On the agenda

1. 1Call to Order - Roll Call▶ 0:02
2. 2Approval of Minutes▶ 0:02
3. 3.a

   Request from Brainstorms NPR, Inc. to Use the Former Truist Building for Winter Wonderland Event

   approved

   The CRA Board approved a request from Brainstorms NPR, Inc. to use the former SunTrust/Truist building at 6128 US Highway 19 for the Winter Wonderland 2026 event from November 5 through December 20, 2026. The organization will carry $1M/$2M liability insurance naming the city as additional insured and pay $2,000 in rent, with the motion amended to waive the fee if the event does not raise at least $2,000.

   • motion:Approve Brainstorms NPR's use of the former Truist building for Winter Wonderland 2026, with the $2,000 utility/rent fee waived if the event does not raise at least $2,000. (passed)

   📍6128 US Highway 19🏢Brainstorms NPR, Inc.👤Daisy Thomas👤Manns👤Peter#Former SunTrust/Truist Building#Golf cart parade#Night parades#Winter Wonderland 2026

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   Pr to use the former troop truist building for the winter wonderland event. Here you. Yeah. Okay, Mr. Mayor. The brainstorms newport richie group has staged a winter wonderland at the CRA owned property. The former suntrust building, in the past. They are requesting to do so again this year. The. They have requested the use of the building from November 5th through December 20th, 26, and they have agreed to establish an insurance policy for the. Their tenure in the building and they will pay rent of $2,000 for that period. And we're recommending that you allow them to use the property to house their winter wonderland experience. Any public comment? Good evening, members of the CRA board. I'm Daisy Thomas, vice president of brainstorms board of directors, and I'm here to request your approval to use the CRA property at 6128 US Highway 19 for winter wonderland 2026. Our event runs November 28th through December 13th, with access needed for preparation and cleanup through December 20th. First, I want to thank executive director manns and city staff for their support. With miss mann's permission, we've already begun preparing the building so we can open on schedule. We recognize that this is CRA property and we appreciate your consideration. Last year, winter wonderland welcomed more than 1300 people over the course of a week. That's 1300 opportunities to create memories and bring families together right here in new port richey. This year, we're expanding the event to 16 days with more hands on steam activities, including a new interactive digital experience. Alongside the holiday attractions, families have come to appreciate and love. This reflects the larger mission of brainstorms to create a permanent, hands on, accessible space where children can ask questions, experiment, create and explore. We believe curiosity deserves a place to grow in. Every child in our community deserves that opportunity. We recognize that the use of public property comes with responsibilities, and we take those seriously. We've secured a general liability insurance policy of 1 million per occurrence and 2 million aggregate, with the city of new port richey listed as additional insured. Our volunteers will staff the event with private security on site during operating hours. We'll make no permanent alterations and will return the building clean and in its agreed upon condition by December 20th. Our board has also approved up to $2,000 towards property expenses consistent with staff recommendation. We appreciate the CRA's discretion in determining the final charge and its consideration of the community benefit this event provides. Additionally, with the city approval, we'd be delighted to recognize its support in our promotional materials. Much of the building is already decorated, and I'd like to invite each of you to come see it for yourselves. Our volunteers have invested countless hours creating something special for our community. I want people to see what's possible when we take a place that's currently not serving the public and fill it with children, families, creativity, and opportunity. Winter wonderland is more than a holiday tradition. It shows what happens when local government, nonprofits, businesses and residents work together for our shared community. Your approval will allow us to continue that tradition, put on an otherwise vacant property to good use, and give more children a chance to experience the wonder of discovery. Thank you for your partnership and for helping make newport richie a place where children and families belong. Do you have any other public comment? Seeing no one else come forward, bring it back for discussion and vote. I'll move to approve the maker. No, I think this is a wonderful idea. I mean, it was great last year. I did have the honor of giving peter some assistance with moving some things out of there. And, you know, I did see the amount of volunteers who were there, the amount of work they put into it. And obviously last year there was a lot more going on because it was the initial use of that building. So they had to figure out the concept, but gladly willing to help. So thank you. Second, just a quick question. Is there I don't know if I think they last time they told us how much [00:05:01] They how much they raised last last year, is that something you have on hand? The number. I don't have the number of what they raised last year, 7000. About 7000. Okay. I would I don't know if the motion is up to it, but if if you know, obviously the goal here is to fund, raise or provide an event, but also, you know, hopefully generate some funds to be able to continue it is that if the, if maybe the, the motion can help me here, but if if they don't exceed the if the events that growing, if they don't exceed what they're budgeted to try to earn the 7000 or whatever it is that they don't pay the utility fee portion, but that if obviously they're making money, then they should have to carry the expenses to alleviate that burden of them. God forbid a hurricane happens. We're not hitting them with a charge. Right. But if they if for some reason they can't raise that during the event, for whatever reason, 7000. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, the 2000 for the utilities. They're they're they made 7000 last year. Who's to say something doesn't happen this year where they don't make that. I don't want to slap them with a bill. So I don't know if there's a dollar amount. Maybe if they they raise they could show that they've raised at least the amount of the bill. So they're not going into a negative with the event to alleviate some pressure. I'd be fine with amending the motion that they that that they if they don't make at least the 2000. Okay, we would waive their fee. Right. Thank you sir. I'm good with that. I appreciate it. I think it's right next to the city's parking garage too. And there are some city events I know, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that last year to make sure that we support things like the night parades and that. And so I don't think that it's it would be open during those times, but really an opportunity for earlier in the day. But the city's vehicle that moves around, it's right next to that. So might be asking the city manager to look at that route and see if it can work in to make sure that it does bring people downtown. And maybe it helps, even if some of the parades, the the golf cart parade, for example, people could queue up there earlier in the day and instead of just waiting until the night to come in, maybe there's a reason we can get them in the day and spend their four hours, which is what tourists are looking for. So hopefully it'd be beneficial to everybody. I just like the idea that they've gone from a week to 16 days, because I'm sure some people, you know, found out about it too late or found out about it the last minute and weren't able to get there with their families. So I'm looking forward to probably be even more packed this year than day to day than it was last year. All those in favor

