All righty. To make sure that we stay on schedule, we will go in and get started. So, thank you all for being here today. We will start with the pledge. Allison, would you like to lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Was this meeting properly advertised?
Madame Chair, this meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal on April 9th, 2026 in the board's weekly meeting schedule. Great. Thank you so much for that information. I want to thank everyone for being here today. This is a huge community project and a once in a-lifetime project for all of us. And it's rare we get the opportunities to invest such a major amount of money into something that could change our entire community for the better and that we'll all be able to see the benefits of. So, I appreciate everyone being here today to take
the time to be a part of that conversation and help steer that in the right direction. Good morning. And um I want to just say thank you to everybody. I'd love to see almost a full house uh today. So excited to talk about this topic and see what we can do um to move a big project forward for our city. Um, thank you to uh, Commissioner Hoffberger and the uh, county commission for being willing to do this joint session. I'm very hopeful that today, you know, we're able to to get uh, together with a plan to move forward in some way, shape, or form
um, in a positive way for our city. So, I really look forward to our discussion for the to the information we're going to have today and um, just to something that we can action when we leave here. So, thank you. Uh and yeah, quickly uh again, thank you. You see the full house and it's because this matters to us uh as a region, as a community, and to put us in the best position to be successful. So, uh again, thank you to to Wes and county staff. You see what it takes to put on something like this to get us all uh in the same room. Um looking forward to uh from the
administration standpoint, just try to be the best facilitators we can to to help move this project forward in any way that we can with the council, with county commission, and looking forward to the conversation. So, thank you. For the sake of time, we have asked that our presenters keep it to 20 minutes a piece and that we hold questions until the end of the presentation. Our first presentation will be from Michael Caps, presenting in person on behalf of Legends Global. Michael,
it appears as if Michael might be running behind. We will switch one and two. We can go on and move to the Pensacola Convention Center analysis by WT Partnership. If you guys are ready to go, thank you so much for joining us in person or virtually, hybrid. In person. Wonderful. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you taking the time to invest in our community. I assume this is okay. Standing right here. Okay.
Right. Uh, thank you. It's lovely to be in your city again. I'm SA Data Boy. WT Partnership. Here's my colleague Jose. I'll have him introduce himself quickly and then we'll start running through the presentation. Jose Davilas, senior vice president with WT Partnership. So, um, we'll kick this off with just saying that what we presented is what we think a strategic framework for analysis. And we're hoping, uh, that this provides you with a way of looking at an overall development as opposed to just picking up pieces from it and saying that,
you know, let's let's look at this, let's look at that. We're just hoping that overall you'll you'll look at the thing as a whole because that's what we did. So our strategic frame framework focuses on long-term implications of development. Uh it also looks at high level comparison of delivery approaches an overview to what's possible under different scenarios. How those scenarios will impact the entire area and then this uh is a sub this is a planning tool uh but it is not a final uh procurement documentation or final recommendation to go with a particular
structure. Our project priorities were our sort if if you could say they were our guard rails for this project. Uh these aligned really well with what came out of the resident survey and the stakeholder engagement. So that was nice to see that the priorities were aligned with what the people of Pensacola wanted. Uh so we looked at uh infrastructure impacts outside of the site including the Grand Hotel, the Bay Center and Tech Park. We looked at improving safety, mobility and connectivity. We also considered preserving uh preserving the historic character of
the society as well as advancing public engagement and community alignment. Um another critical thing that came out of this was job creation and local economic growth as well as identifying funding sources. So we hope so the these were the guardrails with which we evaluated this project. So it's a very interesting site if I could call it that because uh you have the Grand Hotel and then you have the tech park, you have the PBC and then you have the site itself which uh you know a part of it is owned by the city and then a part of it falls kind of under um with with the
PBC site. So overall you have about 6.84 acres but you have different ownerships across the board. So uh no doubt that uh to uh execute anything it would be very challenging because of that but at the same time we still thought it was worthy considering all these different parcels considering your water connectivity considering so many things that are going really for the Bay Center and that's why we we believe this is a this this is a transform transformational opportunity just beyond one site looking at the whole area and activating a whole district. So in our analysis,
if you look at our more detailed report, which is about 150 pages, we actually start with a top- down overview. Think of it more like a funnel that we start looking at the federal level. Then we move down to the state level and we finally we move down to the county and the city level. Uh the federal highlights trends such as tightening uh immigration which leads to labor shortage. We look at higher construction costs. So overall just higher cost of a project. But then you move down to Florida and you see a story of growth. you see a story of vibrancy. You see people moving in
constantly as I'm sure is a lived reality for all of you. So, uh, you know, definitely very encouraging for development. Uh, and then more so when we moved down to Pensacola, we saw um tremendous sort of potential in the retail sector. Your hospitality sector is also is also very healthy. And then multif family, while currently solid right now, it is at risk of uh an over supply. And then office we've seen just generally being challenging everywhere post pandemic as people have moved into hybrid structures and um work from home has really taken center stage. So
with that we focused on the the retail hospitality and um sort of an offshoot of retail FNB food and beverages. Here are some emerging trends and potential for private funding. Now this is not specific to Pensacola. This just shows you what is going on currently uh in in these three markets, how they're being developed, how people are looking at them as they're moving forward. So for ice rinks, especially in warmer climates, what we noticed was that uh a good partnership, a solid partnership can really activate your ice rink. I think um the current job that ASM
does with Pensacola Bay Center is a testament to that that having sort of the ice flyers, having that regular programming can really be a good um idea for launching an ice rink. Moving on, you have an indoor sports complex. Uh these are typically county-led models with very defined payback sources. Uh we've given some examples over there of a few uh indoor sports complexes that have um that are currently in play or at least in the planning stage like the Valuchia County one. And then lastly, we move to the convention center. What we've seen is that convention centers at
standalone facilities uh do not do underperform. We see the ones that are more as part of a district activation perform much better. And you could say probably the same thing for all three of those that if you the more revenue sources you build around it, the higher foot traffic you build around it, the better um your facility will do. So as I mentioned, we looked at three distinct uh sectors. We looked at hospitality, food and beverage and retail. And then we looked at uh the visitor profile for ice rink indoor sports complex and a convention center.
Uh just uh a point to preface here is that with a convention center, we're looking for regional uh conventions. So we're looking at anywhere between north of 12,000 to 15,000 attendees uh coming to these. And so our base case is that you would be filling up your entire sort of city with these conventions with with and all your hotel partners would would be able to take part of it. U because of local visitation, it has the most limited impact. uh it does have the potential to attract outof town teams. Uh however, that is more seasonal in
the south than it is if you were doing this up north. For the indoor sports complex, we see a moderate ADR with uh youth athletes and coaches just shorter teners uh and more they reliably fill mid-pric hotels. For convention center, you see higher ADR, higher corporate spend as well as uh filling up of mid upper and luxury hotels. But like I said, if we're doing an event that is between 12,000 to 15,000 with Pensacola's current supply of about 11,000, we're pretty
sure that if those types of events take place, everybody would be able to benefit from this. So, in assessing the feasibility of a convention center, we looked at demographic trends. Um, I think uh next to the PBC site, the 2.1 mile uh radius uh has uh high incomes and high population growth. That's a uh that's a positive indicator. We looked at accessibility, which is ease of travel. Uh and I think we have a few more slides about this, but uh we do think that uh Pensacola compared to its regional peers has a lot more accessibility.
Uh we looked at corporate presence and major employers including your Navy. So these would be great places for you to start also with filling up your programming. Uh we we we've talked a little bit about hotel supply. That's another thing that we looked at. Then we looked at uh hotel and retail activity and tourism drivers. uh that would influence vis uh visitation. So, what we're trying to do is hopefully create uh do some placemaking, create a space where if people come for a convention, they're happy to invite their families over and spend the weekend uh enjoying your your lovely city and the amenities that it offers. A little bit more
on accessibility and what is expected as we move forward in 2031 with about uh with about 2 million in in plainment. And here is uh accessibility compared to your regional peers. So you can see that Pensacola ranks a lot higher than the surrounding airports. Uh so this this uh this points to the fact that currently people are probably landing here and then driving to other destinations for their conventions whereas you could offer them a convention center right here and they would probably attend it here. So this this is a regional sort of look at what's around.
Lastly, we looked at what is currently being offered in terms of square footage, and we want to highlight that uh Pensacola currently significantly has lower square footage. So, we're looking at about between 25 to 30% uh lower average size and we've talked to the Hilton um downtown as well. Sometimes they have to open up the other hotel and their convention experience ends up looking a little bit more like people scuttling back and forth uh which is less than desirable. So there there was definitely a documented need for larger facilities,
more modern facilities. Uh we do also want to emphasize that regional competitors are improving their offerings and increasing um their their uh their airport and their amenities. Um so we see significant demand drivers but we do uh understand that the convention center cannot function without an adjacent hotel and at the same time there are some risks which include um parking challenges. I think that was another one that emerged very strongly uh from the stakeholder uh engagement
and resident survey. So you cannot really address we feel a facility without considering how it's going to impact parking and what you're going to do with the displaced parking. And here's a little bit about our resident survey that we did. I know there have been some questions about how we did this. And so it it was a random sample. Uh it was mailed out using the city's portal to as many residents and nearly anyone who was within the city could take it. And here are our findings. Um we saw the highest demand for a mixeduse type of development, live,
work, and play. Uh we saw second highest demand for community activities and then infrastructure improvements, parks and green space and then we had a few others but largely uh with mixed use development you can address community activities as well as infrastructure improvements and parks. Uh so here's a pie chart of what we received for convention center ice rink and indoor sports complex for strongly support neutral and oppose. Uh the convention center came out leading uh very
favorably for strongly support and support. Uh the ice rink was a little bit of a polarized um option with as many as strongly support. we had uh about the same people who were uh opposed to it or you see the big black um pie over there that's the neutral and then indoor sports complex was clearly a second favorite that emerged. So our key takeaways for this was um the the vision for the district and strong support. We saw uh that if this
were to move forward, we would need the city, county, and tourism and industry to align uh pre preservation of natural uh assets as well as modernized facilities and trade-offs. Here is uh our program about what the convention center looks like. Plus 54,000 ft of exhibition space. I think we've emphasized repeatedly that we would like uh that we that this should be a modern modular sort of facility that can house multiple events. Uh the more events that that that it has,
the more you can fill with it. So we see indoor sports as a demand. We would definitely encourage a high community programming uh schedule. Here are your pathways to development. We laid out four scenarios. Uh so you have number one where you just build a standalone convention center. It's got limited impact. Then we have a hybrid delivery where you build a convention center and you have a hotel. Number three, you have a P3. So, uh you deliver this alongside retail or mixed juice and really kind of activate that area there. There would be some pre-activation and some activation
that then bleeds right into the project. And then lastly, we considered scenario four with which incorporated u safety and infrastructure improvements. Scenario 4 also unlocks federal grants and federal funding um as as well as a wider role for FDOT. I would uh for scenario two onwards. So scenario 2, three, four, the risks and the benefits all carry from one to the other. So if you have benefits that are outlined in scenario two, those benefits are implicit and assumed in scenario three and four. Whereas for scenario one, that kind of is a standalone
um case. And here we highlight the next steps. Uh this is very broad and it does not at this point uh assume that you've chosen a scenario. These would happen regardless of the scenario that the city and county ultimately choose to advance. Those are to confirm the project objectives and success met uh metrics. Determine site control and zoning clarity. As mentioned earlier, uh we do understand the challenge that you have different sites, you have different ownership. So we do not anticipate this being an easy process but nevertheless it is probably required if you
want to activate the entire district refine and confirm a clear project vision transaction structuring. So if you're adding in a hotel or a mixed juice or retail or anything else how are you going to capture those revenues? So um and hopefully have those feedback into the uh upkeep of uh the bay center as well as the convention center. So to avoid that deferred maintenance log um depending on project structure uh we gave a few revenue considerations. So this is what we would be structuring out uh whenever we decide a path forward. Finally
we would advance to a market sounding or an RFI to test the market's appetite for this. Uh we we f uh we attached three project examples. Uh the William uh convention center is a standalone facility. It has a waterfront similar to Pensacola and then the other two operate uh within arena kind of like PBC. So that's why we chose these as samples that maybe Pensacola could consider in their development. And compared to the here's a comparison for
um the the characteristics of those facilities and their markets compared to Pensacola. And then finally we provide some pictures and some um information. So, as you can see, the Willmington uh convention center is operated by Legends. They're probably very familiar with it. And you have the Rush and the Green Bay, Wisconsin. And then finally, the exhibition hall. I hope that was under 20 minutes. You did perfect. Thank you so much. And then you'll be around for questions after. Okay,
great. We appreciate it. Michael Caps, are you ready to present on behalf of Legends Global? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Um, thank you again for everybody to be here. Uh, Jose is going to pull up our team that's remote with Doug Thornton out of New Orleans. He was here presented last time. Um, as well as Mike Kenny, our regional from Jacksonville. And then Bill uh Krueger with uh CSL out of Minneapolis. And then Aaron uh out of um Boston with uh Populace, the Architect. So,
I'll kind of give you some opening remarks. um kick it over to Bill with CSL to give you the the feasibility study just a high level. This is the same information that we presented to you before, try to condense it down to get to those high points and then ask answer some more questions that you may or may not have. Um I'll run through the renovations for the building, the event center uh makeup, the uh additional ice facility. Uh it's not just a practice rink, it is an actual facility that can do other events. So, we want to make sure that that
is framed properly. It's not just a practice rink. It does it can actually operate as an additional 20 to 30,000 square foot space. So, you could put Marty Gro ball functions in there while you're doing a convention in the event center, while you're doing a concert in the uh in the arena here. Uh so, that was our strategy and approach to it. So, um So, uh, with that said, uh, I'm going to go ahead and kick it over to Bill and make sure we have him on online. Bill, are you there?
