it on our funding and economic development policy committee so good morning everyone and we will start with the approval of the minutes councilmember Lawson and council member sunberg any changes no changes I wasn't there so I'm going to abstain from the minutes oh that's right okay thank you and you said no changes council members okay very good we'll go ahead and improve those minutes and um we only have three items we'll start first with the development review and I think that's Laura yes good morning council members Laura Perry Deputy city manager let's share my screen okay can everyone see that great good morning so today I'm here to provide our quarterly update on development review this is for the second quarter of 2023 and so this morning through our update you'll hear an update on the work that staff have been doing and engaged in to improve our development review process and create a culture of performance and predictability we will also touch on our development workload and metrics year-to-date and end with an update on our development review fund so as a reminder we have four areas that we are focused on when it comes to improvements in our development review process and really as you'll hear the word performance we strive to be an organization and have a process that is high performing and predictable and the areas are management and Leadership oversight culture and customer service process improvements in technology and then documentation teaching and training and of course overarchingly our goal is to get projects to approval while meeting city codes and regulation so I'm not going to touch on each of these individually you all have seen these before but we have completed a lot of these in 2022 in-person meetings expedited review processes pre-application meetings Oda continues to hold those and contracted third-party inspections we've also implemented the TCO extension fee in 2022 and in terms of the Public Works reorganization uh most recently our permit Center has been engaged in cross-training with our civil engineering to consolidate development applications for all Public Works within the building division permit Center and we believe this will be a more efficient process and provide for better quality intake and controls around that and the acceptance of various development applications Remain the role of Staff within each division and through that they have been developing checklists which we'll touch on in a second foreign guidelines and reference manuals this has been a big focus of all the Departments uh through the second quarter of this year so a few items to note here are roadway design and construction specifications manual in public works has been an ongoing update process the first phase was completed in the first quarter of this year and the department is working on mapping out future phases of the roadway manual for our Udo planning and development services has hired a consultant Mig to really take a look at the development applications process but also guide future Udo updates of which this committee heard the first set last month at our meeting so you'll be hearing more from public works and planning and Pros as we move forward in looking at our Udo and ensuring certainly that it aligns with manual updates that all the Departments will be on undertaking over the next year to touch on a couple of additional manual updates so the drainage manual Aurora water has been working to update that that is anticipated to be complete by the end of this year we've recently launched a small cell manual in guidelines in a fiber manual and guidelines that's available on our website and that incredible work by staff on those very detailed manuals which provide timelines and all you need to know about submitting those projects through the city and then last but not least we are working on updating our pros and dedication and development criteria Emanuel you heard from Pros on that last month uh the development committee will be heavily engaged in that process and the other manuals that I mentioned uh but for for that one uh Council will certainly see various code updates as we move forward a couple of things to note on this slide um license agreements we are working closely on finalizing language on that and we're hoping those will go live the new process for uh for that will be Q3 of 2023 so we're very very close on that one and have been heavily engaging the development community on that we are working again to build an Institutional culture of performance and predictability in the city and over the last couple of months we've retooled and restructured our internal working meetings it takes all departments for the development review process to be successful and we've been focused on cross-departmental quarterly meetings which involve training and discussions around how we can improve the development review process as well as what we're referring to workshops where we have leadership and staff in the Department's coming together in the same room to talk about improvements that we can continue to make and and breaking those down and workshopping them together so that we're not operating in silos and that is going to continue to be a big focus of us over ongoing going forward our customer service survey we shared with we shared with ped in our last update that we have gone live on our customer service survey and to date the survey comments have been extremely helpful uh they are shared with leadership they are shared with staff and they truly guide our priorities for our work within the Departments we've received a lot of positive feedback for our customer service our availability helpful staff attentive to details and available and I want to specifically call it the building division they have received a lot of very positive comments and and continue to be our shining star for customer service in the city on the uh opportunity side customers are requesting changes and upgrades to our customer submittal portal so this is the portal where customers submit their plan sets and so we've been actively looking at that certainly as we undertake the upgrade of our Amanda system and essentially what they are looking for is better tracking of project status file management customer service around the system and then supplementary to that and update on our website which we've been working on to ensure that it provides a solid positive customer service experience where we have our manuals easily accessible how to's handouts and the fiber and small cell manuals just one example of an area that we've been working on to ensure that information is very much accessible and available to our development community and folks that need to submit plans into the city and then lastly I mentioned checklists so checklists have been a major Focus uh certainly on our civil plans and drainage and uh in q1 our Master preliminary and master and preliminary drainage checklist went live uh to the development community and that has been working well and then in early July our new civil plan checklist went live and we are currently continuing to evaluate the impact of those updates and really the premise for those updates is to help with quality control and promote quality submittals into the city so that um we are using our time efficiently across both groups to review those some future plan initiatives so I mentioned our system Amanda um that's upgrade and conversion went live over this last weekend congratulations to that team for the many hours and hard work uh Taylor bird and and Damon Hill and the IT team spent a lot of hours and so far so good I hope I didn't just jinx it uh but there's been a lot of work that's gone into this and this is again in response to what we've heard around a better improved customer service portal for the city for plan intake and reviews across the board fee payment timing we're going to be taking a look at that we have various fees that are paid throughout the process so understanding how we can maybe consolidate that and make it more efficient and effective for our customers um evaluation of of timelines and clocks our timelines have been in place for over 20 years and taking a look at um improving predictability in our timelines and and how we can facilitate that in partnership with the development community so we are seeking to to take a look at those through the end of this year uh submittal requirements that's an ongoing conversation with our checklists and with our staff and then lastly we did want to add in recognition of the resolution that was passed by Council over a month ago or so to develop a development review staff incentive so we are working on that and we will be bringing that back to management and finance policy committee before the end of the year per the direction of council so that's that's moving forward foreign side so this chart demonstrates our metrics year to day or at least May through July and may specifically May through July per month and a couple things I want to note on this slide so if you draw your attention to the last column 2023 versus 2022 um year over year you'll see that pre-application meetings are down as well as development applications are down about 23 percent and civil plans of course are down 22 percent we have seen improvements across all areas of the development review process and on-time metrics so if you compare year to date 2022 the column to year to date 2023 and specifically the blue rose you'll note that every single step of our development review process or on time metrics are up and that is a sign of