea to keep everybody to the same standard and behaving well and doing their their share is I think, really important. You could even since you have a hotel, you can have a destination management organization set up and part of the totally goes off on that as well and helps. Now I can share the marketing for either that hotel or actually just started moving all the hotels together and then they, the national organization, can then work on the marketing of the city and trying to get people here because I a little concern about adding another hotel and whether they could actually fill those rooms and any other. Yes. All right. I agree that a lot of the clients here especially doesn't use. I wonder if there's going to be some sort of a building hype. I would say like you said. No, no, no, no, no, no. Building height limit like in D.C. can't use that area where the museums are. Can't be high rises. I should wait here. Okay. So they're building high. They're going to be built up. They want to see the ones. So I think it would be fair to put a building height limit the worth of the hotel so their views would be on it because that's what they can expect and see. Wasn't there discussion on the pedestrian overpass somewhere? I don't know where it's going to be. We've had a lot of discussion and truthfully, it's not on here because we don't want to make promises. We can't do it, but it is in the city. But on funding, it is going to be. So yes, it's not totally unrelated. Yeah. And then another probably help for traffic would be shows. I will say it's already it's Old Town. It would be great to have some sort of agreement which I know the transit electric shuttle or hydrogen fuel shuttle to look around between all down here or maybe Century Plaza. So the people who are in the hotel will have to try to keep their car there. And then for parking, they get paid parking. So you don't have somebody 40 cars in there. Yeah. So and that's out of control. You know, the kind of cars and whether or not somebody would want to drive versus they want to take the shuttle, see, I think the scope and then or the landscaping, I know people just seem to want to know what's out, but we also have to look at the highway for landscaping, which is Caltrans. It would be great just to make that assiduous trees and shrubs. So when somebody at the Hotel Paul, they'll see a college change. And I probably pretty any other public comment? Yes. Okay. I'm going to piggyback on the open air with the shuttle bus where I work. It's the same thing with 24 seven because we have a Starbucks inside. People are living in my store, they're living there, they're bathing, they're eating, they're taking things off the shelf and just eating them. We're going to hang out there, especially with those fireplaces. They're going to use them to cook. They're going to use and keep warm. We have to pay more to what we have around us. Also, again, on the Harvard building, it again, it's it's like I want to piggyback on the fact that it's too close to the sidewalk to me we need to have and it's because of its height and that whole section is so solid like that, it feels like it's almost like caged in to me, you know, it doesn't feel welcoming. It's like you walk around like, what is this? How do you get it? Because I feel that on some buildings, everybody that I see, they're big like this. And so that I mean, maybe something that would be more of a convenience for the people that live there. It's also another thing that I was talking about in my head here is we have here 316 units, housing units. If everybody has a kid or these kids going to school, I know that's not our thing. What, we should have some kind of agreement with with the school going. We have so many new buildings coming up. We have no schools. And Atchison, we have how many units. And then this is going to be an additional there's one high school that, you know, I mean, where are these kids going to go so that we can find some kind of agreement with the school district? And I understand that there are some funds, give it away somewhere, but we need to get school. So that's just my area. Is it a setback tied to I mean, obviously, this is, you know, Microsoft pay and stop the scale and all this stuff, but I'm assuming that it's pushed that far back because seven stories being too close to the freeway. So I'm going to have the adjacent lateral support, the whole building. But truly, look, I don't know if they've gotten that far around there, all right. In their thought process, it would appear that step back is more to create the separation. So between the stories. Yeah. And these are all great, great, great comments. And then be honest because this is kind of a thought process when we were looking at this site to visualize how we would create something that the city would enjoy for the future. So it had a sustainable and I'm looking at it in a bigger light and more place Works was really preparing this. We were really working close in and trying to make sure we can present something that would be amenable but also doable because you have to really look at how you look at a project is going to be able to sustain itself over the next ten or 15 years. You don't want to be something that would be just a dinosaur. And then, you know, this time another comment this is about you mentioned that building at the last light is not. And when I look at buildings in living space for so long and you see that build maybe ten years for 20 years right now, it's that crap. And so hopefully whenever it gets built there just gracefully. Yeah, just to throw out there on the commercial space, giving them and having the design set in a way that maybe stay open layers and you're going to have more of a nightlife business, you know, whether it's music or whatever. And obviously those events happen usually later in the evening, but then also sound in older transfer. I love how the homeless have already given us a virtual open space with their rock artists we can visualize. I thought that was pretty cool. So the other part of it is being sensitive that these residential units are going into a commercial area, and any time you start to flood up and you have residents are complaining about noise, odor, all that good stuff, and then it pushes businesses out. So either in the design or whatnot, having that accounted for right to go. And so one of the things I wanted to mention has to do with maybe incentive I hate this supposed to be a transit oriented development, and usually that's where you want it. All that structure's density, you know, this is at a very conceptual stage, so there's going to be a lot of my side in to provide