Watch the video below, and the written transcript of the video below that.
Bryant City Council heard from several individuals about the the planning of a proposed 2,000-seat entertainment venue that if approved by voters in the city, promises concerts, comedians and more – but also a place to host smaller events. See the video below of the workshop and speakers, including Bryant Chamber CEO Shane Knight with the main presentation. They also heard from someone from Stephens Investments about the City’s bond status and a few possible scenarios, along with someone from the construction management company (CMAR), and one citizen who proposed various alternate financial options.
Watch the video below, or read the written transcript of the video below that.
WITH TIME SIGNATURES:
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uh February 6 I’m going call this uh Council Workshop to
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order um thank you all for being here we got no old
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business um nothing that I know of new business
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so introduction I I do want to thank you all for being here
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um as you know as you’ve probably followed uh the work we’ve done we put a
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lot of work into this project uh our goal tonight is is very simple uh we
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want to make sure you have as much information as possible U not just the council but also
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uh residents stakeholders anybody watching we just want to make sure you’re up to date on
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where we are um next week a week from tonight the
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plan is to have a special city council meeting uh to ask you as council members
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to put this on the ballot it’s a kind of a simple idea I believe I think you’ll see this
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tonight in some of the presentations uh that this is worth allowing uh the
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residents of Bryant to choose it’s a big it’s a big decision as far as the future
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of of our city it’s kind of that simple do we want to invest uh this in Economic Development
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uh and what it means for bright of the future and so that’s
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kind of where we’re what we’re talking about tonight is giving you information
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in order to kind of make a decision about that next week so we’ve got uh
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first we’ll have Shane Knight I have to give him uh a lot of Kudos and appreciation for the work that
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he’s put in also the Chamber of Commerce all the work they put in and kind of
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what you’re going to see tonight here tonight um we’re going to hear from Tim forer our Public Works director on count
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all right what if we this is a question a good question legitimate question what if we what if we invested this in
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infrastructure which is always on the minds of of our residents um thankful have Jack Trumper
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here from Stevens to talk about the numbers this is be the third time if if
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you allow the the voters to choose be the third time we’ve kind of reallocated
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this um half cent sales tax uh and then we have an alternate tax
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proposal uh from Thomas MIRS who’s a Bryant resident uh who has spoke a few times
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council member Meyer has uh uh spoken up
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and said hey we need to give this resident some time to share his alternate proposal so and then we’ll
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have public comments uh but a lot of this tonight is just information so you
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can kind of digest those things and and hear from all these different folks
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before you have to make big decisions uh a week from tonight all right so uh
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Shane come on up Shane Knight CEO and uh president of the greater Bryant Chamber
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of Commerce thank you brother thank you mayor thank you Council for this opportunity um you have a handout before you we will
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go through that but what I would like to do is take you through some presentations some which you have seen
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already some you have not um we have done through the chamber a tremendous
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amount of work both communicating with industry leaders from the booking agencies through um management companies
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through operators that have contacted both myself contacted the sear Mr Rick
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Wilson uh asking is this venue still going to happen and I said that’s going to be up
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to the voters of the city of Bryant but if the Chamber of Commerce has our wishes yes and they said good we’re
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sending you a letter of intent I have had two U performers from Nationwide
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companies one of those performers you’ve got some data in front of you that we will decipher uh at the conclusion of
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this presentation I will share with you that that pro forma is from a nationwide
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company called the oak viw Group Oak viw manages 450 venues Across America
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including here in Arkansas the Fort Smith convention center and synthony Hall and they have done an in-depth
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Market study on the viability of this venue in Bryant and they have some
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projections there that I’ll share but uh I want to go through with you some of the things that have not changed and
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then I want to walk you down a path to kind of give you a visual
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concept of what a venue could look like what a potential venue could look like
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and how that venue would reshape the financial viability of our community uh
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the five years that you see in front of you but also for generations to come