staff's progress in eliminating bottlenecks and working diligently to make sure that we're supporting the development review Community meet their timelines on their development these metrics are certainly a sign of the city's performance on the development review process and these metrics are shared and updated monthly with staff and our continuous part of our conversations internally to feed a process of continuous Improvement within our departments and are certainly a measurement of the development review process as a whole one last thing to mention on this each of the steps that you see referenced here in the development review process involve multiple departments not just one and so it's key going back to my comments around having staff together in one room working together to tackle these issues recognizing the dependencies in the development review process is critical and something we're heavily focused on and last but not least our development review fund so as a reminder the development review fund was created in 2002 to address the developer demand for consistent and predictable approval process for development land planning engineering and building permits and the revenues that support this fund originate from development related fees for various plan reviews permits and inspections on the expenditure side we do pay for staff that support the development review process out of this fund as well as supplies and contracted Services We are continuing to monitor workload and costs and activity managed by contracted services as we have seen a bit of a reduction in revenues as a result of permits being slightly down year over year and for permit specifically um they are now down 21 through July versus 2022 and we are anticipating that conditions will continue to improve as higher interest rates normalize with Buyers multi-family continues to be strong with overall permits up primarily due to re-roofs permits on Rehabilitation and repair projects and those are attributed of course to our our weather that we've had with hail and May and and we're still seeing those permits come through and then on the land entitlement side these remain strong and again these are land developments for utilities water sewer and uh those that are prepped for future vertical construction so good there our goal is to end the year uh with 9.4 million uh still in reserves and the reserves here are very important to offset fluctuations in Revenue as we go forward and then last um I just want to acknowledge staff across Public Works planning uh Oda Aurora Water and um I think I covered everybody and of course uh Todd councilman and his leadership in this realm uh oh and prose I knew I was forgetting one of the children um there's been a lot of hard work and continuous dedication and support there's a lot of improvements that I haven't mentioned here that staff have taken on their own have innovatively thought through new ways to do business identified areas improvements have come together and have workshopped things completely on their own and that is a and they're very proud of that and I just want to personally thank them for their dedication their hard work and support of the development process improvements that you all have heard of that I walked you through today among others and certainly you know with the workload remaining I coming through the process uh their dedication to meeting our on-time metrics so thank you to staff listening in today thank you and that concludes the presentation yeah yeah thank you Laura um tremendous work um council member sunbergen Lawson questions um yes activity is down we see from year to year there uh compared to 2022 I noticed real property easements were up 204 can you help me understand that activity and the reason for that yes these are various dedication our larger um and and those as a whole are are up uh Public Works can you add any more specifics to that hey Lord It's Jacob I don't know if Public Works is on the list but I can add some clarity I think what we're seeing councilmember sunberg is a lot of these easement dedications go through a separate document process so if we've got a large master plan I'll use transport out east for example in your ward if if they've got a master plan where maybe they're not subdividing large Parcels at this time but they're doing a lot of infrastructure work they'll come in and do those easements by separate documents so we might have a hundred different easement dedications come in for a filing to get the Civil plans approved because they're dedicating water lines and so that's why you're seeing those numbers jump at that level okay thank you and would you mind going back to the very first page of the I want to look at that mission statement again there the goal is to get projects to approval while meeting city codes and regulations but you know first of all I understand this looks like a very uh your efforts are complex and involves so many departments and so many people so you know congratulations on your efforts to coordinate all of that it would be tricky it's like working on the Apollo Mission or something so I'm looking at this this very bottom mission statement and you know we're wanting to Institute this cultural performance and predict predictability uh a year and a half ago it was predictably slow right right now we were hearing that from developers despite the best efforts and so I'm looking at this and I wonder if the you know maybe the word expeditiously should be inserted or swiftly or rapid I we we need to be able to you know have a a sense of urgency at times yet being cautious to dot the eyes and cross the t's so I just wonder if that sense of speed in some fashion should be placed in there a certain pace I could be wrong I you know I wasn't around spitballing the mission statement with you guys but what do you think sure absolutely we could we can add that and I think that's our core Mission um is to we recognize that the um urgency in the development review Community around you know making sure we can deliver and and meet our timelines for comments back their submittals back into us um it's a unique marriage that we have with them and so how can we work together to get them to the Finish Line is something where we're focused on and expeditiously um I think is definitely a shared goal okay so we can certainly look yes because time is definitely money with these folks right yes and uh and sometimes they might even miss the market by by likely delays and we've I've seen some of that but yeah thank you for all your efforts here nice job sure and Council I should mentioned too part of of conversation about Mission Vision Values around the development review process and so uh we will certainly take that back through this process and and come back to you all with with updates there thank you councilmember Lawson yes thank you councilmember Bergen um Laura thank you for the presentation um if we could just go back to where you have all the percentages I just wanted to just dive in with a couple questions on the development review um uh percentages there so not putting it in a Grade form everything else is like A's and then we still have like a c plus 78 so can you help me kind of dig into that what is the okay you I know that there's some outlier factors that may be causing the development review process to maybe be at that percentage still and maybe not in the higher 80s or maybe even 90s can you just tell me what is causing this to be at 78 percent it went from 68 to 78 which that's fine that's fantastic but can you just dive in just a little bit more of why that number is still lower comparatively to everything else as of date councilmer Lawson for my clarification are you referring to the applications the application piece is it resources kind of making that number a little bit lower to review these applications is it because the submittal of the applications are on the maybe on the developer side is that are they are is there Corrections have to be made I'm just trying to understand that number that number is still a little lower it's great it's just I'm just trying to understand compared to the other ones sure so development applications involve several departments and we were we called those referrals and so they'll involve reviews on traffic they'll involve reviews on stormwater um and so the Reliance on that certainly some areas are more complex than others and take a little bit more time so what we do is we dig in and we say okay why is this lower what is this attributed to and uh for for this particular one the traffic and impact traffic impact studies are very complex and for our larger developments often take more time and that metric as a whole impacts the total that you see here and so we are cognizant of that and when we diagnose what's happening we look at third party contractors and for traffic we have brought on third-party contractors to do traffic review we also look at Staffing and vacancies so certainly that can impact this number as someone's workload to review you know 50 plans maybe you know a lot and it takes them a little bit longer to get through the queue um and then also quality of the documents so going back and forth sometimes with the developers on questions and clarifications also impact the metrics as well okay council member Bergen can I just ask oh just to follow up so just make a comment or just and also follow up you know with traffic being a really major issue to most all of these developments I mean councilmember Berg and I've been on Council for eight years council