Speaker 1: Tonight's September 9th Select board meeting. At this time, I'd like to call the session to order at 6:36 PM and ask those in the room to please stand if you're able to say the Pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence, Speaker 2: A pledge of all Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God. It is all liberty, justice for all. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 3: First, Speaker 1: We have a few announcements. The select board meeting scheduled for tomorrow night. The workshop for the Johnson School has been canceled due,
due to some open meeting law of considerations, and it will be rescheduled late September or October. At our next meeting, September 17th, next regularly scheduled meeting, we will announce the date. Second announcement, Mr. Erickson. Speaker 4: Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'm just pleased to announce, and we can certainly do this again on the 17th, that the town of Natick was selected for a million dollar grant for the dam removal of the South Natick Dam. This is a project that the select board has been a part of relief for the better part of the last four to four
to six years, depending on when you actually start the, the consideration of, of the select board role. A lot of study, a lot of community engagement at the time, about four or five years ago, that led to the recommendation that the spillway be removed and we got awarded a, I believe it's called a dam and sea wall grant through the Heal Administration for the removal of, of the dam. We were one of only a handful of, of communities that got this size of a, of a grant, a number of communities to get, get funding for various work. But I believe Natika received one of $2 million,
or one of, sorry, five or $6 million plus grants, but still very few in the, in the, in the Commonwealth that receive these grants. And this will allow us likely to do almost all of the work that's necessary for that removal process. And it's for the Charles River Dam removal. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Erickson. Speaker 4: I want to give a quick shout out, sorry to please team for doing this work. I'm Jillian Wilson Martin, who's our sustainability manager. Fantastic job Bill Sprat, bill McDowell, Claire Relli, John Marshall and the DPW and, and others that, that helped inform the DAM process
and have been helping to advance the DAM process. An amazing team effort to get the dam work as well as our delegation just for their, providing their support through the process. So, thank it all. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. At the last regularly scheduled select board meeting, we, I gave a brief announcement about the status of our audit. I'm happy to say that the Na contributory retirement board, not auditor actuary, was able to get documents to our auditor by the end of that week. And so that is wrapping up very nicely. So just wanted to give an update to the public on that.
At this time, we'll enter into public speak. Any individual may raise an issue that is not included on tonight's agenda, and it'll be taken under advisement by the board. There'll be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting due to the requirements of open meeting law, this section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes, and any individual addressing the board during this section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes. Is there anyone in the room who wishes to address the board during public speak? It's right there. Is there anyone on Zoom who wishes to address the board in public speak? Seeing none, we will begin our discussion and decision section of the agenda.
So tonight is the beginning of a series of meetings. The select board will hold not only scheduled on the split tax rate, but these meetings are being held in the context of the commitments the select board made to residents and businesses during the override. One of the, one of the commitments we, we made was to examine the tax rate factor that's set by the board every November. So tonight I've invited several businesses to, to come and talk to the board about the impact or potential impact of a split tax rate on businesses,
several businesses and community leaders who could not be here. Speaker 4: Can I, sorry, I'm getting word that the sound might not be coming through, so I think I need to check with Pega. Oh, there we go. Pegas is just unmuted. Are be getting sound now, hopefully Speaker 1: Testing, Speaker 4: Yeah. Folks on Zoom were, it looks like the Pegasus just unmuted themselves. They, they, so I'm hopeful that it's resolved now. So continue. Sorry. Speaker 1: Do we know how long that was happening? Speaker 5: I think maybe until just now, I guess. Yeah. Someone texted me at six 40, chief, which was two minutes ago. They missed all the announcements, Speaker 1: So I, we're not gonna redo the announcements, but what we'll do is just, I'll give a brief overview
of the context of this meeting and subsequent meetings that will be scheduled. The select board has committed, committed to residents and business owners to undertake a number of studies and examinations over the course of the next year. One of that is examining whether or not it makes sense in Natick's economic context to adopt a split rate tax or a tax factor of less than, or more than one, meaning that we would shift part of the residential taxes tax levy onto commercial businesses.
We, Natick has always had a single tax rate. I've invited, the board has invited a number of business owners and community leaders to come before the board tonight. Some could not make it and instead have offered letters to the board and to the public. They are online with the agenda in the agenda packet for people to read. And I encourage you to continue to send us letters. The next series of meetings will include residents discussion of tax exemptions that we may be able to adopt to make residential tax tax burden less onerous on
some sectors of the community. There will be a discussion of what other communities have done for tax rates and whether it makes sense. For instance, we, we've heard in the last, you know, couple of years that Burlington has a mall and they have a split tax rate. So it could be, it could work here, but what we wanna do is look very deeply, not necessarily just at surface indicators. And we hope to continue these meetings over the course of the year. So at this time, I'd like to invite who will be speaking from Brookfield. Okay. So Brookfield is here. Brookfield Properties is here.
They own the mall and they will be doing a presentation for us. Could I ask you to come to the podium, introduce yourselves, make sure that the microphone is on the little green light, Speaker 6: Or if it's easier, why don't we put them at the table? Yeah, Speaker 1: If you come to the table, that might be easier. Sure. As long as the mics are on. I Speaker 6: Just, she's still the mic. Okay. On Pegasus. Okay. If the green light's on, green light's on, you're able to speak. Could you please, Speaker 1: Could you please, Speaker 6: If you don't want to Speaker 1: Tap, we're just going to still can't hear.