Hi there. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Okay, I've had really really choppy audio and video. So, just let me know if um if you're not able to to hear this. I don't see a presentation. Are you able to share that on your end, Michael? Yes, we are. There's going to pull it up. Michael, you're gonna This is Doug. I can pull it up if you um if you can't. Yeah, we've we've got it, Doug. Okay, great. Well, I'll just speak for a few minutes and then I'll turn it back over to Michael after this. Um so yes, I'm Bill Krueger
with uh CSL International. Um I've been doing feasibility studies of this nature for projects of this nature for 30 years uh in markets uh all throughout the country including actually process. The charge, as Michael alluded to, was to focus on um new facility product
development that could really enhance the market performance of the Bay Center um and uh in terms of the financial performance in particular, drive new economic impact and and better serve different event markets that are currently underserved in the Escambia County, Pensacola area at this point in time. So, as a part of our study, uh we had a a significant amount of engagement. Uh we we met with more than 50 uh stakeholders and user groups and some of the tenants as at the outset of the project. Um we also then followed
up with interviews and surveys of different types of event planners, convention planner planners, meeting planners, amateur sports, uh uh tournament and other types of event producers, um and and a variety of other events including concert promoters and entertainment promoters as a part of our data collection and our research and our outreach process. So very extensive in terms of how we do these studies uh throughout the country. Um and certainly we we spent many months really delving into what to really determine what the market demand was and what the
best type of product solutions uh that might be available coming out of this. Next slide please. This is just a summary very quickly of some of the feedback and of some of the convention planners that we spoke to. So really the takeaway from from what we learned from all the different event uh user groups uh that that we that interface with as a part of this process is there definitely is unmet convention demand largely from more the state and the regional groups. Our survey of more of a targeted set of niche national groups
that can rotate anywhere around the country um really demonstrated that most of them um prefer some of the other destinations within Florida. if they're going to visit Florida, they're going to go to some of those common destinations for some of the larger events. So, the demand for the larger event conventions was relatively limited. How uh however, some of the smaller and the midsize events, particularly from the state and regional marketplace, uh were were relatively significant. However, their space needs and their hotel needs in particular. If you look at that pie chart on the right side of that page, this really underscores something
that's really really critical uh that needs to be considered is that 90% of all the groups that expressed an interest to us of incambia county and and some kind of a product development in downtown Pensacola said that they require or prefer a headquarter hotel that's attached or is uh walkable within um uh one to two city blocks. And so that feedback is really important because it ties together the need for a fullervice hotel to serve as a convention center headquarters hotel
uh if you're really trying to penetrate into the convention marketplace. Next slide please. So overall in terms of all these other interviews and surveys and everything that we did with regard to the market demand analysis really highlighted the fact that the demand segments that that express the most opportunity in terms of unmet pieces of business that we could compete for were more the smaller conventions and conferences and trade shows uh in addition to a significant interest by amateur sports. So when we say amateur sports, we're talking about of the indoor variety that
largely would be basketball, volleyball, dance, cheer, wrestling, pickle ball. There's a whole bunch of those kind of sports that oftentimes will go in some kind of an indoor environment like that. And and there's really a significant need for that. Um and then in particular and also looking at again a potential new event center concept and and a potential, you know, practice sheet of ice as a part of that. Um the theory really landed on the fact that we could create a convention product but we would definitely need both concrete floor space, carpeted
uh space and then hotel space all connected and all together. So so but the convention center you you know they like that. However, uh if you don't have all that equipment that's baked into your facility uh inventory of of uh of equipment and spaces and FF and E, then that cost has to be borne by the event planner or it has to be borne by the facility itself in order to to
convert that space to be able to be suitable for amateur sports. And so, uh next slide, please. And so then the recommendation uh really coming all out of this just to summarize and we've got all that detail in our large 100 plus page report uh really landed on a flexible new event center type project that has an enhanced FFD package. And what that means is you've got the you know as a part of your building the construction of that project you're also purchasing all the equipment. So,
portable hardwood, maybe have portable uh uh synthetic turf. Um you've got a bunch of nets that can that separate the spaces and create some additional spaces, but you've really got to and you got retractable seats and other things like that. So, you've got this very highly flexible building that's really being designed and thought about in lots of different markets throughout the country in our experience. And it's really a way to maximize the level of activity and also maximize the revenue generation within a building like that. Uh and and an important part of that
strategy would then be to lure and attract a uh a fullervice 200key or larger full-ervice upper upscale chain scale hotel uh that would be attached via Skyway or or connected to an adjacent parcel. And and when you think about a full-ervice hotel that's 200 keys or greater, they've already got baked into that building model, they've already got a substantial amount of carpeted conference space and meeting space in that model. And when looking at all the survey results from
the convention planners that we talked to, the a typical full-ervice hotel, if you were able to secure that under a P3 transaction, you you would have the right amount of carpeted space to marry with this size of the event center space, which is concrete floor, but highly flexible for other activities as well. And when you put all that together, you're able to leverage the private sector investment in the hotel product to secure their carpeted space and marry that with the concrete floor space in the event center. So you're able to really go after where all the meat
of the demand is in the convention business in terms of our program recommendations. But then importantly with the practice ice sheet, what we did find is that, you know, the nearest additional ice sheet to Pensacola is more than three hours away. And so you've got all this pent-up demand for tournament activity and other league activity. And by adding a second sheet of ice, it really allows the Bay Center itself, the historical base center to really focus on those events that that it really is designed for. and that frankly is spectator and entertainment events, concerts,
family shows, um, uh, ice hockey games, you know, by by the minor league ice Flyers, etc. And so once you have two sheets of ice, you can automatically start competing for ice tournaments and major figure skating competitions. And so when you've got this product together, it's really allowing the Bay Center to really do what's intended to do and focus on maximizing those entertainment events. And then you've got the event center that can do the conventions, the amateur sports and trade shows and other types of events and public public shows. And then you've
got the second sheet of ice that all of a sudden now can really bring in a lot of tourism and hotel room nights by virtue of allowing it to be a tournament building with all this pent-up demand within the region. Uh that that currently is being very much underserved by the single sheet of ice that's offered on a on a a seasonal basis within the Bay Center itself. Next slide. This is the concept just to show you how you could convert that space within the event center concept. Again, about 55,000 square ft for that space. You
got it here. at which counts the evidence of the the center that exists today. You'd have the secondary practice sheet and then you'd have the hotel with their carpeted. As we go through the technical difficulties, I'll recap this in a high high level. Um I am
tracking. We got 11 minutes left on the 20. So we'll we'll make sure we keep your time. Bill, you there? I feel like the old phone game with the string and the the 10 can.
So, we're at we're at 10. Michael, the uh pres looks like the presentation went away and has come back up. If we want to go ahead and go to slide 17, we can start with the Pensacola Basin renovations and have you walk the group through the plans. Thank you, Mike. I'm going to touch on the performance projections real quick and then jump into that. We've got about 10 minutes left on our time. Um so I did want to highlight this slide. Um we talk about investment and ROI and what's big what's going to you know contribute to the community. You know from a tourism aspect and quality of life for our residents. So one
one point I do want to point out on this slide is uh you look at the direct spending and the indirect spending um just from the uh event center and the practice or the ice facility. It's uh a return of 60 million economic input. Uh but you're also looking at 24 million additional uh monies and income uh salaries that would be created generated by additional jobs that are coming into the market. Um so now you're looking at and that's on an annual basis. So for each year
uh you're looking there at you know 80 million plus uh in a return. So we're talking about an an outlay of 190 million. You're getting 80 back in year one. and this is a 20 to 30year um endeavor. Uh you're going to get a good return on your investment here. So, I'll jump into the uh from there into the Pensacola Bay Center renovations. These slides, a lot of people have seen them, so I'm going to touch on them real highlight level. Um what you see is the base center on the left, event center in blue, the ice rink in uh the green. Um and then the condi com uh combined
space is the orange that connects everything together. uh we represented a hotel on the property. We understand that that's probably not the best direction to go in. Um but we wanted to touch on that to show you that uh the event center by the demand uh and drive from all of the users, they do want that type of headquarter hotel that's either close, walkable or on property. Uh getting into the renovations for the Bay Center that we all agree on that needs to be done. Uh touch on this real high level. Uh we would open up the entryway for the main floor entrance and
create a bunker club. So a premium we'd actually add a grab and go marketplace concessions that's there not currently. Uh that's highlighted in the red and the yellow there. Uh in the green uh is where we would remove some seats where we could increase our capacity to 80 uh 800. Uh why that is key is 8,500 is the magic number uh for a market our size to try to attract those next level uh talent. Now obviously we've got the warf that competes with us. The mobile arena is
coming online here soon. They will Mobile will basically be the same size as ours from a concert standpoint. Uh but the Warf is 10,000 seats when they open their door. So we're right now at 6,800. That's roughly 3,000 seats. If we can get to close to 9,000, that puts us in a better competitive market for uh the the concerts on that side. This just gives you a closer view of the bunker club. Um if you've been to an event and uh you've seen our kitchen, you know where our food comes from. All the food in the building
comes from one kitchen. Um so we'd actually add a service elevator, a freight elevator, which the building currently does not have. that would access a second level and a third level to be able to have better movement where we're moving food and beverage and other uh operational uh endeavors without having to interact with the public. Uh right now we have to interact with the public. Everybody uses that one elevator. Uh moving on to the second floor, the rooms that you are in right now is highlighted in red. Uh so this would become what we call our
club loge level. uh that would actually have a kitchen facility on this side as well to be able to support do private events on non-event days but then have that higher next level premium um option uh for to increase revenue on the east side. You see the purple highlighted there. Um that would be your next level would be accessible from the the top down. Uh that gives you kind of um another different level. So we're looking at three tiers of premium seating. Bunker Club, just imagine that's a hundred bucks to get in. This level is maybe 50 bucks to get in. The purple on
the other side might be $25 to get in. Now, those are just working numbers. We obviously need to do more market research demand. We've put some time and effort into that on what we would price out, how we would do it versus an annual subscription versus a per show sell add-on, that kind of thing. uh we can work through all that, but that's what's really going to generate the additional revenue that helps us get into the black for the operation of the Bay Center because again as the operating model that we proposed with all these renovations being done, uh we should be in a position to where
we can restructure the contract for the Bay Center to be able to uh operate more as a P&L uh where there's no longer a subsidy for the the Bay Center. uh then that subsidy then in turn goes back towards the debt service and can help uh our our math problem there. Uh this just gives you a close-up look uh for the uh the club loge level. Moving up to the third level concourse, the orange is the uh atrium uh enclosed glass area that would connect the event center. Uh the
concessions are in the purple. Right now we have what's called belly up concessions. If you've been to New Orleans Super Dome or Jacksonville's going through renovations or you've been into a building in other markets nowadays, a lot of it's you go in, you grab your items, you tap, you walk out, you go. That's what all of these concessions would be instead of walking up to a counter, placing an order, them going and get your food, come back, process the transaction. Where that's key for us is time is money, money is time. So we can be able to improve that experience for the guests
but also increase our our ROI with uh the revenue generation. Highlighted here is also some upgrades to the exterior of the facade. Um you know we've candidly called this the white elephant for many years. Um so we were going to kind of dress it up a little bit um and put some time um and I I think that goes towards where you're rebranding the building. So then you're getting the opportunity to get those naming rights for the building itself, for the box office, for other different areas that we've worked into the performer for that operating model. Uh this gives you that
uh $25 uh area that I was talking about as an example. It's just an additional it could be just an additional uh food and beverage space, but it does have a kitchen on that side as well. So we're going from one kitchen in the building to four. So, we actually have one on the ground level, two on this side, and then one on the other side, east side. Uh, an example of what we talk about with uh concessions is points of sale. Uh, so part of this is adding additional points of sale. Um, and roughly one point of sale can generate $1,200 uh an event. So, the more that we add to that,
the more speed of service that we can go through and be able to keep our price points to the market base. Uh, some of you have been to Orlando or Miami or Atlanta or bigger markets. You're paying $18, $20 a beer. Um, we're trying to make sure we don't do that here in Pensacola. This gives you an example of uh the the marketplace where you grab and go. Um, this gives you an example of a new club space. Uh, branded it with the Ice Flyers. Um, it could be a naming rights. It could be the the Mercedes-Benz or Crown Royal or or something to that effect. Uh we talked about the increase in
capacity as far as the uh seating count. So you look at where we would go. We create that stage pocket where you see the stage in the screen right now. We would move that back by taking seats out. Now everybody's going to say, why are we taking seats out to get more seats? Well, it's about the configuration of stage placement. How does that impact hockey and Sunb Belt basketball that are in the round? Uh it actually gives them another premium area that they can do. If you've been to a hockey game, you've been on the flight deck, this now gives us another multi-tered flight deck
option that's very similar to what the Wahoos do in left field and right field, you get additional spaces that can be a private space uh for an event or uh it can be just sold uh to the public in general. Uh talked about um exterior facade. Uh this gives you an example of naming rights. Obviously, you dress it up. people more enticed to, you know, open their checkbooks and and write checks to support the the the mission. And this actually had some RGB lighting as well. So,
when you come across the bridge coming from the beach, you're going to see the base center top lit up. When you're coming down I 10, you're going to see it. It's going to be a focal point that you're uh going to be proud of. Um on the back, this just just shows you a rendering of the connection to the uh the back side. We did talk about deferred maintenance and some efforts that we've done. Highlighted here is the 10 million that we're still finishing up, but a lot of has made a huge impact with a brand new sound system, the lighting system, uh the the fence around the
parking lot. You'd be amazed at how many comments our calls I've gotten about that. Thank you for taking that rusted old chain link fence down. It doesn't look like a correctional facility anymore and that kind of thing. So, you know, a little bit goes a long way. So, we did still factor some of that in where we did a full facility condition assessment which identified up to 172 million I think in different things. Do you need all that? We've done without it for many years. We can
um but we want to get out of that, you know, put some gaff tape or duct tape on it and actually fix the things that need to be fixed because if we're going to invest all this money, we don't want the pipes or the concrete that supports all that to break down. Getting into the cost projections. Um, this gives you all itemized going to highlight uh the high level. The base center renovations is now at uh 71 million. It does include that 15 million in deferred maintenance. Uh moving into the event center. Um this is a rendering from the tech park side that shows you the event center in the middle
uh with a hotel or um additional facility to the right. That could be a parking deck that's built there in in place if we can't find another solution with the hotel property or the tech park. Uh but it gives you those options. The uh event space event facility that we're talking about, this is the event level uh where it is 55,000 square feet but can be divided into three separate rooms. Bill highlighted and touched on bringing in sport court, hardwood court, retractable seating and all those different configurations where this could be utilized. You have a lot of
multi-use space as far as pre-unction with the lobby entrance area and plenty of back of house. The way it is configured right now is to maximize the loading space and the backstage space. So, both buildings budding up to each other uh with the base center on the left and the event center on the right. It gives you that functionality to be able to to perform and do the shows. This gives you the breakout rooms that are on the next level up above the event level for the uh com the event center. So it doesn't have that 20,000 30,000 foot big ballroom to be do the big functions but it
does give you some of those additional spaces and that's where Bill with CSL had mentioned the hotel would come into play with those additional meeting spaces would actually supplement and augment this to be be able to u make it work with the math problem that we have. These are some examples of trade shows. Uh sport court facility. Uh the atrium uh entryway pre-unction space. Uh again, new modern updated, not 1980s like we have right now. Um this is an example of a basic uh layout
where you've got the high ceiling where you can still rig and do conventions, um banquetss, uh Marty Gro balls, you name it. Uh but you can also do the the sport competition from basketball, pickle ball, volleyball, wrestling, um you name it to in another exhibition floor. We do booths uh exhibition shows with about 100 is our max here. This can get you up to 250 booths. So think I'm over my time. Uh I'll wrap this up. Um, so we're uh 84 million for the event center.