member sunberg you've experienced this well traffic is always the issue um is there any thought about maybe kind of putting a little bit I know it's all important together but that issue seems to be really since it's taking the most time I'm just wondering maybe putting a little bit more proactive or doing something like that to make that kind of I don't know just maybe better streamlined yeah I might not be saying the appropriate you are you are spot on councilmember Lawson and I will share with you Public Works are having active workshops and meetings specifically focused on traffic uh well that's you know including developing checklists um how can we streamline the reviews we're actively also we have a couple of positions posted that we are trying to fill so all of those factors combined I'm confident will come together to to improve that metric and um I I just want to say you have done tremendous work um I know this has been you know starting with the red tape ad hoc committee and getting those comments from from businesses and developers and then just um you know feedback from Council obviously and so um just really want to thank staff I I know um it's difficult in today's environment with um vacancies and and you know just people people um having to take on a little bit more workload so um just really appreciate it um and I'm really happy to see the um the fiber and cell small cell site manual being updated because you know I had some constituent concerns um so um I imagine that that is to make sure that those contractors know our expectations and yeah thank you yeah that was a huge effort by multiple folks Within Public Works um Leslie Gaylord Brianna Medina just to name a few so those folks to serve all the credit in the world for that one yeah Leslie did a great job so thank thank them as well um and this you said it this is a quarterly so we'll hear again um for the end of the year I guess we'll have one more correct yeah we will have one more and that will be because it's end of well there's um it'll be Q3 so you'll hear Q3 in Q4 of this you're reflecting back on quarter three and then you'll hear Q4 in the January time frame okay right and that will be a year review okay and then this is ongoing this is not just this year we're doing this we're going to do this single year this is embedded in our culture and and we're committed to ongoing continuous Improvement which is why we instituted the customer service survey we want to consistently measure how we're doing um we are doing better but we still have work to do and and we have staff committed to that and engaging the development community in that work is critical to Our Success is this shared with the jtf this particular presentation is not um I mean I don't know if they want to hear the whole presentation but it would be nice if they got the presentation sure um they can definitely send this out absolutely I think it's important for for them to also see the improvements I mean I know there's things that aren't on here that have been done like the mylars and that type of thing um so I don't know if there's a running list of everything we've changed um I think it's important for them to see it as well what we can do council member Bergen is we can develop a year-end report that really comprehensively shows everything we've put in place for the year um and then kind of does a look ahead as well um and we can we can share that with the Development Career we have been talking about how can we better communicate uh with folks broadly whether that's through a newsletter or a you know a website where we're actually having conversations about our website so we're continuing to think through that but that's a wonderful suggestion that we'll we'll do and we'll share this with the jtf certainly and and I think we're going to be the model again for the whole state Colorado that's our goal I want to be the best on development review and we've got a lot of folks that share that great all right well thank you again um so next um is the icsc update Bob all right um give me a second to do the share screen part and here we go all right can everyone see that we can all right uh so before we get into this uh I've done a few presentations in the last few weeks and at the end of each one of those presentations I got the same question uh could you give us an update on sales and sales tax revenue generation that is not this presentation uh so I can do that presentation I used to do those sales reports presentations if you'd like to see that we can schedule that in the next few uh PDS but this is really just about icsc uh in two of these presentations I've given recently I've done stuff on icse so if you've been to councilman Bergen's uh town hall and or to the Planning Commission meeting a lot of this might be repetitive but I've reworded it a little bit to make it try to be interesting so let's get into it so this is what we're going to be talking about icsc stands for an international Council of shopping centers uh we're going to talk about the team that we bring the schedule that we have down there um how we get deals done uh we'll talk a little bit about there were developers and then we'll get into the results of uh what we got coming out of icsc so icsc uh these this you can see our booth up in the right hand corner um this is pretty much uh it's a 20 by 20 Booth uh we've been bringing this booth out for about three four years uh and we're redesigning this booth maybe expanding it for next year um you can see that we do bring uh The Heavy Hitters if you see in the middle uh you'll see and we'll talk about this in the next slide you'll see uh uh the city council person uh Francoise and Jason and we'll get into that in the next slide which is not moving there we go okay so uh we bring Jason uh as the interim city manager we usually invite the city manager Jason also went as the deputy city manager in Past Times uh council person Bergen uh is here we also have as you can see behind Jason you can see cesarina from Oda uh in front of Jason uh facing the other way is Andrea omnic uh you'll see me in other pictures uh and Tom Oldenburg is the one who sets up all of the packets for this and Kathy DeWolf is the one that coordinates all of this bill Kiefer sets up all of our iPads and mapping if you look right next to the right of Andrea's head you'll see an iPad mounted to the countertop we have three of those mounted in the meeting rooms too so that we can go on to the developer map and show anyone anything they want to say uh that you can see on our website and Bill keeper handles all of that was his GIS folks okay okay so the meetings we have 35 meetings in a in a day and a half they're half an hour meetings and they are back to back to back there is no lunch time so these are the type of folks we meet with mostly these are the big box players uh the high volume players and we'll talk about that in a second so we meet with Kroger who owns the King Super Brands uh Dick's Sporting Goods Walmart Pimco these are Kimco is a developer the Southlands folks are actually very close to our booth and we're hoping to move right next to their booth next year we meet with the brokerage Community Crosby CBRE which is fellow Banker Richard Ellis um jll is Jones Lang LaSalle uh Sullivan Hayes a local player and of course we meet with the the developers the painted Prairie folks from Washington Prime and everybody else so that's a handful of the meetings that we have uh at icsc okay we also go out there to meet with high volume restaurants and so uh the reason we meet with high volume restaurant operators is because they produce more dollars per square foot than a typical retailer would let's say in a 5 000 square foot restaurant uh a restaurant operator a high volume restaurant operator can produce three or four times the sales tax uh than a small operator and and probably five times the sales tax as a retailer and they employ twice as many people so we go after the high volume restaurants because uh they produce more sales tax and employ more people that doesn't mean we don't want Mom and Pops we do want mama pops but they don't generally go to icsc because ICS use it a very expensive show and so uh it's a few thousand dollars just to get in and then you have to set up a booth and or hotels and meals and so a lot of the small operators don't go we meet with them here in the city but when we go to icsc we're dealing with the higher volume players and we'll talk more about restaurants in a second of course Elvis has never left the building and uh they had an unscheduled meeting with the chance Arena so I found it funny that Elvis was carrying a box of uh chotskies from uh the different booths um but uh the funny thing about this is the the convention center is at what used to be the Hilton and that used to be where Elvis was based and so that's why Elvis is always at the show it's just a funny little thing anyway um so let's talk a little bit about the results from icse um this is where we met with the Nordstrom's Rack folks and the Bolero folks a year ago in order to get the deal done between icse and this icse so we meet with Folks at these meetings but a lot of times the deals happen between the meetings it's very hard to get a deal done uh in about 30 minutes especially if this is your first meeting we also uh got the restaurant program deals out of icsc the last two years ago at ICS or three years ago in icsc we did the restaurant deals that you see down in the arts district this year we were pitching the the restaurant deals we're doing it in