00:00:08,030	Fair enough. I think we’re Good to go. Good evening. It’s May 21st. We’re in the Tom Baker room. Uh, the City County building. This is a special meeting of the board of City Commissioners. And I’ll call the meeting to order first if we can call roll. Comm Risch. Here Comm Zenker.

00:00:32,730	Comm Connelly, Comm Clery here, Mayor Schmitz here and I failed to state the time, roughly 5:15. Um, Jason, if you want to make an introduction and then we’ll let the, uh Individuals here give their presentation. Thank you, Mayor.

00:00:55,100	Good evening, Commissioners, Mayor, uh, we are in this room tonight as a result of an effort that this group approved back in, I believe it was November of 2024, the city of Bismarck posted a Request for proposals. It was, uh, packaged as an amenities project for the Bismarck Event Center, and it was an intentional Uh, kind of a vague statement with amenities because we wanted to see what, what the vision was of others that are in and around the

00:01:15,370	community. And many of us have talked about the uh the desire for more supporting features within the event center, um, particularly things like a hotel or other attractions that would cause people to come to this region, stay in this region, uh, spend money here, infuse our economy, but ultimately invigorate some, frankly some underutilized

00:01:36,770	property in and around the event. Center. Um, so the proposal was crafted in a way that only dealt with City of Bismarck property. We are not adjoining with any of the other private landowners or anything like that.

00:01:54,370	We are simply addressing the, uh, parking lot that is directly adjacent to the exhibit hall and the arena on the southwest corner. Of the Event Center site, um. The team that you’ll be hearing from tonight, I quickly looked at their proposal, uh, the, the lead affiliates from each organization, if you combine all their years of experience for up to somewhere north of 115 years of experience, um, ranging from economic development to construction and

00:02:17,830	architecture, and so, um. I, I appreciate your willingness to entertain this proposal, I realize that this is a big decision moving forward. This is not something that we want to take lightly, and this is not something that we want to make any quick decisions on, but I, I can’t help but think of Comm Zenker’s comments a

00:02:37,170	couple of weeks ago when we were in this room talking about being bold and making some Significant choices for the event center going forward.

00:02:54,170	Sorry to put you on the spot, Comm, but, uh, uh, this is, this is an opportunity to think big and think bold and think about what it would be, how we can activate the event center, uh, a facility that in my opinion and many others would share is quite possibly in the best location in this community possible because it is located between the largest regional shopping center at Kirkwood Mall and a very thriving downtown Bismarck that we have worked very intentionally over the last 20 years to.

00:03:13,370	He invigorate and revitalize. Having a facility like this with the seating and the capacity and the opportunities that it, it holds, I think we are, we as a community are extremely fortunate and I think this is a great opportunity for us to Imagine what more that site could be, uh, the proposal that’s in front of you was the

00:03:31,570	loan proposal that we received, um, prior to the deadline in late February, I had been contacted by a couple of other different groups that were interested in it, however, um, for one reason or another, unknown to me, they chose not to submit a proposal, so this is the, the one and only uh

00:03:47,630	proposal that came to the city of Bismarck. um, I hope we’ve all had a chance to look through it. We put the original uh documentation on your desks last week, Tuesday during our regular meeting. Tonight you will hear from a team that put this proposal together.

00:04:04,100	Uh, with the, with the simple ask and uh without any further ado, um. Ryan Christiansen with Adolfsson and Peterson will be the lead person at the podium here. If you have any questions of staff of, um, the team here, of course, we’d be happy to try and answer those.

00:04:23,370	Ultimately, what we would be looking for at the end of this is some sort of consensus and a direction on how best to move forward based on whatever information you I need to make that decision. So without anything else, I’ll get out of the way and let Ryan have it. Thank you. Mr.

00:04:44,700	Mayor, Commissioners, first off, thanks so much for having a special meeting and, uh, and kind of hearing our uh our proposal tonight, um. Very excited to be able to present this information to you and kind of present our ideas and, and goals for things moving forward in regards to a hotel, uh, adjacent to the event center.

00:05:03,400	Um, the binder you’ve got in front of you, the first section has this presentation that that presentation, um, second tab has kind of our draft developer, um, offering. So we’ve started putting together sort of a, uh A pamphlet of information that we can give perspective financiers to uh to kind of help them understand, you know, the needs of the city of Bismarck and kind of our ideas, ideas for the, uh, for the project.