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power power power on the side oh yeah thank you g go ready rope I’m hitting
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but there we are so we’re going to stay with the same location the footprint is
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still the same and I will show you a footprint of a venue that we have our eyes on as far as a model of what the
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venue in Bryant could look like we’re still looking at this 15 acre track on the north side of highway 5 across from
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the marketplace I will share with you that my conversations with our businesses in
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Marketplace have been nothing but supportive they see the opportunity for
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increased foot track traffic I have had conversations with restaurant owners there that look at an opportunity for
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increased hours and I think the enthusiasm for this project is represented by the number of businesses
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that are seated here tonight they see this as a huge plus okay uh so the the
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site has stayed the same I will share with you and if you havn’t already known
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um since this came under anou the proper to the east there’s 2.89
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Acres that have now come up for sale I bet you’ve seen the for sale sign in front of of the ice machine okay and
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I’ve had some great conversations with RJ about his ice machine don’t worry about it we’re going to take care of your ice machine so the enthusiasm the
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excitement is definitely growing uh you see the three yellow pin drops those pin
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drops are points of conversation that I have had with metrop plan that we have
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initiated with the Arkansas Highway Department on potential locations for traffic lights so I want you to know
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that those discussions are on the table there have been no promises made no commitments anything like that on behalf
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of the chamber for the city for the city for the chamber or from our state legislative body the commitment that has
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been made is if this project moves forward we will have those conversations
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on where best to locate a traffic light if it is indeed necessary necessary okay
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so I want you to know those discussions have been had they understand that
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traffic flow is of the utmost importance the Ingress and egress into this facility must be done so that it does
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not impact our neighborhoods especially uh coming off a Dearborn Circle or Lowry
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we’ve got to protect that and that traffic flow has to be funneled in and off of Highway 5 all
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right what is going to be built that has been the question all along and what we
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are looking at is a facility that has addressed some initial concerns that have come from the residents this will
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be a completely indoor facility that means we have drastically reduced Noise
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Okay I can’t say eliminate because you just never know all right it’s reduced footprint we are looking at about a 12
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acre footprint give or take an acre this will allow for natural buffers around
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the facility to protect the neighborhood to the north in the neighborhood to the West it gives our Architects the
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opportunity to use that extra land to build something that is both curb appealing but something that this city
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can be a proud of with that extra land traffic flow will be channeled off and onto Highway 5 I will show you as an
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example of that when we look at another venue and we’re also now looking at a yearr round venue to optimize Revenue
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something that’s 365 okay while an outdoor Amphitheater is appealing and it is financially
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lucrative just like with any outdoor facility it’s going to be closed during a period of time of year and you’re not
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making any money off of it all right and if you have any questions by all means stop me Midstream and I will be more
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than happy to answer what we’re looking at is a destination venue like no other in the
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state of Arkansas the models that we are looking at there is not another one in the state Little Rock Northwest Fort
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Smith anywhere okay this is not a Symphony Hall it is not an Orchestra Hall this is a multi-purpose venue that
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will address many needs and wishes from various organizations throughout our
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state this is a venue that will increase and sustain our economy for generations
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to come not only from tax revenue that the facility will generate in and of itself but the residual income that will
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be from the visitors to this venue that will shop eat spend the night right here in br
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we have a blueprint that’s already in place we have studied a number of
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facilities square footage cost operations
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viability I have met with those that have submitted letters of intent I have
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met with the companies that have submitted the performas and we’ve all looked at the type of venue that we
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envision and we’ve run it by them let me read this to you if you’ll just indulge me for just a moment
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you know you get almost 50 almost
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50 Mark I didn’t mean anything by that I’m just saying I’m well on the other side that I
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don’t know what you’re this come from a an individual
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who represents an Entertainer that their interest in this
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facility is Extreme he said let me back up