different words and we've identified four out of the six uh up to this point when we have to 2024 to get those done we also had meetings with big box retailers six of them are expressing interest in specific sites normally when we meet with them they say things like we're interested in Aurora we'd love to come to Aurora tell us about Aurora so that's just a general meeting but when they start pointing at sites and saying we're interested in this site or that site then that's a whole different level and so we've had a lot of that at this meeting um we talked to the Brokers and the Brokers are telling us the restaurants are back and the Omni Channel retailers are back um the channel means that you're selling through a store through a website uh you may be selling through other stores you may be selling through other multi-channel websites or maybe you're on Amazon and you're on your own website um and the reason uh Omni channel players are are expanding is because the non Omni channel players are not expanding right now big boxes are slowing down a little bit and we'll talk about that a little more in a minute um so the developers were telling us that they're getting a lot of action this year that they didn't see last year last year was kind of coming out of covid this year no one even talking about covet anymore and so they're getting a lot of action on uh selling and Leasing and the Northeast is starting to see people interested uh the Hot Topic of the of the meeting were the value-added redevelopments so for the last four years we haven't heard anyone talking about buying shopping centers this year we heard I got I had four meetings with investors who already own property in Aurora who want to own more property in Aurora and so kudos to the planning department and Oda for getting those people through the process they're so happy with it that they're now trying to buy more properties um but there aren't a lot of properties available value add means a center that usually needs some work so paint and spackle new parking lot you know new storefronts um and then they get the owner gets to raise the rents and so we had a lot of interest in that so um but I did want to talk about two of the things coming out of icsc uh and that's the changes in the way brick and mortar folks are doing business uh versus and and you know how they're doing business online and what's going on with delivery in the restaurants so um the brick and mortar uh brick and mortar stores uh it are now negotiating deals where they can walk away from the store or close the store if things just don't work out that is a big change from the way leases used to be and so these folks have all of the research we have and then some and so they can tell when you're shopping online they know where you live they can tell when you're shopping online and when you're visiting the store if they open a store near you they see they watch to see whether you're going to the store and shopping and buying at the store or whether you're still staying online if you don't go to the store and you're shopping online they're going to close the store and that's why they all have the option to close those stores if you don't shop at the store so I'm begging you to actually go shop at the stores if you'd like them to be around because just because you're buying online doesn't mean they're going to keep a store nearby that's called showrooming and showrooming is actually going to be a trend you're probably going to see in the next 10 years years when they have a store but there's no stock in the store it's only displays and then you buy it at the store but then they ship it from a warehouse you're not even gonna there's not gonna be any employees in the store and there won't be any stock in the store because that's the two biggest expenses that the retailers have if they're going to keep that store open it may just be a showroom where you could just go in scan a scan bar and then the thing is shipped to your house before you even get home um they're doing that they were doing that in Korea about 10 years ago and so that technology is out there uh but please shop at the stores because we do want the brick and mortar stores to remain that's just giving you a heads up about that now about the restaurants restaurants have an advantage over retailers because you can't really shop online for food you can get it delivered but it's going to be delivered from a local restaurant and so uh what's what's happening now uh restaurants are now in the game of trying to create enough entertainment or of enough of an experience to get you back in the restaurant after covid the tricky part of that is Gen z now I have three kids that are in gen Z and they are into video games and apparently all the way up to the age of 35 there's a significant set of folks playing video games that is their entertainment they're ordering food to be delivered while they're playing their video games which don't have a pause button for all of you folks over 40. they don't have pause buttons these games go on forever until you lose they can go on for six or seven hours and so that's their entertainment the food is just something they need to eat while they're being entertained and an entertainment at a restaurant is in competition with VR and all of the games they're playing so that generation is going to need a different level of excitement at a restaurant to leave behind their video games and come to a restaurant that is a trend that we're going to be seeing in the future but I'm noticing that amongst when I asked folks under 25 why don't you eat at restaurants and why are you spending all that money on delivery that's a lot of the answers I'm getting is it's more exciting for us to play with all of our friends in this virtual world and eating is just something we do while we're doing that so anyway that's just two heads up on what's going on and going on in the industry um and that's pretty much the whole presentation so time for questions thank you Bob uh questions councilmember Law Center sunder yes let's see are we targeting when it comes to restaurants specifically high-end steak or seafood places not necessarily high volume but upscale we are uh those um they are extremely picky this time around a lot of them had to close stores that they put in markets that were what they thought were strong markets but turned out to be just moderate markets um they have there's been a mass consolidation in that business a lot of them have been picked up by other chains and they're going to be start starting to roll those out now um but the high-end Steakhouse and the high-end seafood places are uh are really being picky right now um we haven't we've seen the restaurant business come back and high end is coming back but but slowly they spend a lot more money on those restaurants that could be a two and a half million dollar restaurant just to build it um their Staffing is much more expensive so uh we are talking to them we're not getting a lot of activity out of the in ones the sort of capital grills and the you know those those upper end players um and and again I think they're going to be cautious uh this idea that a recession is coming depending on who you believe um I think 50 of the country thinks the recession is coming they don't like to open in recessions and so I think they're waiting to see what's gonna what's gonna come from the next uh 24 months in in the in the economy gotcha thank you yeah I know our family likes to celebrate some special occasions by going outside of Aurora to some some very nice places obviously there's the Gaylord for their Steakhouse but there's the parking issue and you know getting in the place and but uh I'd love to see that eventually happen with both those uh steak and seafood we would too and sooner the better thank you council member Lawson thank you councilmember Bergen um Bob thank you always for the great presentations and giving us some reality facts uh the one that you just provided about we're just going to be able to that may be the future going into a store and scanning um that's really interesting so thank you for providing that reality fact I have a question for you with a lot of the big box stores closing like Bed Bath Beyond I think the other one's Baby R Us I think they were all connected in the city of Aurora um what is going to happen dude if we don't get any buyers or if we don't get any any interest in certain these particular big box stores because these are huge and they're in these plazas where there's there is a lot of activity because they have a grocery store they have maybe a you know some type of recreation you know a fitness place or what other stores or nail places or anything like that what happens um do we try to do more to try to see if we can get some people get interest in those areas or is it just gonna be kind of just kind of a of a failing kind of area where we just have this this all this pocket parking spaces and all this stuff and then we just don't have anything there that's the incentive that we passed well and okay okay but that's a big these are big box stores the incentive we passed this for the big vacant spaces yeah but what if there's I guess I understand that but you said in your presentation there has to be interest right and that's pretty much where I'm trying to thrive if there's no real interest or if someone doesn't a developer or a commercial whatever doesn't see well we can really get value here what happens is the city's perspective of of how we would adapt to that and with that being vacant or