We're gonna take a moment. It looks like we're having some trouble with transmission difficulty. And Mr. Erickson's gonna check downstairs. So we're gonna take a two minute break while we try to resolve this. Mr. Erickson, I was wondering if you could bring up and share your screen. The, the Natick Malls presentation, it's attached to the agenda. Sure. Thank you. Speaker 3: Just do our intros when we get to the Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you Mr. Erickson. Speaker 7: You can go to the next slide. Speaker 3: Bruce, you can't move it too much 'cause it's gonna block the camera. Yes, thank you. Okay. Speaker 7: Alright, we'll start with introductions if you're ready, please. Thank you. So we have several of us
representing Brookfield Properties retail this evening. My name is Janelle Vaughn. I'm the Vice President of Property Management, which essentially means I oversee a number of our retail assets up and down the, the Eastern Seaboard, one of which is Natick Mall. To my far left is Mike Lima. Mike is our senior manager of Property tax, so he manages our property tax across the entire country, north America. And of course you all know Jen Carney, a senior general manager of Natick Mall, who we have the pleasure of working with. So I wanna begin just by thanking you. We really appreciate the
opportunity to be here this evening. We are not often given this opportunity to weigh in with the town before they make such a major decision such as this. So we truly appreciate the fact that you're willing to listen to our concerns. We enjoy a wonderful partnership with the town of Natick, and we wanna continue to be a healthy and thriving economic engine for both Brookfield and the town of Natick. Next slide, please. So during our presentation, you'll hear from my coworkers, they'll delve into each of these considerations,
but I kind of wanna give you a high level overview of why we feel like a split tax rate will really hit Natick Mall below the belt. First off is increase increased occupancy costs in retail leases. The taxes of for a property are actually passed through to tenants as part of their occupancy cost. So an increase in the re real estate tax is a threat to our occupancy in the center because it can potentially make our real estate unaffordable for our retailers. In addition to that, retail is really under a lot of pressure right now. Natick mul in particular for,
for whatever the reason has been very slow to, to recover from COVID more so than many of our other properties in the Northeast. Additional, additionally, utility rates have really skyrocketed, putting additional pressure on our retailers. And you add to that the tariff issues that retailers are currently attempting to navigate. And it's a bit of a perfect storm. The impact that this might have on Natick is also very important as an economic engine for the re region. Natick Mall employs roughly 1200 full-time employees
and 600 part-time employees that generates over $5 million in payroll tax. And in addition to the real estate tax that we pay, we also throw off sales tax on roughly, roughly $500 million. So it does make us a pretty big economic engine in the region. Probably most important to us right now is the competitive environment. As the retail sector continues to be strained, retailers are more and more particular about which markets they enter and which locations they enter within that market. When they do decide to enter a market, take Boston in particular, they have many choices.
Gone are the days where they put a location in every super regional mall in the market. They're looking at individual locations that are going to make them the most profitable. And attracting first to market tenants to Natick Mall is a cornerstone of our leasing strategy. So the bottom line is we wanna continue to be the cornerstone of the local economy, and we hope that you protect that position through a single and fair tax rate. So I'm gonna turn it over to Jen, who's gonna give you a little more information on some of the other expenses that play into our business. Speaker 8: Good evening, Speaker 2: I make sure your mic is on,
Speaker 8: Please. Oh, yes. Hello. Good evening. So as you can see in this graph here, back in 2019, our expenses, just our operational expenses, were at almost $18 million. Fast forward to two thou to 2025, you see a 9% increase. And then by 2027, we are, we are projecting these expenses to reach $21.2 million. Obviously in a very volatile envi environment, these are just based on projections will be a 20% increase over pre COVID levels. These rising costs reflect inflationary pressures on every
asset of our business. Additional burden would undermine recovery efforts that we've been diligently working at and still trying to get to pre COVID occupancy levels as Janelle was just stating during COVID. And, and the 12 to 18 months after COVID, we lost 30 plus retailers and restaurants. And we are still on that climb back, most notably three bacon anchor stores that we are again, still challenged, making great headway, but we still have a lot of work to do. Next slide. Everyone in this room and,
and everyone that is listening and are very aware of the increases of expenses across the board here at the Natick Mall, our real estate taxes are our number one expense. Number two is millions below that, all across the board. And certainly in Massachusetts, utility increase has just been astronomical and so volatile. They change from month to month, making our projections almost unattainable. Delivery fees, as we know, have far surpassed our usage and our kilowatt expenses, again,
in the northeast specifically, has become extremely challenging. Never in my tenure at the Natick Mall, which most of you know that I've been there for 19 years, have I ever received such a volume of calls from corporate retailers wondering what is going on with our expenses, maintenance, repairs, again, shortage of supplies, shortage of parts. If you have shopped through Natick Mall recently and tried to get up or down stairs, you might notice that there, it's really difficult not blaming one vendor specifically, but it is just a challenge to get people to respond to you,
get the parts that you so desperately need on an aging infrastructure. More specifically, security and staffing, obviously, when we wanna maintain a very safe, secure, clean environment. With that comes the burden of, of labor and union labor. We have housekeeping, we have landscapers, we have HVEC techs, we have H-H-V-E-C techs, we have the vertical transportation techs. I mean, the list goes on and on. We have pest control. So as you can imagine, the expenses are just climbing exponentially, not to mention insurance. So again, an expense that is becoming increasingly difficult
to project and maintain those costs. So stability and tax policy is critical to offset these continuing pressures Beyond sort of what I highlighted of the, on the expenses. We also have infrastructure improvements. So we have a separate pool of funds every year that we spend on parking deck restoration, paving, rooftop units, security vehicles, maintenance vehicles. So the list goes on and on. So there's are millions of dollars that we reserve every year to again maintain that class.
A premier property that we're so proud of in na, in Natick. And again, these investments are, are notable and are picked up upon by our competitors. We are, we are proud. Whenever I go with somewhere, I'm proud to say that I'm the manager of the general mall because the thing that people almost always say is, feels so great there. It's, it feels safe, it feels clean. And that that's a wonderful feeling. Capital incentive for retailers and, and not so common, I think, to the everyday person, but to attract these retailers. We also have a separate set of, of funding where we try to attract these retailers.
Like at Janelle Heads had noted they shop us. You know, not only are shoppers shopping, but our retailers are shopping us. And so how do, how do we, we entice those retailers to choose us. We have to make it attractive for them to come. And so what does that mean for us? It means that we have to sort of structure these new deals and, and offer big funds to, maybe it's based in a tenant allowance or maybe it's a, a landlord build out. So it makes it more attractive, makes it more affordable to come to us. So when they're shopping, they say, okay, where's it more affordable to go? Speaker 6: Can I ask what what you mean by those two terms?
Tenant allowance and buildout land out. Landlord buildout. Landlord Speaker 8: Buildout. Yep. Landlord buildout. Yep. Speaker 6: If you could just, Speaker 8: Oh, sure. So t so for an example, as you many of you know that the, the Sears, the former Sears box, it's which, which you have three retailers in there now. We have Lucid, we have Level 99 and Dave and Busters. Well, we, right now we have a vacant 56,000 square foot public parcel that is somewhat un it's, it's raw as we call it. So there's no utilities there. So in order to bring that new that space to life, it's gonna cost millions of dollars in investment.