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4. 3.b

   Discussion Related to Direction on Rivergate/Palm District Property Assemblage

   discussed

   The CRA Board discussed how to proceed with the vacant Rivergate/Palm District property assemblage after two unsuccessful RFPs for listing agents. Direction was given to staff to follow the Florida statutory process for CRA disposition of real property—publishing a newspaper ad and inviting proposals within 30 days—rather than issuing another RFP, starting with this one property before considering others.

   • direction:Board directed staff to pursue the Florida statutory process (newspaper ad with 30-day proposal window) for disposing of the Rivergate/Palm District property instead of issuing a third RFP, starting with this one property. (none)

   📍Acorn Street project📍Rivergate/Palm District property assemblage📍property on Highway 19🏢City of Bradenton CRA🏢Florida Redevelopment Association👤Barnes👤Gammons👤Jeff#$1.8 million CRA budget allocation#Acorn Street project#Amendment 3#CRA Plan / downtown district land use parameters#Florida Redevelopment Association Conference#Rivergate/Palm District Property Assemblage

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   Signify by I. Aye. Okay, moving on to discussion related to direction of rivergate park district. Property appendage at a. Where do you have any. Whatever assembly assemblage. Assemblage? Yes. And Mr. Gammons prepared to present the agenda item. Mr. Gammon wasn't. But Mr. Gammon is. Good evening. Thanks. Mr. Barnes. Director. Fellow directors. Chairman. Sorry, we just wanted to come back to the board to make sure we're going in the direction you want on this vacant piece of property. As you know, we've put it out for rfp twice for listing agents. We actually listed it one time. It didn't turn over so well. It was kind of an uncertain economic time, according to the listing agent said it just didn't work out. So we canceled that one and we went out for rfp again for listing agent and weren't satisfied with the the four proposals we got from the various groups. I don't think they really gave us a good effort. So we're here to see what the board thinks we should do. Should we go out for a third rfp with listing agents and see what we should do with with the property? And maybe if you have ideas on on what product might be on the property. I yeah, I have to say I brought it up when we had the last rfp and when we were at the Florida Redevelopment Association conference, talked with jeff who, who is the CRA director for the city of bradenton, they had an old shuffleboard club that they sold, and they moved 5 or 6 parcels of property. And I mentioned the word rfp to him, to which point he said, there's you don't use an rfp if you're a CRA. And I brought up the language of the statute. I don't know if the attorney has had a chance to look at it. I imagine he has related to that. But there's a very simple provision. It doesn't require an rfp, doesn't require us to get a realtor, but it could be helpful for us to put follow [00:10:03] The statutes that are direct to, say, an ad in the paper. We're going to listen, and we want proposals and just set it up and let people have proposals in that way. We don't have all of the cone of silence and all of the other issues, which really has jumbled up this process that we had before. So the statute is clear. It seems simple. I was told that bradenton sold six pieces of property without going through all of this. The rfp language was a subject of a sore subject for me with respect to the cone of silence and all of those things. Those really don't apply if you just say ad in a paper, anybody who's interested, come and tell us what you'd like to do with it. And so I would personally prefer to try to take that kind of a route. I mean, do it in, say, come january, if you have your plan, start making them, then they're free to go in and speak to the economic director, find out what kind of ideas we have, and collaborate to come up with some ideas. It's, I think, a good way for us also to be free to encourage the kind of development we'd like to see there without us being restricted. So it really to be hamstrung, to not be allowed to talk to anybody during this very, you know, specific and hard to manage process. I don't think it's required. So that's others are much bigger than us are making a lot faster movements. So I'd like to ask if we could just examine our legal requirements and say we want ideas and then hold these kind of a, you know, meeting to say, bring your ideas within that 30 days and we can make a decision to decide to collaborate. But, you know, when we had all the folks from the rfp together, there were good components of all of the ideas that were there and all maybe had if maybe we can just encourage the private sector to do a public private partnership with us. We've got a $1.8 million already in our budget for that sort of of Acorn Street project and all the concepts that we have related to that. I would like very much to be able to have public discussions about what we'd like to see there, and find out from developers, you know, their relation to it and their interest. That would be my preference if I if it's possible, right, then yes. I mean, that's what the statute provides. As he pointed out that the prior meeting, it does say that you have to do an ad in the newspaper, give people 30 days to submit proposals, and you invite proposals. And that's really the