Oh, there we go. Of course, as soon as he walks out. Check. All you had to do is walk out the door. Come on. All right. We'll call this meeting to order of the Morehead Economic
Development Authority. We'll have a roll call, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members today include Anderson, Balco, Kota, Soilik, and White. Thank you. Any agenda amendments? None
at this time. Next item would be an approval of the minutes from last meeting. White moves to approve. Code a second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any
opposed? Motion carries. Any citizens to be heard? Don't believe so. Okay, Stacia MBA. Good afternoon. I am Stacia Sitesma, the
executive director of the Morehead Business Association. The Morehead Business Association's mission is to promote and support the growth and success of members in the greater Morehead area. We foster a
thriving business community through networking opportunities, advocacy events, as well as providing the resources businesses need to succeed. On April 16th, the MBA hosted its second annual job fair sponsored by
American Crystal Sugar Company. 30 vendors set up in the MSUM Alumni Center. It was the first job fair to be hosted at that location and it went really well. It was a fantastic afternoon of connecting and
networking. On April 24th, we sent Sherry off into retirement with a big bash at Swing Barrel. It was a great evening to show Sherry just how amazing her impact was and how much she is
loved. Now, let's talk business. The NBA members meet every Wednesday at the American Legion at noon. NBA members have the chance to share their stories. This week it will be Stew Stockma with
Savecoin. We also have our nonprofit connect monthly. Members meet on the third Thursday of the month at Village Inn at 7:30 a.m. It's a wonderful time of roundt discussion as nonprofits share their story and the impact that they
have. For our profit businesses, it's also an opportunity for them to learn how they can support these nonprofits in our area. On May 15th, lend a hand up will be presenting. Please reach out if the MBA can help you grow and succeed. Thank
you. Thank you, Staca. I'll just say again a welcome to Staca. I think um you know, we're going to see obviously her face a lot more here and and excited for what she's going to be able to do with the the MBA. So, welcome again uh Staca and look forward to having you at these
meetings moving forward. Okay. Hey, I don't believe there's any commissioners reports, so we'll move along to the presentation. Lisa Bod. Yeah. And as Lisa's uh walking up here to the podium. So, uh this is this
uh presentation here today from Lisa is just really going through the Make Morehead Home program again. I know uh our chair uh Nate Anderson, Kim with MBA and others have expressed some interest in just understanding uh some of the residential components that's a part of obviously our our EDA budget with some
of the marketing too. So Lisa holds a lot of that information and we thought it was great for for her to come in and and give some of that resource and and updates to the group here today. So thanks Lisa. Thank you Derek and thank you members.
Um, I will give you a briefing on the Make Morehead Home property tax rebate. We've had a rebate like this in place um since 2009 and um the program is available for
newly constructed homes um to uh kind of give that initial um an incentive to build and expand our property tax base. the school district, the county, and the city all participate by foregoing the
first two um years of uh property taxes after a home is constructed. Put a briefing sheet on your um desks that uh was used last year as we went back to the school district and and county and
the city to um consider renewing the program. We offer the program on two-year cycles so that the taxing jurisdictions have an opportunity to really review the program, ensure its necessity and that it's working properly for the community. And we've had great
success in getting everyone to renew it every year because I think everyone sees the growth of Morehead and um you know values that growth. um it is structured as a rebate. So the homeowners do need
to pay their property taxes and then in the the November of the year after the second half of property taxes are paid, the rebate is um refunded to them and they can use that money for whatever they wish. but it also allows them to
have a a housing payment that doesn't have a huge increase after those first two years. Um Fargo and West Fargo have offered a rebate program since the 1980s. It is limited and um in um how
much of the value uh it uh it refunds. However, Morehead's program is the full value of the home. And so whether you're building an affordable starter home or you're building a move up home in the luxury price range, um the entire amount
is rebated to you. So that is one advantage that we have over um some of those other programs in in North Dakota. Um, so the history of the program, I I mentioned that Fargo and West Fargo have
had programs for a long time and um, we never did. And then after the 2009 flood, we uh the state of Minnesota was looking to um assist us or we were seeking
assistance in how we could um you know address the impacts of the flood. And one of those impacts we knew after experiencing the flood of 1997 was that there were market impacts of a flood
that disrupted people's lives. And you know, we really wanted to create that market confidence and really find a way for people to recover from from those flooding uh episodes. and the state of Minnesota was um um approved
participating in a program for two years that was entirely state funded and we found that the school district and county and city were willing to um continue that program afterwards. So we've been really excited about everyone
being progrowth in Morehead. Um the program does have a cost and that is something that uh you know it's it's foregone tax revenue and so the homes that were approved in 2024
um there are rebates being made to the owners of 94 homes completed in 2021 and 93 homes completed in 22. And these homes added over $61 million in value to the city. Um, and the cost
of those rebates was $888,000. So, it's not insignificant, but again, after two years, those homes are paying the full um, you know, full ride of their property taxes. So, we do get that um revenue moving forward into
