[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] go [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all the February 28th 2024 uh meeting of the tourist development C Council to order uh we'll start with the roll call uh Comm Ste absent Tom Hermon present Julie present Alex present mayor Medina absent smeir Patel absent Wayne sword present Kei winon absent Andrea young present okay uh first we're going to ask before we review the agenda if any board member wishes to disclose a conflict of interest with items any of the items on the agenda hearing none we [Music] will move to the where are the minutes the minutes supposed to be on here they're under D so Mr chair if we could maybe if we move C to later yeah we'll come back to it so we'll ask for a uh a motion and a second to approve the minutes from the last meeting motion to approve second a motion in a second all those in favor say I I I any opposed hearing none motion passes uh you want to do the committee appointments now or later later if we could yeah later later we later later okay so we'll hand it off to Peter all right thank you um just uh in your packet as always uh giving you a number of different things just some interesting uh call outs I'll I'll point to um on page eight is the January room night demand uh this is the first month that room Knight demand was actually um up slightly Point almost half a percent um it's been down pretty consistently it was down pretty consistently through 23 um most of that was due to the fact that um we had about 175,000 rooms taken out of inventory in 23 so when you compared it to 22 uh the demand was not as great but now it looks like we're beginning to catch up a little bit we've had a few hotels open uh so that's that's adding to that so I just wanted to point that out um as usual your Str Str reports are in here um nothing you know too unusual Ru in those uh on page 28 is tdt tdt is down slightly uh from the prior fall fall was um you know still good still strong months uh but not obviously as strong as uh fall of 22 and 22 was a high water mark so we're playing a little bit of catchup uh looking forward on tdt um January looks to be also slightly trailing January of 23 but February I just got uh another week's worth of Str Str data in and February is actually looking like it's doing very well and and may uh beat February of 23 so looks like we might begin to see a little bit of a turnaround and of course you know as we get into uh spring break and Into Summer those are your bigger months so those are those are obviously more critical for us to make sure we hit those numbers um nothing really uh to report on budget budgetarily we're we're on target um you know some of the bigger spending on some of the projects like the beach projects haven't really hit yet so you're you're seeing a lot of carry forward funds in there that are not being tapped yet but obviously they will at some point uh I believe that's it for my section Mr chair uh if we want to go to oh I'm sorry I did have one other item I wanted to address which I briefly uh mentioned last time uh starting on page 31 um and then more specifically Pages uh 39 uh to 42 um we just did some cleanup we had realized that some of the um some of the language and the operating procedures manual uh for the TDC was sort of out of date and so we just tried to make it more current and more consistent uh so Mr chair I'd be looking for the TDC just to um to vote to approve uh to amend uh those changes that are in there from Pages uh 39 to 42 has everybody any questions on the changes to the to the policies or to the operating manual Mr chair I'll make the motion to approve the changes pages 39 through 42 a second I'll second second no discussion yep discussion so Peter just I'm looking this first time my apologies so it just seems you cleaned up and basically put the same charge for every committee it's specific but it's the same format same format yeah trying to make it consistent amongst uh each committee obviously the the marketing committee is the one that's a little bit different because there's not a grant program out of it but all the others do have Grant programs so we tried to consist make the language a little more consistent and uh more specific to to what they actually do yeah thank you thank you Mr chair um no other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed hearing none motion passes very good next we are at committee reports marketing committee I think Mr chair I think other than the mayor missing I think we can and I have his appointment so I think we can go back to 1D if you or 1 C if you'd like I'm going to roll back to 1 d c one C thank you uh approval the subcommittee appointments I think last year we had each member call out their appointments and then vote them all I yeah I think we can do it all in one one pass if that's okay with everybody all right I'm I guess I'll go first ladies first all right for the cultural Committee of I'm sorry never mind for marketing I have Heather Lewis from ronjan Surf Shop I have for Beach I have Daniel kadney from the Indian River river natural Estuary program and from Sports ly Mims from Florida Tech and capital facilities is Pam Rothenberg from Tuckaway Shores okay uh for me I have myself as chair for the beach committee and marketing is Pam Rothenberg Tuckaway Shores Resort Sports is Megan Carlin with the courtyard and residence in Melbourne cultural is Leah Blackmore with the courtyard in Melbourne and capital facilities is Doug Leo with the henar center tuck away Shores fighting above its weight class here I like it oh yes she she assured me she could do it okay Al have the same person serving on two different boards uh that's a good question I is and clear okay yeah you're you are allowed to have you could have a person serve on two different committees yes we've had that before okay great commitment I like it Alex for sports I have Jason Pierce for marketing May Fleming Capital Candace Rogers cultural Casey ceson and for Beach Gwen Pierce could you share with us their sort of affiliation absolutely uh Jason Pierce uh with with sports he is a uh school teacher uh in uh um um Cape Canaveral uh May Fleming for marketing she has a um antique store in Koko Village Candace Rogers uh mature woman she's also uh on the ERC uh very very involved in uh local the local scene uh for cultural Casey s Leon uh this young lady has a um uh shop in coko Village she's uh manag a number of different dress stores and uh seems to have a lot of uh um knowledge when it comes to uh the community and and uh the the