requirement, at least for disposition of real property. If it's procurement or something that we have to follow our general city policies because of the changes in the statute. But that really is the the the real estate distribution, distribution, distribution, the rfp is not working. So why not take another route? Yeah. Anybody else? No. I mean, you know, we were at the fra conference and you know, obviously it's different for every city. So it's hard to get the real answer. So when you're talking to other cities, their rules are a little different than our rules. But there's some general rules. But I think we need to get the ball rolling on this project. And obviously we're not getting a lot of traction elsewhere. My only question is it a minimum of 30 or is it a maximum of 30? They get 30 days to submit proposals or a minimum? I think it does say so. My question is, do we have at least 30 or can we go a little longer? No, you you the statute says you require them to submit within the 30 days. You're giving them 30 days notice and they need to submit within. But you can. I don't think you'd be held to that, but I can certainly give you an opinion on that. Okay. You know, it's just I know sometimes not even get to their doorway for two weeks, right? Because sometimes it's got to go through, you know, steps and hoops before the person who wants to make the proposal sees it. So I don't want I don't want to shortchange ourselves. If we have somebody who's potentially interested, you know, in bidding on this project and they missed the deadline. So I just, I want to make sure that we're giving somebody ample time. And, you know, obviously we want resident input, you know, but we want to have something viable before we, you know, bring it before the residents. Yeah, yeah. I'm almost, I mean, I like what everybody's saying. I, I almost, I almost want to look at it two ways. You know, do we give them an outline of what we're looking for and see what they come back with? Or we just say, hey, we have this assemblage. What could you do with it? What would you do with it? And it may be something that we haven't even thought of, you know, maybe come back with something that's in another city, another area that we haven't thought of and really good idea. So I'm kind of I'm torn whether to give them parameters or just kind of let them be free with it and see what comes back. Well, there is [00:15:01] One parameter in the statutes, which is that it has to be in our CRA plan. So and it's pretty broad. So that that is, you know, it can't be something that's not allowed in the downtown district. It can't be something that isn't within the CRA rules. We have to go to, to get ideas within those parameters. Yeah, that's all I think your idea makes sense because if we if we tell somebody some specifics of what we think we want, that might exclude someone that's going to come up with an idea that none of us have thought of and we're going to shortchange ourselves. So I think we should just leave it to whatever's allowable based on the CRA. I mean, we still have to decide whether we want to proceed or not. So but if I may be so bold as to suggest that if we're going to go out and say we have CRA properties in the city, we specifically, to the degree of what is on people's minds, you know, we also have the property out there on highway 19 that's costing, you know, that we're paying money on. And so I think from a standpoint of the economic director, if he knows what properties we're holding for the purpose of of the CRA, you know, creating assets on them, that the sooner we get other people's ideas, the better, even if it's just tell us your idea and then we follow up with it because I don't think, you know, if we call it excess property, we're going to dispose of it. I think we get the attorney's opinion on how how obligated we are to do something. But I do think that we don't have to be obligated to anything. We can run it again. And those ideas are out and running. And maybe it just kind of develops publicly because getting the public support for all of what we're doing, I think is critical. Yeah, no. Yeah, I see what you're saying. But I think it has to be viable ideas that they can back up and they're going to put their money in. Yeah. Versus people just come on, I've got an idea. I'm going to put, you know, amusement park there or something or whatever, you know, but I don't have any money to pay for it, you know, kind of thing. Well, just like what was brought up earlier this evening is, you know, we need to do our due diligence on who the person is a developer, we need to vet them, you know, make sure that we're getting involved in the right people. And I think we need to start with one and then maybe proceed from there, because I just think it might look a little odd. And I'm just speaking from a real estate perspective, if you put out multiple properties, it might look a little weird, like, okay, why is the city trying to put all these properties out there? You know, is there an issue or are they thinking amendment three and they're trying to recoup a bunch of money? You know what I'm saying? So I'm thinking maybe start with the one. Yeah. See how that goes and then proceed from there. But I'm not saying let's wait forever. I'm saying let's move it along. All right. You got guidance. I feel that I do. Yeah. Sufficient for sure. Yeah. That's one of the senses. Tell didn't say a word I got. I wasn't asked to. So for the new bar establishments. The agenda