The ice rink uh again it's an ice facility. It can be also utilized. So when we're not I would categorize this as a building that can do ice. It's a it's an event building but it can also do ice. So think of as an additional auxiliary space that would add to that. Um, and the decision that's before you is, is it worth that 29 or $30 million that that we have out there? Um, I think it is appropriate aligned. Um, but with the campuswide approach that
Doug's going to touch on is that it does actually operate in a positive uh revenue stream uh for the building. Projected cost is 29 million there. Um, again getting into the campuswide approach. Uh, and this is where I'm going to kick it over to Doug real quick. Doug, are you there? I am. Um, thank you, Michael. My name is Doug Thornton. I'm the president of our Legends Venue Planning Services Division. Um, I work with municipal and private owners like yourselves to support
new or renovated venue development, uh, like what we're talking about today. And I think you can see we've spent a considerable amount of time with our consultants CSL and populace on the design side and feel comfortable that these improvements will provide a creative value to the community. So um Michael has taken you through some of the architectural plans uh just to show you you know some of the things that we've looked at in terms of incremental value. If you can go to the next slide, Michael, actually if we can go on and stop it there. I think we're at time for you guys. Is
that okay with the board? because we do have one more presentation and then we do have questions after this. Any objections? I just want to make sure that we're keeping us on track. So, if we can just table that and then probably loop back to some of that for questions. Absolutely. And what he was going to go through is the same information that we provided to you before. Um, this was trying to condense it high level to get it to you. Okay. And we can address those at any of the Q&A session. Perfect. We appreciate that so much. We do have one more presentation. the Escambia County DMO group um representing the hotel years in the area. Um Ted Int is going to speak on behalf of
those folks. We appreciate you guys coming here today. We know that you um provide wonderful hotels for people to stay in and that allows us to levy this money to invest back into the community. So madam chair. Yes, sir. So who's representing a visit? Is there So visit is not on this for today. This is they call themselves the DMO. It's the hotel group here in So this is not visit. Visit is not being represented here today? No sir. Okay. Thank you. First I'd like to say thank you to all of you. I guess I'll call this the dis today, the collective dis.
Um as you know we have studied this topic for almost 50 years. There have been multiple studies done over those years. uniquely almost every study that's been done has come back in one way or another very similar to the other ones. There are a few things that make this opportunity different in this space and time. Uh Mr. Mayor, I want to thank you and your uh council for your vision and seeing that this could be the catalyst for us capturing the connectivity of uh Hollist T. Williams. The redevelopment that's happening at Jefferson and North Palifox and the redevelopment
of the Bay Center with an addition of some event facilities could tie all that part of our city. Excuse me. Commissioner Ray, did you have something you wanted to share with everybody on that? No. When the time ends, I'll share it. Okay. I also want to thank the county commissioners for recognizing the value of our tourism tax. passing the fifth cent, I believe we did that in 2020, has put us in a position here today to have this generational decision uh and conversation. And we do see, as Madam Chair mentioned, this is a once in a-lifetime opportunity for our community. In my
career, this will probably be the largest public investment that our our county makes. And uh so it needs to be thought through very carefully and thoughtfully. Uh we have reviewed all the recent studies that have been done and uh despite some people's opinion, we don't really dispute any of the information in either one of the studies, but what we've been able to do is extrapolate the information from both those studies plus the previous studies that have been conducted as well as our experience as uh the tourism community and the DMO is not just the hotel years, there
are also restaurant tours represented on that and also other constituents that participate in our tourism economy. And what we know is the future of tax collections is a critical piece to this. Due to the size and nature of our community at this time, due to the kind of airlift that we have, we believe there's an opportunity here to do a multi-purpose event center that can do indoor sports, conventions, conferences, trade shows, all the things that we listed in the letter that we sent to all of you. We believe that in today's world, a proper design that can be made that can
satisfy all of our communities needs for at least another generation. And I go back to something I heard Senator or uh Mayor Reeves say about a month and a half or so ago. He said, "In an ideal world, we'd be able to afford everything, a standalone purpose-built convention center, indoor sports." But the reality is we have to make the best decision for our community. And our group believes after careful consideration, our own analytical work as generators of the tax that will largely be used to pay for this that we believe a multiple multi-purpose center is the
best best opportunity for us. We also believe that because of over 500 plus rooms of new development either under construction or in the planning stages right now in downtown Pensacola in the related area that adding a new hotel at this time is not a good idea. There's also the grand hotel next door to this facility that likely has a giant redevelopment opportunity if everybody can agree to do an expansion and renovation of the Bay Center. So, we believe that from a tour or from a a lodging capacity situation, we have more than enough inventory. And I'd like to speak
to one thing that I don't think any of the studies that I've read, and some of these studies go back to 2012. The nuance of our historic Pensacola, our community, gets missed in these studies. We know now that when people come here for soccer events, basketball tournaments, dance competitions, baseball tournaments, and other things, a lot of those people go to the beach first, which is where my organization's hotels are. And once that starts to fill up, that compression comes back across
the bridge. We want to see a facility built that can create compression that fills both sides of the bridge at the same time. We want to leverage downtown Pensacola. And all of you know because I've said this to all of you both in public and in private. We spend a lot of our own energy marketing downtown Pensacola at Inisree hotels. Even though every one of our hotels, with the exception of one, is on the beach. the value of downtown Pensacola is greater than any feasibility study is ever going to garner because they don't live here and experience this with us every day.
Couple that with the fact that we got ranked the number one beach in the United States by the reader Kanye Traveler and the fact that one of the one of the the things that those readers pointed out was the historic downtown Pensacola made our beach experience special leads me to believe that if we make the right decision here, all these new hotels that are coming to downtown are going to benefit from this development. Will there be a day someday where we may need another 250 hotel rooms? Possibly. When that day comes, it probably won't need to be a P3 investment
because when it pencils, you guys don't have to participate financially. Our organizations never ask for a dime. We've built over $500 million worth of hotels in Escambia County. So, with that, I would like to say that again, we truly appreciate y'all coming together on this. We think that the tourism community for Scami County is completely ready for this next step. We're excited for it. We have studied it. We've talked about it. The fact that everybody's in a
room ready to make a decision speaks volumes about your leadership in our community. We want you to know how much we appreciate that. We want you to know how much we appreciate everybody's efforts, including all the people who have done all these amazing studies. And I do want to tell you, I've read every page of every study and there is a ton of information our community is going to be able to use for years going forward that we can pull out of those studies as we make future decisions. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we will open it up for conversation. I will express that I hope that we can come to some sort of agreement on how to move forward so
we can memorialize something that we'll be able to vote on at one of our upcoming May meetings because I know everybody's been working on this for a very long time. So your goal to come out of this meeting is what I would like to see us agree on a path forward. I think we can probably all agree that the Bay Center needs revamping. So I would like to express that. And then can we look at building a second or a third facility? And if so, what type of facility or what data do we need to know what type of facility? That sounds good. You know, for the record,
Madam Chair, since you uh had a question, I think visit is the organization that's tasked that we give millions of dollars to decide who's going to put heads in beds, who's going to be here. Uh they should be a part of any conversation uh that we have before we make a decision. So unfortunately, Visit Pensacola did not reach out, nor did they send any documentation for consideration. They are tasked with spending the money, not generating the money. So I thought it was important that we have the hotel years that are tasked with generating that money to be here as well. Well, I I I disagree that they are tasked with generating the money. It's an
investment. But nevertheless, I mean, we're not going to have that debate. Bas specific debate. Do we all agree that we want to revamp the Bay Center? Is that anything that someone has conversation on? Some people are shy to talk, but not me. That was agreed upon 20 years ago. I um this building's over 45 years old. Some of us on this board weren't even born yet. I was in grade school. It's obviously if we have a vision for the county and city that we have to do something here.
what we do. I agree with the mayor depends on fair share and where we get to what we want to do. I think um all the things that sound great. I agree with the DMO on the hotels. I think we probably have enough of that right now. I would like to see the grand at some point come back to life, but that's a separate separate topic. But we've been doing this for a year. All right. Last legislative session, and this is why I'm putting this out, there was discussion on using TDT for a variety of variety of things. We probably need to do something fairly soon. Um,
if we're going to do something and decide what that looks like. So, in short, I'm in favor for doing something sooner than later. And I I I've committed to you, DC, that I'm willing to do something with the city, and I hope we can get to yes on something. Mary. Uh, so just to be clear, uh, Commissioner, if we wanted to have them elaborate on anything, are we just doing discussion now or can I We can ask questions as well. Okay. Yeah. Um, okay. Yeah. If if you have a specific question for anyone that presented, I would say let's open it up.
