That's right. No problem. Oh my goodness. She'll take the TV. I'll take
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just let you know it's there whenever you're ready. Wait, it is
I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I need to use the hammer. I'm gonna use anyway because I've got it there. Good afternoon and welcome to the Escambia County Tourist Development Council meeting. Today is
December 16th. It is roughly 3:00 roughly. Uh, Phillip, was this meeting publicly noticed? Mr. Chairman, this uh, meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal on December 11th in the board's weekly meeting schedule. Great. Thank you. Would you please call the role? Absolutely. Matish Patel. James Reeves here. Ashley Hoffberger here. Mary Hawking. So Mary was going to try
to participate by Zoom or Teams, whichever. I'm not sure if she's on or not. I'm not. She is on. She's okay. I don't I can't hear her if she can talk. Mary, there you are. Mary delay here. So Mary was gonna try to participate Zoom on team. Oh,
it's a delay. Continuing. Okay. David Bear here. Brad Mullenex here. Charles Bear here. Jennifer Breer here. Jason Nicholson here. Great. We do have a quorum. Uh so this meeting is officially called to order. Thank you. Uh public forum. Is there anyone here from the general public today who wish to speak to any uh any items on the agenda or tourism related? Seeing no one jump,
so we'll move on. Uh approval of the prior tourist development council meeting minutes. Uh the October 21st meeting minutes were distributed. Are there any questions? Uh objections? Uh I think we approved I think we approved those at the October meeting, didn't we? Correct. That was the special session, correct? Yep. Those were So those were already approved. So attached is the October 21st meeting minutes. So I just want to be clear. We had a special meeting
issue. Uh I think that's mischaracterized, but this board did vote against an item if you're talking about foiling week. Uh at that meeting, it was a special meeting. Correct. Correct. As an individual,
as a citizen, as a taxpayer, and that's how I represented myself in the record. your special meeting, you know, if you made up your mind and you don't give a damn what we think, you know, just poor leadership. Well, I think you're out of order. We're talking about the minutes from the October meeting. Well, I'm happy to talk about that at other business if you'd like to, but right now we have an agenda.
So, the meeting minutes, the October 21st meeting minutes have been distributed. Uh, you've hopefully you've had time to review. Is there any objections or changes that anyone sees? Move to approve. We have a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. We have a second. Second. You're slow, Mary. Uh, any other uh any other comments or changes? hearing. None. Please show those adopted. Uh, next item is status of funds available. Uh, Jeremy, come on down.
Good afternoon, council members. My name is Jeremy Paglegan. I'm a senior budget analyst with the Eskeami County Budget Office. I'm here to provide a brief update on the status of the tourist development tax funds through November 2025. As always, the clerk's office has already provided you with the detailed uh breakdown of the expenditures. As of the end of November, FY26 collections, including interest, total $3,39,584. This compares to 3,487,851
through November 2024, a decrease of approximately $178,267 yearover-year. Excluding interest, FY26 collections stand at 3,186,210 compared with $3,241,772 at this time last year, reflecting a decrease of $55,562
or negative1.7%. Interest earnings total $123,373 to date compared with last year which was $246,79 reflecting a decrease of $122,76 or a negative 999.46% um decrease. To put this into context, total collections to date represent 15.76% of the
annual TDT revenue budget of $21 million. On the expenditure side, total spending through November is approximately $4.3 million with an additional $22.1 million encumbered. Finally, the current TDT cash balance is $32.7 million as of November 2025. Thanks, Thank you. Are there any questions? Great. Thank you very much.
All right. Next item on the agenda is approval of the funding consideration committee uh that Commissioner Hoffberger asked us to create. Uh we had this discussion at our uh last meeting uh and we discussed creating the committee uh and Commissioner Hoffberger would chair that and then I would u pick some members uh county uh legal office has asked that we confirm ratify that there's a list of folks uh on the agenda um Shirley Cronley
uh William Cadillac Banks Ray Palmer Maria Goldberg uh Tish Patel and Darren Schaefer. Um well, that's not the list that I presented, but that's what's showing. Uh but that's fine. Uh anyway, we need confirmation of of this. Is there a motion to to accept? I have a question first, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. So, what's the role of this committee? the role. So,
well, Commissioner, do you want to address? Yes. So, at a few of our previous meetings, we've been talking about having parameters around giving out money and their ROI and specifically what we're looking for and that for people who are coming to ask for money, it would be nice if they knew what criteria we're expecting them to hit. Do we have a minimum threshold? What does that look like? When I looked at some of the other counties, Orlando for example, they give out a specific number of dollars per night guaranteed and you can only get over that
number if you meet specific very very clear criteria. So, it is much more consistent in how they give out money um and what they expect in return for that. So, I it's my understanding that this committee will explore those ideas. is we'll look at what other counties are doing and then we'll come back to the board with some recommendations on criteria and how those are to be tracked and that'll all be within the sunshine of course. Yes. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Make a motion to approve. All right. So we have a motion from second from
Jason. Thank you. Uh so we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Yes. Are you and uh Commissioner Hoffberger on here? It says chair David Bear in the consideration then chair commissioner Ashley Hoffber. She's the chair of the county commission. Okay. So I put her as So but you two would both she's going to chair this committee. Uh I'm not a voting member of this committee but I will if I am still the
chairman of this TDC I will attend. So that wouldn't be a violation of sunshine to have two be a public it'll be a publicized meeting because yeah Tish is on there also. True true. All right. Any other questions or comment? Nope. Hearing none. Uh those in Well, let's do a roll call. Philip, if you would. Matish Patel. Yes. James Reeves. Ashley Hoffberger. Yes. Mary Hawking, yes. David Bear,