anything like that right assuming that when you say there's no interest that means at any price we weren't able to give an incentive they weren't able to lower the rent with whatever so then it's uh now we have a vacant box and the incentive package that we put together uh is initially working um there are a number of players that come into those types of spaces uh you know the sort of the lower end one or the Spirit Halloween guys that show up every year and then the Christmas guys and then the yeah the party cities are now doing uh temp stores where they'll come in for periods of time um but in general um if it isn't one of those like Five Below players that like to come into vacant space because they don't like brand new space because they don't like paying rent you know or paying much rent so it's what I would call the um sort of the opportunistic type players that are looking for cheap rent and they're waiting for those boxes to stay vacant for a year or two for the developer to get desperate and then then they come in and get a better deal um they're not they are expanding significantly those aren't those players but the hottest thing in retail right now is off price and so that's why Nordstrom's is doing Nordstrom Racks uh and so um the sort of the TJ Maxx's of the world are on fire right now because they have a whole series of companies that are all off price and so it's possible that off prices start coming into a center that generally doesn't have off prices that has all full prices um and you may even see the Outlet business starting to bleed back into the shopping centers because the Outlet business used to have to be 40 miles away from your nearest department store and then Mills changed all of that made it like they just started plopping bills in the middle of a plate of uh municipalities and all of a sudden the Outlet business changed dramatically so we could see Outlet players like rack Rack opens in Outlets but they rather prefer to open in shopping centers outlets in general are something you do on vacation or you do on these excursions to an outlet center but that's that's driving that's not convenient so they're starting to bring those types of players into shopping centers there's also going to be a consolidation the better players are going to win the Park Meadows the Southlands The Gardens on Havana beautiful design good tenants uh kept it clean uh and you know those centers are the ones that win the centers that lose are the ones that lose their anchor tenants they're sort of a second tier Center third tier Center and they don't have the ability to fill them that's where Redevelopment starts and that is a big Trend in our business but the local community usually has some say in that and that ends up being a little more controversial than let's just knock those four big boxes down and put up some multi-family yeah and I just have a question I mean um with those big box stores like that because they have such a big space I mean I was just recently down in South Florida and I noticed that in some of their developments they had like a big box store that had kind of went out but then they had kind of like an outlet in there but they were surrounded it was kind of an interesting concept where they had different types of outlet stores but it was encompassed in this big box and that's just something I I noticed when I was in South Florida um so I was just that's why I brought that issue up yeah they're tricky to divide it the spaces are hard to divide up but you can do one of those sort of marketplace divisions inside a big box okay and the station markets are opening in those kind of places too okay thank you and council member Bergen FMA go ahead so Janine restad director of planning to services so council member Lawson other things that we're doing department-wide is looking up or we want to do a study a lot of it internal looking at the retail we have existing space vacancy planned in new areas to make sure we're not over retailing as Bob mentioned things have changed and are changing this was eye-opening for me as well so making sure we're right sizing it but then also talking to experts because there's where the Best Buy was which I would think is one of a a nicer vacant area and then we have some that are the lower class ones Bob was referring to what can we do in those areas to encourage some revitalization so these are all things that we want to look at to make sure that we are getting the best in the city and I'll add to councilmember Lawson um you know her visit to Florida I mean I think that's kind of an interesting idea is you know taking a vacant big box and then and then marketing it to and I don't know Bob is is there one is there somebody that gets all the outlets together or do you go one by one to outlets to the outlet stores you know like a Michael Kors would be good right Angela right um now let's come in a different bunch of different flavors there's the manufacturer Outlets which are the actual people who make the product then there's the sort of off-pricers that they buy from someone else in a liquidation and then there's the Discounters who are you know sort of Best Buy might consider themselves to be on the discount side um by the way the Best Buy deal um I know I've mentioned this in other speeches but uh Southlands did everything they could to keep Best Buy and when I mean everything I have never heard a developer get that aggressive to try to keep them because they had cotenency issues where if they drop below X percent of the vacancy in the big boxes some of their other big boxes deals could change so they tried but Best Buy for whatever reason had decided to close that store and there was nothing we could do about it um and Best Buy is the last player in that business I mean we had Circuit City go under and all the other players I think there's still cons is still around but um that is the first business that really got beat up by online shopping because it is always cheaper to buy it online than it is to go into a store um so uh but but the idea of dividing up those big box stores that's usually the developer who takes a look at that and says you know uh Bros their hands up and says these deals are too expensive for these for the boxes I could divide the space up in a smaller space and get more rent and do more sales and so we would welcome the concept um but Janine is right we are over retailed and uh there are areas that are going to have to get redeveloped or these value-add guys are going to come in fluff up those spaces and try to make them look exciting again um but there may be some conversions of spaces coming uh and then of course there's the office business which is the whole separate conversion possibility yeah and you know uh Nordstrom Rack is in the I forget which space they took because um boleros did boleros take the Bed Bath and Beyond Space yeah they took the bigger space okay and then Nordstrom Rack took that I forgot what was over there but um you know those I mean Southlands pursued those two um retailers heavily um and I know I have as you know bugged them for years and years to bring us a Nordstrom Rack but also an entertainment venue and I think also some of those big boxes you know you had I think mentioned this in previous presentations about more experience based type of um I guess um retailers whatever I don't know what they're called but just really to bring more more population into whatever Center so they they're spending money as they're there right right uh the the first trick is to get them to the place the second trick is to keep them there right and so uh they want to have things that uh run the full spectrum of entertainment we did talk to Southlands about doing entertainment in some of their restaurant spaces that they have available uh we have offered to possibly help out with that if we could but entertainment uh outside of the world of video games entertainment is still lacking of uh if you're going to concerts they are uh fewer and far between very expensive to get into concerts these days and people are looking for things to do all the rest of the time and so um there's a lot of different entertainment Concepts coming up we're taking a look at them uh Bolero uh does have a quite a spectrum of entertainment in their in their location um but yeah uh things that it's you've got to draw them out of their homes it is very convenient to shop online um and you've got to drum out of their homes with something exciting uh having a sense of place Southlands has a sense of place if you just have a power center it just feels like you're laser beaming the power center you go into your one store you come out you leave it needs to have a sense of place of walkability and restaurants create that activity so yeah yes and people are sitting outside and you need to be able to look down Main Street and see activity and that's why you outside seating helps so much it makes it look like there's activity everywhere great well thank you so much for the presentation no problem that was a busy um day and a half for sure yeah yeah and if you want to say anything about icse from you know I've been going there a long time but you know you've been on the you've been there a few years so if you have any anything to add to icsc please no I think it's it's a good use of our our bunnies that we invest in that um you know and some of those deals take years so it's not just the one time that you meet somebody a comment and a couple brief questions I was excited to learn about I think it's called La Plaza at Chambers and uh