an extreme, you know, I would say setbacks and allowances between structures, articulation and integration and all that stuff, you know, to really kind of make it obviously nice. So I just really wanted to share that, You know, I mean, this book and this one has just that important to its setting, you know, But there's a certain area, I believe, within there where we can afford to really go up, you know, along Rail Road and some of these corridors and I do actually almost like it read my mind. But this gets out there one way kind of from the tree where you go one way up to us, we're learning one way to believe it they have and then one way back to California as a way of moving a lot of traffic because the way it is, everybody's getting in the way of everybody else. But once we have and rebuild did that, it was a choke point and then they just made everything one way. And now you have that traffic moving through smoothly. So I think there are solutions that we can explore. So I think we should really probably not be so married to the old way of it's going to be very low key. I think the opportunities now for I can really go big and I think this area is so coming from Oakland. I saw so much transformation over a period of time and unfortunately crime is an issue there. But still the skyline of Oakland has changed and I think that we can do something similar here. Would we have any by bringing this any pull on Caltrans to change the harbor offramp because it's already a cluster and now you want to add all this. And coming from that, I mean, we're going to ask. Yeah, you definitely bring that up to me when you brought it up, whatever you just said, I was triggered in my mind by I mean, I honestly, as in I heard this project if are going to put up with that, doesn't matter what you put here. And I'm just like, this is going to bother me. Okay, back to the subcommittee. Any final thoughts on this, this next step? So we look into finalizing or getting the RFP out. Mr. Duncan said. There's no strict timeframe for this in terms of as we're looking at, is this coming back to subcommittee for anything or are we looking at are we going to consider going to plan the commission and the council? I think to bring it back to the subcommittee? We've taken a lot of notes and copious notes, especially because, well, I think it's a great idea, especially hearing that the hotel may not be favorable. And I would like to return to the subcommittee with a concept that keeps the hotel but incorporates everything we're talking about and another that removes the hotel, because by removing the hotel, you can tell just by looking at the masking study, you're really going to be able to break up some of these areas and the way they've been designed. And so I'd like to return to the subcommittee with that concept, get some final input on what's preferable then. Councilmember Jones I think will probably nothing needs to go to the Planning Commission, the City council, to actually be adopted or approved. But we would like to have a workshop because we do want to hear from as many of those as possible and also get this in the public as much as possible. So really here at this rate of thinking towards the end of this fiscal year, probably when we're going to be issuing an RFP, maybe mid-spring would be an appropriate timeline. But definitely want to make sure that it is something that we're comfortable with before we go forward. Thank you all for those comments. Like I said, we will develop some new concepts and bring that back. Right. Thank you very much. And without further ado, I will close this and we will move on to the item number three. A So we are just emerging right now. So I know everyone's the designers. Thank you, Commissioner. Thursday. So Roberts, he had his presentation loaded and I will go ahead and just kind of provide the background with running slides or looking kind of what we're going to be discussing today. About two years ago, we came to this subcommittee, actually, the Pharmacovigilance subcommittee, and discuss the VA, the future of the VA. And it's taken some time, frankly, it opened up a can of worms in a good way. We went through and we did a lot of research on how the money is spent and where the money is being spent. And the way we do. Budgeting is frankly not always clean. It's really a miracle that we are able to keep track of everything that comes in. As we do that, we have so many buckets that could only be spent within one thing. And what we've determined and going back all the way to fiscal year 1415 was that we've got a significant fine balance and fund balance is basically everything that we don't spend in a fiscal year which is carried over. There's a lot of things that go back into the general fund, but we the money is purposely kept separate, of course, because it has to be spent on activities within the VA. So for phase, we realized pretty quickly, just at least internally, that we're getting probably to do that. The first step was we really needed to see where we were at. There's been this talk about how do we sort of reassess where we're spending and how we're spending money. But the first step was to say, okay, what are we actually working with? And find out We're working with the fund balance over the past almost ten years of $587,000, which is good a lot of ways. We never want to stockpile the money for too much, but it's great that we've developed this fund balance and now we've got the staff, we've got the relationship with the chamber where we can reinvest this money. So what we've done today is put together sort of a proposed budget. And while I'm freestyling a little bit, while we're operating, it's a presentation. Hopefully you have a chance to look at the preliminary that was in the package about one of the things that we would like to do is we would like to move towards a model of budgeting that more closely reflects the measure and dollars that come in the way we've historically done. The idea is we anticipate how much we're going to get. And this is frankly part of the reason why we're ending up where we are. We've estimated what we think is going to come in and we budget to that number without exception. In the past ten years, the number we've budgeted has been significantly less than the actual set coming in. But unless you're anticipating for those actuals that come in and carry over your going to continue to build up this fund balance, even if you're extending the amount of money that you hope to use. So what we would like to do is move to a model and the $587,000 affords us this ability to where we are spending dollars that have been actualized from the previous year. So