yes. Brad Mullenex, yes. Charles Bayer, no. Jennifer Breer, yes. Jason Nicholson, yes. 81. Great. All right. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Minute. Sure. And this is just a me clarifying rules. Okay. Can someone not here vote? Because we during COVID the state allowed for such a thing, but then they pulled that and said that we couldn't do that any longer
and I'm confused. What's that? I don't think so either. Okay. I I thought so long as we had quorum present that someone attending virtually was allowed to vote. If that's not the case, what we were told was that that that was a temporary allowance during CO and there were no longer expectations for that. Okay. So, we talked to legal that's funny. So, we talked to legal about this this morning and got an opinion and she said, "As long as there
was a quorum, but there is the the um phrase about extraordinary circumstances and does this fall does a member having CO not being present here fall under extraordinary ser extraordinary circumstances for them to vote remotely and that was a that was put before this council to decide of whether she is allowed to vote remotely or not." Oh, so we need to take some action. Yes, sir. On that. And if if the council can approve that before the vote. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's okay. Do we have to approve that anytime someone is absent? Is it case by case or if we approve it
for Mary, is it approved in the future? It's my understanding it's case by case basis based on the extraordinary circumstances as of dictated by the the council and understood. Thank you. You're welcome. So, we have we have her vote, but we can have this vote to see if it counts. So, I guess we need a motion. Uh well, is there a motion uh to allow Mary to vote today on action items that we have before us
uh under the circumstances of her having COVID and not being able to attend in person but yet attend virtually? Is there such a motion? Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'll move that we allow Mary Hawking to uh participate via a remote session due to extraordinary circumstances uh particularly an illness to vote and participate in this tourism development council. Thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. And we have a second. Is there any discussion or debate?
Hearing none, we'll call for the vote. Call the role. Matish Patel? Yes. James Reeves, no. Ashley Hoffberger, yes. I guess we skipped Mary in this instance. Mary Camp. This a conflict. David Bayer, yes. Brad Mullenex, no. Charles Bayer, no. Jennifer Breer, no. Jason Nicholson, yes. Two, three, four. Four to four. Is that a That's an impass. Four to four. Motion motion for a
majority. All right, Mary, you can just listen. Okay. All right. All right. So, uh, moving on to the next item is, uh, visit Pensacola update. Darren Perfect. Well, thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update on Visit Pensacola and provide some
some year-end numbers for fiscal year 25. Uh, I always start off a presentation talking about um how proud we are uh of being the official destination marketing organization for Escambia County representing Pensacola, Pensacola Beach, and Purto K. And our charge is to support tourism by being that central agency responsible for building tourism as an economic engine for our county. Of course, our mission is to lead, connect, collaborate, and to communicate. We just
held our annual meeting uh at the end of October and we recognized our new uh slate of board of directors for 2026. So I thought I would share that. Our board chair is Captain Sterling Gillum uh with the Naval Aviation Museum. Our vice chair Maria Goldberg with Southern Restaurant Group and Maria's here in the room today. Um also Gabe Diani with industry hotels as treasurer and Yash Patel um as secretary. Also uh at our annual meeting we put together basically a recap of the past year
uh talks about uh the the work of the team and so I thought I would share that with you today. Visit Pensacola's mission is to lead, connect, collaborate, and communicate to champion tourism as a vital economic force for our community. We are dedicated to sharing Pensacola's story, continuously communicating the importance and impact of tourism throughout our region. In another outstanding year, Pensacola welcomed nearly 2 5 million visitors,
reflecting the strength of our destination and the collective efforts of our partners. Our goal remains clear to stay top of mind with travelers by engaging them through creative, meaningful messaging that positions Pensacola as the way to beach. Our signature campaign, The Way to Beach, invites visitors to unwind on our beautiful white sand while discovering the rich beyond the beach experiences that make Pensacola truly unforgettable. Time and again, research confirms what our guests already know that our natural beauty, welcoming spirit, and laid-back coastal
vibe create the perfect setting for the vacation they seek. This year, we proudly shared that story across 49 markets, reaching travelers more than 520 million times throughout the Southeast and beyond. Building on past successes, we explored new ways to connect with audiences, telling fresh stories, showcasing authentic experiences, and sharing the beauty of our destination across digital and social platforms. All this combined to deliver strong results. Through collaboration with our local partners, Visit Pensacola continues to amplify our message,
attract group and leisure business, and host media who help share our story with the world. These collective efforts have generated over $22 million in vital TDT revenue, fueling continued growth and prosperity across our community. We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who helps tell the story of why Pensacola is and will always be the way to Beach.
So, this is a presentation that we can now take and talk about the power of tourism when we're in the community. uh talked to service clubs and other groups about uh the role of visit Pensacola and what tourism means for Escambia County. Uh we have also received the economic impact and visitor tracking report for the past fiscal year. We get that from our research agency downs and St. Germaine. Oops. Get that off of there. There we go. Um so these are the key performance indicators and
you'll see that the very first one um while everything is primarily positive there is a decrease in overall visitation down 2.8% which is attributed to smaller travel party size down from 3.0 to 2.8 and that fewer visitors are staying with family and friends and or andor in personal second homes because while total visitors are down, room nights are up, direct spending is up, economic impact is up and as well as the tourism development tax.
