up is passing our consent agenda with January's meeting minutes and then payment claims of $1,354.92 which relates to some uh regular semianual accounting and legal. And then we do also have uh some billing in there for the development agreement that we're looking at later this morning. So I will open that up for any comments or take a motion to move that along. Make a motion we accept. >> I'll second that. Got a motion from Nick, a second from me. All in favor? I >> I. >> Any opposed? >> No opposition. Motion carries. Uh then up next we have our public hearing for proposed sale of land. Uh we are looking at item three on the agenda. Proposed sale of land to Aventist Investments LLC. Parcel ID 24.124.0050. 0050 and 24.124.0060. Uh physical addresses 701 and 7036th Street Northwest. Uh the resolution is EDA 262101 approving sale of land and purchase along with the development agreement between the development authority and Aventus Investments LLC. Uh the common name on those is the lots four and five and our industrial park. I'll open that up for any conversation. >> I give a little background. Um so obviously the EDA and ultimately city council on December 1st did approve the purchase and development agreement for the sale of the two lots that are remaining in the industrial park lots four and five block two new Prague Business Park 11th edition. Um since we had that uh approved uh and it was two separate purchase and development agreements and we were looking at two separate buildings. Um our discussions led to um ultimately a one uh lot development with one building and basically all the terms and everything would remain the same sales price. um the square footage of the building um in total would match what we had in the previous development agreement between the two buildings at 30,000 and 20,000 square feet. The one now is just a tad over 50,000 square ft. Uh the two tenants that were kind of the key points of the agreement including Steelhead Outdoors and Guns arrest still remain as they were. And uh as part of the negotiating process and we brought this to the EDA at the January meeting um they requested that the um city and EDA uh take care of the lot combination and then ultimately the vacation of a drainage utility easement that is kind of down the lot line. Obviously the building if you took a look at the plans will go right down the middle of the lot line uh between the two lots there. So, uh, we do have everything, uh, prepared for, uh, next, uh, excuse me, Tuesday morning or, uh, uh, evening for the city council meeting for, uh, calling for the hearing for the, uh, vacation of the easement and then the lot combination, we've got everything drafted up for that. So, should you approve tonight and then ultimately should the city council approve uh your actions at the meeting on uh next Tuesday night, that will take care of this new agreement, kind of combining everything together into the one uh building and one lot uh development uh versus what we had uh previously. So, um, with that, I can stand for any questions you might have. And it looks like we have a member of the, uh, group for the purchase here today to >> What's that? >> Oh, yes. And make sure we formally open the public hearing as well. >> Yeah. >> I got a question. Um, so the actions that we took last December, are those void or is there has to be action to take? >> Yeah. So, so in the resolution that you are approving and ultimately the one that the council will approve on Tuesday will void the actions previously taken and void those purchase and development agreements. There's a whereas in the resolution that'll take care of that and ultimately um there is a document that the EDA will sign formally cancelling those but the resolution takes care of the language to handle that as per Scott Riggs's um recommendation as part of the action that we're taking today. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh, do any of the applicants want to add anything to the conversation? >> All right. Uh, at this point, we'll open the public hearing. If anyone would like to speak on this item, please come to the podium, state your name, address for the record. For those unable to approach the podium, raise your hand. We'll accommodate you. Uh, you've got up to five minutes to speak. Any questions for council, staff, and the applicant will be recorded and addressed after the public hearing has closed. And I do not see anyone who is looking to speak. Uh at this point, we've got the resolution 2602 11101 uh on the table. >> I I will say we do want to close the public hearing. >> Oh, yeah. >> And and that doesn't necessarily need a motion. It just needs to be formally stated that we are closing >> we are closing the public hearing. >> Two quick questions if I might. um with the with the gun business, security concerns. I know you you talked about this with the city previously, police chief, you guys. >> Good to go. >> Yeah, we don't have any concern with that. Obviously, they're not doing retail sales out of the building. It's just a warehouse and and that. So, yeah, we don't we don't have any immediate concerns about that. >> And is there any unintended consequences of putting the two lots together? You know, sewer service, any of these other things, or that changes nothing? No, actually there was only one water and sewer service between the two lots. So from that standpoint, it doesn't really change that. Um so no. Um other than the need to vacate the easement and that's a procedural process through the council and holding a hearing for that, but >> awesome. >> Not not a concern. >> In fact, we did that with Bricks Bolt Works and if you remember, they had three