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5. 3.c

   ↳You arrived here from a search for “Armature Works” — transcript expanded below

   Discussion Related to Incentives for New Bar Establishments

   discussed

   The CRA Board discussed whether to modify or restrict financial incentive grants for new bar establishments in the historic downtown district, given the perception that downtown has too many bars and insufficient retail. Board members leaned toward carving out 4COP (bar-only) license holders from commercial grants while preserving incentives for restaurants (SRX licenses), retail, and existing/grandfathered businesses. No vote was taken; the City Attorney clarified that moratoriums are not permitted under Senate Bill 180 and would be a City Council matter, not CRA.

   • direction:Staff directed to explore modifying CRA commercial grant rules to exclude or restrict incentives for 4COP (bar-only) license holders while preserving incentives for restaurants (SRX), retail, and grandfathered existing businesses. (none)
   • consensus:Board consensus against pursuing a moratorium on new bar establishments, both due to Senate Bill 180 restrictions and policy preference. (none)
   • direction:Review ordinance regarding whether buildings with multiple addresses can receive multiple grants, potentially limiting to one grant per building. (none)

   📍5346 Main Street📍5760 Main Street📍5781 Nebraska Avenue📍5922 Wyoming📍6120 Missouri Avenue📍6228, 6230, 6232 Grand Boulevard📍Bank Street📍Historic downtown district - from the river to this building, from Circle Boulevard to Delaware Avenue📍Palm District📍Railroad Square🏢Armature Works🏢Karen's Gifts🏢Main Entry🏢Main Street Landing🏢Steamworks Pub🏢Stonehenge🏢Windows Fashions👤Amy Faulkner👤Charles Wise👤Donna Jensen👤Gammons👤Jonas👤Kelly Hackman👤Murphy👤Scott Chittum👤Tara Fielding#2COP license#4COP license#Amendment 3#Brewery license#CRA commercial grants#Community Development District#Facade grants#Historic Downtown District#Interior grants#SRX license#Senate Bill 180#Tax increment financing