So the decrease in visitors is coming from from those that are staying with family and friends or possibly staying in a personal second home or day fewer day trippers. I would invite everyone to put on your calendar the date of January 14th, 3M. That is our quarterly marketing update meeting. And uh we've got a jam-packed program where we'll be going through more of these numbers uh as well as uh you know, a really extensive marketing update for Visit Pensacola. And that'll be uh posted on our website. We'll send out reminders as well.
Within that report, we do end up talking uh about uh the origin of our our visitors. So, this first slide uh shows how in nearly uh two out of three visitors are from the southeast. Um our international visitors are led again by Canada and the UK. Top states outside of Florida are Alabama, Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana. Uh, which certainly reflects our focus to target those states to the
west of us. Um, as being the western gate to the sunshine state. Um, you know, we have first dibs on those visitors. Taking it down another step into original markets. Um, Mobile, Atlanta, New Orleans, down through Houston, Montgomery. These are considered the top origin markets uh with Houston and Montgomery at 2% similar to uh the international market. I passed out a handout, something again we developed for our annual meeting and this is
really designed to showcase the work of of the staff. We we do great work with our marketing agency, Showcase Pensacola. They do phenomenal work, but uh this is work that's conducted by by the staff and there's a few areas that we're we're really proud of and that are standouts uh and demonstrate how we can do more with less and social media is one of them. Our team operates nine different social media ch channels. Um our with 4 million engagements um we our followers are
up about 46% over last year. We have 262,000 followers on Facebook, which is up 35% over last year. Our Instagram followers have grown to 130,000. Um, they're really doing a a great job. Public relations is another strength of our staff. Creating earn media, which is coverage that's gained through storytelling and relationships versus paid placements. Uh, public relations can be one of the most effective use of our dollars. best return on investment earn media more so than
advertising builds builds credibility and shapes perceptions and really amplifies our message in a way that a a paid ad can't. And so um we're very proud of a number of pieces and I I don't have time to list them all but some of the ones that were really unique that came out of our work this year NAS travelers bright ideas I travel for 2025 featured Bruce Beach in downtown Pensacola. Purito Ki was included in the 50 best beach towns in the south by Southern Living. And um something we're
really proud of is we held our very first dive and dine press trip where we invited divers who are journalists to come and dive in the Pensacola area. It was wildly successful. Uh it generated $13.5 million in earned media value. And uh why we're excited about that is of course uh the uh exciting project that'll be implemented next year. I'll get to that in just a second. But uh those are things that um the staff generates and uh is really taken our earn media to the next level.
Our award-winning website visitpensacola.com continues to drive visitors for our partners and local businesses throughout Escambia County. I think we've all seen how Google search and AI has uh provided so much information now that you don't really ever get to the original website, but we have had over 3.3 million visitors. Our page views are up as well as engagement over the last year truly showing that visitors are exploring our site. Um and um we've been continually doing work
putting work into the website. So adding um the increasing the visibility of our webcams, adding threshold 360 virtual tours, um expanding um our core landing pages with new maps and visuals uh and a refresh all to increase engagement with the website. And then finally, I I want to talk about our sales and service team. Um truly uh Kyan and Tier Robbins are doing a a great job. They sent out RFPs to our partners over the last year worth $27 million in economic impact,
booking 10 million in bookings. And one way to share or bring that to life is we send our our sales team to to different trade shows. And uh one more recently was the Florida Society of Association Executives and Educ Conference and they meet with different association meeting planners. Uh and this time it included Amanda Moes. She's the CEO of Leading Edge Association Professionals and and although she was uh originally hesitant to consider Pensacola,
um they continued to work on her and she agreed to arrive a day early um for an overnight stay ahead of a scheduled trip she had to Fair Hope and then she brought a decision maker, the CEO of Metal Treating Institute, who is also flying into Pensacola for the Fair Hope visit. and uh they crafted a custom site visit for them that included meeting with IHMC and a discussion with the senior engineer Jared Lee. And as a result of that meeting, MTI has contracted Jared Lee to
speak at one of their programs in Albuquerque. is preparing two RFPs for future meetings in Pensacola and they're looking at ways that they can work with IHMC and their robotics division uh for that entire association. So there's tremendous potential uh that's come out of this effort from from our sales team. So stay tuned. We'll see where that goes. Um also just wanted to share two projects that are coming up in the next fiscal year 26. the SS United States,
a commitment from Okaloosa County has been made. They will be reefing the SS United States within the 32 miles of the Pensacola Pass. So, uh there was uh a long period of time where it was being um deliberated between ourselves and a location that had been closer to uh Panama City Beach. Um, but that has been announced and right now the reef date right now is projected to be late February. And so, uh, they'll select a date or a week. And if for some reason weather doesn't work
or something doesn't work, then they'll push it another 30 days and they'll keep doing that until everything lines up. But hopefully the earliest it would be reefed is now February of next year. Uh, I will say that we were just at the Dimma, which a big dive show in Orlando with dive charters from our area and there's a lot of excitement about what's happening in Northwest Florida diving overall. But the SS United States is going to draw considerable attention already has uh into the market. So, I know uh one of our dive charters, Nahooi dive charters, they're
adding their second boat. They're retrofitting it right now, ready for the new year. Um and then uh we're also excited to be part of the 250th anniversary of the United States. So obviously we have great history to celebrate here in Pensacola. So uh we are doing a joint program with our peers over in St. Augustine. Uh campaigns called from the 1500s with love campaign and we're also doing a couple different projects with Visit Florida. Um, Visit Florida is going to do a docu series
filming throughout 2026 about the contributions Florida has made to the United States. And so, Pensacola is going to be an important piece of that story. So, pretty exciting to see our history come to life next year and be celebrated. And with that, I will take questions. Thank you, Darren. Uh, questions or comments? Yeah, Mr. I have Well, we'll start at the end, Jason. Yeah. Uh, we'll start at the end. Okay. Uh, two questions. Uh, when you look at the group impact, we have $10 million in bookings and $27 million in leads presented. When you analyze the delta and you look
at the regrets and denials that you're getting, what would it take in Escambia County for us to capture that additional $17 million delta? More space, meeting space, conference space, banquet space, meeting space. Meeting space. Yes. most of these um and what are the because we try to stay within this shape that we have, right? We don't keep presenting leads for a piece of business we can't accommodate, but we're very limited um in in our facilities. So, uh we bring things in and
um there can be date conflicts. Some of that's the Pensacola Bay Center conflicts. Some of it is, uh opportunities that uh could fit into the Hilton Garden in or between the Hilton Garden in and the the Holiday in. sometimes in the past they've worked together. Um so space is our biggest challenge and so we have a a long list of potential business that we could bring to the area. Um when we have the conference space, how many attendees are we talking about that need, you know, per event on average? Um it let me restate ask the question a different way.