uh Colfax is the former Super Kmart being converted into what I might describe as a smaller Latino Stanley marketplace around entertainment for sure right lots of merchants maybe 50 something stalls for merchants a supermarket a barber shop even dentistry and various services but a lot of entertainment even for kids I was taking a tour and lots of games for kids and they're gonna have a you know patios and party space and so it's great to see that entrepreneurial spirit and hopefully we we're working with them in a friendly way I'm sure we are and they want to build maybe a five-story parking space outside and it'll eliminate all the food trucks which have been very successful out there which I've even gone to with my daughter she's a foodie but a couple quick questions you indicated uh France uh councilmember Bergen that we passed some incentives as a towards you last year um was it early last year no I forget but um Southlands could not close the gap getting Nordstrom Rack or boleros because of the build out and so forth that they had to invest in the money and I think Bob's mentioned before how those sought after um you know retailers like a Nordstrom Rack that's a catalyst for more bringing more um good quality business um they play hard to get and they know they have the upper hand so the incentive that I sponsored was to um help fill that Gap when you have a large vacant space but it had to be it wasn't just spill it it was fill it with a um a marquee tenant someone that would be act as a catalyst so it was it was it's like building upon you know that investment and then and being able to to produce more sales tax revenues okay right available for the entire city for any big box it gives us allowance to work with them it's not only set in stone the actual okay correct correct prior there was a rule that said that it had to be a 500 000 square foot center that was being redeveloped and so in this case they were redeveloping whole Center they were in developed redeveloping boxes and so we had to change the wording so that we could do a box instead of the whole Center that was very limiting okay my next question for the sake of my understanding you mentioned Omni yeah and what does that mean Omni Channel means you're you are selling in every possible way that the consumer would want to buy in so whether that's selling uh at um at outlet centers selling online selling retail uh going and doing pop-up stores everywhere getting in people's way doing something in Vegas uh during a big event um it's it's it's starting to turn into uh just about any way you can get in the way of the consumer um that is uh that that they consider convenient so it's also the pull-up to the parking space and then the person comes running out with your item and it gives it to you in your car um there's probably a a dozen or so of these different ways that people are getting in getting to the consumer okay thank you that's all right any other questions or comments no thank you so much Bob great presentation um next we have careers in construction and we have uh Morgan from The Home Builders Association I think he's on here Morgan is not on however Michael is oh hi Michael hi councilwoman and hi uh the rest of the Ed committee and City staff and the rest of the attendees I am Michael Gifford CEO at associated general contractors and we are partners with the Home Builders Association and Morgan and his team and glad to give you an update this morning and with us to give the actual presentation is uh Lisa Seaman our Workforce Development manager from our construction Education Foundation which is the entity um that both AGC and HBA use to deliver this very important high school education so just a couple opening comments and and turn it over to Lisa we started you know in 2015 conceiving of a way to put construction education back into the high school formed partnership with HBA that year started our first program in 2016. at least it'll describe that in detail so I won't do that but fast forward to today and we're in 57 high schools across the state and we are uh partnering with to Aurora Public Schools high schools in 2023-24 and it just also want to comment uh very exciting to hear all your development plans there is going to be a massive amount of construction going forward because of the infrastructure funding from the federal and state level the housing that's needed the affordable housing that's needed energy policy at the state level is going to cause a lot of commercial and then residential buildings to have to be retooled from natural gas to electricity all of that means that we're going to need a lot more construction employees in the future than today and so that's a great career opportunity with a lot of different pieces of that we can talk about that later but it all starts with an exposure that to that in high school and the earning of certificates that can be used and we do know that there's Pickens Tech in the Aurora area but uh there's a long waiting list to get in there and you can only drive so many minutes in a day to make that effective and Aurora is growing much larger than the target footprint of Pickens and uh the waiting list uh means many students cannot participate this program is designed to be in an individual high school so they don't have to leave the high school so it's not competing it's complementary with Pickens so we want to make sure you know that right off the bat and with that I'd glad to turn it over to Lisa to give you an update and with our ask of support to move forward with a pretty Innovative funding idea to make sure that we can just have these be sustainable programs in the long run thank you Michael wonderful thank you Michael can I verify that you all can see my screen yes yes okay wonderful thank you so much good morning everyone thanks for having us here today as Michael said my name is Lisa Seaman and I am the workforce director for the construction Education Foundation as you can see on our first slide here there is a great need in the construction industry in the state of Colorado the goal of careers in construction Colorado is to engage students and their influencers and educate them as to the high demand high-wage construction jobs available in the industry through Hands-On Project based learning careers in construction is a program of the construction Education Foundation at the foundation it is our mission to recruit develop and serve students of the construction industry by promoting Innovative education Pathways to rewarding careers in an inclusive highly skilled and prosperous construction Workforce as Michael mentioned earlier the cic program started in 2016 in one school in Colorado Springs and as of now in this coming school year the program will be implemented in 60 high schools throughout the state each region of these schools is supported by the AGC of Colorado and the construction Education Foundation and a specific Home Builders Association that is in the region slide goes slightly more into detail about the need in Colorado as you can see we have 38 000 employees needed plus we will have additional needs for retirement replacement so we have a lot of ground to cover in the next four years the hope is that the careers and construction program will help with that by putting Hands-On skilled trades training back in high schools throughout the state again this school year the program will be active in both Vista Peak Preparatory and Gateway High School in Aurora Public Schools in addition to Hands-On skilled trades training the cic program also teaches students construction math we have a rigorous safety curriculum and important 21st century employability skills are weaved throughout the curriculum both by the instructors teaching it and by the career Navigators that we support going into the high schools to meet with students and help them further engage with industry really exploring career options for them both while in high school in the internship opportunity area and then post graduation in employability and apprenticeships students at Vista Peak and Gateway also have the opportunity to take careers in construction programming as a freshman or sophomore and continue on into a p-tech program which would allow them to earn both a high school diploma and an associate's degree from the Community College of Aurora in construction management and all of that is at no cost to the student the cic program is designed around the curriculum from the home builders Institute it is a nationally certified pre-apprenticeship certificate training that provides portable stackable credentials to students the Colorado Department of Education has reviewed and approved the curriculum for Career and Technical education throughout the state construction Education Foundation invests fifteen thousand dollars per school year per school to fund the curriculum instructor training hbi certifications OSHA 10 certifications and materials funding is primarily from construction companies and both public and private grants at this time we receive multiple requests per year to begin programming in new schools and part of being able to do that is finding sustainable funding for the schools that we currently fund so that no school ever has to be dropped from or age out of the program for participating for too long a building permit fee allows every company in the industry to support this endeavor to support construction education in their local District by participating when they pull a permit um we have a history of successful permit fees being implemented it started