cultural arts in general and uh for Beach uh Gwen Pierce she is um uh works for uh the city of um you know I had some notes on them pardon me city of coko no no no I'm not I'm not cooking the books that hard C Village also punching above its weight class this year yeah she's a clerk of um um SB she and she's on the uh Board of Directors for the Florida Association of uh City Clerks okay Sebastian Beach very good Wayne okay for uh marketing I have Howard Schwarz at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor complex uh Beach and Lagoon I Gina Parish also at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor complex cultural Aaron Collins Space Coast Symphony um and capital facilities Elizabeth Schneider um with Galactic Medallion tour is a tour operator yeah okay Beach Gina Parish environmental manager at Kennedy she'll appreciate sand on beaches then yes they got their own issues and we all do going to keep the same on the beach Keith uh for marketing myself for Beach the previous environmental uh person at KY Space Center Charlie venudo um for cultural Steve Heron from the parish theater uh for Capital uh Jackie Barker for Sky advertising and I still need to confirm the sports all right for Capital I'm going to chair that committee for Beach uh Tom will Tom will excuse me Tom Williamson uh my business partner for marketing with Mike McBride of cowbell agency uh a marketing agency uh for sports we have Jamie tojiro a hotel operator and I still have cult trol to uh fill out so okay I got yep three so okay for mayor Medina um uh his appointment all four of those appointments are the same as last year here so I'll identify him Hunter Joselyn he's a retiree and small business owner he served on beach for a couple of years uh for cultural he's appointing Daniel weight he's with the city uh replacing Juliet muscone who did it last year um for Capital uh Fred poppy who's served before uh marketing Christina Bourne who served before and then Sports Fred poy again who served for number of years on the Sports Committee so that's mayor Medina uh for Samir uh Beach Laura Lee Thompson coming back after a while so that's good uh Capital we have Jeff Robinson he's with Lial Beckner Robinson he served on Capital previously a couple years ago uh for marketing John Stewart he is with total spine and Orthopedics so I don't know I believe he's a doctor but I don't I don't know uh much about him uh Drew wden uh seal Equity partners for sports uh and then for cultural uh state St Stacy weatherington with rll real estate then uh for commissioner steel uh for marketing Kim AG uh downtown Melbourne uh for Capital uh Hunter gayer I don't have uh what company he's with um but the uh commissioner spoke very highly of him uh for sports mayor Dan diesel a former coach with uh Titusville High so it's good to have a sports guy there uh cultural Christina latraverse who with seagrass Pottery she's a um small business owner and artist so that works for cultural and then for Beach uh coming back after uh uh a little Hiatus Ruby Daniel is back on with the cape Crossing uh so those are those are three very good uh make one comment these committees aren't that glamorous uh but they don't work unless people show up so if you'd please kind of try to keep tabs on your committee appointments especially those that haven't done it before you've got a clean slate there Alex yes and uh if they don't have quorums at the Committees we can't conduct business and then things just kind of get delayed so uh um please re reiterate that to them so with that we have mostly a Full Slate uh we'll take a motion to approve those appointments we have a motion in a second second was it second it no oh I'll second thank you we have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I I any opposed hearing none motion passes thank you now we can move into the marketing committee report yeah I didn't we don't have a lengthy report this time obviously the marketing committee is still yet to meet um we're working on off of the um the marketing plan that had uh previously been approved for the year but I will say we did launch in January uh pretty major spring campaign we're running about $4 million in media uh we're running a variety of different creatives we're working pretty closely with the Coco Beach hotel association on the on the um creative for district 2 um and then uh using a variety of uh creative that's been previously use but then also some some new uh creative that we'll bring We'll show probably in the next meeting uh for all the other districts for Melbourne pom Bay Titusville some some of the other uh launch creative that we have so quite a bit going on uh from a from a media perspective there and uh hopefully that will have a nice positive effect on our spring break great any report from the cultural committee no our first me our first meeting is going to be uh Mar March 26th okay great any report from the capital facilities committee not a report sir but we do have um a group here who is representing um Myra and the Veterans Memorial Park Amphitheater they have um provided and it's in your packets beginning on page uh 46 46 is that it yep 46 uh with a cover letter explaining what their request is they are asking for some additional funds they received a capital Grant back in 2020 um for this project they've been through now architectural and Engineering they uh have gone through rfps for quotes for construction uh as everyone can imagine construction costs have done nothing but climb climb climb for the last couple of years so uh they found themselves uh short uh of what they need to complete that project they'd like to get started this year and move pretty quickly so they asked uh to come rather than come as part of the capital facilities grant program um come as a asking for additional funds as an add-on to the grant that they've already received um I'm going to look to them if it's okay with the chair for them to uh come up maybe and just give a quick you know overview of of what it is you're asking and um maybe answer any questions that the TDC might have about it Larry okay great Larry low with with Myra good afternoon can you hear me okay all right check I know that I've been up there only one other time I wasn't close enough to the microphone okay that's good thank you all right uh thank you for uh look listening to our requests today I want to thank I do want to thank you in advance Peter and Jeffrey they they really helped us prepare our package quite well and if you don't know them they're very highly detail oriented lar would you mind