the future. Um we did start out having a um home improvement program as well. We found that was not utilized very well and um because the value didn't necessar
here's my take on it. the value of the improvements did not necessarily equate directly to an increase in um or the cost of the improvements did not necessarily increase the value of the home. If you were replacing your furnace
or windows, you already had a furnace and windows and if you were adding a granite countertop, the amount of um difference in your taxable value was not as significant. So that's a little bit of background. We have discontinued that element of the program and we continue
to um look to ways to partner on home improvements like our partnership with Gate City Bank on a special uh financing program there, our home rehabilitation loan through the the community development block grant and home improvement programs through Minnesota
housing. So that's kind of the nuts and bolts of that program. If you look at the um the graph on the first page of the handout that I gave you, and I believe Amy was gonna I just provided this today because I was in St. Paul last week. I'm sorry I wasn't um very
prepared for your packet deadline. Um but you can see our housing starts um since the program uh was included um or was implemented um through 2023 and our our housing starts in in 2024 single
family homes was 155. So it did go up from from the previous year and that was probably the highest since 2015. Um and so and then the top line on that uh chart is metro area housing starts. So
there is fluctuation. Um and you know we think the program is helpful to homeowners whether it at this point is moving the marketplace. I'm not sure. But I think we've seen in some cities where they've decided to take the
program away. There has been strong objection to doing that. And so um you know that we still have the support of our our governmental entities and we have continued the program. We um we
survey our home buyers every year and you know they they do find the program valuable. Um they also have um expressed in this survey um a desire for more amenities in the community and other
things. So, I think that has been a new focus for the city of Morehead is adding those parks and making sure that we're really focusing on the future um and and trying the work that we're doing in downtown and that you've all had a part in. There's a lot of other things that
go into making a community, but this is an incentive that we think has been has brought value to the city and um we're appreciative of the EDA support in the other areas that we can really uh expound on the benefits of Morehead as a
residential choice. So, that's a little bit of background. I'd be happy to answer any questions that there might be. Thank you, Lisa. Uh, yes, I I'll just say that um I think this program works tremendously well um in order to
continue I think trying to take a larger and larger market share of those residential um single family homes throughout the community throughout the the FM area. Um this program helps tremendously. I think the EDA wants to continue supporting this um even
expanding the marketing efforts uh of this program so that um real estate agents and and the public who's purchasing new homes uh is well aware of this u this incentive that I think Morehead does better than any other
metro in this region. So, thank you. Thanks again for your efforts. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lisa. Okay. And Derek, I'll mute myself. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, now we're moving on to Renaissance Own Application Review. So,
14th and Maine Apartments, uh, LLC. Mr. Kevin Bartram is in attendance here and I'll maybe give some overview then I'll ask uh Kevin you can pop up to the podium there for questions and uh things that I might miss here. So uh we do have a Renaissance own application on behalf
of uh RFI2 LLC. Uh they have plans to remove a former convenience store building and two residential structures, a house and a garage/ apartment to construct a new uh 28 unit walk up style apartment building fronting Main Avenue
which includes a mix of 1, two, and threebedroom units. Um the developer anticipates the the makeup kind of of the future residents of of potential college students, young professionals, and other age groups interested in living in downtown. Uh this project also
does include uh 18 parking stalls uh that would be uh garage parking stalls which be on the south side of the property and 25 off- streetet parking spaces behind the apartment building. Um I know we got a lot of new members on our our board too. Uh this uh particular
area is within our our renaissance zone uh district. Uh this uh district is a little bit different than other uh incentives that we offer across the the entire community. Uh but there's a five, 10, and 15year exemption uh prep that uh we look at when uh developers are
looking to invest in this area. Understanding there's um more difficulties, more complexities with working within a downtown environment. There's goals and objectives that the city and the EDA defined when we established this policy a number of years back. Uh we feel that this
particular project uh meets a good majority of those uh renaissance zone policy goals including uh being an activity generator uh an establishment of uh the continuation of a walkable district uh use of transportation and us utilizing the uh mixed modal kind of
uses in that area uh and an infill project which we are desperately uh looking to kind of continue to do. Uh the zoning of this parcel, it is located within our MU3 zoning district. Um it's a mixeduse zoning district. Uh staff uh
planning staff has actually been doing a lot of uh staff initiated u mixeduse zoning within our downtown core. That's been a part of the planning department's kind of cleanup of uh of zoning in this area. Um the financial considerations, again, we we uh talk about the there's a
difference between new construction and rehabilitation for a renaissance own policy. Uh and there is a cost per square foot threshold as an investment for for 5, 10, and 15 years. Uh this project does qualify for a 15-year property tax exemption. Couple notable
