Community Redevelopment Agency - 07/23/26

Charlie Miranda: present · Lynn Hurtak: present · Alan Clendenin: present · Bill Carlson: present · Naya Young: present

Outcome: Is there a motion to approve the minutes of the June 11th to 2026 CRA meeting? (partial — some responses not in transcript)

Lynn Hurtak: yes · Luis Viera: no · Bill Carlson: yes · Charlie Miranda: yes · Alan Clendenin: no · Naya Young: yes

Outcome: Motion passes with Vera and Clendenin-Vodino.

Okay. Good morning. This meeting of the Community Redevelopment Agency is now called to order. Board Member Vieira is on his way. I'm going to pass it to Councilwoman Hurtek for our, I mean, Board Member Hurtek for our moment of silence.

Yes. So if everyone could stand for a moment of silence and then we'll do the pledge.

Thank you, Board Member Hurtek. Can we have a roll call, please? Miranda? Here. Minniskako? Here. Hurtek? Here. Clendenin? Here. Carlson? Here. Vieira? Young? Here. We have physical quorum. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of the June 11th to 2026 CRA meeting? We have a motion by Board Member Miranda, second from Board Member Maniscalco. All in favor? Any opposed? Oh, Board Member Vieira has made his way. Thank you for being here with us. District 7, District 7, District 7, Mr. McCray, Director McCray, are there any changes to the agenda?

MCRA Director, we have requested a continuance for Item 8, and everything else on the agenda will follow as written.

I move to continue Item 8 to September 10th, 2026.

Thank you. I have a motion from Board Member Hurtek, second from Board Member Maniscalco. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. Public comments?

Oh, Board Member Hurtek? We have to approve the agenda. Oh, sorry. Well, actually, do we need to bring anything up from required approvals? There's a PowerPoint for Item 12? Yes, that was the budget presentation. So I move to move Item 12 to staff reports? Second.

Okay, we have a motion from Board Member Hurtek, a second from Member Maniscalco. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And then I move to approve the agenda. Thank you. Board Member for Board Member Hurtek, second from Board Member Maniscalco. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, thank you very much. Okay, now we will have public comment. We will go to our, oh, yes, Attorney Shepard, can you read off our rules of the court, please? Yes, ma'am, I can.

Members of the public are allowed a reasonable opportunity at the beginning of the CRA meeting to address any item on the agenda before the CRA takes official action on an item. However, a three-minute time limit applies to all speakers providing public comment unless such a time frame is modified by a vote of the CRA board. Speakers and members of the public are also reminded that they are to refrain from disruptive behavior, including making vulgar or threatening remarks, or making or causing disruptive noises or sounds, or displaying signs or graphics. Speakers are also reminded to refrain from launching personal attacks. The chair will rule out of order any person who speaks without being recognized or attempts to address the CRA from outside the speaker area at the podium. Persons failing to comply with the CRA's rules may be also ruled out of order and, at the discretion of the chair, may be removed from chambers for the remainder of that day's CRA meeting. Finally, CRA board members are reminded that they should refrain from engaging a speaker under public comment. The City Council rules as revised June 6, 2024 are now in effect for the CRA board unless otherwise exempted or overridden by the CRA board bylaws.

Thank you very much, Attorney Shepard. We have one virtual public comment. Mr. Randolph.

Hello.

There you are. We can hear you.

Excellent. Thank you so much. My name is Michael Randolph. The title of today's presentation is Threats to the CRA, the City Council, and Community Control. The good news. Housing, federal housing policy is experienced as its biggest overall in more than a decade, creating a unified national strategy to expand housing supply, trust development barriers, and lower costs for working families. This approach is supply-driven, encouraging zoning changes, streamlining, environmental review, and speeding permitting facilities to build fast. It also modernizes core programs like HOME, CDBG, and FHA multifamily maintenance, and rural housing programs, giving Tampa and its nonprofit partners more flexibility resources for affordable homes. The legislation also strengthens community banks, expand manufacturing, and modular housing, promotes adaptive reduce to vacant commercial buildings, and protect against corporate ownership of family homes. The bad news. Here's where it becomes complicated, complicated for Tampa. These reforms mirrors Florida's live, local, and stacks on top of Senate Bill 1134, which bans local DEI spending and requires nonprofits receiving public funds to certify that they do not use funding for equity work. For black-led CDCs, that means compliant risks, constrain mission manuals, and threatens reoccurring funders. At the same time, live local and federal packing shift power upward away from neighborhoods in the city council. Zoning overrides and accelerated approval reduce opportunities for the CRA to negotiate community benefits or shape density and height. The results. Now, big corporations are able to compete with black-owned nonprofits, and this is a problem. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Randolph.

What do I say? I see some folks from HOPE here today, the Hillsborough Organization for Progress and Equality, and I just want to say welcome. We're happy to have you here. Welcome.

If you wish to speak for public comment, could you line up against the wall, please? Start with your name, and then you'll have three minutes.

How you doing? My name is Janelle Scott. I came down here last week to speak about the false imprisonment that took place, and I want to really address the fact that how is it a judge got absolute immunity for committing a crime of false imprisonment, where Judge Elizabeth Guselli Rice had me in the county jail when I wasn't even supposed to come back from Grace Point to the county jail, because on the thing that was posted for me to go to the program, it said not required to come back to jail. I left Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office jail on June 26, 2025. I bonded out, then I had to turn myself into Grace Point. I turned myself into Grace Point 30 days later. I got kicked out of Grace Point. I got found competent on the 19th. I stayed in jail from all that time, 99 days, to December 2nd, because my bonds were paid, and she never lifted the hold that she had on me on Grace Point. So I'm trying to find out, according to the law, the law said that false imprisonment is not only a crime, but also grounds for a civil action. So if we like, ain't nobody greater than the others, so it's like, that's accountability. Some accountability need be happening. I've been disabled. I know they had a lot of stuff going on. My Section 8, they kicked me off Section 8 because I said something about fiberglass coming through my duct system. Met the dude, Mr. Jerome, now. Played it off like he would like. They knew. So my apartment complex and Section 8 worked together to get me put out, putting people there and everything. It's corrupt. So accountability need to be took place because you got disabled people like me. We just want to try to make it a means to end. And then the thing that I'm upset about, because I got out of jail, like I just told y'all, June 24th this month. I'm on this year for the trespassing that was illegal. But for us to be able to survive, like literally, the fair market rate rent got to match up with the Social Security disability or either retirement because it ain't going to make these people be able to survive. That's all old people talking about. My rent went up. And then because they got a little boost in Social Security, the rent go up. Now they don't even see the increase. That should be shameful in the number one economic state in the United States of America, Florida. Tourism, retirement, and legislature. We got all the tourism you want. You can retire here. And we got the legislature with the police for it to make you feel safe. I yield my time.

Thank you very much, sir. Do you have anybody else for public comment? Now that public comment is done, we will, Director McCray, we'll start with our staff. Good morning again.

Cedric McCray, Tampa CRA Director. At this time, for item one, I would like to call up Ms. Mary Beth Williams. She is the downtown CRA CAC chair, and she will provide the update on the downtown CRA and CAC.

Good morning, Chair and CRA board members. As Chair of the Downtown Community Advisory Committee, I'm pleased to provide a brief update on our activities. The downtown CAC continues to support the CRA's strategic objectives, and our discussions over the past several months have focused on advancing projects in the following key priority areas. Attainable and affordable housing. A core objective of the CRA is expanding housing opportunities for residents at a variety of income levels, helping ensure that people can live close to where they work while supporting a vibrant downtown community. The LD&D Encore Lot 10 was the first downtown project awarded. $5.4 million in funding agreement for 30 units, which is on today's agenda. 801 Whiting, a $4 million approved project for 22 workforce housing units, serving households earning 80% to 140% AMI. This community will help bridge a critical gap for Tampa's workforce and middle-income residents seeking to live close by where they work. Applications are currently being accepted. The PMG Affordable Royal Street development was presented to the CRA in June. This will provide 568 units at or below 80% AMI. Connectivity and infrastructure. Improving connectivity through the downtown remains another CRA objective by creating a safer, more accessible, and more navigable environment for residents and visitors. The Franklin Street Action Plan continues through the RFP process. The Downtown Wayfinding Signage Project is expected to move into the construction phase bid advertisement following the approval of program changes in August. Under economic development, the CRA continues to support projects that preserve historic assets, encourage private investment, and strengthen downtown's economic vitality. The Jackson House funding agreement is expected before the CRA board in August. The Union Station renovations continue with ongoing construction on the main station. Under quality of life, enhancing parks and public spaces and recreational amenities remains an important focus to improve the overall experience for everyone who lives, works, and visits downtown. The Herman Massey Project was completed and the ribbon cutting was April 21st. The Tampa Museum of Art Dog Park was completed with the ribbon cutting on February the 10th. Curtis-Hickson Waterfront Park renovation funds were approved February of 26th. And ADA enhancements at Curtis-Hickson are expected to be completed by January of 27th. Under community engagement, the Downtown CAC remains committed to engaging the public and maintaining strong partnerships with organizations that help advance the CRA's mission. We continue to hold regular CAC meetings. We continue posting our agendas and meeting recordings on the Tampa CRA YouTube channel. And we maintain partnerships with organizations like the Tampa Downtown Partnership, Friends of the Riverwalk, and the Downtown River Arts Neighborhood Association. In closing, the Downtown CAC remains engaged in supporting the CRA's mission by providing community input and advancing projects that enhance housing opportunities, infrastructure, economic development, quality of life, and community engagement throughout downtown. Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions if you should have any. Thank you very much. Board Member Hurtek.

Thank you so much for that excellent presentation. I love the way – oh, you can stay. I've been about any – about all the different things that are happening in downtown, and I'm particularly pleased that you started with affordable housing. That has been an issue for downtown for many years, and now we're starting to get some movement there. So I just want to say thank you so much for the CAC to continuing to champion this. It is so important. But I'm really thrilled to see all of the other assets and movement we're seeing throughout the community. So thank you for continuing to do the work. I can't wait to see what Franklin Street becomes. I mean, we're just doing a lot of movement. I go down to Herman Massey often to sit on the swing. Just for a little break. So it's been really, really wonderful. But I'm really pleased to see the movement with the CAC and how active and engaged they are with not only the surrounding neighborhoods but also the downtown partnership and all the other works around there. So thank you so much for what you're doing.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other board members have any questions or comments? Thank you very much. That was a great report. Thank you. And I remember downtown at a time, and so to see, you know, all the things that are happening, thank you all. You're doing a great job. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Director McRae.

Good morning again. I just wanted to move on to item two, and thank you, Ms. Williams, for your report and comments. Move on to the director's report for this July 23rd meeting. We have included the customary trackers per board request, and we'll pause for any questions that you all may have.

Does the board have any questions? No questions?

If not, we will move on to the FY26 budget realignment. As the board knows customarily every year, as part of the annual services agreement, we do cover the cost and share with the city for the staff, and that's across all the CRAs. So East Tampa, Drew Park, West Tampa, Tampa Heights, Riverfront, E-BOR 1, E-BOR 2, downtown, Channel District as well. And so just asking the board's approval so that we can go ahead and reprogram those funds and transfer to the realignment for the budget. And that amount is $4,254,558.

Thank you. And for those in the public, there are in the backup documentation, it shows what is being moved in each area of each budget. So I move to approve.

Second.

I have a motion from Board Member Hurtek. Second from Board Member Clendenin. All in favor? Any opposed? All righty.

Thank you. The next item I would like to highlight is that there was a request from the Florida Aquarium related to an extension to the conditions precedent. We are working with them as a staff to meet the final few items, and hopefully we'll be able to land that plane within the next 60 to 90 days. And just wanted to inform the board that that extension was granted.

Board Member Hurtek? And I just want to reiterate that this is not a monetary movement.

No. No.

This is just simply a time.

Correct. They need more time to complete what their goal is. That is correct. Just wanted to make sure, again, for the public. Yes, ma'am. I move to approve.

I have a motion from Board Member Hurtek. Second from Board Member Maniscalco to approve the extension. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

All right. Thank you. The next item, I know that this is near and dear to some on the dais, related to the ADA equipment features. As you know, in FY23, the board at that time approved funds for ADA-compliant equipment to be installed across all the CRA Parks and Recreation facilities. There is a consultant that Parks and Rec has hired, and there is a component that the CRA will have to cover that amount. It will be coming before you as council at a future meeting, but I wanted to share that with you here as a CRA board first so that you're not hearing it the first time at the council meeting. And I believe tentatively it's going to be the July 30th meeting.

Motion from Board Member Maniscalco. Second from Board Member Miranda. All in favor? Any opposed?

Thank you. And next, I would like to invite Mr. Corey Robinson, our CRA Arts and Cultural Project Coordinator, to provide an update on some of the work that is being done across all the CRAs. And if you could indulge him for a few moments, and if we could pull up the agenda item to presentation.

About how much time do you think you need, Mr. Robinson?

Three to four minutes.

Okay. We'll put five minutes.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Okay. All right. You can start with your name and you're good to go.

I'll get the presentation, please. Good morning. My name is Corey Robinson. I'm the Arts and Cultural Project Coordinator for the CRA. Thank you for your time this morning to give you a few brief updates. Our first update is Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez Memorial in Waterworks Park. That's in Tampa Heights. The Baldomero Lopez Memorial remains on schedule. Artist Steve Dickey is expected to install the sculpture in late August in time for the centennial celebration. He has worked closely with the Lopez family and Judge Salcinis throughout the design process to ensure the memorial honors Lieutenant Lopez's legacy. Up next is the Tampa Union Station World War II Memorial. This project received 62 artist applications and the Art Selection Committee after two meetings selected Austin Weissel. Austin has extensive experience creating military and first responder memorials. Staff is currently preparing the service agreement with a project kickoff planned later this year. Our next project is the Tampa Heights Roundabouts. For the North Boulevard and Palm Avenue Roundabout, the committee selected artist Dulk from a pool of 159 applicants. We are currently working on the service agreement and installation is anticipated in late 2027. Because of the district boundaries in this roundabout, the City of Tampa is partnering on this project with a $50,000 contribution. Our next roundabout in Tampa Heights, the Highland Avenue and Palm Avenue Roundabout. The committee determined that the finalist proposals did not fully represent the cultural identity of Tampa Heights. Staff in the committee is now reviewing additional artists from the original applicant pool before moving forward. Another roundabout project in East Tampa, Lake Avenue and 34th Street Roundabout. We received 171 applications and narrowed it down to three finalists. The Art Selection Committee reviewed the three finalist presentations last night. The committee is currently finalizing its selection, but we look forward to announcing the awarded artists soon. And more exciting news to come on that. Next project, Salcinas Park Mural Restoration. As a part of the park renovations, we invited the original artist, Michelle Sawyer, to restore and expand the existing mural after additional wall space became available during construction. The work was completed in coordination with the park improvements. Also in West Tampa, Ray Park Community Center. To preserve the original mural while complementing the new community center, staff is working with the original muralist, Carl Cowden, on an updated design of his 1984 mural that will be fabricated as an architectural glass installation inside the new facility. We have received CAC feedback as well as feedback from Judge Salcinas on this project. A few upcoming projects we have. Looking ahead, staff will begin the Drew Park Signal Box Project, bringing public art to five city-owned signal boxes throughout the district. Following the success of West Tampa Signal Box Project, this initiative will continue to transform everyday infrastructure into artwork that reflects the character of the community. This also acts as a pedestrian safety initiative. We are also developing the Channelside Gateway Sculpture, which will serve as a signature public art feature for the new park currently being designed along Channelside Drive. This project is intended to create a memorial gateway for visitors entering the park. And finally, as planning continues on the new West Main Street Park in West Tampa, staff is working closely with the design team to identify opportunities to incorporate art early in the planning process, ensuring the artwork is fully integrated into the park's overall design and visitor experience. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of things, which is, you know, we're very excited about the Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez statute. That's something that, you know, is going to be great. We've been working with E.J. Salsinas on that, and that's always been a passion of his. I remember being, gosh, how old was I, maybe a 33-year-old lawyer, and he'd heard through something at the Hispanic bar that I was interested in, Lieutenant Lopez. So he calls me up on my phone. I'm in the middle of some project, and he goes, Luis, do you have the next day available? And I went, I guess so. Sure. He goes, I'm going to take you to look at Lieutenant Lopez's sites. And he took me to a bunch of different sites, his final resting place with his parents and his brother, Hillsborough High, many different places, the historical marker downtown that he helped do. So we're excited for that. It's going to be great on September. Council can mark your date or mark your calendar because it's going to be September 15th. Because, yeah, that's going to be, that's the date when he gave all the Ninchong career. So excited for that. And, you know, it's funny because one motion I wanted to make that I'll probably make next week, I'll do a letter to council on it, is Dr. Bernard Lafayette, who many of us know, who passed out, or know of, I should say,

who was a remarkable voting rights activist and a social justice warrior and a civil rights icon who had roots here in Ybor City and former state representative Ed Norain, when he passed on, when Dr. Lafayette passed on, said, man, there should be some sort of memorial to him in Tampa to mark those roots.