00:05:19,600	Um, and then the last section there is our RFP response from back in, uh, back in February. And, and we’re gonna probably try to keep this. Our team is gonna try to keep this somewhat brief.

00:05:33,400	Um, the interest is really to get into a back and forth and, and sort of a, a dialogue with all of you folks to try to help answer questions and, and share all the things that we’ve learned over the past year. So I’m Ryan Christiansen. I’m with the Austin and Peterson Construction.

00:05:48,430	I’m a, I’m an executive with AMP, um, so my job is to, uh, manage the office we have here in Bismarck, and then I oversee all work in, uh, in North Dakota, um, for this particular project, my role would be sort of general executive oversight, um, I’d also lead any sort of estimating or reconstruction efforts if we get to when we get to that point, and then as we move into construction, that

00:06:03,230	would be my, my role would be to kind of be the leader of, of, uh, construction. Um, we’ve also got Jeff Oel here with Oble Design, um, just been a huge part of this whole thing going forward. He’s got a ton of experience, obviously with the, uh, with the event center and there’s been a huge help.

00:06:17,700	and Eric Hoffer is here with JLG, um, also local architecture, you know, it’s been a great team to put together. We’ve been working on this together for about a year. And then Kevin Megstaff is, uh, or Megstead, sorry, with, uh, with AMPs with us as well.

00:06:35,230	Kevin leads up all of our business development with AMP and for this project, he would really be the, the. Take charge of searching out that, that developer partner plus, uh, really be the liaison between our team and, and the city. Again, any questions stop me anytime.

00:06:55,000	So, kind of as we started this journey, it did not take long for us to understand that there was a definite desire, want, need for, for a hotel adjacent to the, to the convention center. We talked with Kevin’s going to get into it a little more.

00:07:13,030	But we talked with local business owners, you know, you don’t have to go too far to, to talk to a citizen that, that, that, that wants a a new hotel, so the need was there, the interest was there, and that really got us interested in the, in the opportunity and, and we kind of blast it off. Um, I’m gonna go through these fast.

00:07:27,570	We know there’s a lodging gap, especially in that area of the city, um, it would be great to get another hotel, sort of a marquee, ideally a major flag, you know, a Marriott, uh, Radisson, something like that, but a major flag downtown. We believe that this hotel is going to add uh revenue for the convention center. It’s going to complement the, the, the convention center and, uh, and keep people coming and, and gain traction there.

00:07:46,300	We’ve put together some flexible concepts that Jess’s gonna talk to just a little bit, you know, they’re at this point, it’s, it’s kind of a blank slate. We’re we’re open to all ideas. There’s nothing set in stone. It’s, it’s more of a, we really want this to be a team approach.

00:08:00,800	What does the city need? What does, what makes sense for that area and then to integrate that with Downtown, um. Like Jason mentioned, it’s, it’s, it’s, you couldn’t ask for a better spot. It’s a, it’s a great place to go see a concert, to go to an event close to the mall, close to a bunch of different restaurants and bars and stuff.

00:08:14,500	So it kind of, kind of. Sets itself up for a good spot. And then it’s more than a hotel. It’s a community investment. There’s, there’s, we’re very excited about this area of the city, this, this, we’ve talked to many different developers and different entities, and it seems like one of the things we keep hearing is we just need a spark.

00:08:30,970	We need, we need a, we need somebody to go first and that’s really our interest is to, to go first and And get this moving, so I will stop talking and turn it over to Jeff to talk just a little bit about, uh, about the design. Good evening, Mayor Commissioners. It’s good to see you all.

00:08:49,100	And so again, I’ll be brief with my comments. The, the concept that we’re going to prepare or that I’m going to review with you tonight was one that was put together by by our office in, in jail JLG in collaboration.

00:09:07,300	Uh, in the in the intent behind this was not necessarily to solve the problem, but to to more or less use it as a tool to explore the problem. Um, we had, uh, uh, identified a site which essentially came from the RFP that was issued, which is the lot that’s right adjacent to the event center, so it’s on the event center property.

00:09:25,500	And from there we wanted to look at what opportunities might be available on that piece of property and so the concepts that you’re going to see and, and I won’t get into a, a great amount of detail with them, um.