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   Item relates to the historic downtown district of the city. And the discussion that we wanted to host with you this evening is whether or not we should sustain the programs in the CRA that currently provide financial incentives. Two bars to continue, or whether we should modify the rules of those grants so that venues were more revenue is realized from alcohol than from food sales, is restricted somewhat by way of the fact that we're not encouraging them by providing financial incentives. We've heard on more than one occasion in this room that there are too many bars downtown that were we help bars too much. And so one of one of the elected officials mentioned to me that maybe we needed to establish a moratorium. The establishment of new bar establishments in the downtown area. And after some thought and discussion, we thought from a staff perspective that it might be more appropriate just to restrict the economic incentives that we offer to. Alcohol based. Bar establishments, so to speak. Thank you. And I know we've talked about it before briefly in times, and I was with miss manners the other day. I [00:20:05] Thought maybe we should have a discussion about it. I mean, I feel, I feel like we we've got the bar scene covered. It's just my opinion. I'm not saying it shouldn't be for like, restaurants that serve alcohol, things like that. But I think, you know, the incentives we give are to entice businesses to come here. And of course, we want to have a variety. We don't want it all to be one thing, be a, you know, want to say ybor, but I think you get my point. And I just don't know if we should be incentivizing them to bring more of what we have plenty of. So I just thought we should have a discussion on that. Does anybody else want to talk before I do? Sure I will, if you don't mind. So you know, I agree. I mean, I know the discussion has been you know, we need more retail, we need more daily foot traffic. And I agree with that. And I kind of want to lean maybe towards our economic development director on how we as a city can bring more retail into our city. You know, because I think this speaks to a little bit bigger issue than just bars and giving money, you know, because I think some of the money that we're giving to some of these establishments don't necessarily warrant what we're giving them. I think we're maybe giving a little too much to some of these establishments. I think we need to maybe pull back on some of those items, but I'd like to maybe come up with some ideas, you know, collaboratively on getting more retail here. I mean, you know, safety harbor has got a ton of boutiques and, and little shops. You know, they've got a ton of bars and restaurants, you know, so what are they doing to get, you know, people in there, you know, tarpon springs, you know, there's tons of little cities that are doing those things. So to me, I'd rather see us incentivize a retailer to be here than I would a bar. Now, I don't want to I don't want to say to someone, you can't open a bar. I mean, honestly, we're kind of limited on our space at this point anyway. But, you know, to me, I want to see more retail because I want to see more foot traffic. And the more foot traffic we have, the more restaurants will, you know, increase revenue, the busier the park will be. So it's just it's cumulative. So, you know, that's kind of where I'm leaning in this kind of item. I know I'm kind of a little off track a little bit, but it's, it's along the same lines. Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that we did here when we were talking about our downtown was the, was the hacienda. How important that sense of feel is and the historic downtown. And I know that's a topic that you're talking about the historic downtown. And reality is we don't offer a lot of incentives outside of the downtown because we always felt that that was the place we needed to get everything started and working. And it is started and it is working. So now as we move to Railroad Square, the expansion of that, we're creating value on that corridor with with infrastructure dollars. And I think the state legislature prefers that we don't give money to developers. That's been said before, but the incentives that we can give for the construction of something should come in terms of a share of the tax increment that they create, and that is their money that they've formed and created, or another project, if it's big enough, which is what we tried to do at Main Street Landing in conjunction with the property across the river, was to create a community development district. The same way that the that the Armature Works did in Tampa, which allowed for the maintenance of the improvements at a higher level to ultimately be the responsibility of that district. So when you do something like that, then that area itself can can bond out or create that infrastructure that's needed that can help us as well. But there are all kinds of tools and ideas that can help to make. I think our point now is making that path that's really attractive, so that the properties that we do have in the city will benefit from that. Commercial traffic increases. I guess what I'm saying is the lease improvements, and I think it was Scott Chittum who came and talked about, oh, you're really going to give money for somebody to put a roof on, or we've had a restaurant in particular where we gave incentives twice for that restaurant, and the restaurant failed, and then it got remodeled again a second time. So I think that that kind of help is something that should come to us to determine. And then we have to look at what's [00:25:04] Happening with amendment three once again to see what are our priorities, what is it that we really want to do in infrastructure? And maybe there's just not as much of a budget for for this that we can afford. I