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here I totally get this is for me to him I totally get that especially given your
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client in his connections to this area they wanted to be here tonight but they kind of said hang on he said yes needing
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to avoid any press because we are working on an announcement that we could place this project under if it happens
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just would be a bigger bang in my opinion our entertainment attorney is really good and loves this idea I said
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excellent let’s get together we’ll continue the conversations he says I’m more than happy to help in any way we
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want to be a part of this the entertainment world is a world of its own but a fun one your Venue will rock
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trust me after looking at the examples you’re going to show the council y’all are on the right
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track so what we’re looking at is a venue that was built in
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2021 it’s called The Factory it sits in Chesterfield Missouri just on the
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northwest side of the city in the suburbs the factory is a 52,000 ft
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facility that has a capacity of 3,000 and the flexibility to entertain from
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350 to 610 groups it’s built in such a way that you
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can refigure you could do weddings you can do a prom you can do corporate Gaya
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or you can do a full-blown concert this building has such flexibility that it
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increase the economic viability of it tfold and looking at this here’s some
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shots from the inside now what I want you to do is I want you to imagine this
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style not necessarily this facility but this format this style of what we’re
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looking at to capitalize on the amount of money that is available to us okay cuz we got to be smart with the money
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but every square foot capitalized and utilized for increased economic impact
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all right this is the back part of the floor what they’ve done is they’ve
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designed a facility where you can rent out different areas within the facility
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so if you’re a corporate group and you want to have an event but you’re small you can rent this facility at the
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factory and just this this part right here this is is the back of the floor um
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there’s a concession stand back here and you can see that a little closer here and I’m just giving you some
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examples of the type of facility that we’re looking at and how flexible it
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could be all right this is from the back part of what I just showed you looking back out onto the flat floor and to the
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stage this is a corporate event where tables are set up on the the flat floor
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a Gaya whatever it may be I will share with you that I have spoke with one of our leading caterers in the county
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showing him this concept and he said I want in on this Shane if the city of Bryant builds this I can think of five
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clients right now that will come back to Saline County no promises I’m talking about the
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opportunity I’m talking about giving the city and the residents the chamber and this Council a piece of equipment if you
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will to go after these things here is the stage looking out
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onto the floor you see the the the the balcony
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you see the raisED seating along the perimeter you go back to the back
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directly behind the chairs and that was the concessions area that we we were looking at immediately at the top on
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your right hand side and your left hand side you see that wood trim those are concession areas as well
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they built this facility in 2021 during construction in the height of Co for $25
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million puts ours into context construction prices have dropped
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dramatically okay we have a sear that has a track record of leveraging pricing
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to their advantage in the building projects going back to the floor oh no I hit the wrong
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button this is from the top of the balcony looking down
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this is from the side looking onto the floor you can see the concessions immediately on the floor to your left
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hand side you can see the the concessions directly in front of you at the
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top so we’re talking about a facility that has so many
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uses so much availability to our community the opportunity to bring in
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different styles of shows from a country or Rock concert to a comedian to a Gayla
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a number of events the opportunities are as endless as they can be when you have
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the operator that has those connections that we have been talking with you give
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them this type of facility the flexibility it just means
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money all right this is from the back looking forward again this is the back
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concessions this this is a seating chart of the factory to kind of give you that blueprint idea
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here here is the footprint you see the pin drop the pin drop is on the factory
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the parking lot that is in the black and the front and the parking lot that is to the left that is a 12 acre
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footprint that is the Factory’s footprint 12 acres fitting inside the 50
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that we have or the 15 that we have theou on this is designed you see the Ingress and the egress right there on