speaking a little bit more loudly or more directly to micophone okay I just wanted to thank Peter and Jeffrey on the tourism uh development staff they were a big help in helping us uh make sure that we had a good presentation for you and uh so we just moving forward forward going back to 2020 uh the Meritt Island Redevelopment agency uh on behalf of the veterans and the RAR County Parks and Recreation Department applied for a TDC Grant uh we were awarded about 1.27 million to build an Amphitheater uh at that time uh it was it was a really nice looking Amphitheater and it was accepted and we went enter entered into an agreement with the TDC uh at that time the Myra board agreed to uh match that with a $1 million commitment as we move through the uh architectural planning process we had several charettes with rzk Architects there were a couple things we wanted to make sure that we met that were in the TDC agreement uh one was that we would uh construct a facility that could potentially uh hold as many as 5,000 attendees on occasional events uh goal would be to meet uh approximately uh at that time I think we talked about 26 potential events at average attendance at 2000 we scaled that back in the current uh economic impact analysis to try to be more conservative especially towards scale up and as you may or may not know the veteran choral park has been a pretty substantial investment for um Herm over the years and it's getting a lot of uh attention from uh surround suring potential Redevelopment of the mall and those types of things I've been in Economic Development a long time and I'm always saying as of late um I never really thought that a park and an Amphitheater could create such a substantial interest and impact in Economic Development projects uh most recently uh final site plan stage was approved on a a development that wanted to be near the park and believe it or not they wanted to be near the amphitheater uh and it was $120 million investment which is attracting some uh two other two others right now that are in the talking stages which which project is that that's the Woodfield development project on the old paintball facility uh they re received final site plan approval for 370 luxury apartment units and that has led to and I know that's not necessarily tourism development economic development but it it's really good for all of us in the county and that's led to some other interest in the mall which has been difficult for us to you know uh get them to come to the table for a variety of reasons but we're seeing some activity that's very positive including some leading up to some site control very good uh so that brings us to our ask we uh are asking we are going to Myra is committing uh 4.4 million to the project substantially more than when we got started what happened was when the when the board started going down through the charettes and looking at this project and looking at the requirements for the project uh as as with a lot of projects we were like wow we really need to make this a first class facility to attract these these types of attendance numbers and it needs to stand out it needs to be differentiated in terms of what it offers to potential attendees whether they're attending a concert or or a weekend event there so there was a lot of project scope that was added by the board I think uh for the most part very wisely so restrooms and concessions we I think when we presented to the ampi theater originally uh we were talking about those questions came up I think some of them from uh chairman Hermanson uh about uh you know where are where are people going to go to the restroom parking those types of things so we're trying to work through all those issues we didn't want to do the board was though we think were thinking it would be you know porta potties those kinds of things uh well the women on the board vly objected to that so so we we uh we put in a restroom concession that could handle up to 1,000 uh uh attendees expandable to 2,000 uh and then of course if you go beyond that it's difficult to plan for the occasional facility you would have to go to Portable uh facility so that was part of the project scope then once you go into the uh planning site planning engineering stage then you get into and start adding restrooms like that you got to get to a sewer that has the capacity Going Underground so the cost started escalating from that standpoint access Ingress egress we're adding a new uh access to the park more dedicated to the amphitheater it is in your drawings uh in in your attachments I'm not certain what page that's on Peter sorry L what what are we on page 50 so you'll see as you as you go through there you'll see the restum concession uh structure and then and I would like to say these are not Concepts uh these are uh final drawings that you're looking at and paid for in part with PDC money and yeah maybe I'll go grab my iPad yeah sure thank you yeah the the drawings start after page 69 I don't see numbers on on the bottoms but I won't spend too long going through these but uh you can see the site plan of the 80 acre Park we're adding a lot of parking in park and then after that site plan you'll see the placement on uh page I'm not sure what page that is but you'll see the uh situated Amphitheater within the park and then you will see uh a new Ingress and egress on fortinberry uh practically directly across uh from where Del's entrance is it's almost almost in line with that and then the these are the depictions of the actual architecturally engineered Ampitheater that you're seeing in here some things to note uh that kind of differentiates this Amphitheater though the appearance is very dramatic and uh you know very attractive we think it's a 6,000 square ft uh 2100 ft of open air stage area and 3900 ft of interior space so we're differentiating again as to what type of audience and what types of Acts this could uh attract because inside of that interior space we have a Lounge Green Room loading docks and receiving area a work room male and female bathrooms and and two wings for for entrance we wanted to make sure you may see a letter of endorsement in our package from The Bard Symphony Orchestra we wanted to make sure we could accommodate Bard Symphony on occasion for uh some uh good weather concerts and then below that we have a Building B that describes the rest restroom concession building that were add that was added to the project scope that also has a canopy covered outdoor seating area not a lot of seating there but some and a food concession so that's Bas that's essentially the