00:09:43,070	The concepts that you see are ideas, um, part of it is to explore the capacity of that site, uh, part of it is to explore uh what uh a hotel connection might look like back to the event center. Part of it is to look at what opportunities there are in that area of town that could engage with this piece of property, and so we really tried to, to push through a variety of different concepts and ideas, and that’s what we’ve included

00:10:00,270	in, in your packet. Uh, so we looked at 4 options or for uh different concepts. The first one was a hotel and convention space. The idea behind this was to certainly look at how many hotel rooms could potentially fit on this particular site, but also to look at what other convention space opportunities

00:10:24,770	there might be that might be collaborative between the uh the event center and the hotel, so we looked at things like breakout meeting room spaces, ballroom spaces, catering kitchen, those things that have been talked about for years. is a necessity. To that location.

00:10:41,770	Maybe that’s something that could be included in the in the hotel development in order to increase that collaboration between this this potential project and that hotel. Uh, option two, well, let me. Slip through here. So, uh, this was option one in this particular case, we had, like I mentioned, convention space and approximately 160 hotel rooms. Across 6 floors. Option 2 was just strictly a hotel option.

00:11:11,730	This would include your traditional ground floor hotel spaces, lounge, restaurant lobby, fitness areas, those types of things, uh, with a variety of, of different hotel room mixes. This, uh, we were able to get a capacity of about a 200 and 200 rooms-ish in this concept.

00:11:37,900	Uh, concept 3 looked at a hotel and a retail opportunity. So in this case we were looking at opportunities to increase ground floor retail to activate Fifth Street. Um, in this option, again we were. We were hovering around 200 hotel rooms.

00:12:05,100	And then option 4, we wanted to take a look at opportunities for downtown living and so this included some ground floor support spaces that were important to the hotel, but then we also looked at opportunities to add additional housing, so in this case, uh, likely condominiums or or apartments. In this case we had 160 guest rooms and 18 uh condo apartments.

00:12:25,600	And so, like I mentioned, the, the, the intent behind this was not Necessarily to solve the problem but to explore it and so this gave us an opportunity to understand. Uh, the type of use and also in the event that we start having conversations with developers, we can start to give them a better sense of, of, uh, how much potential there is in this property, how big it is and what the the cost

00:12:45,700	impacts of that might be down the road. Uh And certainly we’ll come back to this if you have any other, if you have any questions, uh, feel free to jot them down and, and save them for me and I’ll come back up here when you’re ready. OK. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Commissioners.

00:13:07,800	As Ryan said, my name is Kevin Mastead. I do business development for Adolf Sinham Peterson Construction. Moving forward Uh, with regards to the document that Ryan discussed for stakeholder engagement. We would go in and we’re starting, have already done to date a a walk through quick walkthrough and assessment of the facility and the site.

00:13:31,230	Um, we’ve also worked with the CVB on doing a market uh validation of what’s out there lost revenue. Met or unmet lodging and demand. And on December of 24, we also had a community involvement session. What this is doing is putting together an advisory group that we’d looked throughout this and is added to the team.

00:13:56,170	This advisory group would include MDU Resources Basin Electric, sent for He, Bobcat. Uh, some local financial institutions, local developers, and etc. They’ve all expressed interest on need of added hotel rooms for events that they have coming into this, so not through just conventions but also needs on a year-round basis.

00:14:23,500	Um, in February, uh, we presented to the formal, um, RFP with regards to the project. Um, we’ve also added engagement with the Chamber of Commerce and local economic development groups to put the stakeholder engagement or uh document together.

00:14:45,300	One thing that will also be involved with all of this city coordination, so as we progress forward, I will be coordinating or we will be coordinating with the city to let them know exactly what is going on. And also We’ve had some developer dialogue to express interest both on the local side also as a national side, there is some interest, but, um, that’s something we will have to approach after an agreement has been signed moving forward with regards to

00:15:06,730	the city. Moving forward Um, we went with creating this document, we talk about a clear vision showing this where we want to go, what we want to move forward. The strategic tools needed to make sure that this is taken care of. The Market Ready project. And uh call to action this call to action will. Excuse me.

00:15:34,570	We’ll talk about An executive summary, uh, Project Vision, a full write up on it, uh, Bismarck Event Center, the overview of what’s needed. The market deficiency and lost revenues potentially that are out there. Growth outlook With regards to trends and what’s moving forward. Hotel Market gap.