in the Pikes Peak region in 2016 to support the rapid growth of schools down in that area and recently on the construction Education Foundation and AGC have worked with the City and County of Denver to support Denver public schools through building permit fees as well and then this slide just goes into a little bit more about how the process works um you can see that the fee is an opt out voluntary fee money is only to be used for funding construction programming in Aurora and again would allow us to have sustainable growth of the programming residential permits are 25 and Commercial permits are 200 and all are for new builds and then this slide um we can take questions on it also has our contact information I encourage you to jot down our info we're always happy to share stories of success in our programming and provide updates on enrollment certificates internship and employment placement and then any other program metric which might be interesting to the council and we work with schools in many different districts and we provide individualized reporting for schools in those districts for meetings such as this throughout the school year and then at the end of the school year when we have more concrete internship and employment numbers and we would love to be able to provide that information to you guys as well moving forward and that's actually the end of my slideshow I'm sure that Michael will have more to add and there will probably be several questions so we'd love to move on to that you Michael do you want to add or do you want to do questions first or um I would just simply say that our our request we know that there is some work in altering your building permit fee collection system but that's the partnership that we're asking with uh the uh the city of Aurora is to do that and then the second thing is having to create an mou between the city and the construction Education Foundation knowing of the support from the HBA and the AGC so that the the funds are restricted to the intended purpose of supporting the the aps schools and that that's the partnership that we're asking for your support and then moving on to implementation and you would be the third a city in the state after while the the four cities that are involved in Pikes Peak Regional building department and then the city and county Denver to support in this way and ensure the sustainability of the programs going forward and get ready for the construction employment need that's in front of us thank you and uh before we take questions I just want to say this this actually concept came to us in 2020 obviously that was the year of the horrible pandemic um and this committee did move it forward and I don't know everything got lost during that year so um so it's not the first time that we're seeing this and we appreciate you coming back and and making this request and I think uh I fully supported I think it's a great idea um for us and you know you said we'd be the third and you know we're the third largest city so that makes sense right um so I'll go ahead and open it up for questions or comments from our other council members council member Sunbird Lawson any questions on the on the fee it is an opt out fee uh councilmember Bergen uh you thanks for the presentation it seems very practical I see the need it's quite a gap in available labor I helped me to understand the the permit adjustment piece again is this for homes that the students would be working on I I missed that I wasn't listening too well and that piece it's it's basically um any new build whether it be a commercial facility or a residential home um you know whenever our our developers our Builders um are building they have to pay a permit fee and so they're paying their normal permit fee but then they have this um they can do this 25 if it's a residential home new build um they can contribute that 25 that goes straight into this program um if they don't want to participate they would opt out so I don't know if that helps explain it simple option okay I see thank you Michael do you want to add anything or Lisa that was perfect councilman yeah okay council member Austin yes I fully support this this is a great program and I'm glad um is there any intent to maybe reach out to other schools or are you just going to kind of see how this kind of plays out with the couple schools that we have and then maybe reach into Cherry Creek School District and because I see a need in a lot of places and I see a lot of kids that probably would really really benefit from this program because a lot of them don't want to go to college but they could really see a good income level sustainability and working in construction and maybe even gravitating toward getting their own company so um I just um yeah I really see this as a really good program so but just asking about the expansion sure we do see a lot that this generation has an entrepreneurial spirit so we talk a lot about owning your own business which is really fun um so the two Aurora schools that we have this year Vista Peak and Gateway are really the start of the programming in Aurora we're hoping to grow it they are part of our high school programming which will be in 19 schools in the Denver metro area so we are involved at the Cherry Creek Innovation campus down at Cherry Creek where their students come and I know that they have students from a pretty large footprint and then they all go to that Innovation campus for their Career and Technical education so we are involved there and as I said we've been at Vista Peak for this will be our fifth year out there in our first year at Gateway so we're really excited to expand the programming in Aurora we work real closely with Jennifer jaznowski and her team to implement this p-tech and then look at what the growth looks like throughout the district okay thank you uh questions in the programming within the schools what's the age and the minimum age requirement to participate so the students just have to be freshmen um it is possible to actually do the first round of programming which we call the packed core so that's pre-apprenticeship certificate training and it covers building trade safety in first aid and does include an OSHA 10 construction math tools and materials and then employability skills that can actually be implemented in middle school as well in eighth grade but we haven't really had any middle schools yet ready to take that leap they do more exploratory and then the actual certification piece seems to happen in high school but it is as low as you know ninth grade that students can participate thank you I've done some work in some truancy remedial stuff try to just try to get kids in school and some of these young people even as young as 14 don't want to go to school but they want to work in some fashion so I think right attract young people that get to school to learn something very practical perhaps yes and the opportunity is there Aurora does have a pretty robust program with internships as well so they are able to get student certifications which then really opens doors for them to be able to work in the industry and have connections have mentors which can help guide them along so we we love to encourage students that maybe feel like school is a little bit too inside the box for them to give the programming a try because it really does open up a whole new world of possibility that's great I know advocates for children at Casa is directly involved with some truancy programs and you could link up with some of the young people that simply don't want to go to school absolutely we would love that that would be a great a great way for us to to increase our numbers and increase the number of construction pipeline employees and benefit the lives of some students great um and I had just one question on you said it's about fifteen thousand dollars to implement her location um so as we're accumulating these permit fees it stays in Aurora right so Aurora businesses or developers builders that are paying into that it stays in I would assume into a fund um so that eventually we could as council member Lawson ask expand it to other schools that is correct okay very good um I would just add to that that would be the subject of the agreement between the construction Education Foundation in Aurora so I imagine that would come back for you to see that before it was approved okay very good and I was just going to say a lot of these trades um you know HVAC and and electricians and and whatnot make a really good living um right off the bat with no debt so that's important that's our biggest biggest marketing piece especially you know being lucky enough to be in Colorado with the demands that we see we share with our students right off the bat it's high demand you'll always have a job even if you do choose to leave the state for some reason we don't know why people do that but they do and you'll always have a job no matter where you go it's high skill no one can take that away from you you know in the age of chat GPT and AI that will never be able to to take over for a skilled trades and and it's high wage you you can make a great really successful living in the trades very good um so for staff um our next step I guess moving forward maybe Laura you can address because obviously we have to be able to implement this within our software to do the opt out permit fee and then obviously we have to do the mou so this looks like the two next steps all right councilman Bergen so I did want to mention you know as I mentioned earlier we were working through a conversion with our Amanda