So I'll, obviously it'll be long after I leave, but I do think that's something, because, you know, it's so proper for us to mark our heroes here, people like Francisco Rodriguez or Bob Saunders, Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez, folks who are no longer with us.

So that's great. So I just wanted to commend you all for the work on Lieutenant Lopez. We're very excited about that. So thank you. Very excited.

Thank you so much. Any other comments, questions? No? Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. Have a good one.

My time. Good morning. Being a B Park's community development coordinator for item number three, it's for the LD&D agreement, just for the approval of the agreement. As I mentioned during the briefings, this is going to provide 30 affordable units to the downtown area, which are going to range to about 80% to about up to 140% area median income. I just wanted to publicly say that in our other project for 801 East Whiting, the majority of the applications that are coming in to rent those units are actually at 80% and below. So that is actually a good thing, even though they could go a little higher than that. A lot of need is for that 80% for rental. So again, this is just to approve the agreement. Any questions?

Definitely. I have a motion from Board Member Metaskalco, a second from Board Member Hurtek. All in favor? Hi. Any opposed? Board Member Hurtek?

I just wanted to say thank you again for following this. We already approved this several months ago, but I'm, again, more affordable housing in downtown core is what we've been working really hard on. So I want to thank you again for your work on that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And to echo Board Member Hurtek, I was doing my nightly social media scroll, and you see a lot of people who have grown up in Tampa that are now young adults now. And one of the things that came up was they want to be able to live in the city, and some are having to move out into, like, Brandon, Riverview, Wesley Chapel area, which is nice, but they've grown up in this city. And so to the point of affordable housing, making sure our, you know, people who have been here can continue to live and benefit from all the great things that are happening in the city. So thank you all for your work. I agree. Thank you so much. Director McRae?

Good morning again. Thank you, Ms. Parks. Moving on to item four, this is the approval for the funding agreement related to the infrastructure improvements at Curtis Hicks and Waterfront Park.

Any questions for Board Member Hurtek?

And again, we've already approved this, so this is simply the resolution to move this money. In the funding agreement, yes. So thank you again for that. I move the resolution. Second.

I have a motion for Board Member Hurtek, second for Board Member Matt Scargo. All in favor? All in favor. Any opposed? Thank you. All right. Moving right along. Okay.

Onward, B. Parks, Community Development Coordinator. Another great affordable housing project in the east side, which is on and booming with affordable housing. This is Heritage Heights from CDC of Tampa. It's going to yield approximately 76 units. They're going to range on the lower end, so it's going to hit the 30%, 50%, and 80% area median income. So this is actually a great project. So this is the developer's agreement in front of you all for approval today. From Hurtek?

We approved this, the rezoning for this, again, several months ago. And they had to cobble together several different parcels so that they could apply for LIHTC funding. So this is a really exciting project. I really, really appreciate that they're focusing on 80% and below. I think that's, I mean, critical need. So I'm really excited about this. Thank you. Second.

I have a motion from Board Member Matt Scargo. Second from Board Member Hurtek. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. And just, again, for the public, I know we're moving kind of fast because we have all of the documents and a lot of these things we've approved already. They're just coming back again. But we always, you know, put things online so you can kind of stay in the know with us. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Brenda Thrower. I'm the West Tampa Ebor Ciri Manager. And today we have a request for a strategic acquisition of 1947 West Main Street. Now, to reference this location, it is the corner of Albany and Main Street. And I'd like to put this up on the Elmo, if that would be okay, or the Wolf. I think it's called a Wolf now. Can you all see that? Yes. Can you see that? So this location is a liquor store, actually a vacant liquor store. About earlier this year, the CAC had requested that CRA staff work with real estate to see if we could acquire the site. What's that?

I was in the building. Sorry. No, that's what I said. You can hear everything up here. Sorry. I can hear it, too.

It's French liquor.

Le Coe. Le Coe. Okay. The Le Coe. Okay. Liquor store. As you know, this has been a location of several calls for services. And there's been some unfortunate incidents that have taken place there just recently. So the CAC asked us to work with real estate. We did. Real estate went out and did an appraisal. They came back. They negotiated a price. And the price was actually lower than the appraisal. So we would like to purchase this property for $700,000 with $12,000 of closing cost. And we're just asking for your approval today.

Motion by Board Member Clandin. Second from Board Member Vieira. Board Member Herte.

Yes. If you could put the image back on. Sure. And then if you could just move it up a little bit. Sure. Absolutely. Because I think it's important to talk about what we already own. So Main Street is right there. So the crosshatch is the property. But we own what's directly across from Albany, if you want to point to that. Yes. So right there. So that's the park. And then just above it, we just. Right there.

Yeah. Not the. I thought we had the one next to it. No, we have the one. No, this is a residential. Okay. So we acquired the property at the corner of Union and Albany. Correct. So it's really exciting that we are able to control a lot of that corner.

And with the unfortunate death earlier this year, it's just really important. This was so important to the community. And I'm really thrilled. Now, I remember that this is something that Board Member Henderson really wanted. This was a part that was very important to her. And she talked about it here on the dais. And so I just wanted to make sure we mentioned that this was something that she wanted as well. And so I'm really, really happy that we're able to do that.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Board Member Carlson. Carlson.

See how that is?

Board Member Carlson.

Aren't you the youngest one here?

Board Member Carlson. It's something you push.

When you're sitting in that chair, you push that button and everything just goes.

Sorry. I just wanted to remind staff and everyone that when we started acquiring property a few years ago, the idea was to build neighborhood commercial districts to build walkable environments for people in communities instead of them having to drive across town to go to a little grocery store. They could walk to one. But as this goes out for RIP or whatever it ends up being, it shouldn't end up being another one-story building. It should be a three or four-story building that ideally has affordable housing on top and then some kind of retail in the bottom. So it will be a benefit to the neighborhood and also have affordable housing in it. Also, since the HOPE people are here, I want to mention seven years ago we, as a CRA board, dedicated 30% of our funds across all the CRA districts to affordable housing. And we didn't highlight that number when we went through the budget, but that number is bigger than the city has committed to affordable housing in at least 30 or 40 years when the housing authority was moved out. And it's like two or three times what the county contributed at its peak. And so what we're trying to do is effectively use that money. We get a lot of pushback because we're holding the money back and it's slow to get projects. But any help from the community to make sure that we get the right projects and we encourage developers, especially small developers, to go into projects like this and build things that are iconic. When this is done, ideally it will help to define the architectural style of the neighborhood. It should be – the facade should be built with consensus of the folks in the neighborhood about what they see as their historic look of their neighborhood and the vision for their neighborhood going forward as well as having amenities there. And it should be transit-ready. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, there's some amazing things that are happening in West Tampa. And I know our West Tampa CAC has really been moving the ball. But I just wanted to acknowledge we were – you know, there was – we had an unfortunate death actually at the store. His name was Kivondre Thomas, I believe. So I wanted to be sure that we, you know, we honored and say his name. But thank you all for the work that you're doing. And it came in lower than the appraisal, so that's good too. Good job, guys. Whoever's on the real estate team, I hope we can do that throughout with all the other CRAs. But any other comments, questions, anything? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Oh, sorry. We didn't approve. I said – we did the motion in the second. Thank you. All in favor? Any opposed?

And, you know, I will name my name.

Thank you, Madam.

No, but I wanted to comment on the housing portion, which is it's so important since City Council or strike that CRA board. And I know the big proponents of that. I know Councilman Carlson pushed for that hard. Councilman Dinfeld or Councilman Gutes a couple of years ago at CRA to push for 30%. I think that's important because, you know, a lot of people talk about CRAs. And I happen to, you know, represent an area with no CRAs. And if somebody asks, which I haven't gotten that question a lot for one reason or another, you know, hey, listen, this is money that could go to New and North Tampa. Why is it going to downtown? Why is it going to West Tampa? Why is it going to Ybor City? There's some projects that I couldn't justify that. I'd go, I wouldn't take money away from you and spend it on that. I wouldn't. And I think that's unjust and that goes, some of these projects work against what CRAs should be. But the housing portion, you know, that, this project and other projects, I would tell people in New Tampa, in North Tampa, even in more affluent areas, I'd be glad to take that money and use it for housing because it's the right thing to do, because it's the right thing to do. So these projects are important because they are what CRAs should do. And so, you know, that 30 percent provision was is shown itself to just produce amazing results for people, especially you talk about downtown, where we've been so at risk for so long of making downtown just for the well-connected and the affluent and a bunch of lawyers and doctors and accountants and all this other stuff. But we're making downtown through housing affordable for firefighters and cops and teachers and nurses and welders and everyday working people through this. And that's what CRAs should be for, in my opinion. Thank you.

Thank you for being here. Anybody else? All right. We are moving right along. Thank you.

Thank you again, Ms. Thrower. Next item is the item seven related to the monthly update for Tampa Union Station. And I didn't know if you all have any questions related to the memo provided by Logistics and Asset Management. Could you I read the report. Thank you for submitting that.

But could you all just give like a 30 second, one minute update? Because this is something of great interest in the community. Yes. So the community can hear. And also one of my questions is, remember, one of the objectives was to to shrink the amount of space that Amtrak is holding and then open up the entire space for a concession for a coffee shop and work and co-work space. So I didn't see any update on that. I was just wondering.

I would I would have to yield and lean on logistics and asset management and Ms. Kalina to follow up on that. And we can bring that back in the next in the August report. As it relates to work that's being done, the facility has been tented. There is work being done on the windows and doors to rehab that. If you've driven by the entire front facade is a is under construction and rehab. And then also the ticket booth on the inside has been there's a modular that's been placed on one of the platforms to move those folks out so that they could do the work on on that internal portion of the building as well.

Yeah, they just two other quick points that the report, as you've kind of indicated, the report said that Amtrak finally moved to the temporary space, which is great. That gives the everybody a chance to to renovate the inside. And thank you to whoever finally tented it, because we really need to protect it from termites. The other thing it said with buildings like this, you never know what you're going to find when you open up walls. And they said they found more internal destruction than expected. And so they're going through carefully and evaluating that and working on it, which will make it take a little bit more time. But hopefully that also means that it will be ready for it to be protected for the next hundred years. Thank you. You're welcome.

Madam Chair.

Board Member McClendon.

Yeah, I want to thank Councilman Carlson for his championship of Union Station and the work that you put in and keeping it in the forefront of the public and also in front of the CRA board and City Council, how important it is for that historic preservation of that particular facility. I think the first time that I was aware of the state of it was through your public advocacy. So thank you very much.

Thank you to all for indulging that. But the one thing that's happening, just so everybody knows why, it's an important historic structure. You know, the families that met their loved ones in World War II as the soldiers were coming back, they met them there, and some of them found out their loved ones passed away by standing there. So there are these incredible stories because before the airport, that's where people came in and out. But the other thing from a modern perspective is we've got Channel Side moving up north. We've got Ybor City and Encore moving south and east. And so all those developers agree that Tampa Union Station is the epicenter of all of it. And with the co-work space where you'll have entrepreneurs working, collaborating, drinking coffee, all that, in addition to the train station, it'll really make a dynamic atmosphere for the co-mingling of a third space for people from all those different new neighborhoods to gather.

Thank you. Speaking of World War II vets, I went to a birthday celebration for a World War II veteran. He's 102 years old. Pastor. Oh, I'm sorry. I went to another one. I've met two. Yeah. I met one yesterday. 102 years old, a World War II veteran, Pastor Madison Murray. I think Murray. Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. Very nice. Okay. Any other comments? No? Good? All right.

It's so sad. My grandfather was in World War II. He passed away a long time ago. It's so sad that World War II veterans were everywhere when I was a kid. We could easily talk to them, and now there are so few of them.

That's where she gave me an old thing. Do you need anything for number seven, Director McRae? We're good? We're good. All right. All right. Moving right along. Number eight, we have continued. All righty.

So my last item B, Parks, CRA, Community Development Coordinator. So at the direction of Board Member Miranda, I developed just a memo. It's not a presentation. It's just of some costs associated with building. Again, I just want to preface and say this is just an estimate just based off of average data that's out there, which thank you, Board Member Hertek, for that wonderful presentation from the building association because it did have some good data that actually came out in the memo. But I believe what you were just trying to say to the public is that it is getting a little bit harder to afford housing. So I'll just leave it up to you at this moment.

Board Member Miranda.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate very much your comments, and I believe your numbers are quite accurate at some point. It's becoming, to me, unaffordable to have affordable housing because it's almost impossible to make the payment when you make even $25 an hour on a couple. And because of the cost of land, you bought it in $150, but the problem is in the city of Tampa, we have less than 4% of the land available for building of anything. So that, like you said in your opening statement, that cost could be as high as $250,000, $300,000 a lot. And when you turn in the cost of building was, I think, $310,000 or something like that. Yes. Yeah, $316,000. It's getting to the point that I don't know how we're going to handle this to make sure that the people have an opportunity and the insurance cost solely is not going down. I don't care whether it's a politician running for office, I'm going to lower your insurance costs whether they don't own the insurance company. And the things that they say are realistically, but it takes a long time to something to adjust price. So I'm concerned about the people not having the ability to have affordable housing who used to have it, but because of land scarcity and the cost of equipment and everything else, it's almost impossible. And the job that you guys are doing are unbelievable because of the cost keep rising and you have no control of the cost. So I'm just saying that out as a fact, but thank you very much for your reports.