00:16:04,470	Financial incentives location advantage and explore the opportunity of moving this forward. Right. Good. So all that being said, um, kind of why are we here, um, so kind of our, our quote unquote as as a result of this meeting and and through kind of discussions with, with you folks, um, but we’d like to see is a notice of award for the original RFP to,

00:16:26,800	uh, to our team, um, just to sort of memorialize that and then create somewhat of a memorandum of understanding and MOU that outlines, you know, the C will allow us as the, as the sort of the winners or or the successful respondents to that RFP to Starts to solicit Developers and to start bringing those folks in,

00:16:46,000	vetting those development partners and avoiding the RFP RFQ process with those entities, um, one thing that we learned through this whole process. Given market conditions and given some other things, it’s, it’s, uh, Getting developers to, to respond to RFP has been, it’s tough.

00:17:03,230	So the idea would be that the RFP is awarded to us and then we can work through the developer side with the city, um. But anyhow, work through that. Um, we wanna, we’d like to meet with the city regularly just to to to discuss any potential incentives to discuss sort of that, that whole piece of the pie.

00:17:20,700	It’s gonna take a team effort to, to bring this to fruition. And so one of the things that kind of the questions that we were asked as we were working through all this was, you know, what’s is the city. Willing to put anything forward.

00:17:36,100	What is the city willing to put forward? So what we’re asking for there is just conversation, no commitments, just how do we work together to, to figure out what does that look like and what’s out there.

00:17:51,730	Um, we would agree to keep all those discussions private and tell the city lets us know that it’s OK to share those, um, more of a statement than anything, um, and then timeline, we’d agreed to, to, uh, finalize the development agreement with city approval within 18 months, ideally much sooner than that. Um, so that would be getting the deal in place, getting the developer signed up, financing in place, so on and so forth, um, pre-construction design phase, approximately a year, um, and with construction taking approximately 18. months.

00:18:12,100	A lot of those are, are somewhat fluffy numbers at this point, just not knowing exactly what the building’s going to look like or, or any of those things, but that’s a, a pretty rough sort of guesstimate.

00:18:27,830	And then finally, the city agrees to require any development partner or the development partner that we bring forward to negotiate with our team first prior to, to going out to other builders or designers, um, fee associated with that is nothing. We’re not looking for any sort of financial commitment at this point.

00:18:43,000	What we’re looking for from the city is, is truly that team approach, that, that how do we get this to, to, how do we bring this to life? Understanding that there’s gonna be headwinds, you know, market-driven headwinds, financial headwinds, but, but how do we bring everyone together to get the, the best bang for our buck, the city’s best bang for its buck, and, and get this built, um.

00:19:02,130	Yeah, within a, a budget and make sure that it’s the right building for this area. All of us on this team believe that this is a hugely important project for this area of the city.

00:19:20,430	It’s, it’s It’s gonna be such a benefit for the event center for the area, and again, I really believe that this is the spark that could drive There is Bismarck Industries land adjacent. There’s You Mary just to the north. There’s, there’s a lot of area there that can be developed and we keep hearing that this could be, you know, who’s going to go first? And we believe that this is the right one to go first. So with that, I think, uh, I’m kind of done talking.

00:19:36,970	What you want to pull us up. I want to thank you for allowing us to do this proposal and with that, any questions? Commissioners. Go ahead, Comm Risch. Mr. Mayor, um, I, I noticed it’s only 205 rooms at the most. I mean, if you get a convention, 205 is not a very large number.

00:20:00,770	It’s just a holding spot, Comm Reuters. This could be bigger. Um, there’ll be limits on how high we can build it just because of airport issues, but the 205 was just addressed because It could be larger than that if needed, so. And there are other hotels in town that typically happens when there’s conventions, but without a doubt.

00:20:23,300	Comm Clery, um, more of a question probably for Julie or maybe Jason, but, um, with this MOU, the point A city agrees to allow AP to solicit and vet potential development partners without requiring the RFP or RFQ process. Because of this RFP is that F fully legal.

00:20:48,930	I mean, cause I know we talk a lot about like the requiring an RFP what is what when is RFP required is if we. If we go into an agreement with them based off of this RFP is that All kosher. And far as far as like our requirements. This Or if you have an answer, that’s fine thought and and and you’re exactly right.

00:21:16,130	That, that was kind of my thought is, and, and, and item A in the MOU is probably a little bit redundant because, and this is, I’m not a lawyer, but, but in my mind, the RFP is awarded the, the team is, is awarded.

00:21:33,070	We’re bringing on another entity, so, uh, again, I don’t want to speak for Jason or anyone else, but, but that was kind of the thought process there, was that the, the RFP is you’re hiring the subcontractors, etc. that it’s not that we’re not making. Se RFPs for that, the continued process, OK.