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County Road 40 that is the main entrance to the
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factory and talking to the operators of the factory they do have the emergency
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exits out to the east but all of their traffic is funneled right here so they can control
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parking this is a street view of the factory now will it be this one no but
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what I’m wanting you to do is see the concept I want you to see the possibility of the
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venue and what that would look like from a five Lane Highway five all right so
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here are the benefits 30,000 ft benefits this is a
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city-owned revenue source with extremely limited liabilities the city is not going to
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have to be in a position to hire new employees you’re not going to be in a position that you have to maintain it
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you’re not going to be in a position you have to take care of the utilities all of that is the chamber’s
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responsibility in securing the operator to make sure that it is ran properly that it is staffed that it is taken care
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of that insurance is carried on the facility now there are some liabilities
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from the city standpoint it is a city-owned property so minimal Insurance like your Parks will have to be done but
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as far as liabilities accidents things like that that’s all on the operator all right it’s a
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facility let me get my notes over here if you don’t mind please it is a facility that has a
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significant what I call a compound annual growth rate both in tax base and
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property value here is what you should consider very strongly Bond council is
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going to give us an update on the history of this Bond and how it has been paid for over its last two us
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when you as a council take in those financials into consideration this has to be a major part that when this thing
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is paid for and he shows the growth rate of the city and the payoff rate under a
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zero growth platform and you know we’re growing 3 to 5% a year and that’s
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without some of the new development that’s coming when this is paid off the
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city will own an asset that I don’t know what if what if the operator in 10 years
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says mayor I’d like to meet with your Finance people my group wants to buy
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this and we’re going to buy it at a very good price real estate has done nothing
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in Saline County but Skyrocket and it’s going to continue to Skyrocket the city
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will own an asset that will appreciate appreciate year over
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year let’s just say it does happen and they say we want to buy it well are you
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going to continue to run it yeah but we want to own it imagine if they come back and said
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we’ll give you 30 million for it we’ll give you 25 we’ll give you 35 million for it you turn around and sell that and
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you still have an operator in place bringing in entertainment that you get the sales tax revenue off of I’m just
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telling you there’s possibilities okay here’s the other thing this facility brings the city what I call
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Fresh Capital rather than recirculated Capital rather than the current
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population continuing to do what we do and we do it very well we go out to eat
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we shop we’re recirculating our Capital what we’re looking for is a facility
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that brings in fresh Capital to our economy that takes our sales at our
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local shops that are at this level and injects fresh capital and bumps it to
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the next level increase tax rates increase revenue for our
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businesses And when they see fresh Capital rather than recirculated Capital
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into an economy that is an enticing factor for new businesses whether it’s
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hotels restaurants shops whatever it may be when an when an investor is seeing
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that that fresh Capital those those are the opportunities that they’re looking for so what’s our next step you as a
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council to place this on the ballot for May 13th and give the residents of Bryan
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an opportunity to go thumbs up or thumbs down that’s that’s that’s the big step
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just give them a shot let them decide if they vote for it we’re ready
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to roll if the residents say this is not for us then we gain a very valuable
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piece of information a very valuable piece of information that tells us as city leaders which direction we may need
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to go okay we are ready the chamber stands ready to launch an aggressive promotion
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campaign I will share with you that local businesses have committed right now
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$35,000 from businesses to promote the campaign our local businesses see this
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as nothing but positive so much so that that dollar amount is setting ready to
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go we will continue to meet with vendors and operators and build the foundation
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for a first class operations team for this facility food and beverage
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merchandise booking agents they’re lined up they want this facility we’re not
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going to go void okay they’re there they’re ready to go to work and they see Bryan Arkansas