lots together. Perfect. Similar I guess I will make a motion to approve uh resolution 262101. >> I will second. >> Got a motion for myself, a second from Nick. All in favor? >> I >> I'll abstain. >> And any opposed? No opposed. Motion carries. Uh again, first from myself, second from Nick, and Austin, uh abstained from the vote. >> All right. Do we need to approve the purchase? >> I think that was part of >> Yeah, I think >> Yeah, that's part of the resolution. >> Uh next on the docket, we've got our annual reports. Ken, I would assume you'll provide a little commentary on those. >> I can. And I did want to mention to our guests, you don't need to stick around for the entire meeting if you don't want. >> It gets pretty boring for this >> where it gets interesting, guys. >> Congrats, guys. >> We will talk about you when you leave. Great. >> All good things. >> Oh, definitely. >> You'll see it. You'll be on YouTube later. So, >> yes, it will be on YouTube later. >> All right. Um, I don't have a presentation formally, but obviously in the packet I've got four different memos of kind of business updates. I will just provide a a highle overview of everything. Uh starting with the vacant lot inventory. Uh we've been talking about this for a couple years that we are uh really down on the number of residential lots in particular. Uh with uh technically 21 residential available lots available. Um there really isn't that many on the market at any given time. There's maybe eight to 10 at most. And these aren't really the leftover lots that nobody wanted in the past. >> Yeah. I mean, there's what kind of in Eastland. You've got a couple that probably are truly residential. >> Couple of walkout lots left in Eastland. That's about it. >> Yeah. >> Um, so it looks better than it actually is. We had three new home permits issued in all of 2025. Uh, that does not include obviously the 54 apartment units. So from like a actual residential unit numbers, our year for 25 didn't look bad, but the majority of those were in one uh apartment project. Uh regarding commercial lots, uh we do have seven available and a variety of those uh are really kind of on the east side of town. Um as you would expect, uh where we have the most of our traffic. Um, one of those lots was purchased in 2025 that ended up uh being where Heartland Credit Union um is currently under construction and will be opening this spring. Um, and then we do have uh a total acreage of about 16.3 acres, but we uh I think we talked at the last EDA meeting, we did get an annexation request for uh additional 8 and a half acres on the east side of Alton Avenue, but we're working with Scott County on a Alton Avenue traffic study to make sure that our access to that future county road is appropriate before we uh can process that uh annexation and uh their land use request. Uh so from that snippet, we're not like feeling any uh pinch on the commercial side of things. And then uh regarding industrial, obviously with the sale of our final two lots, we really will only have one platted lot remaining, which Randy Kubish owns immediately north in the industrial or the uh fire station, excuse me. And then we do have the uh 76 acre piece of land directly north of the city um industrial park that obviously does not have any roads or utilities within it, but everything is stubbed and adjacent and um could be developed at any point. So that's kind of our vacant lot inventory. Uh if you have any questions on that otherwise I can kind of jump uh forward to our >> Have we continued to see any poking around from uh large multifamily apartment inquiries or is that slowed up a little bit? >> That slowed up a little bit. Um I can tell you and I might be in No, it's not in my business update. I actually spoke with uh Bohemia Flats on Thursday or Friday last week to get a feel for where they're at in their lease up and they are at 50% leased. >> Okay. >> They aren't super happy with that, but they're not like really disappointed either because lease up from October through >> Yeah. >> you know, the middle of winter is not ideal for them, but um they're 50% out of the 54 units. So, um, they have indicated possible interest and in the past publicly, um, but I nothing formal at this point and we haven't had any recent discussions with any other interested party. We do have land available for it. Yeah, I did fail to mention that on in our uh, residential lot inventory, we do have a couple of lots that could handle, you know, upwards of 150 units that are out there that have roads and utilities available for multif family apartment buildings. So >> that is a positive as well. >> Is a 50% lease up rate is that good? Is that bad? Does that signal anything for you guys or is that as expected for a building of that age in the winter? >> So as they told me, they weren't disappointed in it. They weren't super happy about it either. It was just the reality of a lease up over winter. >> Okay. Not ideal in the mentioned at one point they wanted to be full in 9 to 12 months. >> Yeah. Typically your financing in the banking world is going to be contingent on hitting like 90% occupancy within 12 to 18 months depending on the size of the project. So that tracks to where they're at. >> Yeah. I mean, at this point, I think it'll be interesting to know even from like the school district, we'd hear >> you have new teachers that come in and they've got no place to live. I think it'll be really telling here as we come summer. >> Yep. >> Um, school district hires some brand new teachers like >> what where are we at by October of next year? >> Yeah. Well, context for that. That's interesting. >> And I'm going to be interested just kind of an