And so to get someone to take that space, what, what will we as, as Brookfield, offer a retailer to come to that space to choose us. So we would in essence, either build a space out for them, so stub utilities and, and, and make it almost not move in, but almost move in ready is what we, that's layman's term to use. Okay. Speaker 6: Yeah. Thank you. That's you're welcome. Speaker 8: So again, using, you know, capital infrastructure is so important to us. Keeps the building intact, keeps it more attractive for our retailers. And then that second, second pool of funds also to attract those retailers first to class, first market
brick and mortar, who wanna convert over to, I mean, I'm sorry, online retailers that wanna convert over to brick and mortar. And we would be delving into those funds, excuse me, if we were to adopt a different tax rate. So ongoing capital spending is also essential to maintaining our competitive in a challenging retailer environment. If you build it, they will come. Thank you, Jen. Sure. And I'll turn it over to Mike Lima. Speaker 9: Thank you. And good evening to you all. So as my colleague Janelle mentioned that real estate taxes are passed through to the, the tenant.
So with a split tax rate, you know you're gonna have higher, higher taxes that we would have to pass through, which will essentially create pot, the potential for further vacancies. You know, Natick Mall currently has several large format and small inline vacancies, which is also a growing risk in today's retail environment for a lot of the properties that I manage throughout through the, the portfolio. Just want to highlight some key considerations regarding vacancy. You know, limited demand, you know, you know, retailers are cautious, they're very savvy as well.
They're slowing expansion plans, consolidating stores, and weighing, you know, physical locations against e-commerce growth. Secondly, longer vacancy periods as vacant spaces sit on occupied for extended periods. It limits rent collection and delays. Revenue recovery, high capital, you know, investment. There's a high cost for reconfiguring and redeveloping vacant spaces for new, for new tenants, it requires high upfront costs, you know, such as con construction costs, which would be seen over the last several years.
Those costs have gone up significantly, which creates a lot of uncertainty, you know, for return on the investment for, for our tenants. And with, there's also like a, a ripple effect that occurs with, with, with vacancy because of reduced foot traffic, it slows down leasing velocity and weakens overall occupancy and sales performance. To summarize, you know, vacancy, the, the presence of vacancy adds risk complexity to the mall operations and directly constraints revenue. A split tax rate would only heighten these challenges
by increasing the occupancy costs and reducing flexibility to backfill space. Next slide please. Thank you. In conclusion, a split tax rate threatens Natick Mall. Our tenants in the broader commercial ecosystem, higher commercial tax rate will drive up tenant occupancy costs, putting small businesses at risk, loss of tenants equals loss of jobs, sales tax, and long-term property values increase real estate taxes, reduces NOI creating a lower valuation of the asset
for tax assessment purposes. Furthermore, there has been solidarity among the commercial owners within, within the town in favor of keeping a split tax rate. Additionally, I'd like to add that, you know, I oversee property tax for our retail portfolio and I've seen the impacts of, of significantly higher taxes on our assets, which in some cases we've, we've, we've lost the real estate and it, it's, it's something that, you know, being part of Brookfield, they don't want that.
They, they are an anchor in a lot of our communities across the country. And we are, we're looking to sustain, you know, our properties as best as we can in mitigating, you know, these expenses as, as much as possible to keep our tenants in place and thriving. So to, to conclude, let's protect what works fair, stable, and competitive single tax rate that benefits all of Natick. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mike. Questions, comments from members of the board? Speaker 6: Quick comment, which Speaker 1: Goes Mr. Evans? Speaker 6: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to the COVID days, I remember
that in order to keep tenants you did some generous, I don't know what the right terminology is to, to, to keep the tenants in place during that. And that was over the a period of a couple years timeframe? Speaker 8: Yes. In, in, in most cases it, it was over spread over several years depending on the, the remaining term of the lease. Correct. Speaker 6: Thank you, Ms. Pope. All I have to say thank, thank you very much for the detailed presentation and, and giving us a lot of good information
to operate on. Thank Speaker 7: You for having Speaker 9: Us. Thank you for having us. Speaker 10: Agreed. Hi, good evening everyone. Thank you as well for the detailed presentation. One of the things that I've appreciated watching, you know, the post COVID evolution of the Natick Mall is the pivot, the continual pivot that has been made to keep those, you know, big MC stores filled and to keep foot traffic there. So, you know, I I have to applaud that. I think we as a community should, and as you said, as a region, my question is about the slowness for the mall to come back.
I'm sure there's plenty of factors, but I think that was mentioned that this mall has struggled a bit more than some of the other malls maybe that are similar or nearby. Is there any data or anything that you can point to that demonstrates why the Natick Mall has had a slower climb back than some of the others? Speaker 7: We wish that we, that we had that data. It's something we have attempted to figure out. I mean, part of it is just sheer size, right? It's, this is one of our bigger assets. We were struggling with occupancy prior to CID in the former Neiman's wing.
And so we, I think we had a higher hill to climb at Natick than we had at some other properties to recover. Yeah. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Schlager. Speaker 11: Thank you Madam Chair. And thank you to the team from the mall. I apologize for not being there in person tonight. Trust me. You don't want me there coughing on you. I I found the presentation very informative. Thank you so much for the time and the effort and for showing up tonight. It, I think it's very important that our community hear from you and hear your perspective.
I did wanna bring up one thing that I have heard from members of, of the community, and I just wanted to, to get your take on it. And if you don't have the information, that's fine too. But some of the proponents for a split tax rate have said that since COVID, that actually property taxes for our businesses have gone down. Can you speak to that? Speaker 9: Property techs have gone down because of COVI in a sense of appeals that take into consideration of the, you know, the pandemic and its drive of lower NOI.
So the, the, the, the, you know, pre COVID, the NOI was, was healthy. And then post COVID and, and and recovery, we were, we weren't able to kind of capture what was done prior to the pandemic. And that's always been presented in our, in our appeals, you know, from my perspective in, in areas that were, you know, kind of, or malls that were already somewhat struggling. And the, the pandemic just pretty much kind of wiped that, that out and, and, and resulted in, in a lower tax assessment,
which is a lower, you know, tax 'cause value times tax rate is, is, is what, is what the, what the taxes come out to be. So if that kinda explains your, your question a bit. Speaker 1: Mike, could I just jump in for one second? No, I is net operating income. Yes. And so the net operating income has gone down because you're not generating as much income. And so that leads to, so this is an area where vacancies, you had mentioned vacancies reduce the NOI net operating income and it's kind of a domino effect.
I, I imagine. So the greater the number of vacancies, fewer people shopping them all to lease there, which brings down your operating income, which brings down your, your taxes. So even with a split tax rate, if the, if the tax taxes were split and the rate were higher on commercial properties. And I also wanted to point out one thing, Mike, you mentioned appeals. Natick Mall has never appealed a tax bill from, from the town of Natick. So there are businesses in town who file them every year. Natick Mall is not one of them. So, so what we have then is split the tax rate.