Um, so, uh, if we could, I I think it's important because I think there's these two key conversations of what what buildings, you know, what's the second facility and all that. And, um, and so I'd love for WT to elaborate, as they did in our previous meeting, on um, what the DMO just mentioned, which is I know there's a lot of debate publicly about is it a convention center, is it multi-purpose, but it's also 2026. And I think there are examples where maybe that isn't as big of a debate as it might seem publicly. And uh so I know that WT can elaborate on that some
and you touched on some of those examples. And then the second thing while you're up, I think that's the big conversation is is financing. Um and and I think a big part of this and a lot of success that other cities and counties have had is not just opening the wallet and saying, "Okay, if the county commission was willing, here's how much bed tax is available and this is what we've got to build. how can we compound that investment on the private side? So, I don't look at a hotel participation in any form as a subsidy. I think what we're saying is that's more money going into
the pot to be able to enact a vision. And so I I I guess just if you don't mind briefly touching on number one the the multi-purpose aspect of do we need to be debating between convention center or sports facility or is there that hybrid approach and then secondly maybe a little bit on the toia opportunities those talking about some of those things about other dollars coming into play that aren't the county the city CRA or otherwise. Thank you. Sure happy to. Uh so like the mayor said
uh when we say convention center we're actually actually what we realized when we were sitting that we were all talking about the same thing. We're all talking about a modular facility that can host as many events as possible. Having said that there will be some events that you will have to let go of as you decide and you refine your structure. So if you do want the facility to perform indoor sports there's a certain capacity that you can meet and with that you will let go of certain events. So no, you cannot have everything but there is a world in which you can accommodate large amount of requests and what we saw uh in the resident survey was people talked a lot about
the Foley event center. That's apparently where Pensacolans's go for some of these things right now. So the existing facility with the square footage that we put in our report uh yes we we we anticipate that it should be able to host indoor sports uh uh to tour tournaments uh basketball pickle ball uh volleyball some of these and uh any person who's going to bring in their private dollars they are going to want to invest in that and on that uh on the second note of private dollars uh the the public uh facility whether it's a civic center, whatever you decide to do, that is
an anchor. All cities or counties or public investments usually, whether it's a library, they fund the anchor, whereas everything around it then is the the private sector can bring. So you guarantee them that here's the facility we're going to bring. Here's our programming. So here is the visitor footfall. Now your private dollars come in to uplift that hotel or to uplift that mixed juice or retail and whatnot. And uh we've heard a lot about connectivity. I think the DMO makes a good point. It's a great idea to bring the downtown to the waterfront and the
waterfront to the downtown. To that end, when we looked at scenario four, the whole reason we uh even included that was because we we do feel you guys have a historic you guys have a very vibrant downtown. There's a lot to offer. Um it's it's a true downtown in in many ways. And the way to do that, the way to bring that in into the Bay Center area district or to the beach and all of that is to consider connectivity as a whole. So when we look at the the the TIFFIA and TOD, when we look at that TOD option that specifically emphasizes are we creating bike lanes, right? Our
vision when we uh put up that concept was that as your visitors come, whether they're conference attendees or indoor sports attendees, they come, they get dropped off over there via bus or whatever it is, but then after that it's walkable, they can get a bike from there and they don't we don't need to add more cars on the road. So really the cars on the road are the Pensacolons. Um and then this unlocks for us uh two uh funding tools. One of them is financing. So, TIFFIA is a financing tool that is something you have to pay back. Uh, what is good about
that is the interest rate. So, right now, if I'm a private developer and I want to come build here, uh, without a TIFFIA, I'm going to end up paying close to seven or eight or 9% interest rate. With TIFFIA, with uh with that area becoming like a zone, uh, now the interest rate drops to like 4%. And the whole point of US DOT encouraging these is they like the idea of walkable, connected, safe and whatnot. Uh and then the other uh is grants. So uh US DOT does a very good job of
encouraging people to undertake at least grant uh planning studies to encourage walkability. We we did hear in uh your resident survey that uh people emphasize parking and they just didn't want any new development to come in and cause more problems. And we think that's a fair point. And we do think that one of the issues right now, as you guys are more aware than than we are, is that your downtown's right there, but it's not connected. So if there's a convention center, this is called enabling infrastructure. What we're saying is that through a phasing approach,
you don't have to Rome wasn't built in a day. You don't have to build all this in a day. But as you build your facility, as you increase the programming, as you start to collect more revenue and whatnot, we do think that there's space to build this enabling infrastructure and make this a true destination that encourages people to walk and move around and really, you know, because it's it's right there. Your downtown's right there, but you really can't get to it right now without a car. So, scenario four looks at that. Mr. Mayor, so in in your vision, would it be
like one facility that would have the multi-ports and the convention into one? I I was making the all the point I was making is there's a lot of conversation around should it be a convention center and including by I'll be honest walking into this process. You know, I always worry at the government level of trying to please too many people and then end up having half of a convention center and half of a sports facility. That doesn't really function well for anybody, right? That's kind of the natural thing is well that's less less confrontational but we end up with something maybe
the net product the net deliverable isn't as good. Uh so I was skeptical about that but you know seeing examples of hey there is the ability to maybe have some harmony between bringing in conventions that that are using hotels during the week and eating at restaurants and supporting our local small businesses during the week and then sports on the weekends. um you know that that capacity might be the net value. So uh again I'm no architect. Uh I'm uh you know I would I think that would happen throughout the process. I just I think this early in the conversation we may not
need to dive into a fork in the road yet to say are we going to have a sports facility or are we going to have a convention center because it may not necessarily one you might be able to do them both and it might just be uh early on that you know to to have to make that determination. I just want to get clarity. No makes sense. Thank you so much. I think that um I think that if we don't have connectivity, we run a risk of having too many separate locations of event like we we want people here to go to Palifox and and go ahead and fund the businesses that are our local people and
such. And I think that the DOT part that third for the grant um I I think that we can't move really move forward without that consideration. as much as I love walkable and bikable and that's what I everyone's not able to do that right and so I mean I think of those periods where my parents always walked and biked and were very active but then there's a point where you just can't and so there's got to be some kind of movability even if we just did I if we use this as a hub and maybe
we activate the old train center right there and use it as a hub and we even have just trolleys going the east west route and the north south route so that people can make it up and down to all those locations that we are putting on in play the various hotels etc without having to relocate here. Um so I think that without that we're really just continuing to do these a chunk here and a chunk there. I think we have to have that kind of connectivity that doesn't rely on a person's ability to walk or bike. It's got to be there's got to be some stuff like that. I I
say this every time, but my mind always goes back to um Oldtown Alexandria in in you know outside DC in Virginia and you've always got up and down King Street, you've got the trolleys running. So people walk it surely and they park, but the for those that get tired or can't do it any longer, there's there's that ability. So I think that even you know the ones that we have going now have really enhanced on Saturdays and on those evenings and I think that we enhance in that for sure. um and that will continue to not make everything have to be here. So the second the the followup to
this is the fact that I agree completely with with um Mr. Enson that I don't think that we have to fund the private sector. I think that if you think of even strong towns in the way it goes is is that we do that anchor as you guys have just reiterated we we focus on the anchor transportation in this location and we let it naturally flow from there. I think if we force too much here at once once again uh we don't know what the economy is going to absorb and then we once again risk you know
running our our friends and family who are on Palifox out of business or the new extension on Jefferson and we have too many too many things that that we risk that way. So I think that we have to look at the transportation port portion and using the federal grants hopefully from DOT to kind of enhance that idea. So that would be my Yes, ma'am. I would agree with that. Commissioner Barry, thank you. And that I mean I think that would might be a fantastic focus for the city
would be the transportation and the and the parking aspect of it. Um you know we are tasked unfortunately with some degree of capacity of how much we can actually do. Um, you know, and I think that we do have to prioritize what's, you know, what's most important. We're not gonna end up with a product that makes everyone happy. That's gonna that's a that's a fool's errand. So, you know, uh, for my vote, uh, the money going into the renovations at the Bay Center and the adjacent facility, that's I mean, we have to set priorities as to what it's going to be. And for my vote,
it's going to be a, you know, youth sports, a sports type facility. And you know, much like one of the uh speakers mentioned, OA, that event center, um I've spent a lot of time over there the last few years. And um you know, they have they host conventions and trade shows during the week. And then they have thousands of families there playing basketball and volleyball on the weekends. And I think that type of facility, you know, is exactly what we were looking at hypothetically putting at Brazham a couple of years ago. That didn't happen. Um but the fact that the facility
didn't happen at Brozenham wasn't a function of there not being the demand and the uh financials not making sense. It was you know some of the location and and some other factors but um the the room generation equation that does go into the repayment of the debt placement. that's what that's what's going to generate those uh those nights uh you know based on you know based on the statistics I think that's a that's a fantastic use. So the renovations at the Bay
Center the adjacent uh the adjacent uh sports facility um I think there's some conversations between uh Mr. Harris and our budget folks as well as our bond council about their ability to uh uh maybe with some uh you know with some adjacent help from the county be able to underwrite another ice uh the ice rink. If we're a conduit to that and if all that they need from the public sector in that in that in that scenario is uh space that to me that's a reasonable that's
a reasonable use of space as long as we're not uh devoting our debt placement capacity towards those uh towards that repayment or towards the debt placement. Um I think we financially we can afford to do the center. We can afford to do afford to do everything here that's being proposed that'll take it to the next level and we can afford to do a full-on adjacent facility um with the capacity that we have and then it's going to be uh you know and then then that's going to basically eat up eat up our capacity and uh you know like I said if Mr. Harris can work that
out with bond council on underwriters. Uh I don't have I don't have any issue devoting some space out of this acreage for that facility. It will have a benefit. Um but you know and and you know we we can't end up making everybody happy. So I would agree with that. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'd like to go back to your question just so I can get clarification. So you asked kind of a broad question whether we supported I think Bay Center improvements or correct. Okay. Because
I think there's already been money set aside if I'm not mistaken like 75 million. I think you all took 25 million to do artificial turf. So clearly county has a strong interest in youth sports. I've seen that. Um but I thought there was like 75 million set aside for basin improvements. Is that correct or not? So conversationally I mean that was the conversation at our board. Um we didn't really get into the actual debt placement debt placement capacity. That's that would have that was at the time assuming a debt placement capacity of 100 million which is
uh even at that time was a conservative number. Our our capacity is greater than that. So you know when you when you look at the when you look at the numbers I mean we do have the ability to to put probably closer to 150 million in not 100. Okay. But that and like I said that that if you look at some of the cost projection spreadsheets that'll cover everything in the facility that we're in plus everything associated with the facility adjacent to it. But that will kind of tap that out. Okay. And that goes with the numbers that were shown earlier. 71 million
roughly for renovations the base center then 86 million is what they projected for that facility. to the additional facility. I think that the I think the number associated with the convention center was a little bit greater than the one associated with the like one more focused on the youth sports might have been more in the 65 or 70 range but yeah more or less Charles. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. That's all I have right now. Thank you. Other questions? Yes, ma'am. So, so just so I'm I'm sort of clear on um what Commissioner Rari just said. So
the are you suggesting that all of the um options, forgetting about the hotel for a minute, ice rink, event center, and bay center are doable or was it the event center and the center improvements? The event center and the and the bay center are what I'm saying is financially doable to the county from our side. I mean, Got it. Okay. Um, and like I said, I I, you know, um, I don't have any issue, you know, helping, uh, you know, helping as we're able with, uh, the conversation with Mr. Harris.
I I think that conversation is still progressing between he and his investors and the bond council and underwriters. Um, and if we're, like I said, if we're if we're just a conduit that that's not uh that that's not tapping into our capacity, then uh if the only public portion of that second sheet of ice, that structure, is allocating some acreage for it, then that's reasonable to me. I mean, that that that you know, that wouldn't require probably a formal PPP or anything, but you know,
just conversationally, that's that is a good public private partnership. They're you know, they're financing the facility. we're providing some uh you know some dirt for it and that seems reasonable. So that was one of my questions um because I have looked at that model in other cities you know as we look at this overall project and um it does seem that there you know is is usually it's usually a public private and and typically it's something like land or some kind of facility uh um or subsidy I I should say to a facility. So yeah, I I don't you know I don't
know what that looks like and obviously that's that's something that we would have to discuss, but I feel like you know a second sheet of ice in our community somewhere is a great idea how we can facilitate that whether it's the Bay Center uh property is obviously one option for that and and um the county decided that you know under their lease that was something they wanted to pursue. um that would be great but I I worry a little bit about if we are work working on parking and other aspects of the support you know that we need for a bigger project you know how does this all kind of
fit and so I guess that that's my question I don't know how these things are typically structured in other places but but and in the space for it you know that the public side could put in I mean it doesn't have to be adjacent to it could slide under you know under 110 or you know a little bit you know a little bit north or a little bit west you know, literally where we're sitting, but you know, somewhere in the general vicinity, right? Gotcha. Yeah. And there are there are definitely options for sure for that. Um I I very much like the the transportation aspect of this and trying to see what we can do to improve, you know, our our um ability to reduce congestion.