aside to that. It'll be interesting to see the jobs revisions today because you're having some people say that we're going to probably be looking at a situation where most of what was tracked as job growth up to the government shutdown is going to be wiped out with the revision, meaning that there were no jobs added in the economy for the entirety of last year. And I think when you start to look at a couple of the other things that I see that are concerning is the average time to find a job within 10 to 15% of the wage for people who are laid off right now. It's harder to find a job than it was during the Great Recession when unemployment was close to 10%. So, there's a couple really interesting dynamics out there that are pretty different than what we've seen uh through recessions or or just kind of normal job cycles in the past. But anyway, >> and remind me the Alton Avenue annexation, are we do we know what that's for or are we allowed to say or >> Oh, yeah. Um, actually right on the application which is public for the Alton Avenue station, the 8 and a half acres that Mayo owned on the right on the east side of the northeast corner of the intersection of Alton and Highway 19 or Main Street. Uh, they had indicated on that application that it was two fast casual restaurants with drive-throughs and a >> Oh, that's right. >> 17,000 foot retail establishment. There was more room than >> But no, but no specifics about those bill. It was just general general concept. Yeah. >> Correct. And we do have uh I think we're about a third of the way done with that study. We hope to have it done around April 1 >> uh roughly, but then we need to actually have Scott County review. Uh and then ultimately it'll lead to a uh new agreement between the city and the county regarding cost share and who takes care of what as far as >> that's going to be Alton there, the next major throughfair in the county, right? They >> Yeah. All the way from um North South >> Mary'stown Road which would be where Hi is up in Shockpit 169. This would connect all the way down >> obviously to Alton here and then ultimately continues uh through Lassour County down to kind of the east uh edge of Montgomery and then it ends there. It's kind of a T intersection at this point. So, >> and uh I know that uh the what is it to the north of the industrial lots in the past people have been looking at that. >> Anything poking there at all or >> We have interest in that. >> Fair enough. >> That's what I can tell you. >> All right. All right. Well, with that, um, annual commercial building audit, which is basically just our inventory that we, uh, try to track monthly for you, and then we kind of do a final once over with the city staff and the chamber to make sure we caught everything through the year. And inevitably there are things that just kind of sneak through the cracks. And, um, this is our one opportunity every year to really uh, you know, sometimes go door to door, make phone calls, and double check everything. Um, so we overall had a pretty good year. We had 14 new business openings, which is, you know, new businesses that did not exist in New Craig uh the year prior. Um, we had 32 business closings or changes. Now, those aren't all bad. I want I'll kind of go through those here in a minute. Um, and then finally, uh, 23 vacancies of, uh, commercial spaces and lots, and that compared to 31 last year. So, we're actually down on our vacancies, which is a positive note. Um, some of those vacancies that turned into new businesses were Brickside 19, uh, which obviously opened in the old Smoke and Fire Arbonies building, uh, Nison's Cornerbar 2, uh, that had been a vacant, uh, building. They did some pretty decent renovation in there as well. I should say, Brickside did uh, also do some renovations. So, not only did both those reopen, but uh, made an investment and quite an improvement in those. Uh Bros event venue is a change uh uh basically a new business. It was a event uh company that also operates out of Farbo uh taking over that facility. Um Berg Direct Primary Care um in the building over by uh library the black building St. L Square. Uh Fancy Bones Pet Grooming opened in the mill. So it's one of a number of smaller businesses that have opened in that mill location. I know Bohemia Flats on here. It's not really a business, but they do employ uh obviously people for management and uh care on site. Uh Case Aesthetics opened in a U suite again in the St. Lent Square over by the library. So those are kind of the major notable new businesses. But we also had a number of changes including and Austin would know this 2F byc Tactical obviously opened their gun range um this past year in 2025. Bargain Lodge move >> location um across the street which um I don't have on this uh report but later in the update um Collective Beauty is actively remodeling the Bargain Lodge location and making a big investment uh for various beauty and skin care and different things in that building. So it's kind of nice to see even you know immediate uh refilling of those vacancies. Um, Kubish Furniture and Flooring did a exterior and interior renovation. Uh, Electrome haded some uh internal renovations. Great River Energy in the industrial park uh 20,000 foot edition. Heartline Credit Union, new building. Well Fargo internal and exterior uh remodeling. Um, Starlight was able to move back to their uh previous location on Main Street and kind of renovated the look of the theater a little bit while they did that. If you ever drive down at night, they have the marquee lit up. It's pretty pretty neat. >> Nice. >> Um and then finally, Cedar Press Coffee has new ownership and they're looking to do continued