do want to continue to support the housing money that we did put in, and that also speaks to the rest of the city, not just the downtown, but it seems like we've reached that point where we've pivoted beyond. Nobody's interested, and we have to really invite them in to. A lot of people are interested, and maybe we even get to something that's more competitive when they see what when we disclose what it is we have in mind. And, and again, there's developers across from Bank Street that has that whole lot that had apparently informed me he was three minutes late to tell us what he wanted to do with his property. And we really, I think. I think incentives are going to be harder to get if we took if we take a haircut or 18.5 or 2 million a year or three, because we lose the county money to. From that amendment three. So I'm I'm in favor of sort of pulling back on the incentives for commercial right now until we get an idea of our budget for our infrastructure, maybe we just put a hold on, on those kind of incentives that have not already been approved. So yeah, I think there's definitely a market downtown for nighttime drinking and some day daytime hospitality, restaurant activities. And to that end, I don't think why I'm not in favor of a moratorium, which was the initial context of the conversation is because I do think if someone's able to come to our downtown and tap into that market and, and compliment an existing business, then we as a government should not be preventing them from doing that. At the same time, the question is, since there does exist a market and it does have some of its own support, the government doesn't have really a place to be injecting money into it, because it should be self-sustaining at this point. That being said, there are businesses that want to make a breakthrough in the downtown. Some of our first businesses and someone here is here tonight and hopefully we get a chance. I know this is a side. I know this is a discussion up here, and I don't know if we're taking a vote. So I don't know if it's open to the public, but I would I would like there's a couple business owners if they I don't know if the mayor's open to it having them speak, but I see 1 or 2 business owners in here that isn't in the drinking business. And they took one of the first chances on our city, and they're still here and they're still putting in the work. So there could be another one of those out there that want to get into the retail, that want to do that, and they might need a little bit of a bump. And so when it comes to the commercial grants, if there's a way to, as was essentially discussed, carve out the bars that I'd be in favor of that getting rid of the commercial grant altogether or pausing the grant altogether. I would I would be hesitant to do that. I having been in this industry, I want to like inform you a little bit. There's different types of licenses. There's a four copy license where you can sell a bottle of liquor out the door, or you can serve all the liquor you want, possibly in the place, and sell one grilled cheese sandwich and you're doing fine. There's a two copy, which is a beer and wine license, which they can sell out the door, they can sell. It's more like a 711, you know, that type of stuff. But they they're not going to really make it. So if, you know, in our, in our town downtown, but unless they've got something else going on, then there's an srx license. And srx license means that they have to have at least 51% food and, and they get audited. So, you know, the food and beverage, alcohol and beverage people come in and they audit them. So that's saying it's a restaurant. Basically, they just happen to sell liquor. So if and then there's a brewery license, you know, I'm not real familiar with it, but you know what a brewery license is. So anyhow, my, my suggestion is, is if we're going to put any kind of moratorium, because this is a discussion, not a vote, we'd put a moratorium on for cops downtown because that just says you're open. You went out and bought a in this in this in Pasco county, it's a $375,000 license limited by the population. You go out and buy a license, you sell liquor you want. So you're just a bar. And so, you know, I think that but but somebody comes in and wants to put a nice restaurant in, you know, and they want to sell liquor. Well, then that that's a foreseeable that's not a foreseeable p that's an srx license. So, you know, I, I support that, you know, because that's going to help bring [00:30:02] Downtown. But also if you're just, if you're going to put in a bar and you want some, you know, money from the CRA to develop it, well, you go in and put a, put a retail place and you got a few, you know, shelves in a couple bathrooms, but you're going to put a bar in, you've got a, oh man, you've got, you know, refrigeration, you got, you know, you know, bar, bar, bar, you got, you know, refrigeration behind the bar. So all that becomes more expensive. And of course you're looking for the CRA money. So if we do a moratorium and this is like I said, a discussion I would like to have a moratorium on for cops. So can I, can I just respond so. One of the things that I did notice on, you know, some of the grants that we've approved, some of these older buildings have multiple addresses. So I know in our ordinance, there was some question whether they could get a grant for each address. So I think that might be something we need to look into, into the ordinance of giving grants to people. Like if it's one building, it's one grant, and maybe limit what that grant would include, whether it be, you know, facade. I think, I think us giving money for people to do build outs, I think is a little outside of what we should be doing. We did we that was wasn't that brought about by, you know, stonehenge? Yes. Main Street Landing, you know. And so it really doesn't apply to the