points of that as well is that uh difference from our neighbors to the west here. Our renaissance zone policy land does remain taxable. So existing value is taxable dur throughout the term. We also, as a part of our exemption term, the first five years of
that 15-year exemption period would be 100% exempt. Uh years 6 through 10 would be 75% exempt and then years 11 through 15 would be 50% exempt. So, uh we will see a progression of the the taxes
coming back to this area as well. Um EDA is a recommending body to the city council here. So, if approved here today, uh that would go to the May 27th city council meeting. Uh if approved at city council and EDA here, uh construction of this project will begin
in the summer of 25 with the anticipated completion of summer of 2026. So, um obviously excited to see this project happen. I know it's been in Mr. Bartram's purview for a number of years and some uh acquisitions became uh
relevant here of late. Uh so excited to see some some new life and and living units uh in this area and obviously supporting businesses. This is right across the street from Heralds and others. Um so excited to see some some life that's going to rejuvenate that corridor. So uh with that I'll conclude
my presentation. Kevin, if you want to pop up to the podium and uh fill in anything I might have missed and then we stand uh ready for questions. Thank you. Thanks, Derek. Um the the only thing I wanted to add is that this site is a former um gas
station site, Orton's gas station. So, there is some cleanup. Um when we bought the property probably 9 or 10 years ago, uh there was u there were some letters from Orton that the tanks had been removed and everything had been cleaned up, but we did some testing when we bought the property a long time ago and there there is still quite a bit of
contamination there and it's a little bit of hard hard to to figure out how far that contamination reaches. So, uh we built in some money for that. We hope that it's enough. Um but it's there's a pretty good likelihood that we might um might exceed our construction budget by a little bit. Um, but we hope it's not
going to be um anything too serious. Um, we didn't think it was uh enough to go through the deed grant uh process. It's it's uh so so we're going to go it alone in this case uh to clean up this site. Uh but we're excited to do the project. Uh as Derek mentioned, we've we've had this project of this property for a long
time. There was um a residential property in the north in the south east corner that we were just able to acquire just a couple of weeks ago and that kind of freed us up to u to work on this project. We were always hoping to get that last quarter corn corner uh of the property to be able to develop it a
little bit more easily. Um so with that, I guess I'm happy to answer any questions um comments. Commissioner White. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Really don't have a question. Just wanted to comment just how pleased I was to see this project coming forward
and and to thank you, Mr. Bartum, for bringing another great project to our community. I wanted to point out a couple of things even just you know tagging on to what Dererick was saying that um this is a blighted area that was desperately in need of development and so it's it's nice to see um some
investment being made in that area but I also want to draw attention to it's very close to uh when we did our comprehensive plan uh a few years ago we talked about the area around junkyard yard is almost being like a second downtown in Morehead and this site is
you know perfectly situated between that and our MSUM campus. And so I can see that, you know, really helping that connectivity between the south side of the of the um of Morehead downtown and um up to the north. Um, but I also
wanted to point out just I appreciate the considerate way that you work on these projects um to make sure that they aren't um detrimental to adjoining neighborhoods and things that maybe people don't notice, but since I live in a neighborhood like that, I really do
appreciate it. even noticing things like you've created a nice buffer where the um the building is situated right off of Maine and then you have parking and then you have a a buffer of garages before um the uh you know the single family homes so you don't have for instance people
out on their balconies looking into the backyards and bedrooms of single family homes and I and I just really appreciated that. Um, I also was looking at the um amount of parking and we often get questions about that and I think you did a good job and I also um believe and
maybe we could I don't know if Derrick can confirm this but I think they also have off-state parking on 14th. I was looking at that and so even if I think you've got plenty uh 43 spots for 28 units plus if we do have you know extra visitors and things we've got some space
on the street too. So again I'm just really excited to see this project coming forward. Thank you. I I would add to um and and to the reference of 14th Street um city engineering and myself and and and MSUM have been having some conversations
about the one-way uh systems on 11th and 14th. understanding that the underpass on 11th Street is is certainly going to change some traffic patterns, but I know from an MSUM perspective as well as just overall flow, I think uh a relook at
those one-way to potential conversion to two-way traffic on on both 11th and 14th and fourth and fifth would be an ideal time to reconsider. So, I think this would work well for this type of project that obviously can flow a little different within the the district
itself, too. So, more to come on that. Any other comments or questions from the commission? Yep. Commissioner Cota. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I'll start out by saying I will need to abstain from this vote for uh reasons I with the
developer uh related to the project. I do also want to say I I do like the project. I like the fact we're taking an old gas station that has some potential um environmental contamination and we're getting that taken care of um with this project. So those costs can be like like
Mr. Bartum said, they can be unknown um which can give financers a little um bit of a hesitation. So knowing that's being taken care of is also exciting and something um I think our group needs to definitely be happy about.