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as a prime location for such an for such a venue here are some of the promotion
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materials that we’ve already started working on from Billboards to newspaper
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to social media Bryant Arts and Music our businesses have asked for
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signs that they can put up in their Windows to ask their constituents and Bryant to vote for
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this and we’re going to ask the residents to vote Yes twice to reappropriate and build a bank on May
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13th okay in front of you you have some financial
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information this information was taken from a proforma that was submitted by an
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interested party to be the operator and they gave us a 5-year
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performer they estimate in year one for all events that they would book from
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Comedy to country music rock music the things that they would book let me just walk you through not through every one
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of them I’m just going to give you the first one and then you guys can can take it from there they expect or estimate
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127,500 know this facility is coming to start building and booking their talent
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that far in advance so they see that as a great opportunity now let me share
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this with you when uh Live Nation and Ticket
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Master went through their issues and they had to disband what it
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did was it freed up thousands of entertainers that are now free agents okay they’re not under one or two
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umbrellas they’re now free agents and they have the opportunities now to work with any operator in any booking
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agent and those booking agents now have the opportunity to talk to any
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entertainers that has done nothing but open the door of opportunity for just
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about every singer musician comedian on the planet because they’re hungry to
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perform all right so we look at the average ticket price and I still set it at $100
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I went to the factory and I looked at the number of events that they’ve got going on I looked at two other venues
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and they’re averaging now that they’re up and running you got three years with the factory now three and a half and
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they’re averaging 10 events a month that they book look at the average ticket price if
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you go to Simmons okay and and I work Simmons with my wife on our dance stuff we have to
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raise money so we work the concessions you’re 12 bucks for a beer you can you say you work in concessions now you got
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to pay for dance $12 the uh Simmons just finished a
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country music concert with one of our uh local celebrities their
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t-shirt his was $35 and their guy say Shan you go to you
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go to a bigger name you’re going to spend 50 bucks for a t-shirt so I asked them I said this
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ticket price right here is that fair per person they said actually you’re a little low but go with it cuz it’s a
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nice round number 100 bucks so if you take 127,500 bucks that’s
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12,777 500 in gross revenue off 63
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events okay you see the events over there on the far right at 3% first year estimated tax revenue off
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this venue is $383,000 $325 that’s just the concerts and the
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events that the that the booking agent puts in you have a corporate Gaya and
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the caterer is on site whatever is delivered to that facility and
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disseminated distributed sold in that facility is subject to local
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taxes so if that caterer that I mentioned starts bringing back to Saline
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County and Briant host these types of events and they’re selling several
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thousand worth of food and their Buffet that’s taxable Bryant makes money off of that
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anything that’s sold out of that facility is subject to local taxes so those numbers that I just shared with
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you they don’t count the other events that take place
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okay bumping down you see that at 2,000 [Music]
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capacity the fact fact 3,000 capacity so we’re being realistic with what we’re looking here in our potential capacity
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and what fits Brian Arkansas I also went on ahead and put well what if it’s 1,700
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capacity ticket sales stay the same how how can we get that number of ticket sales
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12775 and if our capacity is only 1,700 we’ll need about 75
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shows okay so I’m just giving you that five-year proforma that this company
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submitted now here’s another source of Revenue bump down
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parking okay if you have a 2,000 capacity venue our ordinance under PMZ
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requires 6 to1 parking on a commercial facility 6 to1 parking is 334 parking
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spots it cost 20 to 25 bucks to park at Simmons to park downtown to park at Hot
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Springs whatever it may be let’s just say we did it at $10 okay
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that generates per event $10 per event
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3,340 I took a five-year estimate just made it simple five years took the same
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numbers that you have up here we had 101 events you see the income that it would
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generate on an annual for each capacity 2,700 and, 1500 if we stay at 2,000