as an example, this year we budgeted $170,000 in revenue from the idea. We've created our budget. Based on that, we've broken out $270,000 into the service line items. What we would like to do is rescind that, if you will. And as we go into the mid-year review what our budget is and spend the money that we actually receive this year in next year's budget. So as we go into next year's budget exercise, we'll be able to see, okay, this is how much the ad revenue came in in fiscal year 2324, which is our current fiscal year, the fiscal year 2425, that will be our budget plus anything that is carried over as fund balances. When you're dealing with dollars that are in the grand scheme of things, a little bit smaller like the V.A. revenues, it's a safer way to do it because we've run into it too often because we don't have a lot of wiggle room in a lot of these ways, is that we get very conservative in when we sense that there's economic impacts such as COVID and that they don't impact us as negatively as we anticipated. That's going to work, right? So we'll just do it this way since Robert Earning is out. Thank you, Robert. Rather than bring it up on the screen, what the first of the slides are what I heard to asking about your taxes paid annually for our municipal code. The city, the entire city is one victim, so every business is a percentage of their actual revenue with the number of our dollars annually. And so the board, which serves the entire city and as I mentioned, as of June 30th of 2023, the V.A. has remained at almost 580,000. And so with that, I'm going to hand it over to Robert to walk us through. I'm going to start on slide if you guys get off to that in order to kind of talk through where we are with that. Thank you. And then there's so many understated or uncertain side or chose over what the current budget is. And for any folks who are watching or events page three of the budget and 385 be scene tables. So the current budget is you can see we at a total amount budget of $107,000 kind of based on what we anticipated for around this current or fiscal year or this fiscal year be in and see how we have dispersed out into different appropriations committees to kind of to cover a permanent cost based on request management subscriptions or that services are kind of behind contract with the chamber that has brochures and so forth. But then as you go to the next slide, given that we have this additional fund balance within the the idea, this really presents us with an opportunity to make some significant investments using the AG money. So with the proposed budget that you see, one of the most notable, you'll see notable increases in some ways. First of all, increased is in the contractual services. Yeah, we're kind of them out by some light hours. So you see one less of that going around. So for services up to $240,000 and some of the major items on there include sea hypermarket. When we talk about safety more, I we have a lot of projects that are already under construction or planned and we do a good job of planning on restructuring. One out of the car. What about marketing to the greater public as to what we see or are doing or a view of entities that are coming in? So let's let's put some revenue those some money behind marketing these improvements that we are that we are making. You know, for example, you see the banners that are along where we're out of here. And when you go on the on ramp on highways board as a bridge animals and how we do mortgages, what what type of projects are going on around the city that is also similar to concrete. What do you measure the you're also really make sure that folks know where their tax dollars are going to help us at this. Well, this really does. So are we talking about more of that type of marketing as far as what we're seeing on fencing or other tools as well? Or is it simply that like signage around town? So this is actually something that Wolf and I have discussed. We're anticipating as part of this, because this is very significant. I mean, this is, again, getting a lot of banners and a lot of signs on the side of the road. Part of this is we would at well, we would like to have and we would like to work with a consultant in this instance, we've reached out to the chamber and I believe they're putting together a proposal for us separate from the valley to the standard, the contractor to have a consultant prepare a marketing plan that's got everything from social media. And this is nothing major. This is our branding marketing strategy. This is just a put together the posts, design the signs and help us to just show folks where their money is going to this next item. And the largest item within the financial services category is the Contract with Retail Strategies that Council approved on October 16. Council approved, and we stated that we will use VIP money to help on that contract, that $150,000 be spread out over a three year period where we rely on the expertise of retail traders. We're really going to study our market and come up with plans and to work with us and our commercial property owners or developers to really come up with a plan to attract those two major retail developers and tell us, you know, what will it really take to really attract major retailers that are household names and that we want to see here? We're very excited to bring them on board and to have their expertise in implementation for 25. K So what we mean by time implementation is when we after we go through the process of designing these specific plans, like for example, with the downtown Marina district, all of the conceptualization that we're doing what let's have someone set aside to implement some things like for example, in the marina we want to renew or build new sidewalk that will benefit the businesses and then we have some money set aside that could potentially finance those fraudulent projects that are incorporated within, those specific plans. And then lastly, $10,000 for public art projects. People are very receptive to all of our ongoing sponsors and for your city partners, our Visitors bureau is incorporated a great, great, great program with Logo addition, and they created ten of the eight murals for all of us downtown. And they were they were just absolutely fantastic and as well received. So this is an opportunity where we get we have a money where we can invest in public art, where we've seen where we can have the opportunity. Also partner with a nonprofit to bring a public art that matches the characteristics of our city. So we of course, have our contract with Local edition and they're working on their murals. In fact, you might have seen that