If that has an impact on vacancies, then The NOI goes down and then that tax that's not paid by the commercial properties gets shifted back onto the residence because it's still one big pie. So we have to figure out what that budget number is and divide it between commercial properties and the residential properties. So if the residential properties aren't doing well, if they're not thriving, they're not paying the full amount that they properties. I'm sorry, you said residential. I meant commercial properties. Commercial and industrial properties. If they're not thriving, then they're not paying the full weight of what they would have.
So from my perspective that my, my question would be, you know, how do we keep our business, and this is part of an ongoing conversation, right? It's not just about the taxes. How do we create an economic development culture in Natick that, that supports and builds our commercial tax base because co the commercial tax base, they're not using our schools. They're not using, you know, I mean trash services, trash services, they're using public safety in some, some instances. But for the most part that's kind of a,
Speaker 7: It's a lesser Speaker 1: Expense. It's a lesser expense. Ms. Swogger, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you that you have the floor. Speaker 11: That's all right. I, I found a, it interesting in, in your presentation that you mentioned how the, the utility and, and the water bills in particular, that's been something that's been a, a subject of, of our board recently. We, we changed some of the water rates and how they were structured and I noticed that you do not pay that there is one commercial rate and, and it does not get the benefit of not having
to pay the M-W-A-M-W-R-A sewer charges. So I was wondering if, are there things about Natick that might be different than other communities in, in terms of things that might affect your profitability? And I'm asking this not so much from a split tax rate perspective, but just in in general, there things, different fees or things that you get from other communities that maybe aren't present in Natick that we should be aware of Speaker 7: From other commun. I, I think in general we enjoy a very strong working partnership with the town of Natick.
I, I would, from my perspective, and this, this is probably a kiss and a curse, you know, Natick is very involved with our business. They notice when we cut down a tree or, you know, and, and we, we appreciate the fact that you take as much pride in our asset as we do because we want to maintain a class A property. But I would, I wouldn't say that there are extraordinary fees that we pay at Natick that we don't have at other properties. Great. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If there's any other, Mr. Rich? Mr. Sidney. Speaker 12: Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate the presentation. I'm gonna follow up on Ms. Wolf logger's question and then I'll have a comment. Are there services that other communities provide that Natick does not, that would help help them all? Speaker 8: I mean I certainly can't speak for a bunch of other malls. I'd have, I'd have to do a little bit. This might be a great Hallmark project quite frankly. 'cause I can't really speak for other malls in our portfolio, like delve in that granular, but we could certainly look into something. I just, I think, I mean a lot
of our malls ingrained in the community. So I can't, I don't know off the top of my head. I could certainly, yeah, I Speaker 12: Mean this goes to Ms. Coughlin's Yeah. Point of we wanna make a really good environment for you guys to thrive in. Speaker 8: I I will certainly say, I mean, you, you do, the town has always been wonderful to us. Jamie, Dave Gosman, the police department, the fire department, they're very supportive. And quite frankly, I, I feel lucky and I think I, I share this with some of my colleagues who don't have some of the really long and expensive challenges that we have. Long, I mean expensive for retailers,
but we consider ourselves quite luckily because we can pick up the phone and reach any one of you any day of the week. And that is not something that my business partners have the luxury of these days. So I certainly can get back to you on that one. Just, Speaker 12: Yeah, Speaker 4: I, I can add some, a couple of quick things just from my perspective. So I've worked with Gen now for 10 years and I started as the planning and development director. So in a different capacity. We were working a lot in ex exploring more that district as a whole to try to just generate additional eec economic revenue and engine for the community and the region.
A lot of what we were hearing was how can we overall just improve access to transportation, access to jobs for really all workers, but especially those workers that would be at the mall, which tend to be the more entry level or lower wage workers and things like the continual rail trail, but even other transit items or opportunities to access public transit is something that we as a community and more broadly as a region in my opinion, would net benefit not only the mall but also just the, the neighborhood. And we have some other property owners here tonight.
But also just in working with some other property owners in the neighborhood, access to those transportation networks is almost always a question from their employees, from the employee base. And that alone can be something that we as a community can start to, well can continue to try to implore. It's not gonna be all Natick though, that's a regionwide issue. It's also gotta require the partnerships of our MBTA, the MA mass, mass Pay Transit authority, mass, D-O-T-M-W-R-T-A-M-W-R-T-A And the like. And it's gonna be a series of benefits or,
or a series of, of improvements I guess, or, or targeted efforts. But those are things that, that have definitely been on my mind for the last 10 plus years since working at Natick. And I know it's something that our current planning and development director, Amanda Loomis has also been exploring. We're fortunate that Natick has great transit roots, mass pike, route nine, two commuter rail stations on probably the busiest commuter rail airline in and outta Boston between Boston and Worcester and, and all the other arterial roads coming in to and from it. And getting those all interconnected is gonna be a big item
that just overall is a region we need to figure out how to do. 'cause it's also gonna help with just all of our overall traffic flow and economic growth. Just one option, one thing to think about. Speaker 7: I I could also add, I mean we do work with a number of communities on, you mentioned grants earlier. We've received grants for improvements on, on our properties for things like heated sidewalks, which cuts our snow removal expense. We have tiffs in some markets, which we would be happy to work with you on for a major project at Natick Mall as well. Speaker 12: Mr. Sydney? Yes. Thank you. So I just, I have a comment.
You know, I've lived in Natick for over 35 years now and I've, I watched the construction, I watched the tear down of the Wonder Bread factory. And I, I think the thing that has most impressed me about you guys, even in relationship to some of the other retail outlets in the region, is the imagination you put into finding tenants. It's not, you're not always, it's not always the, you know, normal chain store, but you find unique ways to use your spaces. And I wanna commend you for that.