What's our cap on maximum attendees that we can host in Escambia County? I think 500 people is uh is tight. Got it. So if we if we were to if there were an an aggressive developer out there that wanted to build additional meeting space to cater to these this missing business, there's a market for it. There is. Um I would recommend we target being able to hold 1500 people banquet would allow us to capture a line share of that that business. Okay, great. Thank you.
The second question I have is uh can you give us an update on what's going on with Pensacola.com? Pensacola.com. Pensacola.com feeds into visitpensacola.com at this time. Um will you have somebody check it? It looks like it's given a 404 error right now. It's not redirecting. Okay, I will do that. I'll have Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Okay. It's been a redirect, so I'll find out what's going on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you. How do you um how do you establish earned media?
Uh so there is a uh a model that is used to determine that. Um I could bring up my um VP of destination development to to better explain that. Um but we work uh with our agency um as well. So Nicole, do you want to come up and answer that question? Sorry, I was getting the website checked. Uh, so we work with MMGY out of New York City. Um, and they work with the different publications. So there's a Barcelona principle where there's a metric and an equation much like our research when we're surveying how much money you spend,
why you're here, all of those things. The publications have those equations as well. Each one is very different, but they will supply us with an earned media value, meaning this is what it would cost if you were to say, "Buy this." But with a lot of those publications, you can't buy them. So, they put a value to it with a dollar. I I I got that part. I guess I was really looking for the metric that Sure. I mean, we can definitely reach out to MMGy and see if some of those publications would give some of those to us. I don't know if they will, but are happy to ask. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I did have one. Um, if you can flip back to the KPI slide. I think it was one of the first slides. Yep. Yes. And so my question on this one is as far as marketing dollars go, did we spend the same as we spent the previous year or was there an increase in dollars spent? So our budget this last year
uh was lower than the previous year. Do you know by how much? Um I would have been um I think roughly six $700,000. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Yes. I have a question. Councilman, so I don't know much about this. I just know what I've read in the paper and things. So, how is how are things proceeding with you getting funding through the clerk at this point? Are you behind? We are behind. Okay. By a lot.
We are working very hard to provide the documentation and and the backup that's required. That process is slow, especially if there is a denial, getting an answer to what the denial is can be slow. And then to resubmit and wait for it to be reviewed again, that process uh is slow. And so we are waiting on um some submissions that go back to June and July that we're waiting for payment. Um and we find that there are
uh denials that we have to go back in and it can be as simple as saying something's missing or a page is missing and many times it's there but our submissions are okay significant. Um, and so, uh, we end up having to do double work sometimes and then there occasionally will be something that'll stick together in a scanner and it it will be missed and it'll have to be resubmitted. Okay. Um, but our goal is to continue to try to improve that process uh so that uh we can pay our our
vendors on a timely manner and um, you know, be able to keep our market and hum along. Okay. Thank you. So Darren, to add to that question, uh June or July is last fiscal year. Do you know the dollar amount that is still outstanding to be able to close out last fiscal year that you guys are looking for reimbursement? We do. Can you tell that? I can get that number for you. I don't have it at my fingertips now, but you have a ballpark. Is it 1 million, 2 million,
5 million? No. Uh, it's under Well, uh, it's at least 1.2 million. At least 1.2. Yep. Okay. All right. Any other questions or comments for Darren? I do want to say thank you on the dive situation with the USS United States. That's a huge one. Um, and I know there are several boat captains who are adding a second boat. Yes. Um, and I've heard they're already booking out for like March, which apparently is not a dive month. So,
that's a big one for our economy. So, thank you for spearheading that. Yep. I'm glad it's finally finally realized. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Darren. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next item on the agenda is the Pensacola Bay Center update. my caps. Excited to hear your news and maybe a little sneak peek into what you're going to disclose to the county commission. Maybe I don't know if I can do that or not. Welcome. You're
going to get me in trouble there. Um well, thank you for the opportunity to come before you. Uh we did want to give you a quick update. Not much more than came from before the board uh last week on Thursday. Uh but we do have the reports uh the final drafts. We're just polishing those up to put them in the right presentation mode uh so it can be uh digested by the board and then take an action have a healthy conversation moving forward. Uh on that note um the studies did uh focus on um some of the issues with the building in the past. Then it dove into concepts
and designs on the renovations to the arena itself for premium spaces. Uh capacity increases, rigging capacity increase, loading dock accessibility and aesthetics. Uh some of those things you've already seen happen with the fence that's gone around the back parking lot. We've gotten a lot of great comments on that. A lot of improvement there. The lighting system that's gone into place in the building has completely changed the experience. The sound is is almost concert quality sound. Uh we've been having fun with it with the hockey games where you can actually feel the music,
not just hear it and it actually is crystal clear. So it's it's a really good experience. In addition to our uh retractable seating, which is the glass seats that are, you know, the lower level, higher price seats, uh those have been fully replaced and uh we've rebranded a couple of the concession stands, finished the locker room upgrades. So both visiting and homeside uh have equal opportunity of the amenities that are there which services some belt uh basketball tournament when they come in and also when we did our uh Pensacola Invitational uh this past month where we had four additional
