Annotated notes from first video—last Tuesday's (4/28) ITN Selection Committee meeting

There was much information dispensed throughout this meeting. Many attended. In fact, the conference room was opened up for additional seating. So, given the public interest in the meeting and the topics being covered, I thought it would be helpful to annotate the video segments. This will save time, instead of readers having to watch two and a half hours of video, and you should be able to identify the topics and issues better. You can also check on the veracity of what is shared as I will use minute marks on the video for reference.

Christy Goddeau, of the Torcivia Law Firm, chaired the meeting. She introduces the reason for the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) which is consistent with what City Manager Bornstein told us at a previous City Commission meeting. It was an organized way to analyze requests to help utilize the facilities at the Casino building/pool better and entertain ways to make additional revenue to cover costs.

At the 4:15 mark, William Waters reviews the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development regulations related to the Beach and Casino designations. He talks about how the Comp Plan was approved in 2009 and amended in 2012, resulting in land development regulations being adopted in 2013. The beach property has a 0.1 floor-to-area ratio which limits the amount of square footage that can be built on the property. At the 7:08 mark he reminds us that the Casino site plan was approved by the Planning and Zoning Board in early 2011. Any changes based on these proposals would have to go before the Planning and Zoning Board.

After that, the proposal from Anderson and Carr is reviewed related to use of the second floor space, including the vacant space on the north side of the Casino building. This ended up going forward as a recommendation to the City Commission with the awareness that some policy issues have to be discussed related to the operation of the restaurant space and that the ultimate leasing rates and the numbers need to be examined.

At the 18:50 mark, Commissioner Amoroso says that by being liaison to the ITN from the City Commission, he learned a lot about the Casino building and pool. These included things that can and can't be done and things that were done and shouldn't have been done. He talks about the need for public meetings to talk about the pros and cons of anything the city is doing at the Casino complex. It's important to get a sense of what can actually happen there.

Discussion centers on the Hudson Holdings (HH) proposal at the 19:45 mark. Ms. Goddeau acknowledges that the committee received revised drawings last week and they were delivered with written responses to the committee's questions. In response to the Committee's request, HH agreed to pay for a traffic study related to their proposals. We find out the idea is to replace the current pool with a smaller junior Olympic pool. The size of what that means exactly was questioned and discussion followed. Its construction would be phased so that the current pool would still be operational during the construction of the new pool (north of the current pool's location).

At the 22:03 mark, Commissioner Amoroso asks about the current expense for the pool. We find out from Recreation Director Juan Ruiz that the pool's annual expenses are around $300,000, running a total of 29 hours per week. Revenue has been growing from the pool and may be $10,000 higher than the previous budget year. (Doing a little math that represents a total of 2,500 additional resident visits paying $4 per visit. This number represents an average of 48 more a week, or about 10 additional people per day of the pool's five day operational hours.) Mr. Ruiz says that the cost recovery is below 20% now and should be around 45 to 50%.

The HH proposal talks about a $20/square foot lease of 5,400 square feet (the second floor?) and it doesn't include the patio space. It would replace the parking lost from the project with a two level parking garage. (This would be one level of covered parking at grade level and a parking deck that would tie into the elevation of the dune to the east.) It would yield an additional 108 parking spaces. A total of 25,000 square feet of building space is proposed, but the leaseable area could be 26,500. This part was a little unclear.

End of video #1.