facility and we have a a a committee a task force um many my members are on there the director of Parks and Recreation is on there and we're all working on the management side so working with the county Management in creating a project scope for how how is the facility going to be managed because I I I'll be the first to say if it's not managed well it won't it's going to need to be managed well if it's going to be successful so we we put together uh essentially an RFP for a management with a management plan attached to it to go out to uh to bid for either uh employees or uh or uh a company to uh handle management so Larry is is the thought to have a third party be the official manager and Booker of Acts Booker of whe whether it be concerts or what what have you for that facility is that the the thought yeah the thought that the and Marcus was on the committee he could maybe add to this and so so were Dean and Don uh correct me if I'm wrong that uh the thought was that we would have a full-time either employee or a consultant uh handling the management of the facility itself and the grounds along with a a part-time maintenance person and they would also be handling the acts directly and with promoters so a little a mix of that uh you you'd probably be seeing so I'm not certain was it going to be a that was from the direction of the county county helped guide us in that in that decision-making process they want to have control of how it gets managed and then of course anybody that comes in and asks to come in they'll have their own managers that that uh help manage those different programs coming through yeah I would just say from my experience having a somebody that knows the booking of that type of business is really critical so whether they're hired as a staff person or or using a third party that's the success of those events is always dictated by the ability to get the good acts in and you know uh yes the key is to build a facility that those acts want to come to sure um and the county is going to have some say over what happens obviously it's a county asset that's what this is um but the uh there certainly will be uh management teams whether it's somebody that we hire or somebody that is using the facility to to to facilitate what what we're looking for there on every different uh act that goes through there can I ask some Logistics questions um a couple questions so the capacity of the Lawns about 2500 people roughly standing is that correct uh they can stand if they want to either they or they can sit yeah well they're different capacity measurements whether you sit or stand you can fit a lot more people so I'm curious what your measurement Square ft what's that it's better than 9 Square ft a 3X3 cube in the tiered uh seating area it's based on 9 Square ft okay and then outside of that there's an expanded area for General La seating if if there's an event that is beyond that so it said like 2500 and 5,000 no not and five just total of five total five okay so there's a tiered and then the total another 25 okay um and have you guys I'm just curious have have you investigated so so the amp up in St Augustine seats about 5,000 they do have rain cover over the top mhm um have you guys investigated that and I know you're not in a position to build that now but is your design allowing for the addition of that if there's demand have you put that into your design process yeah so we we did look at The Amp uh and looked at some of the their management uh strategies as well also one consultant we were working with we were thinking about hiring a another third party consultant to do the economic analysis but it was like $60,000 so uh but in my course of the conversation they said that what's unique about our post Ampitheater is that it probably would be the nicest facility that's on the coastwise between St Augustine and West Palm Beach and and that in itself is a little bit of a market Niche uh but to answer your question on the canopies yeah there was a lot of discussion about it but obviously with the cost going up we thought well maybe some at some later date we would start with a maybe a higher paid canopy area in the front part and then and then move back we also had discussion and it does have the capabilities that rather than putting people in the um grassy expand expanded seating area uh we we could put uh bleachers in there as well you know obviously there was a Willie Nelson concert very well attended two weeks ago but was in the pouring rain uh yeah I I was uh we were examining some of these ticket prices and creating the base data for the economic impact analysis and I was pretty floored to see $140 for a Willie Nelson concert so well people were there my other question you mentioned you've changed your um attendance estimates uh from the original can you tell me what the new ones are uh I think it's 40,000 for for paid new attendance yeah not additional attendance uh from within Bard County I think it's 40,500 if we go back to the analysis 4,545 something like that yeah and that's a increase a decrease that's a uh from before it's not too far off from the other one I believe that that first one which is a analysis that I that I did uh for the most part with a lot of caveats of I'm not a professional uh it was in the range of 40 to 42 something like that it was pretty close so it's not a sign there's no significant change not too much different and in order to create this base data for the updated study we went through we have a a spreadsheet of all the events Uh current and proposed and potentially uh how would add and that was the some of the base data that went into the uh analysis there's a pretty good breakdown on page 88 if committee wants to see that yes so that's not a significant change that's my question it's the same basic yeah I think this was uh I would just say uh though I think I'm a great professional this is a much better uh impact analysis third party using rem's data and I think I want to give a shout out and a thanks to uh Troy post and his team over there to help us do this and at first we were not sure we wanted to redo it but we thought well it's been a long time and with a guidance from Peter and Jeff said yeah you need to do it so any additional comments from if I might take just a minute uh we in the veterans community up to the microphone oh sorry uh don Weaver we in the veterans community manage the dayby day and have done this one reason the numbers are up is that even without the amphitheater huge increases in numbers and events at the veterans Memorial center uh regular visits as