Speaker 7: Thank you. It's a changing landscape and that's what kind of makes, makes it fun. Even though it's a challenge. Speaker 4: If I can quickly add, that actually speaks to another thing that we can work on as a community for the benefit of flukes like the mall, which is flexible, but predictable permitting processes. So if they have an ability to have flexible uses and flexible permitting processes that are predictable and they know what to expect going through, even if the answer at the end of the day is no, at least they can get through those processes predictably and, and in a timely manner. In my experience working with, with in many communities in 20 plus years in planning
and development, that is often what I hear most from developers. What's the permitting process and how fast will I be able to get through that? And is it predictable? In the case of the mall though, it's also the flexibility because of that need for the creative uses of the existing spaces and really for that district as a whole. I think that's beyond even just the mall. Just Speaker 6: A follow up, Mr. Erickson, is that something that we need to tackle from a zoning bylaw perspective or do we have what we have, have what we Speaker 4: Need? No, no. It's, it's a, an additional phase to the work
that we're doing on our zoning bylaw that Amanda and, and and team are definitely working on. It started when I was in that role, we did the master plan for the ni for that golden triangle area in partnership with Framingham. And we really need to, after that master plan, the pandemic hit and then we are trying to reinvigorate that because there, the post pandemic is very different than pre pandemic, especially when it comes to a market like the Natick Mall area, the golden triangle. And so understanding how we need to be flexible, but also getting the predictability in there. If you look at the zoning map in that district, there's like 10 overlay, I'm exaggerating, there's a lot
of overlay district, there's a lot of underlying zoning. Making that more streamlined and and under understandable and predictable for, for the developers and the property owners is a, I think a, a north star that we need to be working to achieve. Speaker 6: We need to demystify that and take the, some of the rocket science out of it. Speaker 4: Yeah, and, and quite frankly, some of the unpredictable process that that, that gives a level of understanding to, to the, from the forefront to the property owners as to what's expected. And we can, we can do that. It takes time.
It also takes a lot of partnership and it takes a lot of flexibility in in our, in our regulators to be willing to, to do that and understand that. So we will get there, but it's just another component of what, in my experience and working with these types of districts would be a net benefit for property owners and developers. Speaker 1: Also looking at select board policies that impact retail. So when we were rewriting our alcohol policy late last year, Dave and Busters came to a meeting and said, we really wanna close at one, Framingham closes at one and we're losing business to Framingham.
And so I was in touch with Jen and asked her for a list. I gave her a list of the restaurants that were in the mall and said, I just need contact addresses for these people. Also contacted the hotels and sent out an email saying, here's our alcohol policy that we're working on. It's a draft, take a look at it and see if it works for you and what doesn't work. And then get back, get back with us. So those kinds of things, being aware that, you know, being open to the businesses that are there and saying, you know, we need feedback and then we'll do whatever we can to make that possible. So we, we did that within two meetings. Yeah. It was really relatively quick. Yeah, no, that's good work.
If there are no more questions from members of the board, I'd like to see if members of the public have any questions. Mr. Jacobs, could you just come to the podium so we can get you on a mic? Speaker 13: Hey, Cody Jacobs. I'm at 16 Tamarack Road, or I guess we don't have to say that anymore, but I, I do live here. So just a, a quick comment and then I have two questions. My quick comment is I just want to thank you. I'm a mall power user myself. I, it's kinda my second office. I go there, get some boba chill out. So I appreciate what you were saying about the nice environment there. I I use it a lot myself. But anyway, the two questions I had, number one is in terms of the relationship between taxation
and vacancies, you know, we, we've never had, as has been discussed, we've never had a split tax rate in Natick, but we certainly have had tax increases before. Like we just passed an override. We've had, you know, debt exclusions, things like that. And I'm curious if in your time here, if there have been changes in, you know, these kind of have, have those increases in taxes led to a dec either an increase in vacancies or a increase in the, the time of the vacancies, like what you were talking about there, about the sensitivity of, of vacancies to tax increases.
Speaker 8: So I would say that that's a little bit difficult to answer only because have have that, could you make sure you, oh, sorry. So I, the first question and well, thank you. I'm, I'm now, now we'll name of the face when I see you power using them all. Oh, okay. But I would say that's a little bit of a difficult answer to question. I mean a question to answer only because has a retailer come to me or us and said I'm leaving 'cause your taxes are too high. Not specifically, but could we have had several tenants that have come to the end of their lease and decide whether they're gonna renew or not, say, Hmm, can't, can't swing this one. And, and whether it relates to just taxes, I cannot say,
but could there be fallout from that? Absolutely. Speaker 13: Okay, thank you. And then one other question if I, if I may, I was curious like in, in terms of the, you know, discussion about infrastructure and stuff like that and how it affects your employees if the housing crisis in Metro West has an impact on your business or on the, you know, the people who work at the mall. Speaker 8: Another one. I I would just say that how we, how we analyze it might not necessarily tie to exactly the housing crisis, but certainly we, we watch our traffic patterns, right? Yeah. And so sort of we're just getting into some new
technology that's gonna really, really provide us that opportunity to really analyze it much, much greater than we have been. I mean technology has been great, but certainly not where we would like it to be. And so that's been a little bit of a challenge. But certainly you'll hear the feedback from retailers all, you know, we'll see it with our own eye. And again, yes, some of of the technology has been there to sort of see those traffic patterns and, and, and actually we used to use a seasonality index and so some of that stuff's gone, but some of this new technologies coming, we'll be able to much greater analyze and slice
and dice it is what I've kind of heard. So can't answer specifically other than just kind of seeing what we've seen. Yeah. And just seeing tenants, you know, leave it Yeah. Like where we are with our vacancies. Right. So tough to say, you know, with three vacant angers at the time, obviously traffic's gonna reduce, right? So, so not to the best answers, but as best as I can, I Speaker 13: Understand. No, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank Speaker 1: You. Thank you. Mr. Jacobs. Is there anyone else who wishes to Mr. Joseph? Speaker 14: Thank you Madam Chair. Paul, Speaker 13: Is it on? Thank you Madam Chair. Paul Joseph, I also live in Natick,
but chair of the UDCI, I guess I, I wanna say from an economic development perspective, and I've heard, and you alluded to it a little bit, Mr. Erickson expounded on transit in particular, when people say why can't we, we split it like Burlington, you've danced around this in many different ways, but I want to very clearly state for people that are listening, these macroeconomic environmental factors have a tremendous impact on the overall traffic patterns at a mall. When we talk about Burlington, Massachusetts, we're talking about a place
that has a transportation management association, private business interests along 1 28 and the MBTA service that accesses alewife. They have large employers like SAP and Oracle, they have a hospital complex there. So they have frequent people coming in to their mall area. So the things that drive traffic without putting more cars on the road, in addition to being on the untold northern corridor along 1 93, they're getting traffic from the New Hampshire Transit as transients as well. So when you compare that to
the South Shore Mall in Braintree, which also has a similar benefit of people driving point south what Natick Mall has as an additional competitive factor, two additional competitive factors. One, the lack of connectivity to the interior MBTA transit network. Two, the Chestnut Hill developments that kind of have basically put a dam upstream so to speak, sorry, that's topical with the dam removal, but it, it basically does influence people coming out of Boston that live in Metro West. So there are a myriad of factors here at a macroeconomic level that, that puts a Burlington at a very distinct advantage to us.