improvements and add more of a kitchen in there. So, uh lot of activity that isn't like major outward, you know, splashy, but a lot of things are going on that are a positive, I think, particularly for the downtown area. Um, so it's just kind of fun to look back over the year and uh those are the I would say the bulk of the time that we spend on like building permits and um just discussions daytoday with the local business community are these smaller projects. So, it's kind of nice to highlight those um where they wouldn't maybe be get as much press as like a a flashy um you know, >> well, I I look at that new fast food restaurant, >> that Great River one I look at and you go 20,000 square feet and I'm on the ADA and paying attention to what's going on in town and it's like you hardly even notice that one. >> Yep. So, anyway, any questions you have about that? Otherwise, I can uh jump forward to our rental licensing map. >> Um percentage of vacancy in commercial properties. Did you mention it? >> I did not. We've never actually broken it down to percentage. Um >> I just you had I thought I heard you say you mentioned it was down a little bit. So >> Oh, it was down from uh 31 vacancies to 26. >> Oh. >> Over the last year. That's awesome. and we just kind of track year to year on that. Um, something we could do, we've never, you know, like kind of grafted that over time or whatnot, but >> we're always in that ballpark of, I would say, >> 30 to 20 vacancies and it kind of jumps up and down year to year, but we're a little high last year. No question about that. >> Interesting. >> But relative to everything else, I feel like there's not a whole plethora of I mean, our main street isn't being boarded up and there's not a whole bunch of options, honestly. >> Yep. Yep. >> All right. Um, >> well, a lot of our main street got new windows and stuff last year, too. That looks nice. >> Yeah. And I didn't even point out a lot of the smaller, more maintenance type projects. Number of new roofs, new windows, other I'll just say quality of life or health safety type improvements. >> Um, one other item that uh was new this year. So, we completed our first two-year cycle of uh rental licensing. So, I did include a map of that to include and the map I want to point out does not include buildings that are inspected by like HUD or Sky County CDA owned or uh those types of USDA like Mil Pond, but we do still have um you know 4 was it 470 units that uh we have for rental. majority of those are single family. Um kind of spread generally throughout I would just say the more mature areas of town. Um and by and large there was a lot of trepidation from landlords going into that rental inspection program. But um I think landlords and tenants have found it to be very beneficial. There have been corrections. You know, nothing that has prevented any unit from continuing to be rented. Uh majority of things you look at um that need correction are lack of smoke, lack of CO uh detectors, uh windows that don't open correctly for egress uh in a sleeping room, that type of thing. Um but a lot of the landlords that were worried about, you know, the time it would take to go through their units actually, um we had a number that were near hoarding situations that it was they appreciated being able to get into those on a more regular basis before it becomes a big issue. And that was just one example that we had a few of those out there where the land was like, "Holy cow, I didn't realize that this looked that bad or you know, whatever." Um, so those were able to get cleaned up before, you know, we come in there with child protective services or, you know, god forbid a public health issue like we have had, um, where things go for, you know, many years without a pair of eyes on a rental unit. So, um, it's going well. So, we're just entering our first renewal here in um, January 2026. Um, and we'll keep that keep that rolling. So, pretty much what we expected for the number of rental units, but good to point that out from a standpoint of our housing stock and have a good uh way to, you know, have data and information on that. We were doing rental registrations before without inspections, but this continued to track obviously not only their location, but now um the continuation of that with the inspections and then ultimately um you know making sure that our housing stock is kept up to a good life safety standard. So >> yeah, kudos to you guys on that process. That's awesome. >> Yeah, it's not been easy. And I had gone through this in one other city 20 years ago. when I was much younger and uh it was a lot of work back then too in another city. So um yeah, it's it's a good program. And then finally, our uh gross stats. I kind of commented on the lack of residential permit uh activity other than our multifamily. We had a good year with the 54 apartment units, but um as far as commercial activity, we're down a little bit in numbers and down just a hair on our valuation. We're down about two million in valuation. it was still a top five commercial uh construction valuation within the past uh 15 years for New Prague. So, uh looking at that, that's a that's a positive obviously. Um public permits, we had uh we're down a little bit on the number of public permits, but we were at a 15-year high for public permits. The valuation is really irrelevant, but as far as valuation, that was the 15-year high, and that included obviously the police station, but we did also have a number of improvements at Mayo, and this is even beyond the oncology center. Uh they're making a ton of improvements at the hospital. And then, uh on top of that, um our elementary schools both had some renovations and