schools come in uh to play a competition with us on the uh the uh the update that's going to come before in uh in January. It' be January 22nd board meeting that we'll make that presentation. And those materials will be uh submitted to the county in advance of that uh to make the rounds uh and I would anticipate with their direction or guidance to be able to share that with you as well to get some input as well as with other stakeholders uh in the community from visit Pensacola Sports uh the hotel years uh everybody that's invested in and looking to see what kind
of impact this is going to have on tourism dollars in the future uh as well as for our community for quality of life but also visitor attraction. Uh the study did come back and uh one of the the main focuses was to make sure the arena renovations was something that was needed. It did prove that. Uh the second piece was looking at an event center uh flex space uh mixed use uh somewhere between a convention center and a sports indoor sports facility. Um that came back with roughly a 55,000 square foot need. Uh but the total building footprint would be about 93,000 square feet. um
that included some breakout rooms and additional food and beverage offerings and uh meeting space, storage, that kind of thing. Um on the back property of the Bay Center on 9inth Avenue, again, we focused everything on the Bay Center property currently uh with the understanding that, you know, I know the city is looking at master planning around it. Um, we have been in contact as recently this week uh with their office uh from economic development to put me in touch with their uh firm that they're working with. Um, I have a call with a gentleman tomorrow to, you know,
see where they're at, kind of share where we're at, not divulge any any results of the studies or anything like that, but just to make sure that they're not duplicating their services over our services and what we're looking to do, but from a holistic standpoint because one of the needs that came about from the study is uh not just the event center um but then the practice sheet. it did come back and say there was some market um demand for it that it could support it into the future. It just depends on how much we can invest in building that uh with the capital
outlay up front. Um it does have a return. There are some mixed uses um some synergies that can happen having all the facilities together where you don't need an individual team running this building an individual team running this building or that building. You know, one team can run all three. So you get some combined shared services and some realized savings and operational costs. Um as well as from the the ice sheet um most of them do look to have two for an ice facility. They look to have to two look to have two sheets of ice to actually run a tournament. Um, this one is only
showing one, but having the proximity to the base center, you could have both sheets running at the same time because one of the demands with the uh the event center is uh continuous event space. So, which that means you want everything all under one roof. That way, you're moving from one location to the other, all in one building, not going from pocket to pocket to pocket, especially in our our environment in Florida. uh let alone whether it gets cold at this time of year for driving that kind of traffic. Um it also did show that um to support the event center of a 55,000 foot
uh hall um you do need a uh headquarters hotel in proximity to it. So some of the the concepts that we're going to bring forward does show one actually on the property of the Bay Center. Um, that doesn't mean that, you know, we're looking for tourism dollars to to build that hotel or the county to build that hotel or the city to build that hotel. It's just showing what could happen. Um, and looking at that holistic approach. Ideally, the the other hotel property would be able to serve that purpose and have some connection to make that work. In addition to that,
uh, parking was an issue that came up. That's why we took a little bit more time to dive into it because there is only so much square footage space to work with there. Uh keeping in mind we're trying to stay out of the tech park side of things, try to stay out of the hotel side of things just with within the property. Um one version does include a potential parking garage on the tech park site, uh where the surface lot is currently to where the rest of the shovel ready site could be utilized. Um but again these are just conceptual ideas to see what could work
because of the parking demand. When you when you look at the facilities are added all together. Um one of the studies came back and said we needed 4,000 more parking spaces. We're not going to be able to find 4,000 parking spaces to put there. Um currently we're a 10,000 seat arena. We have just over a thousand parking spaces. It works. Um you know we could have more. everybody wants more parking. Um, but at the cost of trying trying to produce parking garages, it gets really astronomical to where it becomes unfeasible. Um, so we're looking at finding that
balance and that's where some of the modelings have come into place where we're looking at um, a stacked version where you basically put everything together. That does increase your costs because of your engineering, your structural, your concrete, having the open floor space with no columns and no those kinds of things. It gets real expensive to do that. But then we also compartmentalize it to where it's got the event center and the ice sheet. The event center, no ice sheet, event center, parking garage. You basically it's almost an alle cart option where we can look at it to say, okay,
here's the dollars that we have available. Here's what the costs are for each component. What do we want to go after? What's going to have the best use and best serve uh ROI for for the community. Um, with that being said, that's that's where we're at on the the studies. Uh we look forward to bringing that forward. Um right now from an operational standpoint with the Bay Center update, um hockeyy's trending good. We're we're a little down on our attendance. Uh last year at this point our average was just over 4,700 people in the building per game. Right now we're at 4,600 people
per game. So we're we're trending pretty pretty close. Um we did close out the the fiscal year end uh in September. uh we were looking to project again that substantial growth uh that we've done in the past four years. Um we did come in ahead of budget but it was a nominal amount. It wasn't much. We came in basically on on budget this year. Um again with having the building closed down for three months in July, August, September, that impacted some of the shows that we could book and bring in. Um, but we also did invest quite a bit of uh capital investment into the building, not