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capacity and we sell parking for all of those booked events concerts comedies
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etc etc that the booking agent and the operator does you’re looking at 337,000
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additional income for the city okay far left and corner there’s are
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there’s also other uh Avenues of income for the city naming rights
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sponsorships naming rights to the concessions area naming rights to the Green Room naming rights to the stage
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here’s you another one city owns it we set a rental
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rate those rental rates are also paid by the promoter and the booker and they’re also paid by the
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corporate people they want to excuse me if they want to have a Gaya there they pay a rental rate so there are a number
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of other Revenue sources for the city other than taxes that are generated okay
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so there’s your some numbers these numbers were presented to us by the Oak View group they are a highly reputable
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experienced um operator so guys again
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Council the chamber sees this as our opportunity to make Bryant a destination
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Community to bring in fresh income fresh Capital to give the city an opportunity
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for a venue that we can hang our hat on something that we can be more than proud
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of something that we drive by and we go I’m glad we did that all right any
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questions for me all right I’m going to the
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floor real quick before you ask a question um and you’ll see this uh next week
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we’ve been we’ve been working on a contract just so you all know kind of how this will work City will contract
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with the chamber to uh book The Operators
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promoters third party vendors okay and part of that agreement will be the
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chamber will receive some of that revenue for their work but then the city
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will have the majority of that Revenue would come back to us how we want to use that re Revenue
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where we would put it it’s completely up to us down the road so just uh I didn’t know if we filled that Gap from where we
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were to where we are now that the that the city and the Chamber would work out that
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contract uh to do the leg work to bring these vendors in and make sure it’s
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managed appropriately and um invent all this this work so I’m sorry go ahead
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okay now you said that there’s a new sign out there in front of the property
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John Martin comes along the new Pharmacy because he’s already out on his so how do we keep these other people
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coming in and buying out out so um that property is 2.89 Acres
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that is adjacent to the 15 that we have anou on uh I would say this it’s not
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part of the 15 ACR no sir it’s not no sir it’s not no the 15 Acres that we have an mou on is separate from that
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almost 3 acres that another owner it’s not even the same owner it’s a it’s a different gentleman that has property
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right next to to it what that gentleman sees is he sees opportunity and
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rightfully so he sees he sees growth he sees an opportunity for for him and his
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family to say hey I’m going to put it up for sale and see if we can bring in another business because that is commercial property so it is another
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growth opportunity business-wise for our city whomever may buy it could we incorporate that with the 15 Acres it
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would be an additional expense with the bond money and right now the 15 Acres we
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have is more than enough for the footprint of the facility and by sticking with just the 15 Acres rather
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than our previous mou on the other land we were able to put 1.7 million back
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into the construction of this facility which is highly
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advisable one other thing is yes sir we’re showing capacity of 2,000 people
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here M so what I’ve done is I have given you some numbers to be conservative to not
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to keep our expectations and realization our semar will work his magic in the
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square footage he will look at materials from concrete to Steel to every piece of material that will go in that including
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our fixtures our furniture and our equipment everything that needs to be done to run the facility if he sees an
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opportunity to go up he will take advantage of that but I what I wanted to
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do was to give you some numbers that we felt based upon our discussions with the operators and our initial discussions
34:29
with the sear numbers that are realistic and what we feel are achievable under
34:34
current conditions
34:40
okay been used with similar capacities in the area or or in the state so you’ve
34:46
got uh Robinson Center Music Hall is 24 to
34:51
26 you’ve got um the oaklon which is if
34:56
I’m I’m trying to remember my numbers um 1,800 flat floor okay about that but
35:04
you’ve got these similar facilities around but what is unique about this is
35:10
this facility is being built with current entertainment expectations okay Robinson Center Music
35:18
Hall is a Symphony Hall they’ll do a few comedies they’ll do a few you know a few bands old school bands but it’s not
35:25
conducive to what entertainers are looking for today this type of facility at 2000 Max Capacity Jack to your point
35:33
and what Chesterfield was able to do 3,000 is what they’re looking for because the entertainers are now
35:40
shifting and have and will continue to to uh quality over quantity they’re not
35:46