re-ruffs. And then um the final thing to point out would be improvements at the baseball stadium for getting ready for the baseball tournament here in um August. So uh a good year as far as that goes. So we've been kind of busy all around. But again, the single family, we really would like to see more activity on that front and we basically need a developer in here. I have had a number of discussions with residential developers. Not gotten an application in hand yet. Um, but yeah, that's really where we're at. We just need that to happen. So, I wish I had something more formal to confirm with you. I have nothing public on this late, but I will tell you we are continuing to have discussions on on that front. >> Love the reports. >> Yeah, I was going to compliment you on that as well. There's a lot of great information there and I think it's really helpful for anybody who's volunteering uh in the community for any of the uh boards such as EDA or or even on the council to have that information to look back through and kind of get an idea where things sit in the community now. So, thank you, Ken. >> Thank you. And on the heels of one good report, we got another one for you to jump into with the industrial park and some analysis there as we kind of approach uh the last lot sales. >> Sure. Uh let me jump to that here. Yeah. So you guys had asked to kind of take a look back at where where we're at. uh we had all well yeah about three years ago we had looked at the same kind of analysis and then prior to that 2012 before we got into the the current phase that's wrapping up in the industrial park to compare you know how many jobs we've u added over time the tax value and we try to break it down like on a per acre calculation a little bit. So obviously the the number of employees even over the past three years has jumped from uh 227 up to 301. A lot of that growth was driven by CVF Racing. Um as well as obviously you have like a Scott Equipment moving to the industrial park where they moved basically all their engineering salespeople over there. So that's where you got a pretty big jump from a number of of those situations. And then bricks bolt works obviously uh being added to that frey in the last past three years as well. >> And quick question old plus new or just new? >> Um this is old plus new in total. So yeah, so you'd have if just to follow up on that. So if you knock the 2012 numbers out of the 2025 numbers, you can see the direct line to what phase 2 equates, right? >> Yeah. I mean, there could be just natural growth in like a >> absolutely >> uh Bush Brothers and that type of thing, but those aren't weren't significant. They were definitely significant on the new buildings and the new >> um uh businesses like uh that you can see that way. So, >> yeah, it's interesting to look back. Obviously, property values and building values went up um as well as new construction, but you know, a lot more taxes. back in 2012, we were getting, you know, $98,000 a year in taxes versus 222,000 um based on the 2025 taxes. So, um, you know, all all positive. Obviously, you know, you'd like to see more in all the categories, but clearly you can tie that back to that expansion of the park led to job growth and tax base increase. So, um, just kind of a check-in on that and obviously I think we'll we'll obviously do another one here as you know the the business here today builds and gets up and running. Um, and really can get a full picture uh review of that second phase and we could break it out too. We could probably look at first phase, second phase and uh get a little more granular with that. And assuming all goes as planned, I I think with the the new facility, um that's probably going to be the largest bottom line jobs number that we can point to from all of the various projects on >> it should be. Yes. >> So that's great. >> And that I know that they want to break ground in next month. So >> yeah. And uh oh, I should note on that we are processing a variance application for their building as well at planning commission this month. They're uh obviously trying to maximize the building site and the one thing that we have in the industrial park is a very standard 40 foot tree spacing along the front of every building out there. And they want to it's a nice looking building. So they're requesting to cut down the number of trees along the front. Kind of push that a little closer to um Sixth Street. And um if you looked in the uh purchase and development agreement, you can see the um renderings. Not a bad looking building by any means. very nice looking. So, we'll be looking at that at the end of uh February here. So, should be able to be building if everything goes to plan uh within the month here. So, >> all right. Thanks, Ken. >> Uh Joe or I'm sorry, wait, I'm one ahead of myself there. Josh, future EDA endeavors. >> Uh yeah, we're back. It's been about a year since we've talked about this. Um, looking at the memo, it looks like somehow a copy got put in there. Um, I was trying to highlight kind of how and I'll probably do this going forward to try to highlight how certain ideas or things we have um kind of meet our strategic plan or don't quite frankly. Is that something we don't want to do? Um, I would say kind of all of these do in some form or fashion do meet kind of strategic goals of them that we've talked about so far. Just as a quick reminder without kind of going through all the details, we have discussed anywhere from expanding the industrial park um maybe even expanding commercial or housing development. I know that's something the EDA hasn't really dipped into either of those, but it is certainly things that EDAS will do. Um, uh, you could