Yes, sir. Thank you. I'm going over Carlson.

Can you just show the slide, especially since we have people? It was no slides. It was just a memo that was provided to you all. Do you have a, I mean, the memo has the chart in it with the costs. Is it possible we could just show that so that since we have people interested in a

Sure, and just one correction to the memo, where it said 1,400 square foot, that was the example of the size of the home, not the dollar for construction. Yeah, we should have to put it in one bath or one half bath or whatever. Yeah, with the woof, please. So we started off with some analysis. Can you move it up so we can see that? Okay, move it up. Can you see it now? All right. So just an estimation of land acquisition, it could come in lower, but that's what's averaged between the examples that I researched. And then when we look at, let me see if I can move this. Not everything is into the actual sticks and bricks of the building of the houses. It's more so site prep. That becomes an issue for the contractors. And then you see where they have to carry certain insurances to build, permit, impact fees, construction, and financing. These are just estimates. It could be more. It could be less.

So just while people are kind of looking at that, I would say this is a single-family home, right? Yes, single-family home. It was just 1,400 square foot. My colleague, board member Hurtag, also has pushed over the years. We can't just work on single-family homes. That we need to also focus on multifamily because it brings the cost down, especially with the land going up. What this also shows is that the city or CRA board cannot subsidize this completely. If somebody like the CDC has federal or state grants, maybe we can bring it down. But the other thing, and my colleague, board member Miranda was saying a minute ago, as the costs are going up, it's getting more difficult for people to rent and more difficult for us to subsidize. And that's also why we need to, as part of our portfolio, help people buy homes. Yes. And we're working on solutions for that for the folks in the audience. The last I checked, there were 2,000 families that had gone through the HUD-approved training program to buy a home. But there was no inventory. And so, you know, we've talked to the CDC and other groups about helping to build the inventory. Because if you help 2,000 families buy homes, then we don't have to worry about subsidizing rent into the future. You've created a multi-generational asset that will transform lives of those families. Thank you.

Thank you. Board member Hurtag?

Thank you. Well, this is one of the reasons. You can leave that on. This is one of the reasons that I champion, and of course, it just completely leaves my brain, but community land trusts. So where we own the land, or rather, it wouldn't be us, it would be a separate entity. But in buying land and putting it into a community land trust, that takes the cost of land ownership out. Now, it's not going to be for everyone. But we really have to attack this from every single angle. And that's one area that I really hope the city does choose to move forward with. But again, also to board member Carlson's point, that I have been championing for years the fact that we cannot afford to build single-family homes anymore. That's just not entry-level housing for anyone. So the cost of home construction for 1,400 square feet is $316,000. Well, if you can put four units on that lot, it's a lot cheaper. So you can build quads and six plexes. And I've been working with Ms. Parks on trying to get a pilot project going in the CRA to do just that. So, I mean, we'll see what we can do. But I really do appreciate you for bringing this forward. It's a really good thing to kind of get your hands and your arms around the numbers and the actual cost it takes to build. And to your point about the Builders Association meeting last week, it was very eye-opening about the softening of the market and how do we respond to that. And I thought the one thing that was so interesting is that it's softening in everywhere but land. Land, it just isn't going down. The price is staying. I mean, I see lots for sale for $300,000. It's absolutely wild. So thank you for this. And thank you.

And I appreciate everything you said, Council Member Hertak. Building and living in a four-plex or a six-unit apartment complex or something, if it's owned by the person, they're going to be much better maintained. And it's cheaper to build because you have one roof, not six different roofs or so forth and so on. And I understand what was going on. But I think we have to start changing our model somewhat to see if we can put more individuals in a small piece of land because that doesn't change the ability for them to own something. I don't want them to rent. I want them to own. So they have a responsibility, that chance to get out and do and build some equity for themselves and for their families for the future. And that's the only way you can do it. Living in a housing project is great, but you never own it.

Thank you.

And just one comment. I got you. You can go first. Go ahead, Member Carlson.

Yeah, I just want to add one more thing, especially since the people are here. As we're looking at the problem, the housing authority says there's 24,000, 25,000 people waiting for homes. And then that list might be twice as big because people have given up. So let's say it's 50,000. Some of the units that we subsidized a little while ago were lower amounts, but some of them were 130,000. Let's say we subsidize 100,000 per unit for 50,000 units. So that's $5 billion. The entire budget of the city is just under $2 billion. And so what it means is that to completely solve the problem, to provide houses for everybody, the city can't do it alone. We need the county, we need the state, and we need the federal government. So any help folks can give us in doing that. We're putting records amount through the CRA. We're putting record amounts of money into affordable housing. But we need other partners because we can't do it alone. Thank you.

Yes, sir. That's a very good point. I went on a missing middle housing tour. And speaking of innovative ways to do different types of housing, I think we're moving in that direction, especially with this board. And I know, especially with the staff, you all are doing a great job. And thank you, Board Member Miranda, for requesting this. Because I think this is good for us to know, but also for the public to know, to see what we're up against and, you know, when we're making these decisions and, you know, what we're thinking about. So that's all I have. You good? Are you good?

So just one last comment as it relates to how we could possibly continue and we're continuing to work on this crisis of affordable housing. So the three programs we have right now, let's look at our down payment assistance. That's directly given to that end consumer to purchase that house. So that's fiscally coming out of our dollars for them to purchase, right? So we have that available. Now let's look at infill development. So we have land, specifically in East Tampa, that when we push out that request for proposals for developers and contractors to bid on that, we could control that income limit and that price limit that we want them to focus on and then rely on our outside partners, Habitat, CDC, all those nonprofit developers or whoever is willing to make it work for profit developers as well, to then build that housing catered to that median income because, again, it's our land. So that's another tool that we have to kind of help to lower it from what we're looking at average cost from $375,000 to about $450,000 is what the sales price of what we deem to be affordable right now. And that's what is coming through our down payment assistance programs. And then, of course, the unit creation and conversion program that we're continuing to work on, which provides subsidy on the construction side, which makes the developer's number work as long as they're able to guarantee that, you know, they're fiscally able to develop, deliver that product. So we have the tools. We just have to continue to amp them up. And partnership is key, Board Member Carlson. I completely agree with you on that. So thank you. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you all.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments?

All right. Moving right along.

Thank you, Ms. Parks.

That was good. Ms. Parks, thank you.

Moving on to item number 10, and I think I alluded to this during the director's report, but there was a request to provide an update on the ADA-compliant equipment at Curtis-Hickson Waterfront Park.

If you remember, we did partner with Parks and Recreation for the installation of a piece of equipment back in February.

And Parks and Recreation has shared that we will and should have that work done at Curtis-Hickson no later than January of 2027. And I have placed on an Elmo. It's an example of being a very similar piece of equipment that was installed at Fair Oaks Park. So that is moving forward.

And I know that that was something that was definitely passionate to Mr. Vieira. So I wanted to provide that update, and we'll take any questions that you all may have.

Member Vieira.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for this, Cedric. You've done a great job. And, you know, I push for this as well as Waterworks Park because they're two of our seminal city of Tampa parks, and we should have accommodations there. Just yesterday, I had here in City Hall, it was Fragile X Awareness Day, and a very rare condition that causes intellectual disabilities. We had a family here, Kristen Winkler, Austin Winkler, their son Cameron Winkler, who's six years old. He has autism and Fragile X, intellectually disabled, and they're wonderful, the grandfather, Frank. And, you know, for families like that, like this family in particular, like a lot of these families, they just struggle a lot with things like child care, paid family leave. Austin, the father's a welder. The mother's a nurse. Very, very hard time. Very, very hard time making ends meet and so forth. But things like this are very representative and symbolic for them, that somebody cares and somebody gives a damn while they're out there struggling. So it's good. So, you know, this will be in January of 27. I'll obviously be out of here, one way or another. And so what I would say is that I think it's important to have, like we did for the one at Waterworks Park, the mayor was there. That was so nice of her to come. That we have something similar for that. And I'd ask Sebastian, if you don't mind, to contact Mr. McRae here so that we can have Karen Clay, who's kind of our ambassador for accessibility for things here in the city of Tampa in January. Obviously, I won't be there, but I'll be there in spirit. So there you go. But thank you, sir. Appreciate you.

Board Member Carlson.

Yeah, can you put the picture back up? I just wanted to point out, when you look at the picture, you look at the swing. But what's also equally as important is the accessibility of getting there. And I just want to point out there's, you know, engineers, what you see as maybe just a sidewalk and maybe a slow ramp, for those of us who are able, it may not seem like that much. But when you're in a wheelchair or you have a friend who's in a wheelchair and you're pushing them, you realize that small gaps can really impact people's accessibility. And most of these swings in other parks have mulch all around them. And then they have barriers around the mulch to hold the mulch in. And those are huge barriers to people getting in. So, you know, thank you to the folks from the Parks Department for understanding not only that we need the swings, but how people can get to them.

Thank you. Thank you all for your work on that.

Oh, if we're done with this item, I just wanted to move items 11 and 13. Okay.

Are we finished with item 10? Good. Okay. And we have a motion from board member Hurtek, a second from board member Maniscalco. All in favor? Any opposed?

We could have the presentation for item 12.

How much time do you think you need?

Oh, 15 minutes. 15 minutes? Yes, ma'am.

15 minutes? Yes, ma'am.

So annually, we normally come before you as CRA staff to present the annual budget. And I'm going to be doing the urban core CRAs in the absence of Ms. Orr. So we'll start, and first budget we'll look at is Central Park CRA. It's one of the smaller districts within our CRA. And right now, there was an increase of 42.5%. Many of you know that that abuts the gas works development. And so some of those units are coming online, and we expect that that is going to continue to increase. The TIF allocations, which we received early last week, estimated TIF allocations, are right at $2.8 million for Central Park and FY27. And as you go through our budget, we've made the appropriate allocations. We do have some funds that we'll be rolling over. I would highlight some of the redevelopment investment funds that are there. Those are essentially the line item for our commercial grants and projects approvals and the funding requests for those. Affordable housing initiatives at that 30%, right at over $800,000. And then we have some line items for capital and projects and infrastructure improvements as well.

We have a – okay, go ahead.

Any questions?

After we do each one, we'll stop and just see if the board has any questions.

Some of the project highlights, as we talked about, and I believe Ms. Williams mentioned, the wayfinding for the urban core. So the Central Park Wayfinding Program, which is ongoing, and also the gas works redevelopment, which if you've been through that area, you can see the level of density that has come online in recent months in the last year.

Can you go back one slide to the – To the actual budget? Yes. So the rollover and the budget, there – we could do a third column that just has the new totals, correct? So I would love to see that between now and, I think, September's – no, we're approving it in August, correct?

Yes.

Okay, so if you could bring – in August, I'd like to see what the total will be. And then in August, I'd love to also hear what plans are for affordable housing initiatives, because that's $2.3 million. And really, I mean, generally, the Central Park is owned by the housing authority mostly. So that's already affordable housing. So what are the suggestions and ideas around there? And then what are the capital projects and infrastructure? I mean, I know we have the bandshell going in the park, but what other amenities, what other things can we do to improve that area? What is the CAC asking for? Okay. So I really – and the Central Park CRA sunsets in 45? No. So 43?

43. 36.

36. Oh, wow. So we don't have a lot of time left. So we really need to consider, you know, how we're going to expend these funds, because we're going to start getting a lot more of them. So I – yeah, okay, yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Can you have another question? You're good. Okay. All right.

We'll move on to the Channel District, and there was a 3% increase right now. The estimated TIF increment revenue is a little over $13 million. And we'd like to highlight the redevelopment and investment. Again, that's the commercial grants funding, and we've worked with the development managers and the staff to allocate funds and make it available for anticipated applications that are going to be coming through now that we've completed the commercial grants policy update earlier in June. Affordable housing initiatives, $4.1 million in FY27. And then also we have some funds there for transportation and mobility as well. Some of the highlights, as you remember, back in May, the board did approve the Ybor Harbor Commercial Development Grant, and I'm sure there will be more to come on that. Moving forward, the Channel Side Drive and McKay Street Stormwater Improvements, the East Twig Street Neighborhood Park, that is the property that we purchased for the expansion of the existing park that abuts that location, and also the Washington Street Park renovations as well.

Board Member Clendenin?

Help me refresh my memory. We talked about the CRA and the Riverwalk extension through this neighborhood and assisting that. I know the Councilman Carlson has been part of that since I've been on council, a part of that discussion. Is this part of our – maybe a CIP for the CRA or is there any kind of – Can I answer that? Yeah.

Remember, Carlson?

Yeah. About three years ago I proposed, and I think the consensus was okay, that we would go up through the middle of the CRA – sorry, the middle of that property. And, for example, it would go between the aquarium parking lot and the cruise terminal building. Can you go back to slide two? I remember this. This is why I remember this discussion. I remember we having this discussion. The issue is that that's a working port, and there are only three deep water channels in our port. And if you go to any other city in the world, we desperately need more space for our port, not less. And the cruise terminals may be a long-term use or short-term use, but we need the working dock. The maritime industry wants us to have the river walk on Channelside Drive, and the mayor's office wants us to have it on the waterfront. Putting it on the waterfront will kill the maritime industry. And if we – right now there are hundreds of high-paying blue-collar jobs along that corridor. Once we get rid of them, if there are condos there, we're going to have low-paying jobs. We're going to have maintenance jobs and maid service and landscaping. Those jobs are great, but you don't have to take away high-paying blue-collar jobs to put that there. The compromise, which the maritime industry was okay with, the developers were okay with, is that you put it in the middle. Eventually you could develop the aquarium parking lot, but you would keep the maritime industry okay. Daryl Shaw and all of his partners are okay with it. Everybody's okay with it. What happened is the mayor did a pocket veto by telling our last director not to pursue it, and it's one of the reasons why the last director quit. So I suggest that we propose that again because putting it on the water will be disastrous. Many cities preserve their working waterfront but still have a riverwalk. And the example I gave back then was Istanbul. Some of the riverwalk is along the waterfront just like ours, and some of it respects the working port. People are interested in seeing how a working port operates, and so why not have it there? We can put the money in. We can put that through there, and eventually it will spur development on the western half of that property, which, again, the maritime industry doesn't want, but it's better than taking away all the maritime property.

Board Member McClendon?

Well, I think we need to definitely, especially for this particular CRA, which is cash flush, and I think we need to look at it more, you know, this whole nomenclature of riverwalk, of course, I think sets a different tone. You know, we look at what's happening on the west side with a river, we call it a riverwalk, but it's really more of a mobility project because the vast majority of that is not connected to the river. It's going through west Tampa and, you know, and Platt and doing so many other mobility projects. And you look at the connectivity of a trail that is usable by our public to connect what, with the existing bay and riverfront property to the south and what's going to be happening in Ybor City, we have a great opportunity now in Channelside to be able to have some type of mobility connection, regardless of where this thing heads. If it follows the streetcar, if it follows mid-block like you just referred to, you know, dividing the baby in half. It's difficult to conceive because of the maritime industry and the security restrictions, being able to utilize that working. But I think that we as a CRA need to start seriously evaluating this and moving forward on that type of a project.