just from the 10 million plan, but for some of the other projects that we did. We added some funds there to to maximize what we could do with what we had. So, if you if we're spending, you know, u $1,000 on one project and we were going to spend another,000 on another project, if we spent 1,500, we could get both of them done by doing them consecutively. So, we looked at those kinds of efficiencies that that increased it incrementally on our operational cost, but not too much to still come in at a budget. Uh, we've got a lot of hockey games coming up for the holidays. Uh,
Star Wars night is Saturday. We've got White Tai Rock Friday. We've got Christmas night on the 23rd and then Military Appreciation on the 27th. We run it back again with two games on January 2nd, January 3rd. We've got a couple Marty Gro balls coming up. We've got uh Pensacola Marty Gro Mambbo coming back, Pensacon, Sunb Belt, we just had a call with them. Their ticket sales are going really well and we're looking uh forward to them coming back. Uh Globe Troters will be in July. It'll be their 100th year anniversary of playing uh their competition. So, we're looking forward to
that. We've got Santana that was just announced. Uh it's selling pretty well. Um we've got Fantasia and Hamilton. Brandon Lake is basically sold out. We have I think 16 tickets left to be exact. Um so that's in April. Uh we've got a lot of good run of shows coming up. So with that said, I'm here to answer any questions as well as from this council. Is there any information I know the chair is here, but is there any information that you may want to see come before the board and some of those conversations from a tourism standpoint that we can help put together in our
presentation and bring that forward? Thank you, Michael. Any comments or questions? Council, thank you. So, when you're talking about the um space for conferences and such meetings, so in in that you were looking at increasing to being able to handle how many people? The conference space it well it's a multi-use. So, the space itself could do a banquet for 1500. It could actually do a concert for 4,000. It could do um it could do indoor soccer. It could do indoor
uh basketball and really I'm speaking to the ability for conferences. I know I I never get to do a conference in this town. I always have to travel and I've been looking a long time to be able to do one here. We even had the Brownsfield conference a few years ago. It's allotted through various locations that um have Brownsfields and it was our turn and there was no place to host it. I mean, so it is a real a real situation in this area that we have not been able to do this kind of thing. So, context-wise, currently we can do about 100 exhibition booths from a
convention standpoint with um we've got 10,000 square foot meeting space, but it's not really accessible. It's on the second floor. So, those breakout rooms really don't work very well. It's the way it was designed back in the 80s. This facility would actually have the capacity to do 200 exhibition booths with additional breakout spaces that are contiguous right next to those uh those rooms as well. And another key factor of that is that headquarters hotel because with that headquarters hotel, you're going to have additional ballroom space that can complement
what's going on there at that that facility. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? exciting. Good deal. Yeah. I I we've just because my council member next to he's he's embarrassed that I said Brownsfields instead of Brownfield. Brownfield. Just have to clarify because I can't let him have this fun with me without saying it out loud. Okay. Noted. Thank you. It it is
exciting. Uh some of the renderings and things that we've seen are are really cool that have come back. Uh we want to make sure they're measured. They're not so cool that we can't attain them. Um but they will come with uh costs and ROIs and and all that good stuff. That way you can make an actual well-informed decision. Well, thank you. We appreciate your leadership in ASM Global or Legends. Legends Global. Yeah, it's hard to say. Global. Sorry. Legends Global. Uh and taking the lead in doing this work. Yes, sir. Excited to see what you got. Okay. Thank you, council. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Uh, next item on the agenda is election of chair and vice chair.
Um, I see I guess Philip you. Yes, sir. Council, before you, you'll have two sheets of paper. One will be labeled chair and one's vice chair. We'll handle these sequentially. So, if you'll make your mark on who you'd like to serve as chairman. Misty and I will uh will gather the votes and then report back to you and then we'll do that uh with vice chair as well. Before we do it that way, uh because our our vote needs to be part of the record. Yes, sir. Um we would either need to put our name on our sheet or just do it verbally. Your direction, sir. Whatever's easiest. Yeah. So,
I I do have a question before you go forward. Is there someone wanting each position? I do not want either position. Okay. I'm glad I asked. Yes. Okay. Anybody else wanting or not wanting? Yeah, I I've appreciated being chair, but I've done it long enough. I think it's time for someone else. Okay, I have a better question or to complement your question. Of of those um left, is there anyone not willing to because right now Tish is is uh the vice chair. True. No, no. No,
you are. Okay. So, that would be the Okay. So, is everyone willing. I would lot not like to be either. I'm just going to say that right now. Um I don't Are you asking for people to vote for Jason? No, I think she's asking who else is not willing to serve his capacity. I want to know the not willings instead of the willings. So I'm a not willing. I'm not willing. I hear no one else volunteering to not be willing. All right. Then we know what to do. Thank you. M
Mr. Chairman, I just have a question because I mean I'm willing because I I like running meetings, but is it typically somebody who's not elected who's the chair? Because it seems like that's the direction we've gone recently. Since I've been on there, it's been that way, but I'm not sure there's any hard fast rule about that. Okay. I mean, I guess did were you guys reappointed as city council members? I don't know how you all We have two years. Two years. So, we'll both have, you know, I'm up for election. So, but I would still be able to finish the year.