00:21:51,100	Joe, do you have a take on that for me? I have a preliminary take and I’m not going to be held to it until I do more research and then we get more information. So I think it’s going to depend on who owns the property that we’re building on and if we have an exclusive development.

00:22:07,870	Contract with this group, then we could work around the RFPRFQ process, but we’ll have to see what the, how it finally shakes out. OK. I think I would love more information on that from you at some point just to make sure that we’re following all the rules. Yes, yes, Comm, I will add that to my list of tasks. Thank you. Other question, Comm Connelly. When you say invent invest or incentive meetings.

00:22:34,030	Are you talking incentive meetings with private entities or are you talking incentive meetings with um Uh, the city that includesit funds. With regards to incentives we’re not even at that point yet because we don’t know what the costs are going to be or anything.

00:22:55,900	So it would be all the above, but What we can’t define those at this time because we have no idea what that even gonna end up being. OK. Uh, from my perspective, just to be transparent, if it’s private investors or private uh groups and things, transparency, that’s kind of between the person bringing up the proposal or not, but if it’s citizens’ funds, I think that belongs in full transparency.

00:23:21,130	Oh, definitely, definitely, we would have to be reworded. OK. Other questions? Go ahead, Comm. I’m just thinking out loud. I think we should have as many rooms as possible. I’ve been to conventions where there’s more than 1000 people and everybody wants to stay in the convention hotel when you’re at a convention.

00:23:42,600	Um, why do, do you think it might be necessary to have uh meeting rooms when we’re connected to the event center that’s got all kinds of meeting rooms. I mean, a couple of proposals were meeting rooms and I could see a boardroom or something to that effect, but yeah. A good, good question, Comm Risch.

00:24:01,100	What I would say is I would go back. You know, this is stepping back a little bit in history. But I’ll use the last master plan that was completed for the event center, for example.

00:24:22,500	That master plan through that process identified that there was way more meeting room space that was needed than what was currently available in the event centeredited at at that point had identified. Adding on about 10,000 square feet more of additional meeting room space just to accommodate the size of the exhibit halls and so when we were exploring this option, uh, we looked at what, what could we potentially put into this development that would help complement with what the event center has, so I

00:24:44,300	wouldn’t necessarily look at it as, as something that’s separate from that but more something that could potentially be available for both entities to utilize in order to max. Maximize the potential of an event, if that makes sense. Rich, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

00:25:04,200	Jeff, what about parking? Already if there’s a big event, a man that lines up a big, uh, group. I’m parking over by Caribou Coffee. Uh, so what are we going to do about parking? That’s that many fewer spots. Yeah. Parking, parking is going to be a challenge.

00:25:22,770	I’ll tell you that, that whether this is here or whether it’s someplace else, parking is gonna be a challenge, no matter what. We can look at all the other examples that exist in North Dakota that are exactly like this. The Elera Center is probably a perfect example because it has an attached hotel, the convention center, and a much larger arena. And at this point they have surface parking and it’s under parked.

00:25:42,030	Uh, you’re parking in neighborhoods over there to attend an event, so I, I’m not saying that that that’s uh a reason to ignore it. We talked a lot about how do we accommodate parking just for the hotel guests because you wouldn’t expect hotel guests or hotel guests wouldn’t expect to You know, walk from the mall.

00:25:59,070	To the, to the building if they had if they had a car here and so there are some things like that that are going to need to be continue uh continue investigation and uh and expanded discussion regarding because parking will be an issue.

00:26:17,270	And I’ve been around for a long time and I’ve heard a lot, a lot of discussion regarding parking down in that, in that area. Yeah, so, so I know that’s not an answer, but I totally understand what you’re saying. What? Go, Comm.

00:26:39,200	Thank you, Mayor Comm, so a few weeks ago as Jason said, I talked about us taking the being a little bit more aggressive, um, as to how we handle things in the community. There’s one thing in here that I don’t see. And I don’t see the wow factor. I don’t see the, the, hey, I wanna stay at that hotel. I wanna stay at that place, um, Mr.

00:26:59,400	Ubu, you referenced the, the, um, Grand Forks Hiller Center, right? The Candid Inn. Well, I’ve, I mean, my kids have played basketball for years, and whenever we went up to that Grand A tournament, we booked that, that hotel a year in advance so they could go to the water park, right? So that’s when we did this, this is kind of, that’s what I was looking for.