So I just want to know why the Selman Greenway doesn't work for you all. I mean, they are just about, Thea is just about to set out a brand new park on the other side of Meridian that will actually do that very thing. It will connect people up under the Selman and to the space where Ybor Harbor is going to be. It's already built. They're actually, and Thea is looking to expand it. It's going to be absolutely gorgeous. I just met with Greg Slater this week to see it's going to have its own water component. It's already being built, and it's not being built by us.

Well, I don't know if it's not either or. I think, you know, because we have, one, we have the capital in this particular district, and economic development. I think you can have both, you know, you know how you put a sidewalk, and if people really want to walk 10 feet different, they'll walk to the grass? It's the same kind of thing. If folks that are living or playing or working, you know, because you've got the aquarium, you've got all these other amenities on the east side of this, that there's going to be, there is a demand for a mobility project in that area as well. So I think supplementing what the expressway authorities do.

Okay. It's my turn, and I wasn't asking you a question.

I was just simply. You did ask me a question. No, I was. You did ask me a question.

I was. You specifically asked me a question. I was doing a question. You did kind of ask a question. I'm just saying. You did say, why does it just work?

Well, and I was talking just generally, though. We do have something. So if we're building a, if we do want to build a river walk in this area, it needs to be more than a river walk, because what people are really asking for in this area is park space. So if we are building a river walk, it needs to encompass green space. It needs to encompass what we're hearing from channel-side residents, which is park space, park space, park space. And I know developers may want to build housing there, but channel-side is very dense with housing. And really, it preserves the openness. And if later we need some housing, but that would be where I would like to see some of the funding go, because the great thing is Ms. Parks brought forward to us a plan to incentivize developers using the housing funding we have in this CRA and asked us very clearly to allow the process to happen over the next year. And I know there are developers that want to try for that money. So I really believe we allow that housing money to go forward. If it doesn't work, then we have a little more money to work with. But we still have a lot of money in infrastructure, and all I hear from channel-side is park space, park space, park space. So I don't think a river walk is a bad idea, but it truly needs to encompass and be more of a green space and a community connection space, which is what we're not seeing. I would love to see an update on the channel-side street park that we bought for an insane amount of money. It was one of the first things I did sitting on the CRA board. I believe it's called – it's not the Washington Street. It's the channel-side. It's the really small – we were moving forward for a while, and then it seemed to have paused. Do you know the part that – what I'm talking about? It's right across from the aquarium and right next to the parking garage. The small area. Madison. Yeah, it's a tiny, tiny park. So I would love, in August, when you bring this forward, to get an update on the – if you're calling it Madison Street, then the Madison Street park. So I'd like to make a motion to have a quick update. Could be written on the – on that particular park and the progress.

Motion from board member Hurts, I second from board member Maniscalco. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Madison second. Okay, board member Carlson.

Can you put the picture back up, please? And you can't blow it up because it's on – can AV people blow it up? Okay, so the – I don't know if it's – I can't point to what I was talking about a minute ago. But if you look toward the top of it, there's an angled piece that cuts into the water. That's the old banana docks. And what the port is about to do is fill that in because we lost the banana fresh fruit business a long time ago to Manatee County. So what they're going to do is put Cruise Terminal 4 there. And it's going to jut a little bit into Daryl's property, but he, I think, has approved that. So if you look at all the way at the bottom, bottom right is the aquarium. To the left of that is Cruise Terminal 2, I think it's called. That one, or where Starship is, those have been there since at least the 80s. I remember going on a cruise there. And then we have two more on the right side. So we're going to have – the cruise industry is growing so fast we're going to have four, and that's even with the limitations because of the Skyway Bridge. But, again, if the cruise terminal isn't there, then we would have some other kind of maritime opportunity. The tanks that you see to the right, all the way to the right, that's our regional supply of petroleum gasoline. So when we are in a hurricane, we get gasoline faster than other areas. We supply the whole region, including Orlando. If we get rid of that, there's really no place to move it, and it's a strategic asset that we need to hold on to, that whole peninsula. Anyway, that's the whole discussion about the port. I agree with board member Hertek about parks. The reason why I propose going up through the middle is because the last mayor, who's trying to come back, wants to get rid of Cruise Terminal 2 to the left of the aquarium. And have the aquarium expand there instead of in their parking lot. And then get rid of Cruise Terminals 3 and 4 and put condos all along there. And so the maritime industry is enraged about this. We're going to get rid of hundreds of high-paying blue-collar jobs in the strategic industry so that the Riverwalk can go there. We've got enough space in the aquarium parking lot that we could do a deal where there's parking nearby in the ports, lots, or whatever. And then we could turn part or all of that into a park. The CRA conceivably could buy that. Right now, originally the aquarium owned that whole piece of property, and then they defaulted their bonds and the city took it over. The city then sold half of it back to the port. And so the city owns that parking lot. Remember, we gave a lease to the Ferris wheel. But the rest of it we could convert to a park. And then to the north of that is the port authority building. That now is like 30, 40 years old. That eventually is going to have to be rebuilt. They have a huge parking lot. There's land around it. There's plenty of space that we could build a really beautiful park that would be an enhancement to the cruise industry.

Board Member McLean-Denick?

Yeah, I mean, I – and by the way, I don't think it's – Councilman Hurtick, I don't think it's mutually exclusive. I mean, in fact, next week I'll be in Barranquilla where they have an amazing river walk, which is a linear park. It's very broad, a lot more public amenities, and it's quite impressive. And I definitely can see that vision of having – again, I'm just looking at a linear – I could definitely see a linear park there that doubles as a mobility project slash recreation facility. I agree with Councilman Carlson. I mean, honestly, where it goes is – it doesn't – I wouldn't mind it being next to Channelside Drive or through the property that you just referred to if we could work that deal with the court. But, I mean, whatever the path of least resistance is to get it done while we have these funds available and while the CRA exists and we have the flexibility of doing that. But I think it's – we're at that moment that this is an opportunity that's – while I'm staring at this, I'm looking at the Google Maps of this on my phone of the overhead with satellite imaging, that this is one of those moments that somebody will look back and say, why didn't they do that if we don't move this – something like this forward? It's an opportunity while that property is underutilized and relatively not built out that we have – that we should be able to jump on this. And I implore the court, please rename the cruise terminals and get them in line. Right now they're so random because of how they were developed. But – The terminal. Yeah. Hey, that has a ring to it. Well, not anymore. I used to cruise all the time. Then I made the mistake of getting elected. Now I don't have time to do that. But, yeah, so, yeah, I used to go out quite often out of these terminals. But, yeah, I think this is something – I don't even know what process we would look for. Do you guys have an active project or an inactive project on this?

Currently, no. But based on some of the conversations from the dais, we'll definitely have to – it's going to be a layered approach. I think maybe in the next month or two we should speak to council folks and get their ideas.

And then we'll maybe come forward with a further direction from this board about how to move forward. Is that a motion?

Well, I think – I don't know. Is it right for a motion?

Yeah, I think you ought to make a motion to bring it back in a couple months. And the only thing that stopped it last time was that the mayor behind the scenes said no. Otherwise, it would have been done by now.

Okay, so I will make a motion to direct staff to coordinate with CRA board members about vision of a north-south linear park slash mobility project through Channel Side and then report back to the CRA board at the September 10th meeting.

Okay, we have a motion from Board Member Clenden, second from Board Member Maniscalco. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Can I throw out one more thing? Sorry. Thank you for your discretion. The other thing that the mayor says is we need to follow the port's master plan. The port, about 15 years ago, redid their master plan. And most ports, when you redo your master plan, you talk about the maritime industry. When they came back with their master plan, suddenly the only thing they talked about at first was redevelopment of that area. And where the aquarium parking lot is in Terminal 3, they were going to put amphitheater and two 70-story condos. Well, that's because the mayor at the time wanted to develop that. Now he's a lobbyist for the company that wanted to develop, by the way. But the reason that was there is because the former mayor sat on the port authority and pushed them to do that. It wasn't because the maritime industry wanted it. And so if somebody, I'm just telling my colleagues, if somebody comes back and says, well, we just need to follow the master plan, the master plan of the port is how to use the port for maritime purposes. And the other thing people say is, well, why can't we move it further east? So what are you going to do, plow over Apollo Beach? There's no other land. We're building some dredge islands, which will allow us to build more maritime land, but that land is already planned for use. In 100 years, people will look back at us and say, why were you so stupid that you built condos? And by the way, you can't even build condos instead of preserving our maritime area because you're always going to have to bring products in from somewhere else. You're not going to have a transporter beam or whatever that you can just move them in for a long time. So anyway, I think it's important to protect it. By the way, you can't, because of FAA rules, because of Peter O'Knight, you can't build a 70-story tower anyway.

All right. Did you get all that direct? Got it. Okay. All right. We're moving to downtown.

I'm going to pull the presentation back up. All right. Next, the downtown CRA, expected expiration of the CRA is 2043, and the increment, there was a slight decrease there, but the anticipated TIF amount is right at $29 million. So operations administration, of course, redevelopment investment. We have set aside quite a bit of funds for some of the commercial grants and projects that we anticipate coming forward. We have the 30% for the affordable housing initiatives right at $7.2 million, and capital projects funds as well. For FY27, we're looking at $6.5 million. And a couple of the things that we've done in FY26, and Ms. Williams highlighted the Herman Massey Park ribbon cutting, and that was a long time coming, the 801 East Whiting, which was also mentioned. And we also have made contributions and commitments to some of the cultural arts institutions, such as Tampa Theater, the Stratt Center Union Station as well, which we spoke about earlier, and the Urban Corps multi-district wayfinding as well. So that was approved by the board in recent months.

Board Member Herte? Yes. Could you go back one slide? Thank you. Yes, ma'am. So the capital projects and infrastructure, how much do we have set aside for the Ashley Unites project?

What was approved by the board was $8 million, and that is there, and then, you know, that's it currently.

$8 million, because I know that that's going to come back more. I know there's going to be, and staff was very vague about what that was going to be when I talked to city staff about it. So I am not surprised, and I really believe that they're going to try to take affordable housing money to do that. And so my goal is to find other ways, but also to look at, I'm really proud that we're chipping away at the affordable housing spending that we've been doing. The building that we're doing is great. I am very interested in seeing what we can do to provide some of the affordable housing money toward this, the Army-Navy building. I think that's so important. They're already talking very clearly about spending or building or the affordable housing for being 80% and below, a significant amount of that. And so I believe that's a very good investment for both the CRA and the City of Tampa. So I just want to put that on the record that that's what I would like to see some of this money go toward.

Obviously, more money is going to have to go to Ashley-Unite in order to build the Army-Navy complex,

but some of that money really does need to go toward affordable housing and keeping it more affordable in the long term. So thank you.

Board Member Carlson?

So two questions. Well, in the written version, not the PowerPoint, it says the title is, and I don't have it in front of me, but the title says Downtown SPP, and I know SPP is a recipient. That's the Water Street Project. It's a recipient. But was that an intentional thing that somebody called it Downtown SPP?

No, I think because there is a portion of dollars that has been committed.

I think we would be better off putting Water Street as a line item instead of having it, because then it looks like they own the CRA, which they don't. And so this happened before most or all of us were on the board, but there was a $100 million commitment to SPP, and we've now given, what, how much, $40 million or something, so we owe about another $60 million. Is that on here somewhere? No, it is not. And then is that money set aside in the fund, or is it going to come out of the annual revenues?

Sorry. Good morning. And just for clarification, Melissa Martinez with the Tampa CRA. The $100 million is $50 million the county, $50 million the CRA. And we're giving already around, yeah, about $40 million. So there's about, like, maybe $10 more million left.

So, but just to be clear, the county and the city participate together in the CRAs, and that was the, and so it's not the county giving money, correct? It's the county contributing their portion through the CRA. They have reduced their contribution in the rest of downtown to zero, excuse me. The rest of their contribution in downtown is a zero, and the rest of them have sliding scales. But it's not a separate line item for them. It was just part of their CRA contribution, right?

It's a separate line item. So when I get a reimbursement for SPP and I send it to Revenue and Finance for payment, they get the 50% out of that invoice from the county, and then they pay SPP. But it's coming from their CRA contribution.

So it's CRA? Correct. Yes. And so what about the other $60 million? Where is that on the budget?

It's only $50 million that we have, but we're showing on the CRA. The other $50 million, we're not showing it because it's not coming from us. We're not giving those funds. That was the agreement, the funding agreement. It states that the county pays the other part. No, no, I just think that's not an, I know you didn't do that deal.

I just don't think that's a transparent way of doing the deal because it's actually CRA money.

In any other project where we're taking county money, I don't think we show it that way.

No, this is the only one that is shown that way. So it would look like our contribution was less.

Anyway, so how much do we owe of our part of it?

Our part is about $12 million.

And is that money set aside or will it come out of revenues encouraged?

It gets added. I think we have about $5 million more that we need to add to it to then have the total amount just sitting there for them to request.

So if you look at the, if you could please put the budget back up, I believe it says right there, number 11 is debt service, and we don't have any debt. We don't, so if CCTV could please put the budget back, the PowerPoint, please. So the public can see. Thank you. So down in the corner, it's $4.2 million. Is that what we're, is that what we're paying SPP this year?

I believe that that's a combination of SPP and also the Tampa Convention Center. Okay. There's two payments that we have. Okay. So we have two payments. That goes into that debt service.

Okay, so I think what would be great for us to see in August, I think Councilman Carlson has a very good point. We should label that debt service with the specific debt it is and how much it is because this, I believe, is the only CRA that has that type of debt. So the rest, we're cash flowing. Correct. So I would, I think that he's correct that we really should see those numbers for what they are, and then it would be wonderful if you wanted to make a motion to get that number next month about exactly what we owe and the years we have left on it. I think that would be a great solution. Also, this is why I'm asking for the cash, this is why I want the cash allowances for each month and not quarterly. I know we agreed to quarterly, but I think this is why it's very important that the board be able to see what's going in and out monthly. I know we're starting with quarterly, but the goal would be monthly so that all of us can see where that money is going and when.

Board member, Carlson?

Thank you for, I agree with everything she just said. The debt service, though, we don't, the CRA did not sign up for debt. We're helping to pay down their debt, correct? The convention center's debt is with the city, not with the CRA, correct?

I would have to check that agreement, to be honest with you, because that was before my time. And the same thing with SPP.

I don't, I mean, this is coming up in another issue that we're talking about, but I don't think the, this is something that board member Hertek pointed out a few weeks ago, but I don't think the CRA has ever taken on debt. I don't think we actually have debt. So, so it's not, I think we need to change this title altogether. It's really payments to, and probably line item, obligate, convention center obligation, Water Street obligation or something like that. But otherwise it looks like, it looks like we have some big amount of debt. We do have an obligation, but it's not, it's not bonded.

Thank you. All righty. Thank you.

Well, that was easy.