well as the park now has had two major upgrades so it's a beautiful Park people come there all the time every day uh the biggest playground in Bard County Parks is there now and that's get a lot of attention so we can tell that there's just interest growing there and to get these big events where we'll get the tourist dollar and uh more input is to have that Amphitheater and I will emphasize the state believes the program and just contributed million dollars toward the project it to help us do those mentioned earlier the cost increases have been substantial since we were going to start in 2020 versus now the other thing I want to mention is that thank you to tourist development if we go back probably before any of you were on the board uh tourist development helped us to get started in the whole process by opening the making a big improved entrance way I believe the figure was 700,000 to get ready for what would become the park when it was still just undeveloped area but the county came together the state with a million and a half for the museum and another million for the park and Amphitheater so it's a real team effort and we appreciate the consideration and and ongoing partnership that we have with tourist development the county and Myra and all the other organizations and we promise as veterans largest veterans population in the country per per percentage of the population here in Bard will be there to help manage not manage it we won't lead the management but we'll be there to support every event because we'll still be doing uncharged for jrtc competitions at the same time that night we bring in Willie Nelson eventually with a cover thank you I have a question question I can help answer I would just add one comment sometimes when you look at these projects you might ask yourself well does this organization have any more money I our chairman will say this our our Meer board though they're fully supportive of the project they it's been difficult for them because we were planning on a $5 million project we were committed to it along with the Florida money and then the inflationary cost just really kicked us hard uh so we started getting trying to get creative and so much so that of the 4.4 million uh there's a lot of discussion about this but they moved one over $1 million of that out of another Capital project uh that we felt we could possibly delay for a few years uh to get to that $4.4 Million number so so so Larry just to summarize that make sure we get the numbers right so everybody here it's a $7.9 million project 4.4 Millions coming from Myra a million from the state of Florida and right now you have a uh an existing Grant from the TDC of 1.7 so what you're asking for is 1,228 $7 to to make to get to the 7.9 million correct okay that's a hard that's a that's a bid price or a locked in price with the county that's a not a cost so at this time that's that's the negotiated price with the contractor uh from the initial G GMP that they submitted uh being in this delay period uh the they they did let us know uh that they would have to go back to their subs the for after January uh and to get to get it repriced just in case uh and then if it if it's priced higher we're going to have to go back to they're going to have to go sharpen their pencil maybe and we so will so will we so yeah so these prices are from when how October these prices were good all the way through January but they're from October yeah okay so I know as as the clock ticks and with inflation the cost of these projects goes up every day the meter's running so it's thank you we're in a very odd environment right now so some building costs are going down now you're actually yeah yeah some stuff Lumbers down some things are going down yeah supplies coming up and a few things and so yeah unfortunately a lot of these Subs are holding on to their covid pricing margins uh discussions from the board is there any kind of a management profile I mean I know we talked about management just a minute ago and it's is a park it's a County asset is it going to be run the same as the other County parks are run where people call in and Reserve I I wouldn't imagine it would be will there be a special County department just for this area because this is going to be a huge demand our uh we had a task force that uh where the county was well advised of what we were doing and the parks and wck came up with the program uh basically with the uh the board's help of and we had somebody was on there that had worked with Disney somebody that works with the KY Space Center people that understand how that works to bring people in so they came up with a management plan and there right now there's an outline for that management plan obviously you don't you can't determine what money's coming in or going out until you start rocking and rolling here but um so so there's definitely a plan in place that the county helped formulate and they've made it clear to us that they want to be have a part in the management of of that because it's a county asset but we don't know what that plan is we we do have a draft that is uh considered a final dep by the committee subject to uh County management approval ask one more scope of it's scope of responsibilities for the Veterans Memorial center Ampitheater operations so that's what they're starting with that's the scope of operations that they that they've put together we can make sure we get copies for everybody but I don't think he has them for everybody today thank you yeah and I and I hate to keep adding things but one one more thing as to this if it's approved by the county management and County Commissioners and we start construction they will immediately begin going out to RFP to to find those dedicated people to manage the facility uh because when you start going into a venture like this you want to book out probably a year year ahead the construction period is 12 to 15 months thank you I just was going to ask will it be there's no other ampute of that size in County correct when you're done will it be significant yeah if you go to their website it's 1,200 but I do know haven't worked there before uh you know they can pack them in quite substantially two or three times that sometimes but they're pretty they're pretty packed in there uh yeah a little more spread out though it's a bigger yeah and then also you can imagine the park is so big some people are just going to be looking at Big they're going to be other parts of the park and listening yeah very good Alex if the amphitheater is whoops yeah if the amphitheater is profitable um the the