also look at potentially, uh, spec buildings, whether you're looking at commercial, uh, industrial. Um, we've talked about what happens if the city takes a serious look at the mill property as a whole. Um, uh, whether it's purchasing downtown property, uh, really just kind of going through various ideas we've had thus far. So, I don't know if you guys have had a chance to to think about anything, if there are certain I I know Nick is a big fan of industrial parks. Um, but >> so far so good. It's been 20 years, good track record. So, >> so, uh, yeah, if if there's any ideas you guys have had in the meantime since we started this, there's things that you would like to certainly discuss further today. you want to kind of mull it over and we can have a much larger discussion on one or two items. I would my plan kind of going forward out of today depending on if what conversations look like maybe to try to do a deeper dive on one or two of these at a time per meeting um as to what this could possibly look like financially, politically, everything else for us. Yeah. And there's a lot to con consider there on those, but I I continue to uh similar to Nick uh or not to put words in Nick's mouth, but I'll I'll say it for myself. I I think the expansion of the industrial park, the potential acquisition of land, I I think we can make the case that that has been a successful endeavor for the city and and I I hope that that's part of the conversation going forward. Um, where I have some questions is where we're currently at with City Center with the PRAA stage getting underway and probably wrapping up uh, you know, once they're able to get back out there when conditions allow. What do the what does the plan for the surrounding area from a time frame kind of look like there? Is there a plan to market those? Are there things happening that we should be aware of or >> Yeah. So, at this point with City Center, where we are currently at is um as you may remember, the city or the EDA specifically is sitting on an extremely large pile of cash close to doing what $600,000 is around there of small city development funds. And the state over a year ago now basically sent an email that says, "Send us a plan for those funds in the next week or we want them back." Um, so, uh, we immediately reached out and found out it was kind of an email just to get cities to move a little bit more than anything. And so, we we started floating ideas and one of the ideas that came up was, well, instead of sending the money back, can we use it towards all the improvements that want to get made out of city center? and we got kind of a yeah, that could work, but um and due to just the nature of the money, we've got to meet certain federal requirements of the area. Well, there were a couple options. Um one of them basically was it the slum and blight option was the one we tried first. >> Um if we could basically call the area slum and blight and this is used to improve the area, >> great. And we kind of got the Yeah, that sounds good. send us over your proposal so we can make it formal. And so the city contracted with Bolton Mink to help us put put together a pretty application. Sent it over to them and they said, "We don't think so. This isn't going to work." >> So there was a second option though that we could go along those lines and that's the one we're exploring now. Um it does require kind of doing an income survey. The biggest thing we ran into at this point was the fact that it's dealing with a lot of residential property. And I think that money initially was more earmarked on a commercial basis. And so we now have to do kind of an income survey of the area that would be affected by the storm water runoff. Um, and assuming that we're able to meet certain income requirements, we theoretically have a thumbs up. Like that's that's kind of what we've been given at this point. And so, uh, we actually have a phone call with, um, Bolton Maker rep we've been working with here next week to kind of, okay, what is this going to cost the city to go through this? Is there things that we can do to I mean, I'm guessing it'll be a couple thousand dollars because really, it's putting together the survey, sending it out, and voluntarily having people send it back, and then seeing if we meet income thresholds. So, >> what happens if we don't? What would be the third option? Just like I hear, >> give the money back. find other options to spend. >> We will find another option >> like like at this point at this point it's find other options than to spend the money because it's yeah either we find a way to spend it in New Prague >> or the state gives it to someone else. >> I have to ask because we're the EDA any chance use it for anything out in the industrial area general area? >> I don't know if there is because I think it was designed more for a redevelopment type stuff. What about the >> this works because it's in the middle of town. I think you get out there and Greenfield arguments start getting made to do something. Correct me if I'm wrong. >> I don't know if you I don't know if there's even going to be a hint at letting you use it towards Greenfield type. >> Yeah, correct. And correct me if I'm wrong because this goes back to we we had a similar Ken Ken would recall when Mike was here we had a similar situation where we had funds we needed to use and if I remember right as long as they qualify for the project things are going into >> if there is a change in ownership after that then we have those funds available to use as we see fit. Is that correct? Well, that's not that's what we thought that was kind of laundered in a way, >> right? Yeah. >> Oh, >> okay. Well, I think that those