they're starting on they started yesterday on one right on the side of creation. But I think this presents an opportunity to maybe do something outside of that, as Robert mentioned, maybe work with a nonprofit or so that you can do something different in a different location. But, you know, this is money that we can put behind them if they do not have the funds to get going on that. Yeah. The other significant increase in the ideology, as would see, is in the advertising and promotion promotion they're proposing increases budget from $5000 to $140000, starting with $50,000, and it's labeled as very static. This is just a general pot of money for them to do advertising promotion generally for the city and for the VIP, for businesses within within San Diego. And if this presents us with a great opportunity to really do some serious marketing, to really burning out there because a lot of what drives the momentum in terms of renewal programs is name recognition and really putting our name out there. So with that kind of money, you can make some investment into having traffic corridors to really where it could be just general marketing in terms of marketing, the city in general. And this also corresponds with the work that we're currently doing with North Star to rebrand, to replenish our brand as a city. So we're excited to as we're working with them, we'll be able to come back and say, Hey, you know, we have some money to give to 93 the same concepts that we developed together and putting that into actual market practice. There's also just as of an opportunity to work with nonprofits to help promote events that happen within the city. For example, this for theater company, they are doing all of these great shows, but maybe people don't really much about it. So why not advertise in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area about these shows going on here so that they can close? These are just these are examples. This is a this is kind of this is a wide open letter that could be used and it creates a is a significant chunk of money can be used for advertising promoting the city. I just want to I just want to just start there because I support the marketing effort. What we start talking about marketing specific programs or shows. I do want to make sure that it goes across the board and how we select whose shows or programs we end up promoting. Of course. Well, why should we do that? I think the other thing that really what Robert Grossman was and I think was a wonderful idea is we've got to modernize our advertising. But we should be buying more. This will come out as we work with not sorry, but we should be buying ads on YouTube. Realistically, we need a policy from the city council because other cities have had issues with certain social media and what they support. And we just want to make sure run up in council. But you know, this will pay for an Instagram influencer, right? Like there are folks out there who do this. And of course, one of the dirty little secret is you got to pay them if you want them to come to your city and do a sponsored post where they're headed up by one of your restaurants. But even if we do something like that, Councilmember will definitely draft some guidelines for how we're selecting these folks to make sure that we're spreading equitably across the city. What we're doing, be Yeah, I concur with your point right there, ultimately is that I think that our advertising promotion, where we do it ourselves or we partner with somebody, it has to promote business within the VIP event cycle. And so I think that's going to be the underlying driver behind this marketing. And then in nonprofits being nonprofits, okay, No, but that's a win. Well, go ahead, Robert. Yeah. And then last item is the other advertising promotion is the Seafood and Seafood Music Festival for 2023 decided this item is in Culver City. Costs of the Prior Seafood Music Festival. The city sees this reemergence of the festival as promotion of the city and business and incorporating that and therefore covering the remaining expenses from that event is in alignment with goals and objectives that this event promoted within. It promotes businesses with engaging and promotes our community. So therefore we want to be able to consider it. A little bit of background this and this may be something that you will get familiar with, but the Pittsburgh Police Department and Public Works Department all do a lot for a lot of different festivals. It's not just the seafood music festival. I mean, they're out there any time we have these things. And in today's world you need a lot of sign is you need a lot of safety. And part of the reason we have these events that go off without a hitch is because we've we've got a great police department and the police department's going to do this either way. But this is an opportunity to make sure as we budgeting. And how do you fill gaps, right? Like how do you use different pots of money when appropriate to fill different gaps? And so this opportunity to take something that normally would be eaten by the general fund, which is completely discretionary because I look at it, is for this purpose, let's take this money to make sure that we're not negatively impacting the general fund unnecessarily before. Robert Finishes I do want to point out that some of these have been spent, so while we do want input on these things like the Chamber 3000 version of music festival retail strategies, again, some of these are kind of allocated, but we're showing you like how we've worked them in. But there are some and we're happy to highlight those. As we discussed, some of them are not as set as we can talk about those levels. So sorry to interrupt the lead tape off with maintenance and repairs going on at this point in terms of the allocations that are not set there, we go to the ratings and repair section incorporated into the programs that we previously read about, and you got to see the guidelines as the program program proposing allocating $30,000 right now that we're talking about grants up to $10,000 each. So, you know 30,000 directly for three businesses, but there's always opportunity to expand and grow and expand. So leverage incorporated is that right now the timeline is to launch this programs on the first of next year as we continue to receive input from certain stakeholders, are happy to have our meeting with the Chamber this week to get their input to some of our programs. And the other program that we're looking at is the Landscape grant program. This is an opportunity for private property. Parents, property owners to improve the landscaping of their area and not just the lan