So okay, thank you Mr. Bartum. We appreciate you bringing more units and rooftops to Morehead, driving the commercial economic growth of our community. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, then we will be looking for a motion
and a second. So moved, Deb White. We get a second. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion and a second to approve the Renaissance zone application. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? I
I. Any opposed? The motion carries. Thank you all. All right. Back to Derek. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh thank you, Kevin. Appreciate you, uh being here today and explaining the project. Um uh into my report here today, just a
few things I think worth touching on. Um uh there's been a lot of activity again on the the Morehead Center Mall site. Uh everything west of our city hall building is uh completely demolished. If you haven't driven by that site, you should take a take a peek. It looks very
different. Uh the anticipation is that we'll see within the next two weeks uh the former United Sugars building and Allen Evans Bridal uh building coming down as well. So, some significant changes as you look at the site on Center Avenue, too. So, um obviously
couldn't do this without obviously the the due diligence and the hard work of a lot of folks and our engineering team. Uh certainly the hard work that Amy put into our DED redevelopment grant, that $1 million that we got from DED, the second $1 million grant that we received from DED uh is definitely getting put to
good work here as we continue to see development happen. Um also just excited to see uh Mr. Bartum's project coming up on 650 center and I know um downtown downtown chiropractic and other businesses are excited to move into that
facility as well. So, uh more to come on on that one for sure. U Mar Real Estate Services, a big thank you to uh our selection group here of the of the EDA. We had um Evan and and Nate and Chad and
Deb all on the committee and Emily Moore who's not here obviously today as a part of our interview committees for the Mara Real Estate Services. There was four uh groups that submitted and were interviewed. Um we'd like to thank all four of those groups that came in and participated in the RFP and interview
process. It was a competitive process but the selection committee uh did feel that um and was unified in selecting Goldmark Commercial as our next real estate uh representative for Macara. Uh the contract with property resource group does continue to the end of June.
Uh but we are working uh on that transition now internally and working on marketing materials so we have a seamless transition when we start in the beginning of July with uh with Goldmark. So, thank you to the committee members for going through that process and spending the time to uh make that
selection. Um, obviously Staca's here with uh with MBA on on April 9th. I was asked to present at the MBA connect lunch meeting. Uh, we had a great turnout. Obviously, a lot of interest from folks that are seeing the development happening happening uh in the area. Uh
again, just want to thank uh Stacia and the MBA team and look forward to the partnership as we continue to to grow and provide clarity to the public and and the businesses as new developments are occurring. As well, we had uh Senator Clolobashar uh visit uh Morehead
here on April 11th. Uh Senator Clolobashar held a community conversation at Swing Barrel. Uh the meeting was focused on federal tariffs and the the local impact. Uh, I made the connection here to Shawn over at Swing Barrel. I know they had seen some uh
increases in uh the the canning process specifically related to aluminum. Um, I thought Sean did a great job of uh sharing their story, the collaboration that they look at with the community and uh they've obviously been through a lot, not just these tariffs, but the
underpass construction opening right before COVID. Uh so they are the epitome of uh resilient and we hope to continue to support them and we're glad to have a a conversation at their facility too. Um couple other things worth of note. Uh
Amy and I, we mentioned the the $1 million deed grant. We did attend on Thursday, April 24th, we attended the Minnesota Deed uh brownfields conference in St. Cloud. Uh obviously a big focus is on the uh contamination cleanup as well as uh these demo grants. Uh so we
were able to be there. Um met with uh Commissioner Verilick as the deed commissioner and and others across the state. Um it's clear and I know even having conversations with Dan Molly with the upcoming League of Minnesota Cities conference in Duth. Uh people are continuing to look at what Morehead is
doing here and and using us as an example of the good work that's happening. Um, last thing I'll mention is, uh, the DG Fuels, sustainable aviation fuel project. So, conversations do continue with DG Fuels. I'm actually going to be stepping out, uh, at 12:30 to join a
conversation with Greater MSP and the SAFHub out of uh, the state of Minnesota. There's a group of them going out to DC uh, within the next week or two here to have a conversation with a group in federal legislators. Right after that, then myself and Mayor
Shelley Carlson will be going out to DC with the Chambers DC flyin uh and and uh we'll meet with the DG Fields group as well. So excited to continue those conversations. Um I I put this out there because I know there's still a lot of questions. I I really don't see anything
happening in this federal legislative session specifically to the Morehead site uh as they focus on that Louisiana site, but really see that push towards the next federal session. um focusing hopefully on this Morehead site and trying to keep this project moving. So,
uh excited to uh continue to process and just continue to see developments happening in Morehead. So, with that, be happy to answer any questions. Looks like no questions. Perfect. All right. With that, we'll adjourn. Thank you all.