are probably the same fun air quotes when he said for the YouTube fear just so you know. >> We looked at a lot of options where we could meet the requirements placed on them on the front end and then maybe have some flexibility in moving on from a project, turning it over to the to the private market, so to speak, and then taking those funds and going into a next step. because we didn't expend all of those funds for the small cities, it went back in the original pot and all those strings were reattached, >> put back on them. All right, makes sense. >> Unfortunately, that's all. >> I don't know that it makes sense, but I understand. >> I would agree with that statement as well. >> All right. >> So, yeah, right now that is where we're currently working through a city center. I know the council has expressed for the rest of the property, it doesn't really want to do anything with that until we have a further concrete idea timeline for the public improvements that certainly need to be made. That way we know how exactly what we're dealing with and what it will be adjacent to. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Do we know when POPS is supposed to be theoretically done? Yes, they have indicated they are hoping to have that done so they can have some kind of a opening around Dojinki time. >> Okay. >> 26. >> 26. >> 26. Okay. >> Yeah. They've got the footings in the ground. We've did all the inspections. So, really, they're going to start coming out of the ground here this spring. They could have been working over winter, but you know, volunteers and other people doing a lot of that work. So, >> sure. >> It's ready to go. Ready to come out of the ground. >> Awesome. So yeah, unless you guys kind of jumping back three steps now, unless you guys have specific things you want to discuss today, as I've said in the past, if you have ideas, we can certainly throw them on the list. Um I'll probably start trying to deep dive one or two of these at a time and so we can really decide is this something that we want to seriously consider going forward. um or table it or >> I I just continue to think that some sort of row home development on the north side of city center would be really beneficial to you know just the housing overall housing stock in the community but also the downtown area specifically to have a little more uh residential property within walking distance of our downtown businesses I think would be a really positive thing. Y >> what about that land, you know, right on the railroad tracks? Can the those funds that 600,000 be used to purchase that to clean up that and put a new >> Oh, yeah. I was going to add about about that road too. That's >> I believe they could I need to be cleaned up. I mean, >> so so the city owns right up against second and right up against Main Street and Pat Sullivan owns rights. Um, I would have to look to see if those the funds can certainly be used to clean stuff up. I don't know if they could be used to purchase it. Um, I don't even remember what the offer was last time that came forward. Was it >> 300? It >> was over 300,000. >> Around 300 is what Pat offered us a couple year year or two ago. The city council wasn't interested at that price at that time. Um, yeah. I mean, that's certainly something we can look at. And if for some reason they tell us no on this, I mean that's certainly an idea we can flow. Well, can we use it for this? >> I mean, in theory, could you use it to like I've always thought planting pine tree, something to hide the railroad tracks. I mean, I'm just thinking like we're going to have this nice performing art stage and that's your backdrop. I I would assume at some point if we can acquire all of that, yes, we'll have some sort of beautifification effort >> to try to hide that a little bit. >> And then like Third Avenue, I assume will pave at some point, right? >> Our plan at this point is not to go all the way through. It' basically be to well, so we've got to maintain access to the building that's back there, but it would be to pave basically to behind where the rusty spoke is at back to what would be a parking lot back there and an alley parking lot area and then maybe pave coming from the north a little bit to access that top lot. But that would not be a street that would need to go all the way through. >> And if you were to go all the way through, that would be directly assessed to owners. Correct. Well, we currently >> Yeah. Do we own the entirety of it though or does >> except for S? >> I was say something, right? Okay. All right. >> So, is the idea that to not be a through street at some point? >> I'm just asking why would you only go a certain way through and >> there's no need need for it. It's Yeah. I mean, inevitably, you're paying for pavement that we wouldn't need to pay to put down. And especially not not only paying for the pavement, we are moving also to um an MS4 city, which basically is a federal EDA, federal EPA stamp that we've now been put on. Quite frankly, should have been done probably 10 years ago um to us that says we have higher storm water requirements because we've reached a certain size in the city. And so every bit of pavement basically means we got to find new ways of dealing with >> gota have an offset. Y >> okay >> great. >> Good to know. >> All right. If that wraps up uh that portion of the conversation, we can jump into BRN. Joe Rashan has made several phone calls to businesses that have asked her to call back and follow up. So um we're working on an RN but there are specific that you would like us to that we haven't visited yet that you think benefit from a visit. We're open to that. But we'll continue. >> It'd be nice to hit