All right, moving into Tampa Heights Riverfront. Yes, Tampa Heights Riverfront, the anticipated TIF increment is $2.2 million. There was a slight increase. As you know, 73, 74% of the TIF goes back to the developer for the armature works and so on and so forth. So, so the operations administration, 236,000 capital projects. We estimate for FY27, $2 million, and that is essentially it. We do not do the 30% allocation for housing because of the restriction funding with the Tampa Heights Riverfront CRA. Some of the items that we would like to highlight are the wayfinding signage as a part of the urban core wayfinding, the ADA accessibility equipment. We spoke about that earlier, Water Works Park, and the Tampa Heights Community Development District, as a reminder, you know, gets 74% of those funds that are generated.

Board Member Hurtick. Yes, if you could go back two slides to the map. I talked to you about this during my prep meeting, but I really think that it's a critical thing that while we have this CRA, it should be something we save money for. If you look at that roundabout, there is a slip that turns onto Palm Avenue. People do not know which way to go because they know how to use a roundabout, or most people do. We're still learning, but what you're doing is confusing people by having a slip lane, because that is what a roundabout is for. So I really want mobility to work with the CRA staff to close that slip lane. If it means moving money or moving land to whomever, that slip lane is dangerous, so it needs to be one or the other. It shouldn't be both. Then we have room to make the roundabout bigger, but the slip lane is just wildly dangerous.

Can you make a motion?

Yeah, so I'm going to make a motion to have that come back to us in October to hear from both mobility and CRA staff on what we can do to fix that roundabout, to get rid of the slip lane.

We have a motion from Board Member Hurtick, a second from Board Member Carlson. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

And if we have to wait for a while to carry up the money to make that happen, that's fine, but we need a plan. And then we can fund it over time. Thank you so much for the great suggestions.

Anything else? All right. Moving right along to Drew Park. Oh, no. Good morning.

Felix Nunez for Tampa CRA. I'm going to talk to you about the Drew Park budget, this section here. As we see, the budget went up by 7.4% to $3.88 million. A quick overview of the budget for FY27, standard operations administration, redevelopment investment, which is the grant programs. It's a smaller investment, and we're willing to add more money if we can move the grants along. Affordable housing initiatives is 30% of the budget, and Ms. Parks is working on some new projects to where we can actually spend the money in Drew Park this year. Capital projects and infrastructure, we recently, in FY26, allocated about $6.6 million to the mobility project, which is being funded additionally this year for 1.165. For a three-year total, it's going to cover the whole project being implemented, which is a big project in Drew Park. It's probably the most transformational project you're going to have going on right now. And then the quality of life community improvement of just small line items like maintenance of ground and things like that. Some of the big projects in Drew Park this year, Lois and Grady's Street Gate project, which is wrapping up. We're installing trees and ballers along Lois and Grady, and hoping that will help mitigate some of the right-of-way parking that's also big in Drew Park. The mobility and safety project, which is, like I said, our biggest project. We're funding most of it in these last two years, and next year we hope to fund the rest of it. Hubert Avenue Park project, we are looking to start that. It's going to go out to bid. When is it? It's going out to bid, Hubert? Probably August or September? Yeah, August or September. Thank you. And then Drew Park Gateway signs, we just repaired all of the Drew Park signs that were damaged, and our arts coordinator, Corey, is working on looking to install four new ones on the other side of Drew Park. Any question on Drew Park so far?

Board Member Miranda?

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I just want to say Drew Park is a throwback to what I grew up in Ybor City, where you work where you live, where you had the possibility of working where you live, and so forth and so on, because it has both residential and it's the only industrial area left in the city of Tampa.

Any other comments? Okay. I'll move on to East Tampa.

I don't hear you, sir.

I don't know anything about that, so I couldn't comment. Moving on to East Tampa. East Tampa. All right, East Tampa, this year's budget is $15,773,000. It's a 7.8% increase. Our budget this year, standard operations and administration. I've added a little bit more money to professional services just because we have a lot of different projects we're trying to launch in East Tampa, and we're going to need some professional services to get that done. $2,625,000 are going towards redevelopment investment, which is grants, programs, and special projects. One of those that's included is the San Jose Hyatt project, which we will be funding over three years, so that's part of that budget. That's actually wrong information. I'm sorry. Capital projects is where San Jose Hyatt is coming out of. Affordable housing initiatives, as you can see, East Tampa is 66% of the budget this year. We continue focusing on affordable housing in East Tampa for $10.48 million. Ms. Parks and her very small but mighty team have done a wonderful job as the housing manager for the CRA. Imagine what more she could do if she had a bigger staff. There's a lot going on in East Tampa as far as housing is concerned. And community policing, we have our environmental detective in East Tampa who continues to assist in improving the community through crime prevention and other items. And quality of life improvement, $90,000 is just ongoing maintenance items in East Tampa, but lighting and other things we have going on in East Tampa. And some of the district highlights are affordable housing developments. Ms. Parks will speak more to those later. I'll let her shine on that. She's done a wonderful job. We have our HRRP programs and our CRA down payment assistance program. We've expended all the money and all those three line items for the FY26, and we hope to do the same in FY27. Another big project is the East Tampa CRP is finally done. So that's coming before the city council for final approval in a few months. J.C. Newman's Cigar San Jose Hyatt building is one of our transformative commercial projects going on in East Tampa. And I also would like to talk about the 22nd Street Pond in East Tampa, which is fully funded, and we're just waiting to move forward now. We have designs for it already, and we're just working with city departments to get the maintenance agreements underway, and then we can move forward on that pond project, which is a big – it'll be a nice transformative green space for East Tampa, which we need some more of. And that's it for the budget. Any questions?

Thank you, Board Member Clinton, and then Hurtick.

Yeah, I just want to highlight 7.8% increase. That should be an indicator that somebody's doing something right in East Tampa. You know, I don't necessarily know that the CRA could take 100% credit for that, but at least the leadership and the direction of staff and its board shows that – is that the highest increase of all the CRAs? Who's the highest? Central Park. Central Park. Oh, that's right. Central Park. Central Park. But, I mean, acre for acre, parcel for parcel. This is significant. This is – I mean, 7.8% is, you know, Central Park is based on some intensive, you know, construction. But this is a great indicator that either – it's both in residential and commercial activity that we're moving in the right direction in East Tampa at a manageable rate. So, you know, I think what would concern me is if it was getting too great that we'd end up, again, that whole gentrification argument about economic development and pushing people out. I think that's where we have to stay balanced in our approach of how we redevelop and assist East Tampa in ensuring that the improvements that we're making, hearkening back to some point that Councilman Carlson made earlier, I think we should continue to encourage homeownership. That's the best guarantee for future housing for folks is they can secure their housing and make sure – and protect themselves against inflation and against other pressures. Keeping people in housing that they currently own. I love the fact that the board has – and the staff has helped us with that, with realigning our priorities to, you know, helping people with roof repairs and doing those things for, you know, code enforcement. I think this is critically important for this neighborhood of ensuring that East Tampa is redeveloped for people in East Tampa and not for developers. You know, this is – as our goal is to ensure that we have housing for folks that live in this community and they can stay and their kids can stay and their grandkids will be able to stay and, you know, because it is a great area. So, again, I just wanted to highlight when I saw that 7.8, I think that's a great number. It's a great indicator that something's right. I think the balance that we're striking with the stuff that's happening on the lake, with what's happening with that – the higher building, I mean, all of these things are really good for the neighborhood and hopefully we'll continue that in 27 and beyond.

Very well said. Thank you. Board Member Arte.

Thank you. I want to also highlight something we approved during this meeting of the transportation of really – I believe, isn't it, we have a consulting team that's coming to work on the – For East Tampa. Yeah. Yeah, we have the corridor development, master development project.

So, the CRP identified all the important corridors for East Tampa, but now we're going to look at what we're going to do with these corridors. Each corridor is different and we want to make sure that we do the right job for each corridor to be – Absolutely. And we really have to consider that in our land development code.

And as we redo the land development code, looking at these corridors and see which ones need to be transit ready and can handle more density and development. But additionally, since you mentioned the ponds, I also wanted to talk about the other ponds that we have highlighted. How is – what are – how are those ponds going?

I'm going to make a motion.

Oh, okay. Well, then never mind. I will let – I will let board member Maniscalco handle that. Thank you so much.

Okay. No problem.

Thank you.

Can you remind me, when does the East Tampa CRA sunset?

2034.

2034. I know. And the reason I ask that is because, you know, I know that there are, you know, a lot of projects in the – for the East Tampa CRA. And I, you know, not to rush you all, but to rush you a little bit. I really, you know, want to see – because there's some really great projects to see those come to fruition, you know, before this CRA sunsets. Because I think we owe it to East Tampa to really make those come true. But that's all. Oh, and then I had a question. For the community policing, the environmental detective, can you explain that to me? I know you were talking about it a little bit.

The environmental detective, Detective Andrew Washington, he helps with code enforcement issues, community safety issues, anywhere where there is an issue where TPD realizes they can step in. He helps with cameras and observing throughout the day what the patterns are and helping ensure that the community is safer and also with code enforcement and other violations.

Okay, so more so code enforcement violations.

Well, I would say that's more of the daily thing because he sees that as he's patrolling daily. So he helps to stay on top of code enforcement issues, including dumping, illegal dumping, tree issues even, in the right ways, things like that.

Okay, and what's his name?

Detective Andrew Washington.

Detective Andrew Washington?

Yes, he's also CEPTED certified, which is community policing through environmental design. Thank you. And so he's certifying that he provided a presentation, or he's going to provide a presentation to the board earlier this year about some of the principles that he's implementing in East Tampa through that form of CPTD.

Okay. Darlene, if you're listening, can you start a meeting with him, please?

I can get it to you if Darlene doesn't have it.

Board Member Villar.

I actually have his cell number. I can give it to you offline if I may. And I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to commend Detective Washington because he came to me on some issues that he's working on now, and he just has such a great heart for East Tampa and for that community. He really does. I see him, like all of our cops, by the way, he's just a wonderful cop with a big, big heart. And he especially has a great heart for East Tampa. He really, really does. And this idea of merging in proper code enforcement and maintenance of communities with an expectation that the community is going to be respected, right? Because where you have things like that, then the bad actors go, hey, we can go on in and do things. He knows that. And so he has that, I guess, a rising tide that's going to lift more boats there. And so he's a good guy. So I'll give you his number if I may. Yeah, I think he was also, when we had the town hall in East Tampa, he was there as well. Good dude. He's a good dude.

All right.

Any other comments, questions? All right. We are moving right along. I would be remiss.

I forgot to mention the Gator Building, which is probably one of the biggest things going on in East Tampa this year. As you all approved, about $9 million this year for funding for that project.

Our RFQ is in CAD right now, Contract Administration, and it should be released sometime this fiscal year, before the end of the fiscal year. Oh, great. So thank you for that.

Thank you.

If I may, Madam Chair, let the record reflect that I'm handing to Chairwoman Nye Young, Detective Washington's cell. It's not for our attorney. Thank you. There you go.

Okay. Can you bring up the slides? Hello, everyone. Again, Brenda Thrower. I'm the West Tampa and Ybor City Development Manager, and I am your closer today. No pun intended. So we're going to kick it off with West Tampa, and here you go. Let's see. Go for it. So West Tampa, talk about growth. Great comment from Board Member Clendenin. We have 11.6% increase in West Tampa. This is the average increase, just so you know, has been about 10% every year in West Tampa. It's been healthy, steady growth, and that is directly a reflection of the private investment that's been going into the district. So as we move along, here's our budget. We start off, of course, with operations and administration, which is always around 8% of the budget. Professional services, we're not putting any additional money there because we've got a healthy budget, so that's where you see a zero in that category. Communications and outreach, as you all know, I'm always inviting you out to ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings, and I want to see more of that. We have a lot of outreach that goes on with a lot of our projects, so we do have a healthy budget there, and we added just a little bit additional for next year. Redevelopment investment, that is our grant programs. So we already have a lot of activity going on in there with the grants team, so we have allocated funding in that category as well. Affordable housing, that's your 30%. We're doing a lot of stuff there, including strategic acquisitions, and we hope to be working on the Cypress and Howard project this year and start bringing you all some exciting concepts on what that project can be. And we're always looking for property, as you know. Capital projects and infrastructure, oh, sorry, there is a lot of activity there. Melissa and her team has been fantastic. We are doing all sorts of projects, everything from park projects, mobility projects, and we're going to be embarking on Main Street beautification and landscaping projects, so we're really excited about that. The community has really prioritized that project. And then transportation mobility, $3.4 million, that is the final payment for the West Tampa Riverwalk. So we did that over three years, $10 million investment, and I know that project is going to be opening up soon, and it's going to be something to certainly celebrate with the community. Community policing, didn't add any additional money there, but that's really for innovations. That could be video cameras. That could be adding something to our parks. So we don't need additional money at this time, but since we have a healthy budget of $424,000. And then quality of life and improvement, that category, again, has a healthy budget. That's where we would take any or do any kind of slum and blighted abatement program, like our clean teams and those kind of things, as well as an area that we can reappropriate money from. So to highlight West Tampa, obviously parks. We finished a park last year, and we're embarking on a new park this year. So South Sinus is done, and Ray Park is underway. West Riverwalk project, I already mentioned. That one is going to be completed this year. And the Main Street Commercial Corridor Beautification Project, excited about that one. And then, of course, strategic actions and key redevelopment sites. And not only do we have Cypress, but y'all today voted on another property that we're acquiring. So we'll add that to our inventory. And then, most importantly, we are updating the West Tampa Community Redevelopment Plan. We're in the middle of that. Y'all know we sunset on 2034, so we have 17 more years to do some fantastic stuff for West Tampa. And the community is working on having that planned to y'all this year. We have a consultant on board that's been working very closely with us. So any questions on West Tampa?

Board Member Herte?

Yes. So across from Ray Park, we have the Centro Español, I believe.

Yes.

And that is owned by us but rented by the Hillsborough Education Foundation. But that theater needs a complete overhaul. So that is something, that's not a space they use. It's simply a storage space. I got a tour several years ago. But, you know, while we have the funds to improve some of the historic areas in West Tampa, I really believe that we need a refresh of both the exterior of that building. Every time I drive by, it breaks my heart. There used to be some, clearly some overhangs, some of the, it's just, I saw that line for historic preservation and a zero there. And I just really believe that while we're working over these next 17 years, we need to improve this building that we own. It needs to, we need to take this time and money and effort and do that.

Where is it?

It's right across from Ray Park.

It's on Howard. It's where we dedicated Antonio.

Yeah, on Howard. I mean, it is, it is absolutely a beautiful building. Yeah, it's gorgeous, but it's just fallen into just repair. And the inside is great. I mean, we did, we did some renovation. It works for HEF. But, but that, that, uh, theater really needs some renovation. And again, I think the exteriors, things that we can do while H, while the Hillsborough Education Foundation is inside, we owe it to that building and to the community to improve it so that we can use it for other things as well in the future. So I'd really like you to focus on that. Um, or that's something I would like to see, maybe bring to the CAC and get their suggestions on that. And then if you could just go back one more slide so I can take a look at the funds again. Um, I know that we have worked on affordable housing initiatives and I really just want to say and make sure, um, that we are reaching out to the community with, with Spanish speakers to not just do flyers, but reach out, um,

in any other way, uh, to, to spoke to folks who speak Spanish, because there's a large population there. I'm really shocked that we aren't doing more rehab in that neighborhood. We really need to be. And I think that's one of the reasons we're not. So if we're not already prioritizing that, you know, working on prioritizing that so that we can keep people in their homes.