00:27:16,000	What’s the wow factor? Um, now I appreciate all the work that’s done, but a hotel and a little bit of convention space and, and some adjacent property. I mean, 6 businessmen within the city could put this thing together and, and, and be successful someplace other than on the property of the event center, right? So, um, I wouldn’t, I

00:27:35,370	don’t mind giving you a few extra months, but I’d I’d really like to see the wow factor because I don’t, I don’t see that in, in this presentation. Does that make sense? Yes, Comm Zenor does, and that’s something that hopefully will be, as we vet this out, if that’s a something that somebody wants to propose

00:27:52,900	and bring forward, that’s something we would look at, so. Go ahead. One final thing I noticed in our, our pre-lien packet, there’s, uh, versus what we got today, um, I would not support a TIFF, and I would not support a cast infusion that was referenced in the in the prelim, um, I get it, we

00:28:11,430	want to think outside the box. We want to do some things, but from those types of those ideas I was hoping you would bring ideas where you would bring outside monies in to do it because there might be some scenarios that instead of, instead of having your group do it, we might as well build it.

00:28:29,600	If we’re gonna, if we’re gonna infuse cash to it too, so. Which we don’t have, by the way. And, and that’s one thing that’ll be defined there is once we get it all pulled together and see the market rates, room rates are going to be a big thing to determine, you know, what, how the money

00:28:45,570	is invested and moved forward. If they get a certain room rate, I mean, we’re hearing now there’s events that go down at the event center where they’re charging $300 a night up in the North Hotels. I mean, it’s only business, that’s what I’m saying if you’re getting 200 to $300 a night room rates.

00:29:04,470	That’s going to make an investor a lot happier coming in with their private capital. So And I think the point there is we have to have, we have to be thinking outside the box, and I would agree there are probably some non-starters of items that we don’t want to do and I’ve expressed that also.

00:29:21,300	And just to be clear too on the, on the original response, those are really just ideas, you know, I was just kind of a throw everything up against the wall and, and, and see what happens. So just clarify.

00:29:34,800	Yeah, and there’s no reason not to put every idea out there, right? There’s just, we need to, and it’s just me, I’m only one vote at this table, but I’ll establish the parameters, so. Mr. Clery, yeah, I guess I just to touch on a few things, um, I appreciate the, the fluidity of it like to Comm Zenker’s point, I think there’s going to be, there’s gonna be need to be further discussions when it

00:29:52,500	comes to Incentives, what they are, what they need to be, because I think that There’s no reason to take. Incentives off the table when we know that this is a project that the city is asking for, the citizens want, uh, that we want to partake in, you know, and have a say in the wow factor or

00:30:14,200	whatever, you know, whatever we’re talking about, I think, and then to Comm Connelly’s point that if we’re talking incentives that are facilitated in any way by the city that those just remain public conversations, um.

00:30:32,070	I, and I also just wanted to make a point with what Comm Risch talks about with size, uh, I think a lot of hotels that are built these days, even convention center hotels. Don’t have 1000 rooms, um, just because of logistically space to Ryan’s point, hopefully this is a domino.

00:30:55,330	Uh, I would love to see more hotels, more development, more things pop up in that area, I think that some of that creates your wow factor, your desire to be there, um, also, I mean, like, yeah, water parks awesome, but like the wow factor to me and to a lot of my friends is more like the Jasper, so I think that there’s like there’s.

00:31:15,000	Room options and I so I like that this stays open ended when it comes to The, the type of build that we’re looking at and how that’s gonna get decided and how the incentives work. I think that like it’s a great starting point, so I appreciate the work that went into it. Richard, Richard Connelly.

00:31:35,530	Um, I concurred with Comm Zenker on those two incentive items, um, this has been a long, hard conversation since 2011. Jeff’s been around for that and things is that uh A few people can make a decision if there’s a majority of votes and things, but To get an entire community and an entire region to embrace something.

00:31:57,300	It, it strikes a lot more potential and there’s some history there that we have to overcome. So the more that that can happen, you mentioned like in your community, um, engagement with major players in the community and things. Those are the people that can afford a lot of things.

00:32:16,100	There’s a lot of people in this community that are struggling with the increased taxes overtime in those and they’re feeling pinched and they’re very, very skeptical. So that buy-in becomes important, like even on, I made a mess out of your book over here, but, uh, where it says strengthen downtown and economic growth and I would be thinking it should say strengthen the entire community and region.