profits stay with the park from from the way uh we've had discussions at this time everything would go uh to to a a fund for the county uh to help uh underwrite some of the management expense yeah and and and maintenance and management expenses and ideal beyond that nothing has been decided very good y typic typically there's a 10% uh ticket charge that goes to the those type of facilities so yeah up to 10% yeah well I have a lot of comments but I'm going to try to should I stay up here I'm going to try to scale them back uh like everybody else I had severe sticker shock uh don I have been around since the early days back with Jim Barfield and the original grants for the buildout of the Veterans Memorial center uh was reminded that this really should be considered a separate project you know although it's uh tied to the Veterans Memorial center this is more of a public facility on on County property um my supported and stay supported so try not to uh I think we should think of them as separate projects uh I I think it's a beautiful project I think it'll be a great Community Asset for the entire County uh I think it's centrally located I think it can draw um large amounts of people I I always look at expenditures of TDC funds on on returns there's a lot of funds out there for a lot of different uses and our goal here is to maximize return on investment for tourist development we got to focus on the tourist development uh you know 40,000 attendees on an annual basis with overnight stays uh is not a tremendous amount I think like Larry and I discussed today the air shows can bring in you know an excess of 100 to 150,000 people in a weekend with $50,000 in support so I don't think it correct to look at it strictly through that lens uh so I'm trying not to do that uh $2.5 million is uh is a big number for $440,000 in annual visitation from an return on investment with respect to tourist development dollars that said uh it's a multi-party supported uh infrastructural development I'm encouraged by the fact that Myra stepped up and has committed 4.1 million and that the state uh saw fit to support it with a million dollar the two and a half coming from the TDC would be uh 36% of the overall project cost which I think is a is a good balance you know I like to see multiparty support for these types of large Investments um I do think it'll be a great asset and and I think it's it'll be it'll be meaningful to the overall um tourism offerings here in vard County and I also like to point out that it's important that we on the tourist Development Council uh acknowledge and sort of get some mileage from the overall General Community when tourism supports things that will in large part also be um benefiting the local residents I get it all the time what does the TDC do for local residents and it's a lot um beyond the economic development which isn't tangible uh the jobs and the salaries and and and everything this multi-billion dollar year industry does for Bard County but this is really something tangible that uh that I think is worthy of TDC support so while The Creep from a million dollar to $8 million is uh is is tough uh I'm suffering some of those same inflationary costs in my own business and I recognize the reality and so uh you know you have my support for what it's worth here on an Advisory Board to the board of County Commissioners hopefully they will uh support it as well mayor Medina welcome assuming you've uh looked at the package you missed the presentation do you have any questions or comments with respect to this Grant application I don't have any questions but if we're speaking about the veterans project um I'm in full support of that Mr chair thank you for this opportunity I I think what I don't know what was discussed and and please excuse my my tardiness as I was uh preoccupied but uh I think what's important to note is what the value that comes in when we support our veteran community and the functions and the events that they put on on a continual basis so this is an opportunity where we could partner and not only enhance uh our events and putting heads in beds but it also gives us the opportunity to honor the men and women that have protected this time and time again when they're called upon so I'm in full support of this thank you thank you so are there any other discussion topics or or points that anybody would like to make we have a request uh for an additional Grant uh it's a two-part request an additional Grant of 1.2 22880 22 228 807 and 1 cent and one cent and one cent I'll put the penny in so we don't have to write I did note that uh and then the uh sorry and then they also is a request to extend the um groundbreaking for one year from April 6th to this year to April 6th of next year yeah Larry helped me today by sending me the GMP bid process I've never been through County bidding but like everybody else I assume it's not competitive and that's probably not fair um but it was uh it was uh clarifying when I saw the backup you know it's this is being bid by the winning contractor but there are competitive sub bids for the majority of the work which are disclosed uh in detail in that bid package and that gave me some uh you know it was it was very enlightening to go through that entire package earlier this afternoon um so I'm not going to get into County Contracting uh we have a request for let's just call it 1. 1228 million as well as an extension of one year until April 6 2025 for groundbreaking um and that's the motion I'm looking for I so move we have a motion from mayor Medina second anybody can second but get on the board come on all right we we have a second any further discussion before we vote I just I wanted to comment I thought your analys was cing here because I think as you said the percentage the TDC is putting in is probably appropriate to the percentage of Tourism it draws but the real value is to the whole community so I think that 36% that sounds reasonable to me of what what the actual tourism segment will be and I think that's why that's an appropriate number if it was 100% I would say I'm I'm doubtful but I think that piece of tourists makes sense from the number that's in the past so I think it's appropriate investment for the tourism segment I think your partnership is admirable recognizing the benefits for the whole Community we have a motion on a second all those in favor say I I any opposed I voted I any opposed hearing none motion passes thank you very much for all your hard work and we really look forward to seeing this get done project come to fruition good luck at the board