Okay.

And because I know that's a huge need in that area.

We're going to go Carlson and Dan Clendenin.

Yeah. I just wanted to second the, the, um, recommendation for the theater that the education foundation is in, um, years ago, years ago, I would, I was doing some pro bono work for the urban league when they bought that building. And, um, it, it was a disaster that theater essentially brought down the entire, you probably remember it brought down the entire urban league. Um, and then it has tried in the second iteration more recently, but that's back when Joanna Tokli was in charge and, um, it's, it's a huge issue that's going to cost a lot of money. As they got into the building, the whole building, um, needed more than anybody expected, but the theater in particular, but it, that's an example where the private sector, especially nonprofit sector will never be able to renovate that, that theater the way it should be.

Uh, are you talking about the central Espanol? Yeah. Oh, when you said theater, I was thinking like an old movie theater. Oh, okay.

But it's Espanol, like headboard.

If you haven't gotten a tour, reach out to the central Espanol because it is, it's the rest of it they fixed, but this theater needs love. It needs money. It needs attention.

So the building itself is in good shape. It's just a theater portion.

I think the outside, I think the bricks need repointing. I think, I mean, there's just, there are things that we can do right now that wouldn't interrupt drastically what the foundation is doing. And the foundation is renting that space from us. There may be a point where they don't need it anymore, or they may, there may be space that we can use. So we're just not using an entity that we own as the city as good as we could. And while we have 17 years left, again, it's not going to happen tomorrow, but it's something very similar to the Riverwalk that we can plan to spend on. And it just has to be done because if we don't do it, it's not going to get done in West Tampa. The city just doesn't have the money.

I appreciate you bringing it to our attention because obviously, I mean, I'm familiar with that, you know, I was thinking, where's a movie theater there? But I was familiar with the building itself. I didn't, I did not realize what you've just highlighted for us. So I put this, hey, this is a good thing about these meetings. You bring joint good information for everybody. And I think that is a good thing for us to focus on. And it's a great opportunity for the CRA. So, I mean, we'll see where this goes. I mean, I think it's a great point to be made. So good. Historic preservation.

Board member, may I ask that one?

What is the westernmost boundary of that CRA? Is it Howard? Is it Armenia? Armenia. Okay. So the theater falls within the boundary. Yes, it does. People have asked and I go, well, it's right there because it's pretty big. So I took a tour. I took multiple tours several years ago. I photographed the inside. And it's basically like storage, like a Home Depot. You know, a Home Depot has the high shelves. And you can see the elements of what the theater was. I have in the Guido archives at home, I have, there's a booklet. Well, actually, I think I have an image of what the theater could be. People looked at restoring it several years ago. The price that I got several years ago, and we're talking before COVID, it was $20 million to restore it as a theater and to make it an equity theater, which means a theater that produces its own plays. And, again, it's an issue of money, number one. Number two, where does the Education Foundation relocate to? And I spoke to the folks there. We own the building. They do pay rent, but where do they go? And I talked to private individuals, you know, what space can you offer? What tradeoff can we do so we can get total control of the theater and restore it to what it is? Because I mentioned that it was the Royal Theater, it was a movie theater in, like, the 1940s, briefly. It was a very brief period of time. But it serves as the Centro Español. And there is, if you go upstairs, they do have the Centro Español parts where they, you know, pay homage and whatnot and use it as office space. So I don't know. I mean, we'll see where I'm at in May because we do have elections. But I think this is something that, you know, I'd like to take on. I've talked to it with private individuals about it. I don't know what it's going to cost. It's complicated because, again, you have an existing tenant. And maybe we can work something out and restore that building because we're doing Ray Park. We're doing Salcinas. We did Salcinas. I mean, that area is booming. And it's such a busy corridor because it's the entrance and gateway to West Tampa. People come off that interstate. Now they see the new Salcinas Park. Boom. They're going to see the new Ray Park. So there's a lot happening and a lot happening on Main Street. I mean, it's really exciting for West Tampa. This is a huge undertaking. And I know, you know, we dedicated. We dedicated. We kicked off the restoration for the Guida House yesterday. That took. I started talking about that and touring it and pushing for that in 2019. Maybe 2018. So these things take time. But, yeah, this is something I'd like to look into. I mean, it's a huge undertaking. And I have a master plan from the Centro Española. It's a book that they did. But it's from, like, the 1980s to see what we can do. So, anyway, something to think about. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I think if we have any idea of what we want to do, you better start looking at the lease.

Yeah. And that's number one.

Number two, I toured that theater when we first bought it.

And what I wanted to do at that time, and they went the other way, I wanted to use that as a clinic, one of the two clinics that we opened for a location. And after we did all that, I voted against my own idea because they at least said I was just on one else and I wanted to put the clinic in there. Why? Because those walls are so thick you could put any x-ray machine in there, nothing's going to go through. The original one's all concrete, really, and brick. And the outside is, as far as I know, we had to replace the windows, and I forget the cost at that time. I hear them going back. Don't forget, I'm going back 25 to 30 years. It was like 300,000 full of windows or something because everything was decayed. And these things happen, and you try to help people, and we did. But now we've got to help ourselves. We're going to do something to reinvent what's already there, and just bring it up to standard and do whatever you want to do with it. West Tampa is changing. It's getting better. It's never been deteriorated to any degree, but because people have capped their homes up. And these are the things that are mostly all, that very little rentals at West Tampa to speak of. There's a lot of homeowners and family to family come down to you. And it's something very unique and similar to Ybor City. It had a lot of Hispanic people there and had a lot of factories. In fact, I believe that West Tampa had more cigar factories than Ybor City, much, much more. Not a little bit, but much more. So these are the things that are there. It's historical, and these are the things that have to be maintained. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Attorney Shepard wants to speak.

Yeah, you know, I can understand why people don't like to necessarily go to cemeteries because it's never a happy occasion. It's kind of like talking to the lawyer. But let me just put the brakes on this for just a second. Understand that repair and rehabilitation is something we can do, but repair and rehabilitation typically is to exteriors. That's why we have facade grants and not interior grants. And so I certainly want to look at this with, you know, give it everything it needs, but it's not going to be a situation where we're going to be able to rebuild the building with CRA funds. That's just simply not going to be in the cards, and I don't want to get too far out of our skis without making that point.

Thank you, Attorney Shepard.

So I actually would just like to make a motion to come back in October to find out what can be done or to get more information about the Centro Español. So the lease, what we, you know, possibly if the Centro Español can share their plan, however old it is, and just kind of start the conversation about what we can do, because I know we can do the outside, if nothing else. It's just every time you walk, every time I drive by, the wood around the windows. I mean, there are things that we can at least improve the outside, and then we can discuss what can be done on the inside. It doesn't, I mean, it doesn't have to be a theater. We have enough theaters. What else could it be? And, again, if we can't do that with the CRA, what we might want to look at for future community use, if it needs to be, or if the lease doesn't work, then when does the lease expire to us to help us take that time to plan so that we can be ready by the time the lease expires. So that is, my motion is basically just to come back in October with some more information and background about the Centro Español and the possibilities for what the CRA can do.

We have a motion from Board Member Nescalco.

I would like to see the lease they brought up at that time.

Okay, you want to amend to add that? No, because I had it. I talked about the lease. Okay. All right. Okay. So we have a motion, second, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We have Clinton and Dan Carlson, and then we're going to move to Ybor.

Yeah, I just, Mr. Shepard, I understand what you're saying, but I think along with other funds, grants, you know, historical grants. Exactly. We can have some partners. It could work in a cooperative partnership arrangement where the CRA has a portion of the exterior, and we work with other organizations to do other things. If we look at this as a comprehensive project, literally I was just looking at some of the history and some of the pictures of the building and refer to, like, the awnings and things, the metal awnings on the outside and things that could be reclaimed, the Royal Theater. I wonder what happened to that sign.

And I'm not familiar with what programs the city itself may have. The city doesn't have TIF restrictions, but CRA does. So if the city has a grant program that might work, we can partner with the city.

So I think that's partial. In fact, maybe that's something we can amend your motion to have work in partnership with the city to.

Well, I think Ms. Rohrer is here. She can, she's, she'll bring it all. I know.

I'll bring it all. I'll bring it all. Yeah. Bring it all. Well, and by the way, the CAC meets in that building. So we're very familiar with it. So no problem. Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions. Okay. Mr. Shepard.

This is the first that I've heard that we couldn't do the inside. We funded, I don't want to mention names to get projects in trouble, but we funded several historic preservation projects that include the inside of buildings. Were those before or after I got here? All right. Let's talk about this offline. But are you, you're saying there's case law that, that says that you can't do it on the inside?

I'm talking about the way the statute's specifically written since 2019, which says TIF can, quote, only be spent on certain things. And they're outlined. I can even give you the citation because I have to say it so often. It's 163, 387, 6C1 through 9.

Would you mind just emailing it to us and then we can, we can talk to you offline? I've done, I've done actual memos about it. Yeah, maybe send that to you. Okay. Thank you.

Board Member Miranda, did you have something to say? No, no. Okay. All right. We are moving to Ybor.

Okay. Thank you so much. Can you bring the presentation up? Here we go. Okay. So Ybor City, obviously we have Ybor City 1 and 2. This is the first, the core of the district. There has been a small but steady growth there at 2.3% for Ybor 1. Moving into the budget, again, if we go through some of these line items, O&A's standard, communications and outreach, we have some money there. We're adding another $50,000 there. We participate with Tampa CRA on their communications. Redevelopment investment, that is the commercial grants program. So now that they're all up and running and the policy's approved, we'll put money there to help small businesses in the historic core. Affordable housing, there's the 30%. Again, we are growing that fund, and it's another $1.3 million that's going to be allocated this year. Capital projects and infrastructure, we have the 571 there is going to be for phase three of the bricking project. That's really our main project that we've been working on. We've done four blocks out of the 14, and we have 10 more to go. So we're working along with mobility and our projects team to get that done. And then a little bit of money for transportation and mobility, and then community policing. We do have an Ybor City's task force squad. So that money goes towards that community policing innovation program. And then quality of life and community improvement, which takes a pretty good chunk of our money, is not only our YES team and any slum and blight abatement programs that we have going on in Ybor, but it also is where our district improvements are, which we can reallocate money from. Going on to Ybor 2, I'll do both of them, then I'll do highlights if that's okay. Ybor 2, of course, is the neighborhood that surrounds Ybor 1. We have a little bit stronger increase there with 3.3% for Ybor 2, and there's a lot of activity that's going on there, so that should grow over time. In terms of the line item budget, again, we are putting a little money towards professional services. The neighborhood has been pretty engaged, and it's growing. There's more residents in Ybor, which is fantastic. But they may want to do some studies in the Ybor 2 area. So we put some money for consultant services, communications and outreach. When we promote Ybor City, we kind of do it as one, so we always do. We have a little money there that also can be coupled with Ybor 1 money and Ybor 2. And then redevelopment investment, again, that's the grant programs, again, helping the small businesses in those areas and special projects. Affordable housing, there's your 30%, $656,000 is now going to be allocated to that. And then capital projects and infrastructure, you're seeing a big number there. Well, that is neighborhood sidewalks. They want sidewalks and landscaping, everything a neighborhood would want. So we're working with them. We've already met with mobility and prioritizing what corridors we'll start with. So the neighborhood's excited about that. And then community policing, that's mainly because we are also patrolling those parking lots that are down in the neighborhood. So we do have code enforcement that goes out and patrols those over and beyond what they would normally do. And then, again, quality of life and community improvement, we have money there. That, again, is the YES team as well, as well as some district improvement money that we can use. So in terms of highlights, EBOR 1, the big project is going to be the continuation of the bricking program. EBOR 2 will be those neighborhood sidewalks that they are wanting. In terms of affordable housing and strategic acquisitions, I just want y'all to realize that it is a priority. It's always been a priority. But it is a challenge in both of the CRAs. So we're working with that still. And I know y'all said we could look at maybe doing a study. So the community advisory committee is interested in doing that. And then, of course, the YES team and community policing is a very popular program and very well embraced by the community. Just so y'all know, the YES team contract is up for one more year with block by block. And we will be bidding that out next year because it sunsets or the contract is up in 2027. And then, again, EBOR City's community redevelopment plan update. We're doing, I'm doing two plans, West Tampa and EBOR City. There's been a lot of stakeholder engagement with this. We have another consultant on board with this. We sunset in 2034 for both of these CRAs. So we have eight years. So this plan is probably going to be the plan that's going to take us to the finish line here. So that's it for EBOR City. Is there any questions? Yes.

I wanted to highlight the sidewalks and the street trees because that is what I've been hearing about so much. And I do understand that this is a CRA where housing is hard to spend. I'm not opposed to looking and hearing what the CAC has to say about moving that money to where it could move. But I do believe the EBOR, too, has a lot of houses that need rehab. So I just, I mean, every time I drive through the area, there's great housing, but it definitely needs some help. Okay, great. So that is just something that I would really love to see highlighted a bit more maybe in CRA1. That's harder to do. But then can we transition that to those things that people are asking for, the more sidewalks, the street trees? And I do understand that historically 7th Avenue was palm trees, but climate change is real. It's happening. Palm trees just aren't. I mean, I know it's historic, but they just don't provide the shade that we need to get more people on 7th Avenue, spending money, being just walking the street. I can't do it in the summer during the day. It's just too hot. So what are we doing? How can we really actually put reasonable street trees in there? And throughout the rest of the district, that's what I hear more and more for everything. So I would love to see more trees planted that provide shade throughout YBOR with some of this money. If we end up moving it from housing for CRA or for YBOR 1, that needs to be one of the priorities because that's what I'm hearing from the community. So thank you. I'll take it. Board Member Carlson, then Miranda.

Yeah, after the incident where folks were killed by the car a year ago, whenever that was, we talked about a number of different challenges. One of the things we talked about was bollards. The mayor initially was against it, but then TBD recommended it, so she accepted it. I don't know the status of that, but we just finished council vacation. I traveled to a bunch of places in Asia, and last year I had been to London, and I showed their historic-looking – they're new, but they're historic-looking bollards. And it didn't look like they were very much money, but they look like they're made out of iron, and they're strong. Nothing is perfect, and if somebody's going 100 miles an hour, it might not protect them, but there are a lot of other reasons to have bollards. Every city, every place I went in Asia the last month, they have bollards everywhere. Every downtown has bollards everywhere, and mostly they have the big steel ones that pop up out of the ground, and maybe there are some places where we should do that, but I think we should really look at creating bollards all along 7th Avenue at least. It would look historic and nice, but it also would protect people, help people feel safer walking down the streets. The other thing is, besides the trees, maybe talking to some of the building owners about the canopies. In some places I just visited, there's a common canopy that goes block by block, and maybe we shouldn't do that in Ybor because it's not historic, but at least if we talk to some of the owners about trying to create contiguous canopies, if that makes sense historically, at least it would protect people from rain.