So again, for the members of the public that just say, you know, we, we have to look at these things holistically, and I've heard the arguments many times, it's not that simple. And to Mr. Erickson's point about predictability, that's really important. But I also think it's important to, you know, have these conversations more frequently. 'cause I, I appreciate the fact that, you know, you guys are hitting a trend in industries and I have a background, if you, you go back 10 years and look at trends from the Retail Managers Association or the Restaurant Restaurant Management Association, I'm getting the acronyms wrong on one of them.
Ram Restaurant Association of Massachusetts is one, the data shows and the Merck data from Framingham State emphasizes that real wages in the industries that are employed within the mall are declining. And the cost of living is more than triple in rate of increase. So the cost for the stores to hire the people to be in the mall is an additional challenge for their tenants. So to the fact that this is the dog that's not barking because people aren't saying I'm leaving because of taxes, does not mean it doesn't enter the calculus.
And I just wanna be very explicit there is local and regional data to show that. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Joseph. I I did have one question I just noticed from my, from your presentation you mentioned Natick Mall employs 1200 full-time, 600 part-time. Is that employees in the tenant stores or is that Natick Mall employing? It's like Brook Brookfield Properties employ, that's the mall, the facility, the mall facility. Speaker 7: The retail, yeah, the retail, yeah. It doesn't really count some of the employees that Jen mentioned that may work
for our landscape or our Sure. Contract. HVAC contractor or vertical transportation contractor. That's just retail employees. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Any questions in Zoom land? Seeing none, I'd like to thank you all three for coming tonight and taking the time to put together this presentation and we'll continue to have discussions with business owners and residents and things like that. So again, appreciate your time. Thank you Speaker 7: For your time. Thank you. Really appreciate Speaker 1: It. Thank you very much. Speaker 15: Thank you very much. Speaker 1: Yes, Mr. Pratt Cohen Pratt, if you would like to come up here
and have a seat, introduce yourself and your business interests, which are legion. Speaker 16: Good Speaker 1: Evening. Good evening, Pratt. Speaker 15: There we go. Sherwood Plaza, HC Atlantic Development and a BI lab representing that, that group of businesses. First of all, I'd like to just say yes to 95% of everything that went on in the mall. I don't have the same challenges at Sherwood, but we do have one anchor vacancy. Not quite the same level of intensity,
but what I would like to add on to the types of pressures and things they were talking about, the retail marketplace really took, you know, a very direct 90 degree turn post COVID. It was happening before COVID and the accelerator just went to the floor. Tenant leverage shifted from location, location, location to price, price, price. So everything about a negotiation with a major retailer shifted. Small stores, thousand square feet, 500 square feet, those types of things.
You still, it's about where you are and your co-tenancy, your co-tenancy, meaning who else is in line with your business. Large retailers, I don't care, you know who it is, doesn't matter what the format is, the entertainment, clothing, you know, whatever it is, they understand exactly what the numeric metrics are and they are comparing you with every other site here in Idaho, in California. And they're just trying to minimize that spend. And they're doing all the math. We have to basically guarantee a
foreseeable tax rate to them as part of the negotiation. And if we are, if we somehow come off, if we're not correct, that's coming directly out of rent. So there's a real acute sensitivity to price and what is going on in the marketplace. And, and I think I speak for just about everybody in this market that, you know, starting rents in most places went down anywhere between 10 and 30%. Between pre COVID run rates
and post COVID new renewals or renegotiations or new tenants. Very difficult to get rents. We were getting in 20 10, 20 15, impossible, to be quite honest. So the folks from Brook Brookfield talked about lower net incomes. There is an inherent, what I look at as a macro cyclical problem. We have in Natick specifically, we have about eight or 10 sites that have been redeveloped during the last eight to 10 years.
And if you remove those eight to 10 single taxpayer sites, you are left with hundreds of small sites based upon state data that I've found. Those 10 sites, let's use using that number very, you know, approximately, so don't, don't hold me to 10, it could be nine, it could be 11. A huge amount of the valuation increase in commercial properties has been in those, those developments, if you remove them from the overall asset valuation of commercial properties, retail, other commercial,
industrial, we are near flat, maybe a 2% increase in assessed values. That is very poor run for the last five years. Residences during the same period have increased at almost 10% per year. 8.7 9.1. It varies year to year, but a huge amount of value increase in the residential side. So I appreciate the fact that residential taxes are increasing, but if I put my commercial owner hat on, I was a landowner
or a business owner, I'm actually hurting because if I thought 10 years ago I might be able to sell my business for a million dollars, I'm may get 900,000 for it now. And I've been spending and working through those 10 years, typically we assume that there's an increase in value. That's what people work for. You know, I'm just, I'm not trying to, this is not a emotional plea. This is really more of an economic reality, is that housing and residential has been on a trained of increase of values.
Your typical, you know, non invested commercial properties have been flat. And I would contend you could drive through town and see that drive up 1 35, drive up Route nine, take exponent a BI lab MathWorks Cognex out of that equation. And you're gonna see a lot of businesses that, that are older, underperforming, vacant. And I'm not talking about rice theory or you know, places that are underwater. I'm not, I'm not. But look at the
furniture store on Route nine. It's a beautiful building, renovated building. It's been vacant for two years. This is the kind of thing I worry about if we make natick less competitive. I I also wonder if, from what I've, again, my research is that there's a cycle that can occur in this. We have about, we, again, we have these 10, what I would call kind of a class properties in town. Those people have reinvested, they've built those businesses. The one thing I will say, the, the mall being kind of a, an exception to that is they are very
homegrown operations. There are single people or groups of people that are heavily invested in this town. I'll take our own Sherwood Plaza, 70 years reinvesting, building new buildings. Those are unicorns in the world. Those are not common investors coming in and saying, I wanna be in Natick. They're saying I'm already in Natick and I wanna do a little more. That is a dangerous precipice to be on in my book. We are not attracting out of town investments.
That should be a warning to us that our commercial base is very insular. That we are not bringing new large scale operations into town retail. Absolutely. We're, we're bringing things in, it's going well, but I would say for a real economic engine for the town, and I speak as not only as a business owner, but also part of the economic development committee, that, that we are in a position where I think we should be aiming farther, stronger, and bigger. And I, you know, agree with the transit things.