of County Commissioners I recommend bringing supporters thank you very much thank you very much appreciate what you do very much all right uh that was capital any updates from Mike we do have uh Mike does have a short update if uh he take a I told him five minutes at the most dress keep keep it short okay well I I did we're doing a lot of a lot of work in the beaches so I wanted to try to zoom through it here many of you on the board have seen this map before but I just wanted to sort of go from top to bottom what is what are we doing for the beaches over the next couple of years um I'm going to start at the bottom just to mix it up the South beaches in response to Hurricane I and Nicole were just wrapping up sand placement there all goes well it'll be done next week we still going to do Native Dune planning but that hurricane project was about 26 million worth of work over the last 18 months and right now it's come all out of the TDC coffers which put our cash flow you know in a in a challenging spot but we expect to get over 87% reimbursement through aid from the state and FEMA on that one so that one is sand placement is almost done above that the South reach and the mid reach were bid by the Army Corps as one big project to be built over two years together those um are almost $60 Million worth of total work if you do the Construction contract plus the Army Core engineering and oversight um the the Army Core Construction contract was just shy of 50 but then there's other oversight and engineering thankfully du to we applied for federal flood control and Coastal emergency funds uh bravard was the first to ask after Hurricane Nicole and so those two projects are 100% federally funded construction Peter will tell you we're still investing money and you know in total we'll invest almost a million in permit compliance and engineering and making sure the Army Corps stay is on track but relative to the you know 50 some million in construction funds if we can get out of it for on the order of a million bucks we're we're doing well and then moving up to the Cocoa Beach area that North reach for the City of Cape canaville and Coco beach wasn't as bad off so the core plans to bid that this summer in about 6 months and then work should be done between December of 24 and April of 2026 that'll put sand along most of that 10 Mile uh Shoreline in all of the area that needs it back to the midre you notice this slide I didn't update it they were supposed to start in November and they did mobilize in November the Army cors contractor has had a number of delays with mechanical problems with big expensive expensive nautical equipment so they they're just have not started delivering sand to the mid- reach yet but they knock on wood they should start in full force next week and we've been working with the core to make sure all of the mid-reach shoreline That was supposed to be protected this winter season will be protected and then they'll finish the remainder of it next year as planned so that one's been through delays and challenges but we're getting there mid trucked or pumped sand pumped it is trucked because we can't bury the Rocks the Nearshore Rock reefs but we harvest the sand from Canaveral Sholes and pump it onto the beach at sper Holland Park and put it in trucks that allows us to get that topnotch sand that's already been washed and cleaned by Mother Nature uh so it's the same sand that we would pump ashore in Coco Beach but in the midre we have to deliver it by truck to avoid or minimize impact to the Nearshore Rock reefs and Mike you didn't say but the north reach we there are no local matching dollars required for that project either that those are covered under a I believe it's a 50-year deal that the that the B have to cover Coco Beach and cap and Aral right so that is that is true we're still the local sponsor so we we fund relatively incidental permitting and and some engineering cost but the construction costs for the north reach are all federal so now I mentioned the the Nearshore rocks I want to uh get into if I can find the right arrow that oh that's why then my advancing button might work Zoom stuff called up SL well it should have been a well there was a Mike just took care of that start okay there's the there's the presentation all right bear with me so now I want to spend a couple of minutes getting into the fun stuff these are the before and afters you've seen this is when you build a big beach with a dredge the before and after of Coco Beach and Melbourne Beach uh important to see that compared to before we built a beach that beach is happy and healthy the mid reach we can't build the beach that wide or we would bury too much of this rock we spent a lot of effort balancing the need for a recreational and Beach to provide protection without bearing that Nearshore Rock and we've really worked hard uh to balance that and we've been successful so I want to share some of our success this is the that is Rock two years after we built the beach That's The Rock still exposed in the mid midre so that's what we were looking for this is the natural rock lots of technical stuff but the important thing is the biologist said after construction the biological cover on the Rocks increased between before and after did we cause the increase no but we certainly didn't hinder development of those Rock uh habitat here's the exposure of the rock which says between before Construction in June of 23 there was 50% more rock exposed than there was in 20044 and 2004 is where our Benchmark was set in our permit so you can see those pictures they're still Rock we lived up to our end of the bargain we didn't bury it all we had a little incidental impact probably even though the mathematics say were as good now we really had no impact but that's the Rock Reef we were trying to protect we built these mitigation reefs to mitigate any eventual burial this is the mitigation reef and the little green turtle hiding in the nook we made for it and this again I pulled data or word straight from our professional biologist reports that say juvenile green turtles are moving between the natural re and the mitigation reefs juvenile loggerhead toodles that they've never seen in the neighborhood are now hanging out on the mitigation Reef so the mitigation reefs are happy and healthy those are pictures of the mitigation Reef with stuff growing all over them and there a separate set of biologists said the the artificial reefs have meet their met their goals you know there is good biology living on it we built them for fish here's a few clips that a whole bunch