Um, we did ask for $500,000 for a congestion study in downtown because what's that's something that I think we're going to be facing and we actually need um to look at that more closely. I think this can be part of that discussion and how we can utilize this property potentially for financing um and potentially to to help you know address some of those future issues I I think is is important. So, for me, I would love to see um the city of Pensacola, you know, really dive into what that
could look like and and sort of um explore those options. I know when uh we heard the presentation, it was well, our next uh step there would be to talk to FDOT, which is a little scary, but that's fine. Um if that if that is part of it, we can we could certainly u make that one of our next steps, but um you know, to to really follow up on that. And then I do believe that really narrowing down what we can do. I am a big in this multi-purpose space um I believe that sports are important
but I also believe that creating a business environment in our community is going to attract more business activity and that is certainly a priority of mine. I want jobs for people that um are are here in our community particularly our kids who you know tend to go off somewhere else. I want them to be able to find those opportunities here. I think having the right business related space for companies that want to, you know, relocate here, headquarters, you know, they typically need some kind of convention space. So, I just want to be careful. I think it's all it,
you know, we can do it all. I I believe or at least we can do a lot of it. I think there may be some limitations but I guess my question is what is the next step and really um looking at that particular you know um issue as to what is the best fit to be able to do both of these things. Who who does that? How do we do that? Um you know it would be great today to to have some idea about how we might move forward on that. Um and then obviously the Bay Center uh renovations that's
the um county's purview your decision um clearly I mean I'm very supportive of it and I think it's part of this overall project. Uh the question I guess is you know you have a rendering here what do you is that is that the final rendering you know kind of what what is the next step from a county's from the county's perspective. Um I do think though it all works together and I think that without really knowing what's happening in the you know the second facility um will hinder really maximizing the the renovations of the Bay Center. So it would be great if we could move this
all forward together. Um the hotel, you know, I think from a private from the um private investor standpoint uh or private owner standpoint of that hotel, this is the time. I mean, this is the time that that hotel can be part of this conversation, and I think it is important because it can have its own meeting space. And if that hotel isn't part of this conversation, then we're going to have to figure something else out because I think the the both studies were very clear that we need a hotel nearby the and if not exactly adjacent and connected, but but nearby
uh to make that facility certainly for conventions work. So, I would really like to to see that um conversation continue. I'm hopeful that that um those who own these properties would want to be part of this conversation. So, uh anyway, those are those are sort of my general thoughts on on all of this and uh I've talked enough. Thank you, Commissioner May. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam President, and I agree with you. I mean, we have to create the business climate. Um and Mr. Mayor, you know, I I agree with my colleague. I mean I think we probably have talked about it in which we
you know probably could figure out the finance in doing it but dad he was that he was very right in that across this country USA volleyball USA they are part private partnerships that are partnering uh to provide those activities and you you want the private dollars you know I've just not heard in the studies from any one of these people and I'd love to hear from Michael Caps that anyone has said that you have to have youth sports downtown as you said we want to create this business climate we want conventions we want people who are spending money in our downtowns. Uh the infrastructure of a downtown is not conducive for a youth basketball tournament,
a volleyball tournament, playing all night and walking downtown. I mean, you know, so if it's deficiencies brings about that it's one facility, I think that makes sense. But to look at our prospect of bringing young people down and putting them in a downtown, we don't I mean, could you imagine having, you know, thousands of young teenagers running downtown because they're leaving uh this facility in our downtown? I mean, I think we have to think those things out. And I think also, you know, in the model, um, that we should be looking at how do we partner with
some of these people that are are making it work. I mean, um, if you look at Hoover, uh, if you look at Bo Williams, if you look at most of these facilities, there's a lot of private dollars that have gone into those facilities. And as my colleague, Commissioner Barry said, you know, there is some government, whether it's land, whether it's Eates or whether it's something to incentivize those companies to go because we do know that the private side is going to be more efficient than the public side on ROI. And so, you know, Madam President, I support everything
that you said. I I agree with you. We want the business climate. I I think we had a conversation. A youth little coach is not going to pay the $18 for a beer in a convention center. I mean, he's just trying to get a Subway, a Wendy's burger, and a 12-pack, you know, to get his kids to the hotel. And so, that's just the reality of it. And so, I've done enough of these to 12, right? You know, well, 16. Um, but but I'm open. I mean, I I think I just, Mr. that we would look at
it I think you know collaboratively you know even if you're looking you know at civic centers and at some university if the school board I think they should be a part of the conversation if we don't have the exact funding if we're having graduations and we're going to have this if we're going to look at bringing state tournaments here and those type of things the school board obviously should be a contributor in being a part of the whole conversation so I mean there's not a real guidance but Jennifer I do agree with you I mean there when we look at it we got to think about our seniors and my mom and your mom that can't walk. We got to think about our children that we don't want
unsupervised in a bar environment. I mean, there's a lot of things that we really should talk about before we make final decisions and have the vision and thank you, Madam Chair, the vision of where do we really want to be collectively between, my opinion, city council, county commissioner, and our school board. Um, Michael, I did have an additional question because I very much agree with Commissioner Barry. I don't know that the value of the second sheet of ice is worth $30 million, but you mentioned it would be more of a building that can also do ice. What how much of the success
of the multi-purpose or event center hinges on that second facility that is also housing ICE? So, the event center can operate without the that additional space. Okay. Um the the framing of the the context of that facility is just to show you that, you know, you're getting you are getting more bang for your buck. It's not just 30 million for a piece of ice. So you're it's 30 million for an event building that can do ice as well. It'll serve as a training facility for the team. And
we're completely correct. Most of those facilities are done with a public private partnership. Uh most of them are done with two sheets of ice right next to each other and they're not in the downtown area. So indoor sports, they're typically not built in a downtown area. They're somewhere else in in an auxiliary location. Um, but you go back to the point of trying to please everybody. If we try to please everybody, you built every building specific to it. The math doesn't add up. So that's where we're trying to provide an economical uh way to do that. But, you know,
from a programming standpoint, um, there are a lot of events that we currently do in the arena here that we could do in that that uh, ice facility. We could also do it in the event center as well. That's why I'm saying if we have the opportunity to get a regional convention that comes in with 1500 attendees that needs to do a banquet for 1500, a general session for 1500, breakout rooms for 10 rooms for 300 people a piece or whatever that breakout might be. We
can do that and still do an art of fashion that benefits Covenant Care. We can still do a Marty Gro ball that benefits the Sheriff's Foundation. We can still do uh Marty Gro uh Krillat Areola that weekend. We can still do those events in that facility, but again, we would try it is built to try to primarily the operating model that we gave you was the ICE itself. Uh so anything with those other events that we're going to be able to pick up, it's going to be on top of it and it's just going to be a value ad. Okay. Noted. Thank you, Commissioner Sherburgger. Yeah. So I I don't I'm
not like everyone else here. I think I I already know what I want and what I like and and I'm I'm in the direction of sports tourism. I think that's definitely the re the direction we should be going. We already have an anchor tener tenant in at the uh um here at the base center with the uh Pensac flyers. And I think I think a second sheet of ice is us taking a step toward more uh uh sports tourism. Um, we already have the Northwest Florida Hockey League. Uh,
and we have also a skating league or I'm the Greater Pensacola Figure Skating Club that does programming um, nationally recognized through uh, Learn to Skate. So, there are a lot of reasons we should keep pursuing this. We're not going to have to create demand. We already have the demand and like you said, uh, we don't have to build it all at once. we already have something that we can make money with that I think that can work and I I that's just that's my feeling about it. I don't think we have any I guess the only question I would have was is if that second sheet of
ice was also a multi-purpose facility would that defeat the purpose of having a second sheet of ice would it? No. I think that's a great question for Michael. The the question was if the facility that is housing the second sheet of ice is also the main place for the practicing, would that defeat the purpose of it being a multi-use space? Is that what you asked? Um I I understand the question and I don't think so. But I do want to ask Doug to chime in because with uh Legends,
we have a division um Edge Sports that does these types of facilities that works in these complexes. Um, so Doug, if you're on, can you uh you chime in on this one? Yes. Um, thank you, Michael. I've been listening in. Um, I have some observations and then I'll answer that question. Uh, first, I think, um, every day we wait, the cost goes up. So, the 71 million for the base center, the 84 million for the event center, and the 30 million for the ice rank are cost projections
based upon today's dollars. So the longer we wait uh the more expensive it's going to get and I think it was Commissioner Barry who said that you have capacity now through the revenue that you would bond out you know to do the project. The second thing I would offer is that um if we agree on the site and I think there are a number of reasons to agree on the site. One you've got what I call venue convergence. What does that mean? That means we have synergies in operations.
By operating all three or even two of those venues under one uh operator is going to save you anywhere from a million to $2 million a year. Said differently, if you tried to locate the event center or the ice rink or a combination thereof or the base center somewhere else and they were displaced, it's going to cost you more to operate over a 20 or 30 year period. That adds up. So, you've got venue convergence there. You've got a site that I think everybody seems to agree works.
Um, the third thing I would offer is that you don't have to decide on the ice facility today. I think everybody agrees that the base center needs to be improved. We know that. Number two, we know that there's a need for uh convention and uh youth sports, recreational sports space. And I heard the previous consultant talk about the flexibility of some of these spaces. We operate these spaces all over the country and the way that we have program the design of this and Erin can speak to it from
populace. Uh it is meant to be uh usable by trade shows during the week. I think someone said that earlier. and on the weekend easily convertible to a b multi-use basketball facility where you could put four courts in there, eight or nine volleyball courts. There's all kinds of things you can do. Meeting rooms in the in the space, those have been programmed in so that the uh the the conferences, the the businesses that would come along with the trade shows can have their meetings there. So,
it would be multifunctional. It wouldn't be onedimensional. I think that's important to know. So to me um someone said next steps I think even if you don't authorize the funding for the construction provide you know full funding for the construction we at least need to get started with the design process because that's going to take anywhere from 12 months to 14 months and Erin you could speak up on this but we're going to lose that time and we could phase in the design. It
doesn't mean that you have to go build it, but if you started designing um the improvements to the base center and then concurrently with that, maybe the improvements to the u uh to the event center, uh at least you would get a head start. You wouldn't lose your window of time because right now time is money and we know that construction costs are going to go up uh anywhere from two to 5% per year. We saw it after COVID. We had a huge spike, 25% increase. And you you have a finite
source of funding with your revenue bonds, okay, that can support this. So the longer we wait, the more difficult it gets. Um, so I'm just offering that you don't have to make the decision on the ice. And let me say this about the ice. There's a demand for it. We have substantiated that. Bill Krueger through his analysis has substantiated there's a demand for ice. You've got a hockey team that's very successful. They need a practice facility, which means we need to move them out of the base center to do what? Free updates for other shows that make money for you.
Okay. The second thing is I was over there a few weeks ago and I saw it was 9:30 at night and I saw 12 year old kids coming out of the ice rink while grown-ups were coming in uh for the for the adult league. So, they're using that ice day and night. So, we know there's a demand uh for for a sheet of ice. Uh and we can figure out someone said earlier how to finance that. I think there's some ongoing discussions about can that be a public private partnership? Is there a way to do it with the
current hockey team owner? There may be. Um, so I think you could at least get started on the design for the base center and the event center and then concurrently think about holding that pad, you know, for the ice rink and the hotel which could be phased in at a later date. Those are just my observations. Sorry to take so much time, but I wanted to express that. Commissioner May, hey Doug, thank you for being being here. We certainly appreciate it. And and I heard um council person Patton say how how important for the convention center is the hotel like if
you're saying that we need to get moving. I mean what are the critical ingredients that we need to move forward in your opinion? Well I think I think Bill can answer that. I would say that um there's a need for a headquarters hotel if you're going to be competitive uh to bring trade shows and conventions. The exhibitors want sleeping rooms connected to their exhibit space uh in order to be com be competitive. Now, you've got you've got hotel inventory um in downtown Pensacola. Um but
it's best to have that hotel on site. Now, um I can tell you, and Bill, you can weigh in on this, the hotels that are being developed in communities like yours around the country are probably relying on uh a lot of underwriting from cities and states, municipal governments. Uh probably 50% of the cost is going to have to be supported uh in that regard. There are ways that you can do that. Um you know, there's tax rebates, there's um you know, abalorum rebates, those sorts of
things. But Bill, speak to the importance of the hotel. And Doug and Doug, when Bill speaks, can he address one other thing, and that's just parking that we adjust the hotel and the parking? Yes, parking is something that we we studied a little bit, but there's going to have to be more discussion about parking. Um, and there were a couple of different options, I think, on the site. Erin can probably speak to that more intelligently than I can about the uh the conditions there, but parking will have to be addressed long term, but Bill, let's talk about the importance of
having the hotel, the size of the hotel, and what you're seeing in other communities like this in terms of underwriting from public sources. Yes. Uh thank you, Doug. It's it's very clear. I mean, I I mentioned this u briefly and I I just want to underscore this again that through all of our surveys of the convention planners, you know, the the state groups that rotate around the state, the regional and some of the smaller niche national groups that can go anywhere in the country. I mean, emphatically they told us that they need an attached headquarters hotel or one with in close
walking distance, which really means one to two city blocks in your case. And if you remember that statistic in that pie chart I showed you, 90% of all the groups that had an interest in bringing an event to Scambia County and and downtown Pensacola told us that they prefer or require specifically 60% said they require and then the remaining 30% said that they would prefer that. And so you've got you've got a very limited group that if you don't have that headquarter hotel attached of a quality type or uh immediately adjacent then then you're going to lose the ability to compete
for that business. So there are other events that are flat floor events like trade shows that have more of a local component that have less emphasis on needing to have that attached headquarters hotel or adjacent headquarters hotel. But the the whole point is with the multi-purpose design of an event center, you've got the ability to not necessarily rely 100% or the majority of your activity that has to be the traditional conventions, conferences, trade,
this additional capacity and and equipment to be able to plug and play for sports and other types of events too. That really makes that model work. And so it could be productive and it could be you could be getting the events. Let's just say you don't have this headquarter hotel in the near term and you've got that space. You've still got the ability to to tap into some groups that don't require that and that that could shuttle or could, you know, utilize other types of hotels in the marketplace. Uh but but then you're not left with this underutilized building because you've got the
multi-purpose flexibility and the equipment to be able to market it towards all other events while you're trying to get the the headquarter hotel figured out. And um you know, as far as a hotel, I agree with what Doug said that that in this day and age, unless you're in a marketplace that has a very large metro area that has a precedent of rates that can be achieved through full service hotels of 300 bucks a night, markets like Pensacola and Escania County, if you build a
new hotel and those private partners are going to require some kind of incentive. The cost to build a full service hotel these days are usually around $600,000 per key. That has dramatically increased over the last decade where we were talking more about 200 to $250,000 per key to build a full service convention quality type hotel. And so that gap uh leads us to a feasibility gap that the public side would have to bridge that by the tune of a donation of land, some tax abatements,
some tax incentives, plus some additional capital or an equity that maybe would be 10 to 20 to $30 million to trigger that private sector investment of another $70 million to to pull off your $140 million hotel. But the important thing is is you're really leveraging private money. So you need to think about the ability to attract that type of hotel. It's not just to get a new hotel. It's really to make all these pieces work most productively to really enhance the financial
performance of the Bay Center to make it much more profitable than it is today. But importantly then all those work together to be able to generate the economic impact, the room nights that will fill up that headquarter hotel and then compress throughout the rest of the downtown and then to the beach. And so that that's really kind of like the magic sauce of all these pieces together. Um that's why the hotel is important, but if you do this multi-purpose event center, it's not necessarily critical for the short term. If you don't have that hotel coming in at exactly the
same time, you can get up and running. it would generate more interest. Your feasibility gap, meaning the public side incentive that you would have to bring to the table, would likely be lower because you've got all this investment that has occurred and is built and is performing well. And so, you're going to get more interest by the private side partners at that point in time within a couple years after opening. Erin, maybe you can address the parking really quick. I was hoping to make a I was just hoping to couple to add maybe a couple of things here. So,
um I do agree with you, Doug. Uh I do think the longer people wait, the the less the 75 million brings or whatever uh the pot of the money is. So, I think action is more important than inaction. Um if we we we did provide some examples. I know Mayor DC Reeves asked us to uh talk about them, but if you are able to somehow pull up the Willmington Convention Center, which is actually operated by by Legends in downtown Wilmington, um you will see it's a column free really a large room uh that can be modified in any way possible and those are the types of examples that
we provided in our report. Uh so we all agree that the the the facility is multi-purpose. It needs to be able to accommodate many things. It's a modern facility and uh it's it's modular. It's column free. It's very flexible. Uh and I'm sure Legends actually more than anyone is fully aware of all these types of facilities throughout. Uh regarding I think the hotel, there are three current RFPs in the market and I know we talked about this one um in our last meeting that um the Fargo Convention Center um their RFP was unable to really get off twice. That was because it lacked a hotel.