00:32:36,830	It should be all of Bismarck Downtown’s a little bit overplayed and um. When you see that a lot, that’s where the pointing fingers come in the conversation becomes harder. And, um. I’m more of a common person as far as um and that it’s, uh, convincing a lot of the folks that have the uh Uh, resources that I do.

00:33:02,500	That I think is important if we’re going to embrace big swings because every building costs a lot of money. Every venture, it’s a lot of money and um a lot of other businesses, they come to us every year for tax abatements, so any incentive, they’re feeling a little slighted. So.

00:33:21,430	All that has to be part of the conversation in my opinion. I’m sorry, no. Oh, Mr. Mayor Commission, guys, um, I’d be really reluctant to invest city money into the private enterprise because they’re competing with other hotels in town. It’s just a fairness issue, a marketplace issue that I, that I’d struggle with.

00:33:47,770	I can speak to that really quickly and that’s, and that’s really completely understand and, and, and. And we hear you, right? I mean, that’s, that’s the really the tough part is, is public funds, private entity, and, and that’s really the intent of that sort of, we call them incentive meetings in the, in the packet, but that’s really the intent of that is to get together and really understand those, those

00:34:04,900	things, and, and ideally, it is all private, 100%. I mean, that’s, there’s the, the best case scenario is that there are no incentives from the city, um. But until we kind of get things rolling and, and we really get to meet with, with you folks and others, um, It’s hard to say.

00:34:23,570	So, so if I understand the Requests primarily would be to, we’d engage you for no fee. To investigate and try to drive This process and give you as much latitude as we can within whatever restrictions we have to follow from a governmental body standpoint.

00:34:48,100	On RFPs and Multiple entities and if you came to us with a The home run that was all private investment, and they’re gonna do this, I mean, that becomes a much easier sell, but, um, If am I understanding that’s really the request.

00:35:07,930	You are exactly, and, and, and really the, the driver of the request is We’re looking at probably 6 to 12 months of, of a lot of work, a lot of resources from, from all of our, our groups, which is great, and we’re happy to do it and, and we’re excited about it. What this sort of agreement and in essence it’s a handshake agreement between our entities and, and, and the city is just that it’s, it’s, let’s investigate together, let’s, let’s team up.

00:35:24,600	It’s gonna be a tough pull. I mean, we’re, we’re gonna have to all work together to get it across the finish line, um. When this You know, it originally came out, we had high hopes that we were gonna be able to find a developer that was going to dive in and, and away we go.

00:35:39,030	Bunch of different reasons why that didn’t work, but, but that’s the, you know, that you’re exactly right, Mayor. I’ll, uh, I’m, I’m putting a lot of words together for a, a, a yes, correct. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut anybody off, so. I mean, before we just give the go ahead with, you know, like the little. Uh, advice we need.

00:35:57,470	I just like, I, I appreciate that we can continue to have the conversations about incentives cause I don’t want to see a project like this go away just because you couldn’t 100% obviously it would be great if it was privately funded 100% like, but like you said, it’s a, it’s a big ask,

00:36:13,530	um, I like when I, when I read through the list of incentives and I, cause I knew that that was gonna be a conversation here where it was like you don’t want to spend public money on private things, I think, and our incentives fair or.

00:36:29,570	Picking people like that sort of thing, but I think just to play devil’s advocate in some of this, uh, every project needs A certain level of assistance, whether it be 0 or a lot, you know, very high and that assistance looks different depending on where you’re at in the city, you know, we have funded infrastructure for big projects, you know, there, there was decisions made at

00:36:49,430	this table about Costco when I wasn’t here, you know, roads being built, you know, that we’re covering funding to make that. You know, project happen or more enticing to that developer or whatever it might be, it just looks different when you’re doing it in an infill way because you guys don’t need roads, you need

00:37:08,070	something else, uh, so I just don’t want to fully close the door of what those conversations look like. You can bring things to us and the answer might be no.

00:37:25,730	I just think it’s unfair to say like over no city in incentives without looking at what they could be because I think it’s unrealistic to say that we don’t provide those for other people in Greenfield. and I, I just, I wanna make sure that that conversation still happens if it’s needed and that the project doesn’t just die for lack of private fund or lack of 100% private funding. If that makes sense.

00:37:42,970	OK, I just, and I know that we’re not all in agreeance on that, and so that’s why there will be more conversations, but I just wanna kind of say like I think there’s a lot of like.