Okay. Well, until November. And I'm assuming since you're the chair of the commission and you appoint you reappointed yourself since you're here today. Um, so all right. So, we have that information. That's good. So, I don't I don't know how you guys want to do it. Do you want to do it by uh nomination or do you want to just fill out this form? You have to put your name on the form uh so that we can get You could put your name next to whoever's person is. Yeah. To whoever you're voting for. Yeah. I think that may get a little bit confusing. What's that? I
think that may get a little confusing if we just make nominations and then vote like we've done in the past to just I think it'll be a little easier versus this may end up you know make I'll I'll make a nomination for chair uh Jason Nicholson. I'll second it. All right. So, we have a a motion from Tish. A second. Was that from you, Councilwoman? Uh for Jason. Jason, are you willing to accept? Is there any uh We have a motion, a second. Is there any discussion or debate?
Hearing? None. Call for the vote. If you would please call the role. Matish Patel. James Reeds. Ashley Hoffber. Yes. David Bear, yes. Brad Mullenex, yes. Charles Bear, yes. Jennifer Breer, yes. And I guess Jason Nicholson, sir. Yes, sir. You want to vote for yourself? You vote for yourself? Yes, sir. Yes. All right. Great. Thank you. So then, uh, vice chair, uh, can I make a nomination for Charles
Bay? All right. So, we have a motation. We have a motion from Tish and a second from Jason. Any uh Councilman Bear, are you willing to accept the role? I am willing to accept. Thank you. Thank you. Uh is there any other debate or discussion? Hearing none, please call the role. Matish Patel, yes. James Reeves, yes. Sorry, ma'am. Ashley Hoffberger, David Beer, yes. Brad Mullenex,
yes. Jennifer Breer, yes. I hope I skip. Yes, sir. Charles Bearer and Jason Nicholson. Yes. Apologies. All right. Motion carries. Uh, congratulations to both of you and thank you for your willingness to serve. Um, all right. Uh, other business. Mr. Reeves, did you want to discuss? Okay. All right. Is there any other business? anyone would like to discuss today. How do you
want me to have the meetings for the committee? What is the best way to go about getting those scheduled? Um, I would suggest going through Phillip. Okay. Uh, or Melanie can help also. Okay. Your aid. So, we don't need approval from this board on specific times or anything like that. No, I don't think so. I think you I mean, just keep the board, I guess, informed in case anyone from the board wants to attend from this council wants to attend the meetings. Uh but just schedule through county staff with those folks and perfect. That's the easiest way to do it. All
right. All right. No other if there's no other business. Closing remarks. Uh Tesh, start with you. Uh I don't have much. I just want to say it's been a pleasure working with this council. Um, I think we've made some real progress this year and look forward to being on the committee with uh uh Ashley to to work on things to have a little more structure. Um, just want to say merry Christmas and happy new year and see you guys next year. Thank you, Mr. Reeves. Any closing remarks?
It's a pleasure and I'm glad to see we're making some moves in the right direction. Commissioner, I think I'm most excited about the Bay Center. I'm a little disappointed because I was hoping for a sneak peek, but that's okay. Um, and thank you to Visit Pensacola for the presentation today. That was very good information. And um, it has been a great year. We've accomplished a lot and we've brought some really cool things to the area. So, I'm proud to be a part of it. Thank you all. Thank you, Brad. Merry Christmas and it's been great to be part of
this. It's been exciting and I'm really excited about the funding consideration committee putting some structure. I think that'll be absolutely fantastic. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, um, just one thing on the minutes. Philip is listed in the list of those are present. And I'm just not sure if that's right. That should be in the future. I think we should put staff or something. Not because you're not a member of this group. And I was looking at I was actually thank I wanted to thank uh uh member Reeves for bringing this up because I did
not know that you had made a trip to the county commission and talked to them about the foiling. Um, you know, and I know you went as a private individual. You know, as a council member, there are times in which I'd like to speak as a private individual. It's hard to separate the two. Um, and I think you being chair just will naturally affect people differently than a private individual. So, I'm concerned about that, too. Given the fact the vote was 2 to six, we almost didn't get a motion until you made the motion for that particular item. And I just think, you know,
going forward, you know, as I'm not the chairman, I'm the vice chairman, but I'm not going to go to if the if this board votes a certain way, I'm not going to go and go the opposite, you know, in a public meeting like that. It's just not something I'm willing to do. Um, and you know, whether or not foiling should happen or not, I really feel like you went beyond what I would have liked you to do as a chair. And you can't separate the fact that you're chair from being an individual member
um in most people's eyes. And you know, there's another member that sits on this board that's also on the board of county commissioners. I don't know how uh Commissioner Hoffberger voted when it came to the full commission. She met I don't I didn't look back at it. Um but you know, it's just it's it's an influence thing when you have the chairmanship that you have to be aware of. And um it's unfortunate it happened that way. And you know, hopefully the foiling event will go very well. Um, and it'll generate the amount of, you know, revenue that's supposed to,
but I I'm a little bit uncomfortable about that. Thank you, Councilwoman. So, first off, thanks for your service. You've been you've been doing this for a long time. I um also thanks for the presentations today. It's pretty interesting. And um I feel bad about bringing that up about the not voting, but it's very strict on our side that you absolutely cannot do that. And I think that's the first time we've ever had anyone that came forward that way that was missing. And so it was kind of confusing to me. On a side note, I also was very very upset when our very large debate
over something where we denied it and then I saw it as you representing I think it was impossible for them not to see it as representation from the TDC. Um, I think it adds to that that whole I got a call afterwards saying something to the effect. Does that make you feel like that there's really no reason to be sitting on this board? And it unfortunately does that our cumulative um effect is is not taken more seriously I suppose. And so I think that um all the time in these committees