So we really uh would emphasize that we do think that uh it's not just a nice to have. In fact uh and we would need to do further studies before we say this but u you know that's that's a question that which procurement lends itself to better development. Should you package it with the hotel? Should you package it without a hotel? I personally think just a gut feeling package with the hotel the convention center will attract different type of developers. I think it it'll it'll it'll do good for the whole area throughout. Uh so those are just some thoughts I I had as we
were having the conversation. Was there an update on parking? I know Commissioner May also asked about parking. So I can provide we did look at uh the the conceptual site plan we provided does provide on-site parking. Uh I think we've listed exactly the amount of spaces in our report if you would like to refer to that. We also provided another model. Uh so there's one model where it's the convention center and the parking and then there's another model we provided that looks at a convention center, a mixuse, a parking garage. So there's there's a couple of different ways that we
can do this. Uh again, you're actually in a very unique spot where you have uh you're near downtown but somehow have uh these sites around you that are not developed. So as long as you agree on what you need, there's various configurations for where to put the hotel, how should we connect it, and what should happen. And I do think the the hotel will be great for the Pensacola Bay Center as well because the whole idea is for all these facilities to be symbiotic to not cannibalize each other, perform as one place in generating foot traffic, generating you know revenues, bringing in more
visitors. And the great thing about visitors is is you know they leave at the end. So you don't need to build a lot of infrastructure such as multif family and whatnot to go with it. They'll come, they'll spend their time, spend hopefully their money and you know that's it that they're gone. So uh we we have looked at parking. Uh you just need to un figure out which type of facility you want, where you want, and then we can go ahead and put them in different configurations. Perfect. Thank you. Uh yes, ma'am. Thank you. Um I I want to reiterate the fact that when you bring in that transportation factor, you're bringing in money that can leverage that parking could potentially
leverage. And so that was not something I mean that is the point to their fourth um in that column is that that money actually does leverage grant funding to come in and help with that. So I think that that's critical to know. And I'm just another just a point here. I think five years ago we're on a rotation for brownfield convention like this whole southeast, right? And so Escambia County, it was their turn to host in the city and there was no space. I mean I just
And when we bring those people in and we bring in these kinds of conventions, we are bringing in um professionals, academics, you know, people that then look at our location and want to come back with their families. I mean, I just think that we are missing the boat on this one a little bit if we overlook the importance at least of a midsize or uh convention. I know that I spend I don't know, I've got probably five this year that I go elsewhere for and so I go to all these other
places in Florida. I go to I've got a one in, you know, DC, one in Colorado, one in um you know, I mean, I'm going to these and I don't always stay at that adjacent hotel at all, but it is an adjacent hotel that will have the meetings coordinated with. It is a headquarters. So, I do think that that is I think that these are symbiotic and do go hand in hand. Um, but I do think we have to consider opening those doors on leveraging the transportation
money that would be available to help us actually hit that. I think that every one of us knows how frustrated our constituents are over parking downtown. Like, we can't just bring in more and not address this and not enable people to get around that kind of thing. So, I think that um I think it's shortsighted if we don't couple all these things together. Jennifer, I would ask how many do you know how many conventions that we deny a year because we don't have the facilities since you brought that up that the Brownsfield. I mean, I the the Brownfields one was pretty
interesting to me because that was a you know, we've got what five super fun sites. This is like where they want to be to be able to evaluate this kind of stuff and we've not been able to host. We we don't host any of the education conventions. We don't host I mean we don't we don't host things. So um I think that it's critical. I go I spend a lot of money going elsewhere to these conventions. And I I can tell you we we do tours. We you know we eat good. We I mean we're definitely bringing in money into where we're going. And I think that it's also important when
they they pointed out who's purchasing what hotel rooms when they come. And I think that to that, you know, all all my kids play sports. All of them always have. They play all the way through, right, of anything they can. But when you're traveling with a handful of little ones to sport events, you're getting the cheapest thing you can to handle everybody. Exactly. You know, and when you're traveling for conventions, that's absolutely not what you're doing. I mean, you're I mean, we're always insistent that we have, you know, very nice rooms and
very nice places and um I think that it is a different clientele and I think it's it it is a professional clientele that brings more look on Pensacola for the future. I agree. Thank you, Councilman Wiggins. Thank you, Madam Chair. Have we looked at what would be the cost to uh maintain any of these convention centers or anything like that? It was listed on the report from CSL. Um, I think they had an annual breakdown of revenue and then also of maintenance in there as well. I don't specifically know which page see it. I have to go back and look again. Councilman Mayor,
thank you, Madam Chair. And I think parking is a big issue. You know, I didn't really see any identification parking in the Legends um study and it was mentioned in our study the trolleys, but trolleys we we pay a private company to do that. I think you'd have to have massive expansion to have more trolleys and I'm just not sure if that's a solution. Um, I will say expansion of seating, um, and upgrades at the base center, I think are essential. So, I definitely agree with that. I think beyond that, it's it's a challenge. Um, even though our airport, as you saw from the study,
is rated well against other regionals, it's still pretty expensive to fly in and out of here, and we're limited. Um, you know, often I have to fly down to Fort Lauderdale to fly back up to Pensacola, and we have to do crazy things like go through Atlanta when you don't have to. And so I think there's still challenges with conventions and bringing conventions here. I like the idea of regional um or statewide conventions even so you know most of the conventions I go to things with League of Cities there's a hotel and that's where the convention space is. So, I really think and as was identified on the slide, there's a large proportion of the people that want either,
you know, either strongly favor or require a hotel to be nearby when it comes to a convention. So, I think it makes sense to have a hotel with convention space in it. Um, you know, was mentioned hockey. You know, we were the I'm I run Keep Pensacola Beautiful and we were the nonprofit of the month in March. There were four home games. So for an anchor tenant that only has four home games in in a month, that's doesn't seem like a big anchor to me. So I'm not convinced that hockey is an anchor tenant that generates a huge amount of income or revenue for the Bay Center at this
point. Not denying the fact that there's a demand for ICE. Um but you know, I I I kind of feel like spending $30 million on that extra facility at this point might not be feasible with the the funds that Commissioner Barry was talking about earlier, but I think it's definitely something there's an interest in. Um, I think we need to if we're going to do anything with that property where the where we're talking about putting the additional facility, we need to vacate, abandon, whatever that loop around the Bay Center because I just think that's an impediment to getting back
and forth. You're not going to want to walk up that ramp every time you have to get back and forth. So, I think that's a thing we need to look at as well. And I know that's something that's possibly on the table, but I think my biggest concern is just parking and where are we going to put all the cars. Thank you. Mayor Reeves, did you want to go? He was before me. Sorry. Thank you. Well, I just I'll start with one probably silly question and I don't know who to ask of the consult, but I keep hearing about this flex space. Sounds like they're similar in size, can handle lots of uses. What is the difference between a convention center and one of these event center,
you know, slash flex space? Is there an easy way to describe that or delineate the difference? I'll start I'll start and if she has anything else. She's she's the expert in this as well. We're talking about finishes. So, you know, a flex space. Um it's not going to have your chandeliers in the ballrooms, that kind of stuff. You're not going to have the fully carpeted floor space. You're going to roll out carpet uh on a temporary basis on an event by event needs. So, you're looking at um a Volkswagen Bug versus a Mercedes. Okay, that's kind of a layman's way
of of putting it. Is that kind of Michael? Can I uh can I interrupt you? I'd like either Bill or Aaron to address that. They Erin designs convention centers and flex spaces like this around the world. So maybe Erin, you start and then Bill can uh build from what you what you comment on. I think I think that's a good place to start because there is a difference. Uh but we this can be designed to where you can accommodate both and I think that was the idea. Yeah, that is u correct um Doug and you know the the the flat floor um event space that
we've designed 55,000 square feet is great for all the uses we've kind of outlined here sports um convention center booths um uh multi-purpose expo hall type of space um Michael's correct you know the terms of the finishes that you would expect in some of those spaces would be a little bit different in an event or in the convention center um the other aspect ect is kind of a programming one which is where the the hotel ties in a bit is the access to a large uh you know 18,000 foot ballroom type space which has those upgraded finishes and is usually
complimentary to that expo hall floor um and your your breakout meeting room spaces. So, I think when we look at the event center, we're designing all the key aspects you need for the most um diversity of uses that can happen on that flat floor space um supplemented with the the breakout meeting room spaces all in one one package there and then relying a bit on a hotel or adjacent um uh program space for that ballroom function. Those other large meeting type spaces that would
have a higher level finish uh uh associated with them. I also just want to make a point, you know, these when we're looking at this and we studied the ice, uh, the arena and, um, the event center. We're really looking at complimentary compatible uses. So Doug used the term, you know, venue convergence, and that's really important here because one aspect that the ice does, and again, it doesn't have to happen on day one, but could happen later, is it frees up the arena for a a multitude of other uses um and including um events like tournaments where you could have
uses happening on both of those spaces from an ice stand. So really complimentary uh uses and thinking of the whole site as a campus together um is kind of the the foundation of what we were looking at. Um I also just to touch on the parking real quick and then I'll turn it over to Bill. Um you know we we looked at the parking and the capacity around the site. There's both available um capacity that the arena uses currently to the east. Um I love this conversation about transportation and connectivity. um enhancing that to downtown to Palifax would be great in
any way that could happen. Um that's a current issue I think that exists today just with the arena. Um and obviously there is a displacement of some parking on the east side of site when we go to look at these future developments um happening there for the event center and hotel. So I think it's a critical thing. I think it does deserve more study. Um certainly traffic analysis and and more detailed parking inventory analysis um can happen as the project goes forward. And I'll just add one thing getting back to the fundamental first question which is what's the
difference between a convention center and the event center model. The primary space is virtually the same size between the the this you know the the other uh uh convention center kind of model versus the event center model. About 50,000 55,000 square feet of space. There will be two airw walls at a minimum that could separate that into equal three equal-sized halls. The biggest difference with the event center is the fact that as a part of the construction budget, you're purchasing
all the athletic equipment and you have storage facilities that are appropriate like a climate control storage place for the hardwood, portable hardwood that you could pull out. So when you're trying to maximize your interest in attracting sports and recreation type activities, it's very important that you have that equipment because otherwise you can have a convention space that's big enough to accommodate them, but somebody's got to pay to bring in all the courts and rent them or purchase them. And and so what what this kind of model really maximizes is both the amount of
different diversity of events that you can attract and really compete for and it also maximizes your operating performance within that space in terms of financial performance because you're able to attract more events, retain more net revenue at the end of the day because you already have all these this equipment ready for them to plug and play. You've got many tournaments out there that won't consider a place unless it's got the dedicated equipment for them if they're expected to bring it in with them. They're just not going to do that many of them. So, so that's why this
model is very much an enhanced flexible hybrid multi-purpose event hall which is differentiated from the convention center. And importantly, when you look at traditional convention centers, nine out of 10 of them throughout the entire country have to be operationally subsidized by the public sector owner of that facility. And that's the reason for that is because these conventions can choose anywhere to go through events. If they're small enough, they can fit into a a hotel's in-house meeting space where they're not being charged rental rate for the actual event space.