There's lots of reasons this can be, but I look at a split tax rate as being a potential deterrent to that. Lastly, Amanda and Jamie are doing amazing things on the zoning. It's a, it takes 10, 20 years to really do this well. But I would say that in the last five years, the amount of progress that's been made has been really amazing. And it's, it shows the online permitting, the cleaning up of the zoning tables is a lot of good pieces that started back, back in your time. And Amanda has done a fantastic job at continuing that process. So I'm happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1: I'll open up to members of the board, Mr. Evans. Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you for that. David. Don't really have many questions on that, but I would say that I think you're spot on with the, I'll call 'em the, the lead businesses. We have trouble attracting or we need to do a better job. I shouldn't say it that way. We need to do a better job of attracting commercial businesses. One of the ones that that's caught my eye recently
or in the last couple of years is the electric hydrogen place down in Strathmore. Yep. More of those, you know, those are the kind of businesses that we need to attract and, and figure out ways to get them here. You know, sometimes it's beefing up the building, sometimes it's, you know, the transportation issue. Sometimes it, it's just momentum. You know, as Abbey Labs, you know, incubates companies, they hopefully like Natick, like the commute, stay here,
expand their businesses in some of those places. So I think we do have our work cut out for us as a town, but I think we're, we're heading on a path towards that. But you know, it's like, to borrow a football analogy, we still have to do the blocking and tackling. Speaker 15: I, I agree. If I could follow up, one of the huge challenges we have as a town is our available lot sizes are incredibly small. Yes. As zoning has progressed over 30 years,
our lot lines did not. So when we talk about having four plate, four parking spots per, you know, thousand square feet or X or Y, those things begin to restrict what businesses can do on the existing parcels. We have those parcels don't change on their own. And to cobble together, we, we've looked at this many times to put together three or four parcels together, can take 15 or 20 years in this town. These are investments that no one is willing to say, oh,
okay, I'll just, I'll just hang around here. They're gonna go to Marlboro, they're gonna go to Southborough, they're gonna go to Framingham. And I think, you know, that's, that's part of our ecosystem that we just have to accept. We may not want to accept it, but people coming in to do ground up development, they're not gonna use those small spots. I, and I hate to say that I, I'm a huge, you know, I'm the flag waiver of all flag waivers. I'm on the committee, I'm there, but most of the sites we have are too small to build a multi-story building on. That's it. Am I, you know,
Speaker 4: No, you're spot on. And this is a legacy from just when those industrial parks were first created back in the fifties. So this isn't something that is a thing that we, that we natick the town government can necessarily do much with. It's just the built environment or the lot environment, I guess, for lack of a better term. Yep. The ground environment within which we're living. But that does speak to, again, trying to understand from the zoning perspective, how can we ensure the flexibility that is needed to maybe allow or encourage lot consolidation and or certain types of development on the existing lots that,
and that goes back to regulation or requirements, minimum requirements, maximum requirements, things along those lines to, to, to support whatever that future vision is. But it, it's, if consolidation of lots is, is certainly a component of that in my, in my opinion, just 'cause it, it's, it, you have two primary industrial parks along with arterial roadways. The primary industrial parks are all 10,000 square foot buildings, you know, smaller buildings and 10 thousands, like even aggressive sometimes. That's like a larger size building
in those industrial parks. Yeah, yeah. So Speaker 1: A question for you, Mr. Pratt, why would it take 20 years to develop those parcels? Is it our form of government? Is it zoning? Is it, what, what are the factors that make it difficult in Natick to be able to do this where it can be done more easily in other places? Speaker 15: Well, well I think, you know, beyond lot size, it is just, it's just a matter of, we have a very small amount of corridors, right? So we have two industrial parks, they're very quite small. The major roadways get a premium
because they're get in car traffic. So they're, you know, someone like Exponent going into that site is really unique. You know, MathWorks, you, you, you know, they're a fantastic tenant for the town. Yes, they are. Don't get me wrong. Like I I, they're great folks. They're great. You know, I always in the back of my head say if that company ever sold to someone else, where would we be? Would a new owner of that company put 6,000? I dunno what the number of employees are now, but it's going to be, I think that with this next, yeah, the next, something like that, would all those employees be in Natick?
And I don't know, I don't know what the answer to that question is, but it makes me scratch my head. And that makes me worry about, you know, there's plenty of office space, right? We have, we have a lot of office space vacant in town. Yes. So the other, the other piece, just the resistance to redevelop, given the size of the available building that you can put on just plain old math, right? ROI, if you can only build a 5,000 square foot building and it costs you the smaller the building,
the higher the construction cost. Yep. So it might cost you $500 a square foot to build a building. You can't charge the rents to support the investment in the building. So it becomes quite simple. You, you know, it's about four equations and you've realized that this doesn't make sense. We had this with a BI lap, like, until we got to that, the site behind Sherwood Plaza, until we got above 65,000 square feet, there was no possible way that we would've made that investment. That's it. It, it's, there is a, there's a cliff that you, that you find in construction
where your dollar per square foot goes from, you know, maybe it's 300 down, down to 2 75. And the spreadsheet works, you know, that it's, it's the way, it's the way the construction industry functions. So I think those are the key things. And I think there's a little bit of co-tenancy involved. Right. We have a lot of Class B and class C buildings. Yes. Most of the buildings in the industrial parks are 30, 40 years old, so there's not a lot of good looking neighbors there. So that's, that's a, a little bit of an issue.
But I think lastly I would say we have no economic development kind of entity that can participate in that process. And I'm not pitching for it, or I'm just literally saying Framingham as an economic development committee that's a private enterprise. Yes. They can buy, they can sell, they can lease. So to talk about long-term planning and saying we want to take these four parcels around a corner at the hydrogen site, and we want to take the whole end of that street and make it into a thing you could purchase
and lease back on shorter term leasing those buildings. You may have to do it at a discount, but you can do it. And that's another engine that we don't have in our, you know, it's, it's a tool that we don't have as a town. Again, I'm not promoting that. I'm just saying understand these are the differences between different towns and what we have available to us. Speaker 1: We also don't have staff dedicated to marketing Natick. Speaker 15: No. Correct. Speaker 1: I mean, we have a wonderful CED staff, but they are stretched and understand very thinly staffed. Any other comments or questions from members of the board?