and these boards and all these various things we do and when we ask public to sit and do this with us I think it's one thing for elected officials to do it. I think it is another for asking the general public in that it feels like time's wasted like what was the point if it was just going to be overruled again and again. And so for those reasons, I also feel strongly that we have to when we're when we're out there, we have to kind of uphold the the vote of the whole,
not an independent feeling. And I don't know how. I mean, there are times, believe me, I'd love to go say what I want to at the parks and rec board or the the ARB or all these various boards where I really want to influence it. I really do. But it's they see me differently than they would see a truly general public person walk in. So it is it's a it's a tight rope and I I don't think it best represents us. But thank you. I do really appreciate your service as well. Thank you. Merry Christmas, happy new year, all those good things. Happy holidays. Thank you, Jason. Yeah. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. Um I I'd also like to um really congratulate this board for an extraordinary year. uh been in the tourism economy in Escambia County for going on 30 years now and I can I can happily say and satisfactorily say that this is the most focus on economic development the tourism industry that I've seen in those 30 years. So I I appreciate you all for your voluntary service not getting paid to to help boost the economy that provides for my friends and family. Um I also thank you uh Mr. Chair for your service to this board. Um, and I also appreciate Visit Pensacola
uh for for taking the time to share with us the insights into your development and promotion of the tourism economy in Escambia County. And I I've got to tell you, Mr. Caps, I'm thrilled about the improvements to the Bay Center. It's long overdue. We've all looked in the mirror and said it's long overdue and so to see something actually happening with it is outstanding. Uh, so thank you all. I also want to say happy holidays and merry Christmas to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. and and thank you for your support as well as your future chair.
Uh thank you all uh also for the opportunity to have served as the chairman of this board for multiple years. Uh never thought I would ever be the chair of this board. I never thought I would certainly chair it for as long as I did. uh and have the confidence uh in the group uh and I've enjoyed it most of it. It's been a challenge uh at times um working through issues like getting our uh funding funded agencies funded. Uh it's a it's a challenge
uh trying to get um cooperation from the clerk's office uh to fund things that are uh in compliance with the law and uh with the intention of the legislature and the statute that regulates tourism uh and how the tourist development tax can be paid. uh and when those things are legal to actually get them funded so that private industry doesn't have
to front their own money on behalf of the county's tourism uh industry. It's it's a shame that we have to do that today. Um but it is what it is. We are where we are. Um but I've enjoyed serving with all of you on this board. Um obviously I'm still on the board but no longer chairman. And thank you. Congratulations uh to both of you on your new elections uh in those roles. Um just I guess to respond to the conversation about the uh foiling week. Uh I I I understand the concern and
I appreciate everyone voicing their concern about that. Uh when I did go to the county commission, I was very clear that this board voted against the matter and that I was not there representing this board. Uh I was representing myself as an individual who is interested in tourism. Uh, and I believe in that program and I believe it was successful and I believe it can be even more successful so long as they're not drinking from a fire hose and receiving funding three months,
you know, a commitment to three months before their event, uh, scheduled event. And so, uh, I I get it. I'm still wearing that TDC chairman hat. And so, I appreciate everyone's concern and, uh, mention of that. So, uh, with that, happy holidays to everyone else. Happy, uh, congratulations to Bay Center, uh, and Michael for getting where you are. Uh, Rey, I don't know. I don't, you keep saying you're going to retire, but, you keep showing up. So,
thank you for all the work. I think I think this board uh, in the last five years has done a lot. this industry, tourism, the the community has done so much to diversify our tourism. Uh that's why we continue to see the increases that we've seen. Obviously, right now, this last month, we've had a decrease. Uh there's an, you know, economic issue. The economy is is struggling right now, and that's probably not lost on on our county as well. Uh but I think we've done a lot of great work here. Um,
we've got some reserves. We've got um beach nourishment that is annually budgeted that uh Commissioner Bender uh brought to this board and got us to uh commit to. We've got, you know, and we're going to have that redone um whenever Island Authority does it. But I I I just I think we're in a really good strong place. Uh and I've been um really proud to be part of this group. So with Ray, you're coming forward. Thank me for not saying it. So now I'm gonna say something.
Okay. Well, you did miss your opportunity or pass up a No, I didn't. I just going to say my job description actually application will go on J beginning of January. So if you know people that are looking for a career change or want to be in sports tourism uh world, um it'll go online beginning of January. January. and and then my my current contract runs till September 30. So our goal is to fill my fiscal year to somewhere in that time and then have a transition. Okay. Thank you. All right. May I one more thing? Sorry, I'm just trying to look up one thing because I want
them to um I'm just trying to see which country it was. Um, Sweden had an issue where a bunch of soccer players were testing positive for banned substances and there was quite a controversy and um I'm just going to read this one time. It's actually Norway doping mystery solved artificial turf contamination in football in Norway caused it. So I just because that's not completely laid out there. I'm just making sure I'm saying this out loud for uh Commissioner Hoffberger to make
sure that there's some kind of clarity here. So, there are still some issues with some of those, but it caused the players actually to test positive for chemical substance. Yeah, test the players, right? Yeah, that's a easy solution. Don't test. Uh, all right. I have nothing else to say. Thank you everybody uh for all the great work. You all have a happy holiday. Thank you.