of fish are living on them uh as we desired here's some more sea turtles cuz everybody loves them again we built it to host juvenile green sea turtles and they love the darn thing so that's pretty important not just for Regulatory Compliance but if you spend $13 million building something for sea turtles you're really happy that they love it and it it helps us justify the construction so we've had good success with our promise to balance the environmental impacts of that mid-reach project and so we go into this first renourishment with confidence that we're doing the right thing and I leave it there unless any of you have questions thanks Mike I think you know just to reemphasize what he was saying the last part is really critical because there are people that you may hear the media criticizing putting sand on the beach clearly the natural resources department knows what they're doing they were able to do exactly what they said they were going to do and were um in fact uh probably a little better than than what was originally planned so thank you Michael how long you been working uh for our beaches or for natural resources about 20 years now 20 years yes sir thank you for your dedicated service glad to do it really appreciate apprciate your passion towards this as well certainly got a real Pro here yes sir yes sir that was a good feel good report we like big beaches and we like not having to put as much money into it as we originally thought we were going to so only putting a million into that mid-reach project is we we had 8 million budgeted so that that allowed us to you know put some money in the holding pattern for future projects or God forbid future storms which we know always happen um so it's good to have a little something in the in the bank I don't know if anybody saw the helicopter flyovers of new samna Daytona after Adelia Adalia the last storm I mean devastating condos lost their entire backyards pools seaw walls gone hotels you know the entire back entertainment area is collapsed yeah not insured yeah all up and down Flagler all up and down had had those problems buildings falling into the into the sea and we didn't have any of that uh we had some damage but nothing like that and they've been reaching out to Mike and his team asking what can we do in the future and the key is you know we've been doing this for a long time they have to start from zero because they've been building seaw walls and seaw walls has been proven again and again just don't protect uh the upshore uh you know uh building so uh they're going to have to start from from a very expensive base and I'm not sure how they would even get there because you know we've been doing it for so long we now get this matching from the from the Army Corps um I will I will bring up Mike mentioned it to me earlier before but um there's a bill in the house uh and it's actually in the Senate now too uh the tax bill is asking for a referendum uh be held every six years for tdt and local communities um I hadn't thought about it but Mike reached out to me uh last week and mention that our Army Corps is it's a 50-year contract um if we don't meet those uh requests that they have year after year for all the things that we have to do to keep these projects going they could pull their contract from us and we'd lose you know all of that that 60 million and more we'd be losing those funds um and so having to go to referendum on a tourist development tax every six years really puts us at risk with that particular aspect of the of the budgets so just something to think about second meeting in a row I didn't have to get on my soap box thank you we have to have the beach funds in order to get reimbursed and those numbers are staggering talking about you know inflationary creep uh thank you very much for that report Mike great work uh public oh sorry Sports Committee anything to report from the Sports Committee uh nothing yet uh there's a meeting on the 13th now so now we have a Sports Committee um appointed U they'll meet and start talking about uh grant grant guidelines for for next year and all the Committees will be coming back to uh to the TDC I think three of them will come back in March and then I think another two will come back in April so we've got a lot coming up here in the next couple of months excellent we are now at public comment and we have a card from Katherine esrock did I pronounce that correctly almost almost close good job on the last name that scares people sometimes it's Katherine esrock so hi I am the new executive director at bravard cultural Alliance and I've been in the job for about two months now and I've had the opportunity to meet several of you and talk with you one-on-one but not all of you so I thought this would be a nice efficient way to say hello and put a face to a name for all of you and say that I look forward to working with you all and also thank you for agreeing to be on this Council and taking the time out of your day and your lives and your careers to put effort into something like this and thank you to everyone who's here at this meeting and watching online today also for taking the time out of your day you know we're all busy people and it takes a lot to make great things happen but that's all I wanted to say thank you so much and I look forward to working with all of you even more thank you very much we'll wrap it up with any board reports going around the wheel here we'll just start with you Julie uh I just want to add that our beach committee meeting is going to be March 21st our first one at 2 p.m okay Alex anything else good news report anybody Wayne mayor just wanted to say welcome back Julie great to great to have you here it feels better uh and nothing from me nothing from Peter I don't have anything to report I I can report that the second half of February didn't really pan out the way we were expecting it to from January that'll probably be reflected in next month's report but we're optimistic that March is going to be strong and and April forward bookings are looking good with that if there's no other business we will adjourn thank you thank you the opinions expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the board of County commissioners of Bard County Florida Space Coast government television or the program sponsor and are solely those of the presenter the board of County commissioners of bravard County Florida Space Coast government television and the program sponsor hereby expressly disclaim any and all responsibility or liability for any defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]