instead they're just being secured and locked in with the room block that they're going to provide by the hotel. So you're competing with those kinds of activities which your ability to draw revenue in the building by conventions is lowered because of a lot of this comp space and the fact that so many communities are vying for that hotel room business that that the the financial aspects of a convention center normally always place you into a situation where you need to have operations subsidized. when you got the ability to draw in other events that are willing to pay higher
rent for the for their space like like the sports tournaments and amateur sports and trade shows and consumer shows and festivals and things like that by having a hybrid type building that can allow the overall picture the financial picture of that building to be much more self- sustainable. you could break even or do better is what we projected by wrapping that into the operations of the Bay Center and also maximize the amount of economic impact that you could generate there from. So by adding the headquarter hotel to that mix, it just allows you to be more competitive not really for
the the amateur sports necessarily, but really for the convention and conference trade show activity to really maximize the opportunity at the site with respect to that. Okay, we do have a few more questions. Uh, Councilman Moore. Yeah, I'll I'll land my plane and not ask so many open-ended questions, but uh um yeah, well, thanks. Obviously, I'm I'm encouraged to hear. It sounds like there's a lot more consensus. I was afraid we were all kind of pushing and pulling in different directions, but it sounds like uh there's there's a lot more consensus uh once understand kind of the nuance between the different details. So, that's encouraging. Uh do agree. Let's let's get
to work. We've talked about it and and postulate and theorize long enough. Let's let's go and get to work and make something happen. Bay Center past time, past due. Um I guess I do have one little nuance there that that it's dissonant still in the logic. Some of that's explained uh there as far as the second sheet of ice. Um you know what kind of thinking about what is our objective here? Some of our objective is is solving the you know roughly million dollar
subsidy every year. That's obviously not the whole objective. uh spending $200 million to solve a million dollar subsidy doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So there's obviously a lot more uh on the objective uh there. But expanding or replicating the model that we've got that we're really trying to solve and expand and diversify uh in the form of just putting a second sheet of ice to me there's still some dissonance there that doesn't make sense even if it if it uh uh opens up space for the you know the base center. um kind of pivoting off one of the principles there that Mr.
Ant mentioned um you know as we've heard that this potent the second sheet of ice could potentially be a revenue generator and understanding that there is some constraint as far as our capital stack that would be required to to get all the deliverables. It does, if I heard Commissioner Barry correctly, it does make a lot of sense to me to to maybe allow the the expert in the world of ice uh in the hockey team to, you know, let's give them a favorable lease on some land that that works and uh and let them shield the taxpayer from the risk that goes with constructing and
and operating and maintaining a second sheet of ice. It makes a lot of sense to me. So, I'd love to see the the Bay Center renovated. Love to see a second one of these flex facilities. Um, and not sure what our next steps would look like. Does sound like we got a lot of conversation to have as far as parking. Um, but um, thank you very much. Appreciate it, Madam Chair. Yes, sir. I I just had one question. So, would the second facility also serve as a convention site too or it just the convention would be here at the Bay Center? So, looking at the models
that uh CSL gave us through Michael Caps, we're looking at $71 million investment into the Bay Center for upgrades, an additional $84.4 million for an event center. It sounds like the type of event center that we want would support Monday through Friday business conventions. We would bring in business v business business companies and then on the weekends we would be able to flip that for sporting events, which I agree with. I think that's a great model. And then the next thing that we have is the second sheet of ice. Listening to everyone where I believe that the
most amount of consensus is we would like to move forward with the base center upgrades, a second facility, an event spent at center that is flex space. Continue to negotiate uh with Greg for that second sheet of ice or a public private partnership. And we need to address parking. It sounds like the city is willing to jump in to help with the parking, their transportation, and then possibly the hotel issue with the grand working on some things there. Yeah. Well, I I'll give a a couple u updates and answer some questions. Um first, I think from the WT slide to
try to answer the question before we get out of here of what are the next steps. Um I I always like to kind of reverse engineer like how do we end up where a shovel's in the ground, right? Um I think there was a very strong generally unanimous uh suggestion that this ends in an RFI or an RFP in totality. Meaning I I'm not sure the strategy of designing something ahead of knowing what the private market wants to invest, for example, uh would be prudent. And I'm not I may have misheard that, but in in my mind per the WT slide is we should probably decide collectively as a community
what we want in general. And there can be alts to that. There could it could say this or this uh and here's how much money is going to go in and here's X dollars. Tell us what you can do for us. and that those that a bid would come back with design, construction, management, all of those things, and biders would put a team together, you know, to say, "Here's here's what we'd be interested in." That seems to be the consensus way that these things, especially when you're trying to leverage private dollars, um, uh, come to fruition. I know it's in that next steps slide.
So, that just wanted to mention that. Second, I think it's it is important for us to identify if we want to do a second facility or not because to even do a renovation independent of knowing that you're going to do the second facility would cost taxpayers money. Meaning, you're going to do synergistic things and and there's people on this call that that do this for a living. Um, you might do a different renovation to the Bay Center if you know you've got a facility coming in next door, right? Is there anyone here that doesn't want a second facility? Is there anyone that's opposed to a second facility? So, I I think that's an important decision to make because you
you can't in you can't fully understand what the renovation of the Bay Center is going to look like if it's still a mystery that you're going to put a facility in next door. So, I I do think that synergy of construction matters uh from day one. Uh and and so I think that's important. I it's been mentioned uh you know, city participation and what that looks like. You know, you guys vote on funding here and you guys vote on funding at the city. But um you know I think it is appropriate that the the when you see that ROI slide that Michael showed uh talking about that
money that comes back in that comes back in the form of bed tax and that comes back in the form of sales tax. So I think facilities itself going the direction of bonding those revenue streams to get the return on investment makes sense but certainly conversations around parking where there's a revenue stream and a potential ROI for the city. Uh, I think the CRA and as it pertains to the Grand Hotel or other or surrounding area, there's a fair conversation um to be had there. Uh, I'd even say just as the administration advocating for the elimination of that off-ramp. I think the last price was two and a half or $3 million. I've had initial conversations with US
DOT. We do know that we have the clearance to do that already. It's been tested. There's that there's not enough activity on that offramp uh to merit that its existence. So, you know, we're happy to get a grants team together and see if we can go find federal, state dollars to just go ahead and get that eliminated because if we know there's a second facility, it's going to have to happen. So, there's other peripheral things that certainly I think this this body, the CRA board could entertain that make more more are more relevant to the expense and revenue exchange the same way that the bed tax uh and sales tax is. um placemaking lumen. You you had mentioned hey you
know you fast food restaurants and having these things um you know available understand I mean the reason people go to Foley is because they they did place making around Foley you know it's not because they want to do a convention center out in the farmland it's because OA went and built hotels and built restaurants for people to so I I don't want to act like it's got to be one or the other I think you can build place uh and and I think it was mentioned retail the desire for retail could help facilitate some of those events you know I think that's important I think it's important to point out that ice time would actually increase organically if there was a second facility for
for no charge. Meaning this ice will be open more often. I just want to point that out. I don't know by what percentage Michael could probably figure out because now those conventions and those Marty Gro balls and and Pensacons are all going to be happening next door. Um so there is an organic increase in ice time that's going to happen no matter what. And I just have some questions on financials. I tried to email back and forth uh with with Michael on this and I think the ball was in my court, but um if you were looking at this business-wise, the ice facility says it's a third
of the cost, but it's going to create 79.2% of the revenue. I find that a little off. And you know, I see insurance expense is $57,000. I was I need to find out who that insurance broker is um for a facility of that size. Um and and so again, not saying the numbers are wrong. I just mean there's I I'd love to dig deep not here on on that ice facility, but it may be a moot point if if the general consensus, which I would totally agree with Commissioner Barry and what's been mentioned over here, if if there's an underwriting of of private dollars that helps make that happen,
I wouldn't be against it, but that's a um but I would want to ask those questions if there was going to be public dollars. Um the loss convention data, Visit Pensacola, I do know, has some some inventory on that to to that can answer your question directly. um that they they keep a log of people who call and we have to tell them sorry uh I believe so they they have some um information and and so bottom line is how do we get this to market I I think that's really the question es especially if we get some consensus what are the next steps to get this to market is it an RFI in totality management design construction you know who's interest and private
dollars that that come into play so uh I I I think that's kind of the next step from here is to say how do we actually kind of move this ball forward so anyways Been a great conversation. Thank you guys. Wes and Allison, what do you guys need from us to put something on the agenda that we can vote on to get this ball rolling? I would say just direction as to center building.
Okay. We all wanted flex space that we can use for conventions during the week and sporting events and concerts on the weekends, right? And Mr. Mayor, so in having that conversation, I think there's a real consensus from our board, it seems like, to move forward with these facilities. Um, but how do we engage, you know, the u parking and other things that the city would be required for? So, we'll all be singing from the same sheet of music when we go out. It's a great question. Thank you. Yeah. Well, that probably has to all happen concurrently. Meaning, because is there a second
facility or is there a third facility that's going to determine where it goes? I've been a proponent publicly of of putting uh the parking garage on the tech park. It's a tech park that's been empty for 20 years. I don't And again, it's not all or nothing. Uh but I imagine if we're going to attract a business, they're going to probably need to park employees somewhere. So that could be a whole another conversation of another revenue stream with partnership with Florida West or PEDC uh to say it would we probably have a little bit better thing to sell at the tech park if we say hey we got a parking structure for you you know ready to go at $40,000 a space. So I I guess what
I'm saying is it's hard to say how many spaces is it and how much acreage is getting taken up by you know how many facilities. So, I think this all would have to kind of come together based on, you know, how big is the facility, what dirt is left, and how many parking spaces are needed. But I think I I can't speak for for the the voting body on the budget. I I can say administratively, I certainly think the argument makes sense for there to be a city investment into parking because we can generate revenue and return on that parking. So, I think that's a certainly a fair philos, you know, philosophy moving forward that that the city,
right? And I just wanted to I think the chair was trying to get staffed to see how we incorporated it. But we know infrastructure is critical, transportation is critical, parking is critical um before we even start the building. So I mean I think it it has I mean I don't know if that's Mr. Stafford and Mr. Marino kind of talking together, talk that out and us have a meeting, but I mean we need someone to, you know, guide the ship and bring us something back that we can all have a consensus to vote on. So, in your experience, is that something we would do like a memorandum of understanding with like, hey, we're going to pursue this and this city's
going to pursue parking. Is that something that we need to move forward? I'm sorry, Mike. I mean, either one or Allison. Yeah. No, I mean in my thought pattern, you know, you would get the administrator and the city manager together to kind of put something that at least, you know, there's one more meeting where we can talk and have that consensus because we have to have that, you know, we have to have a a roadmap to where we're going. And I I think that we're having our consensus as a county. He he's having his a city. I think quite frankly, Mr. Mayor, we move forward today more than we move forward in a in a long time in having these discussions.