rest of downtown, but it worked there. But maybe that's, you know, that's what we need to look at too, a little bit. I think maybe dial that back and then, you know, and that would that would also do the four copy where we could help a business, you know, like main street landings, but we're not helping, you know, a bar, right. You know, and I know we're talking about no, no new bar establishments, but I also want to make sure that we don't forget the people who are here and are, are, are running a business, you know, and we want to make sure that we help those people keep going because, you know, yes, we want to keep growing our downtown. We want new businesses. But I just want to make sure that we don't lose sight on the people who have been here from the beginning. And they've invested their money, their time, their sweat equity. I don't want to forget about those people. So I think I think there needs to be something, maybe two different ways to go about that. You know, if you're an established business, been here for x number of years and you're like, hey, I want to do a, I want to, I want to do some, some facade work or something to, to beautify my building. I'm not making a ton of money, you know, we're helping them to keep their dream alive. And we don't, you know, we don't want those people to say, well, I can't afford to do repairs, so I've got to move out or move somewhere else. You know, I agree with you there. So to me, it wouldn't apply to established or grandfathered in. Okay. You know, it wouldn't apply to them. It would just be the new people coming in. And I considered moratorium. But I mean, that's really not fair. And you can't even really do that right now anyways. But if you want to come invest your money in the city and open a bar, great. We're just not going to offer incentives for that. We're going to offer incentives for what we feel we need to bring in, especially if they're going to have a for coffee license, right? You got guidance, I guess, a discussion, but did we want to open it up to the public like a one minute comment? Vox pop, this is, you know, excuse me. Vox pop. That's what we're here for. You know, we we offered vox pop in the beginning. I think we should just that one minute. Well, we do a one minute time limit. I think we should. I don't have any problem. I don't have a problem with it. I mean, just a quick little. I did ask the city clerk before the meeting and she said, you do public comment before each item. Otherwise I would have come up at vox pop. Just fyi, I, you know me. Kelly Hackman 6120. Missouri avenue 622862306232 grand boulevard and 5760 Main Street. That's a mouthful. As an owner of both a retail establishment and a bar, I can appreciate this discussion. My shop has been downtown for 33 years, 23 years as Karen's Gifts, ten years as mine. And when karen was here, she was the only retail shop for over 20 years. So talk about taking a gamble on my community. I appreciate Mr. Gammons bringing this up. I also asked for a moratorium on bars several years ago with the previous economic development director, and told me they were not allowed. However, there were two cities in the state of Florida at the time that did enact them for a six month period, just to allow for retail to establish and create a balance in their districts. Currently, you have 29 businesses in the historic downtown district. That's from the river to this building, from circle boulevard to delaware avenue that currently have either a cop 4 or 2 license or an sr license 29 with three more coming in. So that's going to be 33 in that [00:35:04] Short district. Now take that into comparison. You currently have nine retail shops, less than 3 to 1. Okay. So just keep that in mind as you're trying to diversify your town, that we already have an abundance of this and we need to figure out how to create that balance. So thank you for bringing this up. And if you ever have any questions about the retail side and what we're actually facing downtown, you're more than welcome to talk to me or any of the retailers. It is very difficult to say the least. I hear it every day in the tea room. Why don't you have more retail? Why do you have more bars? The perception of the bar versus retail. I'm very glad we have nine. It's a lot better than one when I started. So thank you. Thank you Kelly. Anybody else like to speak? To bar owners? Donna Jensen 5922. Wyoming. We can't turn the clocks back. But I would like to just reminisce a little bit about the way things were on main street in the boulevard before, especially on main street. We had a very active, real, real department or section on the west side of the bridge. When I was growing up, we had a dress shop there. We had a camera shop, we had a hardware store. I mean, come on, you mentioned safety harbor, safety harbor and dunedin is not just the shops that are right downtown. They spread out into the other streets. We need to look beyond just downtown. We have a lot going east and we have a lot going west and north and south homes that maybe people want to eventually buy and turn into retail. So we yes, we need retail, we need restaurants, we need bars, but we need less bars and more retail. And just think outside the box about the additional areas that you can put retail in, because it's just not on the boulevard and main street. Thank you. You're going to speak. Come on down to the front row. Hi. Amy Faulkner five three, four six main street. So I'm both a city resident and a business owner downtown. I'm in the Palm District, so kind of the forgotten side right now. It feels like it's so hard on the businesses. And I know you're talking about all these things for like incentives for bars and everything, but we can't even have a sign outside. And no, there's a whole other, there's a whole other discussion, but it's right now just very, very difficult. And we can't even get seen or noticed. And, you know, when you're hearing that they're giving money to other people to come into the area when we're fighting for our lives down there and we're trying to get retail down there, but no one wants to come down there because it seems like it's so difficult to to make it happen. And I'm so nervous right now. I'm so sorry. Business name, Main Entry. Thank you. You know, I know, just wanted to get it out. Yeah. Thank you. So. Were you finished? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. I'll go ahead and be very quick. We know how we feel when I speak, but I would just like to add to the comments about. Thank you. Have patience please. I would just like to add support for, for the comments about kind of expanding where we can have retail. I think that's important. My grandma had Windows Fashions on missouri and madison a while back, and she won a beautification award for that. I also want to just add that adding support if 20 people, 200 people got up here and said the same thing, please remember, elections only happen so often. So there are only so many ways that we can add support to that. God bless america. God bless our elections and congratulations to everyone who won last night. Thank you. Name and address, please. You know me. No I don't. Sir Charles Wise 60133. Oh, I'm a lot shorter than I thought. Hi, Tara Fielding. I'm one of the owners of Steamworks Pub, 5781 Nebraska Avenue. I actually own a I like to call it a restaurant because we do sell 5050 food and drinks, but we do have a 4cop. I actually 100% agree with this with the the 4cop. I was wondering how you were going to differentiate bars and restaurants. I think that's a great idea. I will say that, Mr. Jonas, the comment about the grants for the one building with multiple addresses, I wanted to clarify is that just facade or can the separate business owners still. Would they still be apply for interior grants? And then also, [00:40:03] To your point about the existing businesses. So we have done our interior grant, but we have not applied for a facade grant yet. We do have a 4cop. Would that cut us off? We do have some ideas. We haven't gotten down to presenting it yet about the future, not the present. Right. So I'm saying when you're when you're making these decisions on what you're going to allow and what you're not, I would like those things to be considered. That's it. Thank you. I meant. So I mean, obviously this is just for discussion purposes, but I would think obviously it takes all of us. I would think if it's an existing business, we would need to take that into consideration because they've made the investment here. They went through Railroad Square, they've gutted it out. I would think it would be kind of insensitive to us to exclude them if they're going to do a facade. Grant. I thought this was all future. I think that was your again, that's why I bought the whole your grandfathered in. If you're already here, you're good. It's anybody new coming in. Okay. And this is just discussion. Discussion this discussion. So nothing is no nothing is set in stone. I have a comment for her, which I would say put the application in because we haven't changed the rules yet. So, you know, anybody else like this week. Okay. Well, yeah, just to say thank you to Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for opening it up for comment. And to the city attorney. I know there was a little bit of a conversation just now about moratorium allowed, moratorium not allowed. And I guess by extension, I have the same question. But then my extension to that question is, can you differentiate it based on license level? And can you set effective dates where some people can, some people can't where. Because the kit you also, I don't know anything about this, but can't you also sell your license to someone else? And does that get in a weird territory where the effective date shows one thing, but technically it's not. This. This body can't do moratorium. That would have to be the city council. And as councilman murphy said, we're we're under senate bill 180 right now. So you can't do moratorium anyway. And also, you have to realize the purpose behind moratorium is for a temporary restriction on development. It's not a permanent restriction. If you want to make it permanent, you rezone it and you write that into your zoning code. So that's a text amendment, which sometimes can be preceded by a moratorium to protect from, you know, a land rush sort of situation. So we would create for this body, we would create a rule regarding your grants, and that could be based on the licensing. It could be based on as as the one speaker said, she actually operates as a restaurant. And I would think you might want to take that into consideration and say, if it's really operated, it's 51% food. Now, that would that would she doesn't have to report to the state. She has 51% food. She doesn't get audited, as you mentioned, because she has the for cop. So, you know, you might think, well, we kind of like that with the state is taking care of that part of it for us. And so we just go by the license. So that's those are decisions you'll have to make. Well, it's the incentive that it seems to be the topic. I am not asking for a moratorium, and I don't think any of us are really even. It was introduced as that was the concept to start with. And I think the most compelling discussion came from the tea room, which is. There's only, what, nine against a plethora of them. So and we've heard three. There's only 330, 39 to 33 is what, nine? That's a plethora for something like that. 1 to 11, 1 to 11, 3 to 11, 3 to 11. Thank you. Okay.

   Original caption was ALL CAPS; this page lowercases and capitalizes sentence starts. Names from the meeting’s entity index are restored. For exact wording, consult the video or the city clerk.

6. 4Communications▶ 40:03