00:37:59,870	We don’t want public dollars to be blank, but like we use public dollars for a lot of projects just a lot of times it’s different types of infrastructure and roads. But they do tend to benefit specific projects that are also needed in this community, so it, I just wanna make sure that we keep that in mind as we move forward. Mr. Connelly.

00:38:21,770	Well, one of the big incentives we’d already talked about it with the other hotels and motels in the community, the natural incentive is, is that. It’s attached to the building, so. Just by location where the events would be.

00:38:46,700	And That gives them the competitive edge over everybody else in the community that is living by those um taxes, and they’re trying to make it too, like I’d mentioned, a lot of them come to us every year, uh, the hotel’s asking for tax abatements. They’re struggling, so it’s a. It’s something we need to be cognizant of because they’ve already invested here. Comm Risch. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was just wondering about the time element.

00:39:06,700	You have this 12 months of design and whatnot and 18 months of construction, but you’re gonna, you’re gonna, we need a partner to begin with, you know, how long do you anticipate that taking or who knows? Might happen tomorrow, might happen. Well, that’s why. Originally, it’s gonna be a 6 to 12 month just determining who the partner is going to be and all that stuff. So this isn’t a period that’s gonna take.

00:39:25,300	6 months and, and we’re gonna get moving forward. So there’s gonna be a lot of work that 1st 6 to 12 months to make sure we that the um the potential developer and make sure it’s an approval of the city that they approve of that developer. I mean, so that’s something that needs to be worked through prior. So the 12 day.

00:39:45,600	The 12 month and the 18 month, that’s stacked on top of. Right? Yeah, this can take some time. Yeah. 3 What you’re going to have. But you’re right, ideally, that’s A month from now when we find the, the perfect partner and away we go, right? So that’s Yeah.

00:40:11,030	We’ve had, like I said, we’ve had conversations with in-state developers that there may be an interest, but they want to know how this thing progresses going forward. We’ve also had conversations with Um, a developer out of Texas. And one thing you’d like to hear is he said it’s got to be 600 rooms. So, you know, that’s what, that’s what he does, his hotel and convention centers.

00:40:36,800	Just a rough guesstimate. I’m, I’m $200 million project. No No, I would, I would anticipate somewhere in the 60 to 80, some, some place in there. Jeff. I’m glad to see that smile on your face. But a discussion came up earlier today when we were all talking prior to the meeting.

00:41:03,830	What would it cost to build the event center somewhere else. 500 million is what came up like that. But being a, a person that was born and raised in Bismarck. I would love to see a Fargo Athletic Center up north with a water park. Hotel right next to it. That would be awesome.

00:41:26,200	I’d like to see the next like, you know, I’d like to see the county fairgrounds. I mean, we’ve been dealing with those people of the whole equestrian center out there. It’s kind of like what Comm Clery said, it’s got to be all the above. Bismarck to get to the next level needs to be all the above, not just one or the other.

00:41:43,100	Yeah, I think we’re in agreement on that too. Do you want do you want? The motion with. Well, I, I think we need to exclusivity for The amount of time we’re not out anything. No, we’re not out anything. At any time, this thing could just not proceed.

00:42:02,170	Don’t take that wrong, but I’m trying, right? Got to think for like government for a little bit here. So, um, Optimistically, I want this thing to go cause I I like this. I like to see the first domino fall. Um So is that, is that fair? because we didn’t put that in the RFP that’s more of a legal question for Julie.

00:42:22,570	Or, or do we give direction to staff to figure out how it can be done. staying compliance. Correct. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking that if we have consensus, we wanna move forward with it, can we have staff make sure that all of this makes sense, so I’m, yeah, specifically wanna make sure that we’re clear on that

00:42:42,170	2A about the RFP and whether it all makes sense logistically for us legally, um. And We’ll go from there. Or motion to direct that probably is appropriate actually, but. We did have comments from some of the developers that we talked to on the hotel side, they will not do an RFP.

00:43:04,370	They’re going to contract with you That’s right. I would move to have staff, um, Kind of Delve into the legalese of having that memorandum of understanding and as long as It works through legally and makes sense for the city, um, that then we would move forward with that from there at no cost to the city.

00:43:34,070	I Do have further discussion. He none will call roll. Mr. Connelly. No. Comm Cleary, yes, Misher Risch. Comm Zenker. Mayor Schmitz, yes. It’s the only item on our agenda, so our meeting is