software and so we're actively looking at the technology mechanism to achieve the outcome that's being requested it may look a little bit different on the technology side but ultimately will still result in the same outcome of of the dollars being received by the programs in Aurora Public Schools um so we'll work closely with the team on on those tweaks in our systems to make this work and certainly through the mou or our agreement uh to solidify the arrangement right right very good um so in terms of I mean the committee obviously is supportive move this forward um and so climbing-wise we want to try to get this done as quickly as possible yes we are working towards that we already have a solution in mind and we're working through administratively on the back end the what's needed to get that done so I anticipate this will be set up in the next couple of months and then it would have to come to full Council as a formal agreement yes all right very good well thank you uh Lisa and Michael very much um excited to partner with you and hopefully get this off the ground very soon thank you very much for having us this morning thank you and I know Morgan is on now too so uh I'm sure he thinks you as well and we'll make ourselves available to talk about the mou and learn more about the technology solution thank you thank you have a great day um and so next um is the reports from committees and I I see Aurora Chamber of Commerce Naomi has a report I didn't know oh Jonathan did you want to say something sorry yes please uh I'm sitting in for Yuri he's at a Aerospace business Mission I do want to say we're very supportive of what Michael and Lisa have proposed um so very excited about this program it's great for the students good paying jobs and it fills the the much needed uh Workforce Gap so that's all I wanted to say thank you Jonathan okay Naomi good morning everybody Council I appreciate you guys um taking a few minutes it's my first ped meeting it's very overwhelming it's so exciting you guys are doing so much so um we just wanted to make sure that we came on and let everybody know about Kevin's retirement um president's CEO after 28 years is retiring from the Chamber of Commerce um on August 16th we're going to have a proper retirement party for him out at Heritage Eagle Bend five to seven so if you can make it and um wish him well on his way to retirement to go ride his bike and play some golf travel who knows what he's going to do um he won't be too far he'll still pop in from time to time but definitely looking forward to retirement I will be stepping in as the interim president CEO so you'll probably see me on this meeting more often and um kind of stepping in until we make some further decisions but I just wanted to make sure that we touched base with everybody let them know formal announcements and invitations went up yesterday so check your box and if you didn't see it then consider to say yourself invited we'd love to see you there and um you said the 16th I thought it was the 15th it's the 16th no I think you're I'm pretty sure it's the because we were trying to do it on the 17th but um okay yep nope it's the 16th Wednesday okay and unfortunately that is during the city water tour so I don't know how many council members I think a lot of them are going on the water tour but okay well we'll keep that in mind you know like I said he's not going too far so um he'll peek in from time to time you guys will probably see him more often than not so okay anything else that's it that's all I want to make sure to you thank you look forward to working with you guys if this meeting was exciting I was actually I'm making notes as fast as I can so um pretty interesting very good and I see Morgan has his hand up I is your little girl going to make a statement to us she may sometimes you get a little shy just wanted to just chime in just from the residential side really appreciate the city uh undertaking this program um really important seeing the you know the impact that it's already had at the Cherry Creek Innovation campus and really happy that we're going to provide some added support in Aurora as well so thanks again I'm working from home today my wife had uh twin boys over the weekend so um congratulations so thank you very much uh but uh uh really appreciate and then I had a couple of other meetings that I had to jump off and then jump back on so really appreciate the AGC kind of carrying the water for this particular uh ped meeting but uh really appreciate your support and uh obviously full support from the residential side as well so thank you thank you Morgan tell your wife congratulations will do thank you appreciate it appreciate it councilman okay um any other reports from any of the other um committees don't see any and our next meeting is scheduled for September 13th um so any any last minute comments council members Lawson or Sundberg may I yes please this is uh slightly off topic but it is related to planning and economic development in our last council meeting with our Lively discussion around economic planning the mayor brought up of the need for like a truck stop or places to park for a lot of large trucks happening probably in ward two and a formal council member chimed in through text saying that uh Bob Oliva was working on something like that a couple of years ago so I wonder if Bob could provide a brief answer to to that sure um uh basically we had none out and looked at every site between where 225 hits I-70 all the way out to Bennett and had started uh talking to landowners and see whether or not we could either convince them to allow trucks to be parked there uh and or lease the land and and do the same it turns out though that uh converting a raw piece of land to truck parking costs some real money and so we were doing some um some research on how much it would cost and whether or not we would be participating or whether we're just asking folks to create these parking lots on their own and we were trying not to charge to park in these parking lots we just wanted to be very convenient for folks to just pull over and park there give them no reason to not go there um but but with the expense of actually doing them um uh they're they're we're not sure how to make it inexpensive to do it and uh therefore or whether we put up the money that we actually put at the entrance to we actually came up with this whole um multiple truck stops uh for the final entrance to the aerotropolis parkway um so there's two things going on one's the final uh product and then the temporary product I think Laura had her hand up oh go ahead Laura muted and am and Andrea has a hand up too so I don't know who wants to because muted I apologize uh customer Sunburst so I wanted to let you know that uh Jacob Cox myself and Jason Batchelor have been meeting with several developers over the last month and having conversations with them about truck parking and short-term midterm long-term Solutions recognizing the demands on the roadway and the parking demands uh for for semi-trailers overnight and so we're actively looking at options and solutions around that um so it's it's something that's in motion and I was wondering is there any way to get some funding from is there like a Trucking Association that they all belong to I do know that there's a National Association of truck stop operators I think it's truck stop and Travel Plaza operators okay this is something uh you'd hope the Private Industry could have figured out a while back and saw the need like a Flying J or or whatever we've been in contact with every one of them they all know about this okay it's a future event we could talk more about this um outside the meetings but you know even combining like a supercharging station uh be proactive about whether for vehicles or you know semis are going to be going that way as well sure Andrea yeah I I just wanted to say that this is a subject that came up at icsc we've been talking with developers and property owners and as Laura indicated we and um development assistance have been talking to various developers and trying to encourage incremental additions to the parking problem as it goes along but um the it while it seems like it happened overnight it didn't this problem hasn't happened overnight and we are scrambling to find both incremental and long-term Solutions so um and Laura is taking the lead so and and there is one other potential solution in that one of the problems that is causing all these folks to have to park is that these Warehouse companies will not let that truck enter their parking lot until it's ready to look unload and so if it's backed up a little bit they tell the person don't even come into our parking lot go go somewhere else don't come in and so they're pushing all of these trucks out into the into the public and they have to find some place to park and of course there's the if you've been driving for more than eight hours you have to stop on a dime wherever you are or you could get you could lose your license so there's all kinds of things like that that are also adding to this so maybe we should talk to Amazon actually was Costco was the big one that we heard but um and we had talked to California where they're also having this problem with Costco so um just you know add a little more to this well maybe more to come I I imagine at the next GED meeting or update I think Laura's on top of this now it'll be Laura handling this okay sounds good okay well thank you all very much I hope you have a great rest of your day thank you thank you everyone appreciate it thanks