some of those newer new businesses just to say, "Hey, how did the process go?" You know, you know, working with the city. And >> have we done scooters? >> No. That might be a decent one. >> But if like meet them off site because Yeah. >> Well, well, I think they have a table outside if we could hit them up in like July. >> I I want to see the >> Brickside was done, right? >> Okay. Yeah, >> that was be I think Well, yeah. Was that Was that done or did we just like go meet them? >> The owner right before they say I don't think >> I was going to say I don't think they were open yet, but I think it was the new leors. Okay. >> Bohemian flats too, right? >> Did we do that? >> That was just the open house. We have not done them yet, but yeah, that was the open house and we kind of talked to them all throughout the process. So >> yeah, you probably wouldn't hear a whole lot new there just from >> maybe to see if we can. >> But yeah, there there's definitely a good new number of businesses that we could get out and talk to. So >> sounds good. Yeah, you bet. Thank you. Uh business updates. So, I don't know that I have any I already kind of touched on the updates earlier in my report. So, if you have any other questions than anything, um yeah, it was basically the Heartland Credit Union. Well, I guess I didn't touch on that. Heartland Credit Union before they even opening with Novation Credit Union. Um and then, uh the other big one was Collectric Beauty did pretty major internal remodeling, uh >> Old Bargain Lodge, uh old >> bar location. So, they're kind of keeping some of the old look of the the the curved woodwork in there and things. So, it'll look it'll look nice. >> All right. Thank you, Ken. And then back to Joe for any updates from the CDA. >> Few updates. Um, our CDA board yesterday approved a purchase agreement for our old CDA office and site just over an acre. Um, we received three different proposals for it and selected Trellis as the developer. They are proposing a 40 unit affordable housing project. So the PA is conting on um their tax credit and financing. >> Cool. >> By next year is a long process. >> Yeah. >> Nice to have a project pending on that site. Um last week Pope's portage opened and that is a transitional housing project that's by Shepherd of the Lake Church in Prior Lake Sh right on the border. It was a cooperative project between Scott County. CPA acted as the developer working with Shepard Lake Church and the CAP agency. And it is transitional housing for aid families in Scott County um that are homeless and with the services provided hopefully working with that upward mobility so it's not longterm but needed projects unfortunately but probably three four times that many. Sure. >> And then market studies, the information that report is going to help section of that those studies move along quickly. We put out a request for proposals and received three different um proposals from companies from um Wisconsin and so both commercial industrial and housing hopefully will start next month. >> Great educational sessions. We hosted a first time workshop on January 31st. We had 22 individuals attend that. have another one coming up in March. Anyone that's interested in buying a home, we also have $5,000 grants to assist first time buyers. >> You uh one of my painters did that um a couple years ago and uh he's I when you put the announcement out, I put it in our Slack thread and he told all the other painters in our company like you should probably do this. So that's a huge thing. So thank you for that. >> Thank you. March 11th, we have a session coming up on financing small businesses and that is free at the for center for entrepreneurship and all businesses in Scott County and working in collaboration with Dakota Scott Workforce and all of the chambers across Dakota and Scott counties hosting an AI session on February 28th and that's hybrid $25. But they'll break into four different work groups and talking about how to incorporate AI into your business whether it's how to use it or policy etc. should be on the new chamber website as well hopefully. >> All right. Thank you Joe. Uh don't have anyone from the school district today here. So we'll turn it over Josh. anything from the director? >> Uh, just wanted to note as Ken said, we've got a lot bubbling underneath the surface and we're just hoping for one of those bubbles to pop because there's a lot of them. One of them's got to. >> Um, and then just either of note kind of going back to the job or business startups. Uh, kind of that report came out here last week from CDA. Uh, for the zip code, we had nine. For New Prague proper, we had four new business startups here in January. So things are taking off already. >> And I would I checked the number real quick. I was apparently way off base of my expectation because the economy added 130,000 jobs in January. >> I did too. They they they actually said like I was reading that as you were saying it. Yeah. It it was higher than they expected for January. But >> I did. Yeah. >> But it did backtrack. >> They they didn't get real aggressive in the revisions. So that's good. Hopefully that continues to hold because I think that's the one area you kind of look at and there's even though the the GDP and everything else looks really healthy, the the underlying job stuff is a bit concerning right now. >> The the main >> my opinion. Yeah. Yep. All right. Any other miscellaneous items? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So move. >> I'll second. I'll let you decide who had what there. Nick made the motion. >> Austin, I think. >> Perfect. >> He's louder. >> Yep. >> All in favor? >> I >> No opposed. Thank you, everyone.