how you doing good how are you my friend good to see you how are you did you feel the just cut I didn't need what was I doing before this how did I for that c cover good that's true if it's that bad if it's that bad he tell him he needs to go e welcome to eustus City Hall our first meeting tonight is the community redevelopment agency meeting it is 5 Thursday it's Thursday April the 18th 2024 sir qu president proper notice been given yes thank you so much before us first we have the approval of our minutes from our September 7th 2023 CRA meeting second have a first and a second any further discussion not hearing any roll call please miss cob I Mr Hawkins I Vice chair Lee I Mr Ashcraft hi chairman Holland I next we have the CRA uh uh discussion Al all right good Al ader economic development director city of eustus uh Commissioners um uh every year we're required to file an annual report with the state CRA Report with the state uh that report was filed March 31st uh and I'm here to give you highlights of the uh uh year in review um the um uh 2023 was absolutely a fantastic year for the CRA um we had uh Nan and commissioner Ashcraft cracking the whip you know making me pass out uh Gateway applications like potato chips and uh there's so there's good news in here about Gateway grants and um so again this just an initial slide that says we had um a lot of development activity we had Street improvements uh five streets in the uh Lake uh Landing uh uh subdivision were uh paid this year so we continue to through the CIP program Street Improvement program to improve the street in the downtown area now we're going to talk about Redevelopment in terms of um housing re Rehabilitation and uh business renewal so here you can take a look at Mella um uh Matel property uh in 2019 and where what it looks like today 1701 uh East Orange um these are what what's on the right hand side of the screen um are two properties um one at 1000 Orange Avenue which was um on the left you see what it looked like before the after picture is much much better um and uh just in terms of um the cost of that house that house is on the market for 360 um and in uh below you'll see a the shot of Bates Avenue um a house that we gave a Gateway Grant to that uh uh went from um you know something that was um quite honestly very very undesirable to very very nice house here is um a building with the history um it was a number of things including a bar a pool hall uh in a kind of a local community Gathering Center um it was a single building uh uh first floor second floor that has been transformed into four Apartments uh affordable Apartments uh this project however has taken 12 years to get to where it is now but uh in the end uh it's going to be a fantastic addition to the uh CRA and here we have what's right across the street from the city hall uh going from um a history of being a Sinclair Gas Station in its past and the uh before building looks like it uh and the after pictures you have uh the uh Orange Avenue View and the Grove Street View U came out really really nice a new edition that's going to be continue to add thrust uh business growth and quite honestly bring people to uh the in the heart of downtown to the CRA is the business incubator um how' that picture of George as body get in there but the uh CR I mean the um uh incubator is off to a good start uh and we will hopefully bring you much much better news about its growth next year continuing now we look at the businesses that are starting to come back and get established in the uh CRA uh on the left 2137 East Orange is the old homeown Meat Market it closed due to co uh but it is now re opened under new ownership the new owner is going to revitalize that whole Plaza so really really good news there Generations um the uh Community restaurant at uh Kensington 113 Kensington Street is back open it's only open now as a sandwich shop uh but they're going to um continue to grow their menu but uh there you see a nice new uh parking lot and uh it is back in business this is Kings barbecue I think everybody's familiar with the history of Kings um in its uh reiteration or its Revival uh there is a uh picnic area um pilion out uh to the that would be the north of the property uh they're going to open that as a companion seating area um for the uh restaurant um so and they did receive a Gateway Grant as well Al together in terms of Gateway grants uh there were 23 uh total Awards there were 19 of those awards that went to businesses four that went to Residents um the amount of money awarded uh through the grant program was 11 15,500 the amount that leveraged from the private sector was that same amount 11 15,5 5 um so what actually went into uh improving properties uh in the CRA was $231,100 so very very good um investment um the uh commission um our our on the ground leaders always uh in the community here's just a collage of um a few of the snapshots that took place uh in the c um and before I do that let me go I go back to New I Ru I ruined it for you I need the public safety I can go back um I want to mention that there are a lot of supporting elements for the CRA and one of them is community policing um so from the CRA budget um we pay uh the salary of a um uh Community officer uh and uh in the CRA Barry Co is King nobody knows who this Capri guy is it's all [Laughter] about okay so want to go back now and talk about the values um so and this is absolutely fantastic news um since the beginning of the CRA the um uh property valuations have gone up 293 per. wow that's huge uh last year alone the increase was 39.6% almost 40% increase in valuations um the expansions uh the difference between between uh 1990 when it was created and 2019 or excuse me 2023 with the expansion it's gone up 81% so really really good news there again uh supporting activities include the um special events that we hold every year 117,000 people crowd into our downtowns to support all of our events uh that does nothing but preview the CRA uh bring um uh taxes and uh support for our businesses into the CRA uh so the C really really is enhanced by the activities of of our events so some key budget numbers uh total assets uh in ourc budget two $2.9 million uh liabilities um 21,000 and uh the uh Reserves uh the amount on reserve for future use 2,900 roughly 2 million two I'm sorry 2 million yeah 2,900,000 and um just a few more budget numbers for you the CRA projects um the street street street Rehabilitation is continuing uh the seaw wall has continued to be monitored um the sidewalk uh uh improvements in tree planting um there's funding in there for those and um so uh total project money set aside $934,000 uh Debt Service on the Waterman property that's 198,199 uh for the year and then the development incentives um we have $245,000 set aside for that um Commissioners do you have any questions any questions about can I make a request yes sir we we uh we have Public Safety uh the police officers are doing really really well can we have our own uh fire chief in the CRA we have I mean do we even want to keep him no I just had to get him back early your comment I but if you have no questions um like to say no we're not having another one okay no one's enough thank thank you for this report everything's looking great thank you for your leadership of the CRA thank you all right thank you thank you Al Tom anything else to add tonight to the CRA report no sir we're going to go ahead and close this meeting and we'll come back with a regular City commission meeting at 6 o'clock then thank you