But we do need to give it to the administrators who get paid to kind of put things together to bring it back to the policy people uh and to get an agreement. That would be my thought. We do have topics available for our May committee meeting of the whole which would have been May 7th. Is that something that you feel like you could have prepared by then between county administrator and city administrators? M Madam Chair, I'm not I'm all for this. I'm not sure that's I think that's a little further down the road. I think what we need to agree to, which I think we have conceptually,
is the base center and a second center. And like Doug said, our board probably needs to start moving forward with design. That's I think the first step. Mike, I agree, but you can't do any of that without parking. Well, but I think that will decide where we do the parking. We know that will be part of the design concept where I see that is an issue the hotel with DMO put out. We believe something will happen. Those are the unknowns. But I do think we need to go to design sooner than later because time is the time is just so the board here, our group
has already decided we all agree on two things at minimum. There's two things we haven't agreed on, right? We don't know. Um I'm not opposed to the ICE either if it's if it's if it fits. But I want to add as a to your point as a third thing that we agree on, we continue negotiating maybe a three uh public private partnership for the ICE. I like what Commissioner Barry said on that. And I think after you get the design back, you're at a place to go back to the city and say, "Here's what we got. Here's what we need from you or other entities." But I think at the right now,
the more time we we conceptualize this and don't start moving forward with design, we're just we're we're in a tail spin. So, I think that's where I I think we need to start moving forward. Commissioner Barry, I mean, that that conversation is going on without our board doing anything. So I just let it continue. The conversation between the the bond council and underwriters and you know Mr. Harris and and I I believe uh Legacy's also involved or Legends is also involved in that conversation. I mean that that that's ongoing. So I don't think our board has to do anything until they figure out what they can do. Noted. Thank you. Just to respond to that, I my only
disagreement is if you start designing a facility and then you're going to go to the private market and say which of you would like to incorporate dollars or uh you know into this project, they're going to say well man I wish we would have done a different room or that that's why I think the WT discussion of of saying the new wave of doing this is let's bundle everything together and then test the market with it because ASM may say hey for management we want to put in X and some other company may say they want to put in more or a private develop one developer will say well we'll invest this in the hotel or we need this subsidy and another one won't and so I just would
hate to get halfbaked on one aspect of this that then limits our ability to be able to leverage well you want to have another meeting to kind of finalize what we want before we move forward or what were you thinking so I I feel like we're on the same page as what we want the question is next steps and I agree because I whether we're putting in almost 200 million or 87 million I want more than 10 million from whoever is helping us with this. So if we do put it out to bid as a package, I think we have the opportunity to capture more of those dollars. But with your point, I think we
need to move forward as quickly as possible. So Commissioner Cole, I agree with you, but I agree with the mayor. And I mean, design is going to be determined by the amount of money we have. You know, we can't design it and then figure it out. We got to figure it out before. So we could do an RFP or an RFI for design, build, and management. And then that would wrap all three. And I think that would you guys pull up that slide? Sorry, I'm sorry. Commissioner, will you just pull up that next step slide one more time for the WT? No, there's a kind of a next steps of like regardless of what you decide. Yes. Yeah. If you'll just pull that up. Sorry. Thank you. That might be helpful.
I apologize, Commissioner. I didn't mean to. No, I appreciate it. If there's a visual to go, let's throw it up. Perfect. Thank you. Will you kind of walk through that again one more time? Yes, of course. So, um depending on what the project objectives and what we agree the success metrics are, um is it, you know, does what what what does success look like to you? The maximum amount of private funding that comes into this? Uh is it that we want transportation to be addressed? Is is it that we want the tech part to generate dollars or you know, we need the hotel develop? So,
that's that's something that we should agree to. Uh determining site control and zoning clarity. Um you you would need to do this regardless. I think this is kind of where this conversation is going anyway. Uh I think the critical piece here is when we presented four scenarios um I think uh some of you have already made this point. It's probably charting out that okay if we decide to go with scenario three right scenario two will lead you to scenario three. I think everybody agrees that scenario one standalone convention center is not desirable. So if you go to scenario two with like uh the idea that maybe in seven years or 5 years we're going to be at scenario three and then we'll
see if it's even worth exploring scenario four at in another five years. Right? So having that clear vision that is your project the convention center plus hotel, is it your convention center plus hotel plus parking garage, is it the mixeduse? Um that will really help us do the next part which is transaction structuring because that allows us to make those assumptions on how much value capture there is uh what what each source funds and what it cannot how many grants are coming in if if at all. Right? uh then we say that here are some revenue considerations also worth exploring. So
this goes in with your transaction structuring uh that we would offset basically your cost with your revenues and then we would test the market with the concept. So we would give tell the market here scenario two this is what we want to do and the market in in our experience developers do a really good job of telling you I don't want to do this because there's not enough foot traffic give me a mixed use and now I might do it. So that's what happened in Fargo Convention Center and that's an active RFP that is I think under selection right now. I there there are three current RFPs that we highlighted in our report because we think even if you're not doing that that is the market giving
you live feedback on what they are preferring right now on um their on on their methods on the type of square footage. So, um, we would test out that concept and we would tell the market, okay, what what do you think we should do? And then they'll they'll come back and and they'll help you refine it. Then you would probably go into an, uh, RFP. Yes, sir. Ma'am, I have one question for you. I wanted to ask you, you had given some examples on the US DOT grants or do you have any examples of what the federal government has contributed in dollars in any communities? I
know this is coming. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I we we have a handout that maybe I can ask the city to send to you that we prepared for our last meeting. We normally see what we call like a layer cake. Nobody uses this all or one sort of approach. People try to offset any type of revenue that's coming in value capture naming rights uh you know they and and then you add in your your grants or whatever tifa that you've unlocked or any tod enhancement uh enhancements that you were able to do. So it depends also on the size of your project. We can tell you that these are very
competitive grants. Uh you are opposite, this site is opposite an area of persistent poverty. That does usually make it lend itself to a little bit more sort of grant funding. Not as much as if you were in the area of a uh but uh so we we would need to look at that a little bit further. You have a few different things going for you. You have a freight trail. You have a trolley stop. Uh so you know you uh how are people going to move around which how how do any of these pieces tie into the connectivity that would also determine how many grant funds are unlocked for you. I'm
not sure if I made it more confusing by saying all that. Uh we did have a handout prepared that has this in a table a little bit more concisely so I can ask the city to share that with you. I I want to say that's a public document. There is nothing. It is I I think we were saying the bottom line is if we're going to go to market for $200 million of taxpayer money potentially. I I think listing this is what we want. This is how much you know want to certainly respect your it's your vote on on bonds and what you want what that number is, but you can put an RFI out that says here are the buildings we
want. Here's an alternate here's which how much parking do we need and we have up to X dollars. I mean that can be and then you roll that out to market before we make a a decision on design or on management or something like that that ends up actually hindering the ability to maximize taxpayer revenue taxpayer dollars. So u that's what the deliverable is that they're describing is balling it all up and running it out there. I agree with you. But when we're looking at finding dollars testing the market is that caps or is that your group or they're in tandem together? How do
we kind of put that together Mike? I mean can you help? I mean, how would they I think that would be whoever we go with for the RFI, correct? Well, we got to construct the instrument to go out. I mean, well, right. It would be us, but we're not taking it to the developers and asking them to develop. Mayor, I would see that the dollars that would be used DT would be under the request of the city. Don't you see that from you guys? Since it would be on the outlay of the base center, I think that part of the request with what what I'm hearing from the US DOT and TIFF would come
through a city request, right? Yeah. But there there would be funding Yeah. Yeah. But there would be funding sources that we could go after, too. Federal dollar. I mean, I don't think the RFI has got to identify every funding source because I think who's going to respond to that RFI is also going to be very attuned to those. For example, the the TIFIA thing that was mentioned that that now you can borrow at three and a half or 4 percent. Well, priv the private market's going to come and say, "Hey, we'll do this pending this money contingent upon us getting this." You know,
I mean, the private whoever's going to be the applicant is going to, I think, help guide some of that that capital stack conversation, too, right? They're going to say, "Here's our conditions based on these things." So, we can be working on those the offramp. We can be working on getting rid of the offramp right now, right? uh if we know that this is the direction we're going to go, that doesn't need to be part of the RFI. But I think I think just getting something out there where we're looking at this thing in totality gives us the best chance to use dollars that aren't our taxpayers dollars. Absolutely. Those are the best dollars. Sorry, Mike. I didn't mean to be No, absolutely. I just wanted since you you asked the question and I do want to kick it
to Doug because he lives in this space now. Um, I think you have two great teams here that can collaborate and work together, but there is going to be a point where you're going to have to say, "Okay, here's the lead. Who's who's taking it? Is it the county and who what source they want to go through or is it the city? What source they want to go through?" Uh, it could be where, you know, from a legend standpoint, and Doug will chime in on this, is that we can handle it from start to finish. You know, we have everything in every division, every area that can go from procurement
to operating. Um, but it could also be where the county uh puts together the RFP, the scope, everything that they want. They handle all that and then we respond just like they would respond. The city could do the same thing on their end with the with the parking side of it. I I think though it is it it's kind of convoluted because it is separate projects almost, but it is being brought under one umbrella. So, I did want to say you you do have the advantage of having two great teams here that are already boots on the ground with a lot of work in the market that can really get you
to that finish line uh fairly quickly. Uh Doug, did you want to chime in uh for minutes? Well, I would like to ask Bill I'd like to ask Bill Krueger to maybe address this uh question of the RFI RFP. I guess um my uh my immediate reaction is that uh the hotel itself can be we could do that with the hotel and we could do an RFI RFP for development of the hotel. I think we know what is
needed in the Bay Center. That's pretty clear. U I think we have a consensus on the event center. That's probably not going to change. And I don't think that you're going to get a hotel. You have a hotel developer that's going to come in and and say, "This is what I want to see in an event center. It might be it might be something that is not compatible with what you want that event center to be." I would think that you could move forward with the base center renovation. We could address the parking issue during the during the period of the design. start designing the event
center and then you could solicit proposals for the hotels separately. We do that as Michael said. We do that as a company. We can handle that for you. That's what Bill does. Bill has done many of these, you know, RFIs, RFPs for hotel developers. So, Bill, I'd like you to comment on what I just said and what you're hearing from the group. Yeah, Doug, I would agree with you that Normally the interest is maximized by a potential private hotel partner if there are commitments to proceed with
some additional facility investment. Um they don't necessarily what you know what the hotel partner is looking for is does their return on investment on that hotel asset um does it pencil out? And in this day and age for this type of a hotel project, it's extremely likely that you're going to need to have some kind of a public subsidy by virtue of a P3 to get to the level of return on investment that the private partner and their dollars that they're bringing to the table would would achieve for them. So, um, part of this gets complicated under the scenario that we're proposing in that
you've got an event center which would largely be the concrete floor space uh, portion for a convention that may utilize the carpeted space that's built as a part of this hotel. But largely what you'd want to do is just get everything else um designed or committed to at least with the other project and then that's the best opportunity for a hotel RFP. So, you know, we I do that all the time and kind of advising on these kind of transactions, writing the RFP documents, getting them out to market, um uh having interviews, maybe even starting with the
request. So, I think we were sorry to interrupt. I think we were referring more to the RFP and the RFI for the project as a whole, not necessarily the just the hotel portion. Uh, Councilman Moore, I think you had another question. Oh, no. Okay. Yes, ma'am. So on this topic of moving forward, um I do feel like there's some tension still in my mind about having something somewhat designed to go out and then or just you know going out and saying what what do you think is the best from
your perspective private developer or somebody who will come in and and manage and run this thing. Um, I, you know, with all due respect to Legends, who has done a fantastic job and helping with this whole process, um, I personally would, if you're going to RFP it, and Legends is going to actually put in a, you know, a their proposal on it, it would seem like that RFP should be done by somebody who's independent of that process. That would be my my thought on it. So the question is
given we have consultants that are working with Legends and has have provided the information to the Bay Center or on the Bay Center to the county. We've got the the consultants that the city hired. I mean, I would really like the idea of the consultants, not necessarily, you know, um, legends working together to come up with what that RFP should look like for and and I think we could commit as a city to funding whatever that would take on our end to be able to to help, you know, with that process with the county and city working together. I just want to say from my perspective,
um, I, you know, I'm one vote on the council, but I definitely, um, see the city supporting this project. I think if the county is willing to bond the TDT tax and just, you know, sort of look at at those um facilities and and help get those across the finish line, it's our job to help support it um both through hopefully parking and I do like the idea of the TOD district and or um you know CRA funds for the surrounding areas. You know, we do need the connectivity to downtown.
How do we how do we do that? What infrastructure needs to be put in? So really working together um you know to try to put the whole package together to move it across the finish line. So um those are just my thoughts. Thanks. Yes sir. And I think to land this going the direction of let's get you know myself and Wes or David and let's try to jot down what has been let let's take the the guard rails that are that came into this meeting really wide. And again, I appreciate
u really better than expected of trying to get that narrowed. Let's do the best we can to jot all that down. Come back exactly to you guys and then and I agree with that as well. I mean, ASM I I assume is going to be bidding on this and if they're going to have a financial commitment, I I'm I would fully expect that they're expecting a long-term contract. So, uh, those dominoes would need to, you know, be thought through first and and, uh, I certainly would support you your votes, uh, on city council, but support, uh, some additional consulting on our side that maybe in
tandem with that to-do list that we put together, city and county, uh, that that make sure it makes sense and and maybe come bring that back to both bodies to to consider as, hey, is did we get this right? Is this the general scope of what everybody would want to see in some potential RFP or RFI? And I I I'm sorry. I'd agree with that, Mr. Mayor. Because I mean, our procurement specialists, our administrators, our legal team, they need to be able to work together to bring it back. So, Alison, I agree with you. I mean, we need to get our people to put it back and then get it to our
experts. I do I do respect having subject matter experts because none of us and none of our staff have ever done this before. Wes, do you feel like that's something that could be presented at the cow on May 7th? We may need a little bit more time than that. Okay. To get everybody together, get all of our thoughts and processes ironed out. So, I don't think May May 7th might be a little bit too aggressive. June. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Anything else from anybody? This
was extremely collaborative. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Meeting adjourned.