Thank you very much.

And I wasn't going to bring up trees, but since trees were brought up, Ybor City had, when I was a young man right there, it had a lot of trees, and it also had big white sidewalks, and what I'm saying is sometimes you're going to need a plant to cover three trees in Ybor City, so I want to make sure that we get something out of it, and if that's what we can do, that's what we can do, but there's still 10% or 20% is something that's better than zero, and that's how I look at it. But thank you all very much.

Thank you so much. Boardroom McClendon?

Yeah, reference to the pedestrian. One, I think that accelerating the bricking, and I think it would be popular with the CAC as well in the neighborhood of getting the 7th Avenue project, which also is a speed reduction project, and it will help with 7th. On the Ballard thing, it's interesting because we had that one incident, which was a one-off. I will tell you, one of the places that I think we're most vulnerable isn't Ybor City. It's around the stadium, Raymond James Stadium, and it's because we don't have the pedestrian bridges. So you've got cars flying down Delmabry, and we're hurting literally thousands of people along that road. That's where our vulnerability is. That's why I'm part of partially my excitement about what potential redevelopment of the area is getting those pedestrian overpasses so we don't herd people waiting for breaks on the Delmabry. Because I just – I don't know. Well, I think that the Ballards may be a – in certain strategic areas might be an interesting idea. Again, if I was going to invest money, I would sure look at a couple of other areas in town where we have some speed, higher speeds, and a lot of pedestrian traffic. You know, you transition – even, like, you look at Benchmark Arena and the convention center and how many people are coming out of these things and pedestrians along these roads and people are flying. So, again, that unfortunate incident in Ybor City definitely highlighted a vulnerability, but I don't necessarily know if we do a risk analysis of all of our areas, if that would even rate in the top ten, where we – I think where we could take that historic street, re-brick, and do some other policy changes, which I think they've already talked about with the Floral Highway Patrol and the Tampa PD, could affect more positive change. Thank you.

And I would just say I'm also excited to see about the patrolling of the parking lots because I know with the residents that has been something that has come up in conversations that I've had as well. So, that's all. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you so much.

Okay. So, I'm going to hand it over to Ms. B. Parks to talk a little bit more about housing.

Okay. So, B. Parks, CRA Community Development Coordinator, can you please put up the presentation? All righty. So, this is the affordable housing 30% investment. So, once we go through each one quickly, Central Park, I heard you, Ms. Hurtek, when you mentioned what will be that plan for that. So, if you see the rollover at 1.5, our budget for FY27 is around $864. So, that puts a total of $2.3 million in that pot to assist. March 5th, when we presented in front of the board that special meeting that we had in HANA, I did discuss the recommendations of releasing those funds in the unit creation and conversion program to see what projects could be pitched our way. Channel CRA, we're at the rollover amount of $14 million, with the 30% allocation for FY27 around $4.1 million, brings a total of $18 million to that pot. Again, one of those recommendations at that March 5th meeting was to release those with unit creation and conversion. Downtown CRA, I hear you loud and clear about the conversation about the Army-Navy lot. Downtown has about $22 million that will be rolling over with 30% budget for FY27 around the $7.2 million, which brings the grand total at $29 million. Again, one of the recommendations at that March 5th was to release those with the unit creation and conversion and see what comes our way. Drew Park CRA, rollover will be at around $4.2 million. FY27, we have about $1.165 million, so total for Drew Park is around $5.4 million. We own a couple of lots in Drew Park, so we're excited that we can look at releasing some infield lots for some development there and see what other initiatives we can assist in in that area. East Tampa is almost like a well-oiled machine as it relates to affordable housing, so around $1.6 million rollover with the FY27 budget commitment of $10 million that covers all of our active unit creation and conversion programs. So all of the projects that came before you all this year, examples, you know, the Heritage Height budget, the Ashley Integral budget, all of those that went for unit creation, that is on that budget, and it will cover that. And then the total amount is at that $12 million. We're rapidly spending in this area. The two major programs that go to either existing residents, which is through the Housing, Rehab, and Renovation Program, I'm running out of money. Actually, I'm done with FY26. Right now I'm focusing on trying to budget for FY27, and I still need a couple of dollars for FY27. Down payment assistance is the same way. FY26, we're just rounding out with a couple of hundred thousand that's left, but that is the number one request is for down payment assistance for the East Tampa CRA. So Tampa Heights can't really do any movement for that. One of the recommendations, again, I proposed in that March 5th meeting was to just let it sit to see if we could start planning what could be there, but let it sit to see if it can accumulate or if we can do anything, or we just say, hey, let's forget about the 30% for affordable housing for that area and just continue on, being that 74% is going into that tip. So West Tampa CRA, we have a rollover of $8 million. The FY27 budget is set at $3.3 million, so it totals about $11 million. I want to give some good news in West Tampa. We are ramping up our rehab efforts there, meaning that we are getting more applications coming in for rehab assistance. We also, I'm actually the only bilingual one in my staff, so I answer all of the bilingual questions with that Hispanic community.

I am Hispanic as well, so I support my own kind.

So as we move forward with the Cypress and Howard project, that's going to be really exciting, along with making sure we provide down payment assistance. We do have a couple of partners in the area that is building new construction, so we're able to partner our dollars with them to get individuals from that community, because I'm always talking about individuals from that specific community being able to stay there. So that's exciting. Momentum is building up in West Tampa. We could always, of course, use more help with community outreach.

So EBORDA CRA 1 and 2, they're the ones that actually asked for the housing study, which I'm working on the scope for that. So if we could, you know, I'm proceeding with that scope, get some feedback. We do have a couple of applications for rehab in EBORDA too. So again, it's community outreach, making sure that we're able to rely on our partners that call us. Neighborhood associations have been very active in contacting us as well with some residents. We are running into it being over our program limits. For example, the repairs being, we're maxed right now at $150 per house for rehab, and these are wood frame houses. So let's just be transparent, structural issues, environmental issues. So it does bring it over that $150 cap. Again, that's what we're seeing in the EBORDA side as well as the east side and on the west side. So this is the pattern we're seeing. So that brings the grand total of $86 million for affordable housing from the Tampa CRA. So that is amazing. On the next screen, I just want to, again, give kudos constantly to the East Tampa CAC that they're always focused on affordable housing. So, again, Felix already mentioned about the 66, but, you know, 66 of that budget is for affordable housing, and they have the most forward-facing programs. And then, again, why nothing got budgeted for Tampa Heights is because of the restriction of that big 74% that goes into that TIF. Any other questions about affordable housing? I know that's a topic of conversation these days. I just want to, again, reference that March 5th meeting, which I'll come and do some more research, but re-present that information about the recommendations. I just asked the board, you know, once I come in before you all to explain the unit creation and conversion program, and it's approved, that we could release these. Try to see what's out there so that we can actually say, hey, we tried everything we can, and we can't produce in some of the areas that are harder to produce in. Any questions?

Thank you. No question. Thank you. Well, that was 15 minutes. We have a motion from Board Member Maniscalco, second from Board Member Miranda. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Anything else from Director McRae?

Yes, I just wanted to, as we close out that portion of the agenda, highlight we will go back and make the suggested changes and updates. The goal is for the budget for the services agreement and Attorney Shepard's contract to be dovetailed into September for approval. So that's the direction we're going.

All right. That concludes our business for today. Do any of our board members have any new business? Board Member Clint Denon and then Carlson?

I would like the CRA chair to work with CRA staff for these agendas to create, have a consent agenda for these, so that we end up, for expeditious use of our time, so we have a consent agenda for things. And so come up with a process that you guys can work together to have that for the future meetings.

Is that a motion?

Yes.

Okay. Second. So we have a motion from Board Member Clint Denon, a second from Board Member Vieira, Board Member Hurtzak?

The only thing I'll say to that is that we put a policy in place that anything over a million dollars is not on the consent agenda, and that's why we had all these. So I think what we could do is similar to what we do during our regular sessions where our chair could go through and say, do we need staff? And if not, we can approve those. I think it's more of a procedural thing because our rule is it comes to us if it's over a million dollars. So I don't know that we necessarily need a motion for that. I think we could just work on procedure.

A procedure for just going through. How would you differentiate? I mean, we have to go through every single item, though. No, but if we'd done our prep, we know what the costs are.

We know. So, you know, for three and four, we didn't need to.

And those were, in fact, when I was doing my first prep, I said, why aren't these things aren't, like, on a consent agenda? Because it's more than one million dollars.

That's our rule. So would you like to do more, like, procedure, like how we do with our, you know, regular meetings? We say, do we need staff to, yes or no? Kind of go that route?

Well, why don't we try that?

And then if that doesn't work, we'll go back and maybe revisit the amount or something.

So I'll rescind my motion and then just ask you to go.

But we'll, for next meeting, we'll do procedural. Okay, that's fine. Okay. All right. Board Member Carlson.

Yeah, I sent around a memo last night, but just to read it to the public. A month ago, I made a motion at CRA Board, which you all approved unanimously, to say that the CRA Board request for Hillsborough County and the Tampa Bay Rays to negotiate directly with the CRA Board concerning their development. We have, as a placeholder on the August 20th CRA agenda, an item. It's CRA 26-24681 to talk about the Rays proposal. We were on vacation, but, by the way, after that motion that afternoon, I called the county and I called the Rays and had conversations with them. And since then, nope, I can't talk to you guys outside these meetings, so I don't know how many of you have been part of the negotiation. The chief of staff sent a memo to us the other day offering to brief us, but that's different than being involved in negotiation. Therefore, I think we should – I'd like to make a motion to remove that item off the August 20th agenda and then reschedule it at a time when the Rays have negotiated with us and prepared to put it on the agenda.

So I have a motion from a board member, Carlson, a second from board member Hurtek, over Hurtek.

I agree with this because I got one call after, I think, the last time we talked about this on the dais, and so there has been no negotiation from my perspective either. But I'm still concerned, like, overall about this. So I appreciate that you brought this forward because there – I don't see how we get a solution by August, but also I'm very concerned that we haven't been consulted. I mean, I don't even know that our attorney is really as involved. And quite frankly, we haven't chosen him to represent us, and he can't. So he – you're speaking to our interests, but there's a difference between speaking for our interests and negotiating for us. And I don't know that that would be – They don't like talking to me. Yeah. Well, no, of course they don't like talking to you because you added all sorts of wonderful things that protected us. So I really – I don't disagree with you. I really appreciate and support this. But while we're here, Mr. Shepard, you know, what is the way? I mean, we're asking very simply for the race to negotiate with each of us.

Well, I don't know. They might feel that that's unwieldy, and I can't speak for them because I literally have heard nothing from them since the past meeting. So I don't know. But in terms of other things, I mean, I don't know what's influencing their decisions because we haven't discussed it, nor do they owe me any discussion. But if you look at what's coming up in November, if I was in the Rays camp, I would say, I think we've got to park this thing until November. Because otherwise we're just, you know, whistling in the wind.

So maybe that's what's happening. Board Member Carlson.

I just want to clarify. We had this discussion last time in case somebody new is watching this time. The CRA board is a separate legal entity from the city. At the city, the mayor can negotiate on behalf of the city and then present something to the city council. And so that would be the city's part of it. But on the CRA, the mayor is not involved. The mayor and her staff are not authorized to negotiate on our behalf. And so there's no mechanism other than going through our executive director who, at least the last I checked, was not consulted either. And I had conversations with them, and they all understood it would require a simple conversation with each of us. And there were, by the way, I also recommended, my view on negotiation is not that we should use a barter negotiation. We should use interest. I follow the book Getting to Yes. And after I talked to the county, they bought a bunch of the books for everybody to read. I recommend the same thing for the Rays. This should be a robust, community-oriented negotiation. To get our votes, they need to do things for the CRA board that help us get our supporters in line. We have to answer it to our constituents. And if there are problems in our districts that the constituents see are not being handled, they're going to wonder why we're doing this. I gave them a bunch of ideas, but there are things that if they talk to us, they can understand. My point is that we're not ready to have a conversation. The next meeting, a whole bunch of people are going to show up to advocate for this, so that will be too late to change the date. So why not take it off this calendar, and then we'll address it when they're ready.

Board member Clendenin, and then Miranda.

Well, I don't get it, because it's just a placeholder. Why take the placeholder off? Other than it doesn't cost us anything leaving it there. There are things happening. I believe they have been briefing some council members on this and working with at least a couple of councilpersons, including myself. I know they've talked to other councilpersons about things. And, in fact, it's kind of interesting, because I do believe they're actually running with one of your ideas on this, Council McCrossum. And I think that's part of what they're planning on bringing to us at this August meeting is adopting one of your ideas. So are you not familiar? Are you familiar with that? No, and by the way, I got a briefing from Scott Steady, the city attorney.

He told me the current proposal. And one of the representatives that raised and I had been playing phone tech.

But there's a difference between being briefed and being involved in negotiation. But I think they're actually working with your council.

But as I explained to them, that was an idea from six to eight months ago. And I think board member Hertek said she had a similar idea. But that was an idea from months ago. That's not where we are right now. There are things that we would do differently. But, by the way, in talking to the county, and what they're proposing is a home rule TIF that would replace the Drew Park CRA when the Drew Park CRA expires. But the county admits that that would require more votes of city council and CRA board, not less. And it still will involve city money. And so, anyway, this is really complicated. And I think, for the sake of the community, there should be robust conversations going on.

But having this on the agenda kind of facilitates that conversation. Removing it from the agenda does.

My point is we can put it on the agenda when they're ready. Right now, they're obviously not ready. But let's just have it on the agenda, have the conversation, and we can move forward or stop.

We can vote any way we want or not have any votes. But at least it's on the agenda for that conversation.

But then we have 200 baseball people and 200 anti-people show up.

Well, we know how to handle that. But, I mean, I don't think this is a no-cost thing. Let's leave it there. It works. It works. It doesn't. It doesn't. We move. We move. We don't. It's just it doesn't cost us to have it there. And I think it's important that we at least send a signal that we are cooperative and trying to figure out and leaving a door open for discussion and having community input and having people show up at council chambers to have that conversation. Because it gives people a further opportunity to come up here and have this conversation.

Remember Miranda, then Vieira.

Thank you very much. You know, this all started in 1996. The public has gotten smarter. The elected officials have gotten smarter. Well, and that's why. Well, some. Some don't know they're here. But anyway, what I'm saying is that when the public gets smarter and the elected officials get smarter, whoever wants it is going to get a little tougher deal than what they think they're going to get. And first of all, it reminds me of a TV show when I was a kid. I got a secret. And the reason I say that, because somebody has a secret, because nobody tells us anything. Some time ago, my hobby is to read one ads. And about a month ago, I saw one ad for water. And I started reading it. In fact, I called people at Swift, Mud on 301, and they told me I can go out in line and get it. So it was about, I asked the aide how many pages. She said about 500. I said, no, I don't want 500. I want it. What was it? It was a used water at the same location for something that they needed pre-construction. Then about two weeks ago, I saw another one for the raise. And I said, so they have two. That one was request for proposal from a developer, whoever is interested in building the stadium. So I said, how can they do all this when all these things have never been discussed? So that's why I got a secret comes in. The secret is theirs, not ours. So I keep looking at the thing, and I keep looking, keep looking. And tonight, I'm going to bring some stuff up that I've been keeping, memorizing what happened, how we got to where we are today.