Yes, Ms. Pope, Speaker 10: Thank you so much. You're welcome. For all that you've shared, based on what you've shared and what we're where we are in terms of this conversation around the single versus split. What, what do you see in the next 10 to 15 years? Speaker 15: Well, I look at the, I a I look at neighboring towns. Alright, Framingham, city government, independent economic development, you know, tools, you know, they're, they're really kind of in a, in a different spot. And also their stock of construction and building is different than ours.
Framingham State, the, the surrounding of that. Even the s Fe site, you know, some of the other places, they're, they're a little bit, they're a little bit more of an aggressive engine in Framingham for us, I think, you know, I think of us as competing with Wellesley, with Weston, you know, even Sherborne, you know, kind of stretch it to Needham. But again, Needham creates a different, is a different economic engine with 1 28. But, you know, I look at those towns they're in all of those we're within a dollar and a half or $2 on a, on a single tax rate.
And I'm looking at that competitive region. And again, if you go out to going farther west out to 4 95, you have a another mix of single and split. I I see the, the challenge that I think we have as Natick is I see residential property values continuing to increase because I'm, I I speak with people in residential real estate all the time. Natick is the new Needham. That's what I hear that 10 years ago when Needham started to to increase and the housing stock didn't start
to change right away, but we're actually seeing the, the raise and Ren raise and build happening at a faster rate. But this is where people wanna live. It's, you know, it's slightly more affordable. It's still close. It has good schools, it has good services. People wanna live here. I think that bodes well for the new housing developments that are coming into town. You know, I, I don't, I don't think, you know, I other places that are building multi-family are seeing some slowdown in, in demand. I think Natick's gonna see an increase in demand. I'm not saying we should build tons more.
I think that we will see an increase in demand for what we have because of where we are. This location is very attractive to people for work, for play, for shopping, for all these things. It's a great central spot to be in. So I guess the, the ques your answer is, I'm not sure, but I do see that the residential values will continue to increase and we need to protect the commercial base that we want to have here. 'cause people do love these older stores, don't get me wrong. I might, I might say that they're old and you know, class B
or C Stock, but it's part of what makes Natick Natick. What we wanna do is make sure that the ones that are unoccupied or underutilized, we can, we can move forward either renovate those buildings or take them down and put two together, whatever that might be. We don't wanna see a lot of vacancies along our prime corridors. Right. I I, you know, if it's on, I don't know, mill or, you know, whatever, it's different, right? It's not, that's not gonna hurt us, but 1 35 and Route nine and Spain, we, we need to put on our best face. And I think that's the challenge we'll have Indeed.
And the key thing is that if we can get so any of that to happen, those commercial contributions to tax will automatically come that, that's the inherent problem with the valuation shift. Right? So we, we had this huge shift from, you know, to residential as the val property values have increased and the, the commercial properties have languished in this in the same period. No one, when we didn't ask for it, we didn't try to do it. It's just a reality of, of suburban movement and, and pricing. Thank you. You're welcome
Speaker 1: Ms. Wilger. Speaker 11: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you David. Very interesting discussion and appreciate your insights since you brought Needham up. We are definitely envious of, of Needham's restaurant ability and how they get new restaurants. I mean, what do you think are the differences about how Needham can have a split tax rate and still thrive versus Natick? I mean, what would you say are the main differences? Because we are often compared to Needham in, in in some ways and, and they seem to have been able to have a split tax rate without
having negative consequences. Speaker 15: Well, there's a, a tremendous amount of more economic volume going on there. They, they have, I I'm gonna say at a guess five to six times the amount of economic activity on the construction and renovation side. They're also, they have a vibrant multi-tenant office and industrial environment there. So they have large sites of very good building stock. Even down in Kendrick, there's nothing less than a B space down there.
Right. Even on Wells Avenue, it's B space everywhere. We don't have space like that. We just don't have it. And therefore they, they're getting a lot of cotenancy, you know, that whole, I mean it's just use Wells as a, as an example. I know that's kind of isn in half in Needham and half in Na and Newton, but it's a good example of, of the type of stock we're talking about. But, you know, Needham's proximity to 1 28 and 95, excuse me, old, old fashioned is I used, call it one twenty eight. I know I, I my, i my kids say, where are you going? But, but that, that corridor alone
makes Needham special. You know, you, you're talking just a, you know, a tremendous amount of, of vehicles per day. You know, our, the traffic that's going by us on the Mass Pike is only stopping here when they wanna stop here. Every single car that goes through Needham is going through Needham. 'cause they have to go through Needham and there are 1, 2, 3, almost four exits that they can get off now around Needham. So there's a lot of draw and a lot of pull. They have a much larger, I think a more developed hotel and restaurant base because of that, you know,
they're getting a lot of daytime usage from those office buildings. So that, that would be my main, my main reason for a massive difference. Speaker 1: And four commuter rail stops Speaker 15: And yeah. And yeah, lots of transit. Speaker 1: Lots of transit. Yep. Not to mention larger appreciate Speaker 15: Industrial parks like 10 times. I dunno what it's, it's, yeah. Yep. All right. Thank you David. You're welcome. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments for members of the public, either online or in the room? Well, this was very informative. Speaker 15: Thank you. Thanks for the time for coming out. I appreciate it. Speaker 1: Deeply. Appreciate it. Very helpful.
I'd like to direct the public to letters that the select board has received for this meeting from people who could not be here, including MathWorks, RW Homes, Gary Holmes Realty, who's an expert in commercial real estate in, in the, in the region. Stu Rothman, who's the owner of Clark's Block, and also the developer and owner of one South Maine or the block. And we have a letter from a resident, Tom Curry. So I'd like you to, when you have time to read them and we will have them at some meeting in the future
if there are no other matters. Oh wait, we do have another matter. We'll move off the split tax rate discussion series and Speaker 6: The not so great gas Speaker 1: Fees. We have a continued hearing. Gadsby's chop house, LLC, section 12, all alcohol on-premise. License. License, not in use. Is there any representative from Gadsby's either in the room or online? We received communication from them today, which I forwarded to counsel and we will continue this hearing if there's no objection from the board to October 1st. So moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Sydney, seconded by Mr. Evans. Roll call, vote ms.
Or any discussion questions? Comments? Ms. Slager? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sydney? Yes. Ms. Pope? Yes. And I'm a yes. 5 0 0. This matter has been continued to October 1st. Regularly scheduled meeting of the select board. If this time, if there's no other business to come before the board, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Second. Moved by Mr. Sydney, seconded by Ms. Pope. Ms. Wilger? Yes. Mr. Evans? Yes. Mr. Sydney? Yes. Ms. Pope? Yes. And I'm a yes.
That's adjourning at 7:51 PM.