You've been keeping a secret.

I keep a lot of secrets. Mucho, muchos secretos. That's in two languages, in case you missed the first one. So what I'm saying is, it's really a joke what's happening. You know, they printed out something the other day, and they said, if you want a new college at HC, and then they say about them, like they're paying for it. They ain't paying for nothing. I got that also. So I'm saying, what is wrong with us? What is wrong with them? I don't know. But we've got to see through things that we're doing. And I don't, you know, everybody here, what I like about here, you've got seven different ideas, and that's perfect. That's what government should run. And it makes no difference what it is. But sooner or later, until that November vote is taken, we should discuss nothing. Because we don't know what's going to happen in November. If that ad valour tax is decreased, how they say it's going to be, possibly, by the people who are paying for it, what's going to happen to everything we do? Nothing is voided. But if we pass something out, you're going to be stuck to something you can't pay for. But I'm sorry, my time is up.

Board Member Vieira, then her too.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now, I mean, we're debating the merits of the issue when the real issue before us is the reasonableness of having a play saver for what is the biggest issue to certainly in my nine and a half years of public office by far and away that has come before us. So for me, you know, removing it would be unreasonable. Keeping it would be reasonable. We may very well remove it. We may very well go forward. Something may very well come where it ultimately gets removed. But why take it off, right, to preclude us from discussing when things are moving forward? I've said this many times, that my perspective on talking with the Rays is that if I have an issue, I call them. And I have done that. I did it for police. I did it for fire. I had major concerns on public safety issues. They worked with the unions, and they addressed a lot of my concerns. I went to them on it. I've been a civil litigator for 23 years. There's something called time-limited demands in the injury world, where, as a plaintiff, you throw on an insurance company, you go, I want your policy limits of $100,000. You've got to do all these things. You've got to give me the check by X date. You've got to give me affidavits. You've got to do this stuff. And the plaintiff attorney does nothing. They just sit there, and they wait for the insurance company to comply strictly with the time-limited demand. That's not what this is, right? We have a duty to reach out to them on things that concern us. I've always taken that philosophy on this. We have to be actively engaged. The biggest issue we're going to vote on. But, again, we're debating the merits of it, which we shouldn't. I say keep it on. It's fine.

Thank you, and thank you for putting a timer on us. I appreciate you. So I agree that there's no reason to have this on unless there's something to talk about. And, quite frankly, I haven't heard anything either. So, I mean, maybe they just know that it's not worth negotiating with me, but I think that's a dumb idea. So if they don't want to negotiate with each of us, if they only want to negotiate with the people that they think are listening to them, that's a really dumb idea. But that seems to be what's happening. So I really don't think it's a good idea to have this, to have 400 people come here. I know you say that you think that that's a good idea, and I'm not asking you to respond. I'm just saying it's not a good idea to have something that's not coming forward because, in the public, this is what we've heard. If you read any media, they're like, oh, the August date is the date. It's the one. We have to do it. But we've heard that before, and, quite frankly, I'm just not interested in that. I keep coming back to the phrase of just because it's your emergency doesn't make it mine. And if you aren't coming to me and negotiating with me and working with me and showing me reasonable progress for reasonable things, as board member Miranda said, I mean, they're making all these plans for something they don't even have plans for yet. So I really do believe they're putting the cart before the horse, and they're just hoping that we take the bait, and I'm just not going to do that. It has to work the way it's worked for every other entity that comes in front of us. So, no, I'm not okay with it. Because the problem is we can't take it off. If it would behoove, if it makes everybody else feel better, we can move it to September and then move it again in August to October. Do whatever if you really have to keep it on. But we're not going to discuss this in August. So why have it on the agenda?

So we had a motion from board member Carlson and a second from board member Hurtek, and we've had some discussion. Are we all going to say hi or nay, or do we need to do a roll call? Okay, we will do a roll call vote, please.

Could you restate the motion, please?

Regarding the motion that we made a month ago to ask the Rays and the county to negotiate directly with us, since this is a separate legal entity, I move to remove file number CRA 26-24681 from the August 20th CRA agenda, and then reschedule it when the Rays are ready.

Okay. So that's the motion. Do you still keep your second? Yep. We have a second for Borma-Burr. Hurtek?

What is it we're going to negotiate?

Your microphone.

What is it we're going to negotiate individually? First of all, exactly the motion that you said specifically, tell me what the idea is.

Right now, I was referencing the motion from last month, but the only motion now is to remove it from the August 20th CRA agenda, and then we can put it back on when the Rays are ready.

So the motion is to remove it from the August 20th agenda and put it back on when the Rays are ready. Okay, Board Member Clinton.

It's when the Rays are ready. What if the Rays are ready before August? How do we get it back on the August agenda? This is our last meeting before the August agenda. That's my point. Let's keep it on the August agenda, and if it has to come off, if they're not ready, it comes off. We can always remove. It's more difficult to put it back on, so let's leave it there, and if they're not ready, then it comes off. If they're ready, then it stays on, and we have the discussion. And if they're not ready, we go to September. We go to October. We go to November. It comes off completely. I mean, it's just if they're ready, they're ready, and if they're not, they're not. And this is the last opportunity to keep it there. I go to the question.

Okay, roll call.

We're doing a roll call vote, please, to remove the agenda item from the August 20th agenda.

Hurtek. Yes. Vera. No. Carlson. Yes. Miranda.

Yes.

Menescarco. Yes. Clendenin. No. Young. Yes. Motion passes with Vera and Clendenin-Vodino.

Can I say one more thing? Without naming names, we have a clerk who had a tragedy in the family, and I just want to say that we're all praying for her. We all love her family. We're praying for her. Thank you very much for that.

Yes. Yeah. Thank you for that. Okay. So that is, are you done with your new business? Okay. Clendenin. A board member, Clendenin, any new business?

No.

Okay. Board member Vera?

Yes, ma'am. It's not to make any motions. It's on, I'm going to do a memo I mentioned on Dr. Bernard Lafayette on doing something through the CRA just so that everybody knows to the extent that they know who he is. I was going to do a memo just detailing his life and then have a vote on that next month for something similar to what we're doing for Lieutenant Lopez and everything like that. So that's it. And I, and that's, I was going to mention something else, but that's all. Thank you.

Board Member Hurtek, you had a question? Yes, I do have a question. We have a policy for how to do that. Are you going to follow the policy?

So that is for street, those are for renamings. This is, this would be a memorial, which I think is distinct from. Yes. Yeah, no, but yeah, because yeah, that is well taken, but yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Okay. And then I don't have anything. Okay. Board Member Maniscalco?

Yes, I have a motion, then I have just a question for the board. But the first motion, as we know, hope is here in the audience, and it seems like everywhere I go, hope is there. My wife is Jewish, and her Hebrew name is Tikva, which is hope in Hebrew. So literally everywhere I go. The motion I'd like to make is for us to include in this FY 2027 budget the improvements, and I know we have, we talk about what is green infrastructure, but based on our policy, I think Tampa in general always strives for green infrastructure, or going green, or being more environmentally friendly. But for the remaining five ponds in East Tampa, so this would be with the East Tampa CRA, it was mentioned earlier, 22nd Street, but the remaining five ponds for funding, and I've talked with Director McRae about this, our Chelsea Street, 19th Avenue, 40th Street, Bay Street, and Williams. To continue with our, again, green infrastructure policy that we're going to utilize, but it's to look to see where we have and what kind of funding we can allocate for these ponds. Every year, and Council Member Hertek is there, and other Council Member join us, but, you know, we make our commitment to hope. It's a very large and broad organization, and these are the promises that I've made that we invest in these strong water ponds.

So we have a motion from Board Member Maniscalco, a second from Board Member Hertek?

Yes, and I just want to say maybe if what we can do is allocate that money toward planning, so that we can at least get it started for the plans. I think that's a really good, and then as we have money to actually implement them, because I think some plans are going to be simpler, and some plans will be more complicated.

Some are much smaller, but you're right, and with those plans, we can see a dollar amount, and then I can, but I don't want these to fall off the radar. I want to stick to my commitment. 22nd Street, we've talked about today, and that's a huge chunk of money, but these are not as much, so.

So planning.

Yeah, planning is fine. All right.

That's it?

Yep.

Okay, so you have a motion in a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

And then another thing is, this is for City Council tonight. I'd like to make a motion, okay? I'm not making the motion now, but the Sons of the American Revolution. I don't see any controversy. I Googled. Before I make a motion, on August 29th, they're planting what's called a Liberty Tree at Julian B. Lane Park at 10 a.m. I spoke with one member of the local chapter, he's the president of the local chapter, to see about giving him a commendation, because it is the 250th anniversary of our country for the United States. Is there, yeah, is there any issue with that? Anybody have any? Sons of the American Revolution.

You're okay with me.

I mean, you know, I'm always paired. I'm the daughter of the American Revolution. I don't know. But, you know, I've got to overthink everything and make sure that, you know, I'm going to put him in a bad position. So, okay, I'll bring that up tonight. And that was it. Thank you. Off-site, right? Off-site, yeah. I want to take it to them at that event.

All right. Board member Miranda, you have anything? Okay. I have something. It's not bad. Okay. Well, one, I would like to say thank you to, we have an East Tampa constituent, his name is Christopher Lewis. I don't know if you all remember, we had some pretty bad storms a couple weeks ago in East Tampa, and there were some trees, some branches that fell and were, you know, kind of in the way of the street. And he went out himself and cut up the tree and helped to remove them. So, always just kind of want to recognize, I was on Chelsea Street, I always want to recognize those constituents that go above and beyond just to kind of help the community without even being asked. He had the tools and he went out and he did it. Also, I also had an opportunity to visit them, but the ladies of the Sigma Gamma Rose Sorority Incorporated are in town. I may be leaving a meeting early this evening to give some greetings to them. They're having a community meeting tonight. If you all watched, we did have our TCC Karaoke and I was the winner, so I just have to gloat. Thank you. This was very, very fun. I was very nervous and it was a really great time. So, that was...

Why don't you sing us what you sang?

Oh, no.

You did lovely.

I did My Girl by the Temptations. There's a little snippet of it online, so I can look it up. And you can say, please.

You're not going to get me.

That's my girl.

That's a different song. And then, I also... Oh, homeowner rehab is available. If your home was... If you got some destruction during Helene and Milton, the applications are open. And I went to...

They had a community info session in Sofa Spring, so I went there. So, please, you know, apply. See if you're eligible and take advantage of that program.

And then, lastly, I thought her last day was tomorrow, but one of my interns, Kendall, today is her last day with me, with us. So, Kendall, can you come up to the podium for the news? Hi, Kendall. Hi. So, if you all know, I have had... I have three interns with me this summer. So, Kendall is my student. She is from American University.

She will be going back to school.

It's her senior year, but today is her last day, so she won't be here this evening.

So, I just wanted to recognize you, Kendall, and thank you for all the amazing work that you have done. I don't know.

No one's seen my office before, but when Kendall got there, it actually looks like someone

is doing good work in there.

So, I really appreciate you, Kendall, and I don't know if you want to tell us what your plans are.

My plans, for sure. Well, I'm going back early because I play soccer at American University. Oh, yeah. Give us name, please, ma'am, for the record. For the record, my name is Kendall Henderson. Thank you. But I'm going back to play soccer, so this is my last season, so I'll get preseason out of the way, and then my plan is to go to law school, after school. Thank you. Lawyers. And for those that don't remember, Kendall, can you tell everyone what you're studying in school right now? I study international relations, and I minor in Chinese language. So, um...

Smart. Oh, she's very smart. Board member, might I go?

Thanks for joining us. We're really proud of you. Thank you. Just what you mentioned, what you're studying, what your future plans are. You know, this is what I love about the youth. I mean, we're all young up here, but you have a very... I know. We have a very, very bright future. Thank you. You know, that's very impressive in what you're studying. You're going above and beyond, and again, we're glad to have met you, and we wish you all the best in the future. Thank you. Thank you.

Board member of the year.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And where are you going to... Have you applied to law school yet? Not yet, but the plan is either Notre Dame or Texas A&M. Oh, great schools. Have you taken to practice LSAT?

I have. We're still working, but yeah. I hated to be LSAT so much.

And what kind of law do you aspire to practice?

I'm not sure. I will say that this definitely piqued my interest, this internship in public policy, but I'm not too sure. I do like the international side and human rights, but I'm not too sure yet.

Good for you. That's great. Well, congratulations.

Thank you.

Yeah, two things real fast. There's just a story a couple of days ago. I saw the heads of state around the world are getting their kids to study Chinese, and so you're right on track. And I was just out in Asia. The Chinese are exporting their services all over the world now. And if you want to be able to do business in the future, you're probably going to have to speak Mandarin. The second is that I did spend some time talking to you, and I said this to you privately. I'll say it to you publicly. We need you to come back to Tampa. We need smart, capable people. And we're going to more and more need international relations. So please come back and help us make that happen.

Yeah, it's been such a joy having you back in the backside of Council Chambers, and you always have a smile on your face. I mean, obviously, you're an incredibly talented intellectual, and I just can't imagine what your future is. So it'll be interesting to see as you move forward and where you land and what great opportunities for someone like you to enter the field, and it's been a pleasure for Councilwoman Young to bring these bright, intelligent young women into the office and have that back there and the vibe. It's just been really, really pleasant, and I really appreciate what you brought to Council Chambers. Thank you. Thank you.

And then for my other two, can you two ladies stand up?

Don't be shy. Yeah, so I've had these are my three interns, so I still have two that are going to be with me. Go ahead, Board Member Miranda.

Thank you. Kendall, yourself and the other two that are very nice, like yourself, always have a smile, always gorg, and every time I come by the office, you're the Council Member, or Darlene the Queen, that's what I call her, and you're always working on some subject matter, and I know when you go to all school, you're going to ace everything, and you're going to be a fantastic person, and you already are a fantastic person. I met your father the other day, one of the boys of the vigil, I can tell that he raised everybody in the family right, and it's a wonder, it's an honor to have you around.

Thank you. Thank you.

Can I answer that one?

Board Member Carlson.

So when Chair Young brought the three of them in, I just want to say for the record, she told all of us, immediately looked us in the eye and said, you can't steal any of them. She's good at picking people.

Yeah, they've been awesome, everywhere we go, we've gotten lots of compliments, so I'm just very happy, and I know you're going to do amazing things, and we'll make sure and keep in touch, okay? Make sure you send, when you graduate, send an invitation. I'll send my graduation cards. Yes. All right, so I just wanted to recognize Kendall, thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I also have a motion from Board Member Maniscalco. Who's the second? Board Member Miranda, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you. This meeting is adjourned. Oh, yeah.

Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh. I'll be glad to put the court on you.