so much interested in the 30 40 50 60,000 venues anymore they want intimate
35:53
The Experience economy that I have talked about okay and what we’re able to do with those numbers as well council is
36:01
we can capitalize on the ticket prices when you have a venue that is 3,000 or
36:06
less and you have that experience where the stage experience is much greater than being way up in the balcony and
36:13
what we’ve always called the nose bleed they will pay more per ticket to have that experience and the booking agents
36:19
and the entertainers are capitalizing on that got one of r
36:32
would you be able to use local contractors uh vendors and all that as
36:38
much as possible um I made this statement um one
36:44
or two meetings uh in the past um we have our our our company is a commercial
36:53
real estate developer vertical we have our own general contract company actually have two M own licenses we have
37:00
project managers project coordinators superintendents so we’ll provide all the general contract and services typically
37:08
with most of our in our industry in our company we have what we call our bread and butter tenants which is the people
37:15
that the companies that we build to suit for all over the country every day and we live by those guys waterburger um sou
37:24
Brew you have one right down here Walmart Walgreens Supply and others and then there’s specialty projects like
37:31
yours and we’re always in a community whereby we have to treat the
37:38
community uh with respect especially with regards to this one being that it’s going to be Community own so that’s a
37:44
long way around the barn to say yes other than general contractor from all the sub trades uh will be will utilize
37:52
as much local talent as available the reason I identified all those other projects we have traveling teams that
37:59
make up about half to two3 of our team uh for construction and when we’re going around the country in order to make the
38:06
cost fit our tenants needs we’re used to being a sear where we live and die by
38:12
budgets and this one we’ll have the same thing so the first opportunities will go
38:18
out once we have full set of plans um and we’ll go out to all local
38:24
subcontractors that’ll be heavily advertised social media otherwise so be
38:29
sure and pass that around any that are qualified licensed and insured properly and have
38:36
the right skill set you know the the Staffing and the team that can finish
38:42
this force in a timely manner those will be the guys that we’ll go to First with
38:47
the understanding that you know we’re being a sear we’re going to our contract requires that we live and die with this
38:53
city with a given amount of money older that comes out of our pocket and the time as well so there’s your
39:04
yes any other questions from me mayor counsel yes sir um do we have
39:12
commitments from any hotels is it going to be just like before with those
39:17
restaurants hotels facilities that will we need to support this what you have and what we have done is we have
39:24
entertained two Hotel groups for on-site visits we have entertained two restaurant
39:30
groups for on-site visits the two restaurant groups are separate from the hotel groups so what they are watching
39:35
is they’re watching you to see what you as a council does and how this project Ms
39:42
forward Shane talk a little bit about um the difference and kind of where we
39:49
are now the the things you’ve learned since Christmas eve since a day and how
39:57
we we um and I you and I have had these conversations a lot we we both believe
40:02
we’re in a better yeah Place yeah even though we and this is this has been on
40:08
purpose to kind of process these things publicly right so you guys have all kind of been part of the conversation changes
40:16
and why we feel like we’re in a better place today than we were so what we’ve been able to do once once once that once
40:23
that information was given to me and once it got out we have
40:29
had the interest in this venue has been all inspiring okay and
40:38
what it’s done is this by talking to so many different operators talking to so many different booking agents and
40:43
bringing and seeing their ideas and the venues that they’ve been a part of the venues that they’ve had success in okay
40:51
we have been able to broaden our our Dream broaden our thinking and what this venue should really look like rather
40:58
than maybe a venue that was catered to one specific desires of an operator
41:04
we’re now going to have a venue that really is more Universal for us as a
41:09
community because what these other operators have done is they’ve delved into that Gaya aspect they G they delved
41:16
into the event aspect and they all uniformly have said Shane you’re better
41:22
going with that flat floor stage and seating but have different facets Within
41:27
your Venue that you can rent out because Bryant Family Pharmacy and I want to use you as a successful company may say you
41:34
know what so and so’s got a band and they want to entertain us so we’re going to have a big Christmas party but Shane
41:41
I don’t need the big floor this venue will be designed in such a way with those flexibilities that you could
41:48
accommodate 75 people in a band in a confined area with a fabulous
41:54
environment around them and enjoy that and they rent that section so talking to
41:59
these different operators and these different booking agencies across the board it was unanimous with them you
42:04
need that multi-purpose event style facility that gives me as your potential
42:10
operator wink wink I hope and I said yep it gives me the opportunity that I
42:15
can go and recruit talent that I haven’t been able to because of the limitation
42:21
and the style of venues so it really opened up that that that uh that window
42:27
if you will so we could sit back and say okay let’s make this now a facility
42:33
rather than it’s cater to one specific aspect one that would be beneficial to
42:39
our community not just five years down the road but hopefully much like the age
42:45
of the Robinson Center 85 years down the road and it’s still making the city
42:50
money because it’s flexibility okay that’s what we learned and it’s been it’s been great I I mean
42:58
Anna’s here with you with us tonight she can tell you she’s heard my phone conversation she’s watched my pacing
43:04
she’s listened to my negotiations she’s listened to it all and it has been it
43:10
has been non-stop okay talking with different operators
43:15
and booking agents and they call us all right I hope that answers your question
43:21
can I ask you one more than then come on if you’re getting all these phone calls are they all positive or do you I have
43:27
not had one operator or one booking agent tell me Shane I just don’t think that’s going to work okay that some have
43:34
submitted letters of intent some have submitted their performers one right now
43:41
uh was it Global what was it ASM GL ASM Global is working on their Market study
43:47
some of them have told me Shane great idea great building let’s see what your Council
43:53
does okay because those things cost money to does and and they’re waiting
43:59
all right you got a question oh yeah come
44:05
on I’m close to 52 so is this the contract well it’s a more philosophical
44:12
question okay so Shane just so everybody knows we’ve been kind of hammering out
44:18
what this contract would look like between the city in the chamber we’ve uh had Ryan Bowman our bond counsel we’ve
44:25
had our City attorney Ash Clancy looking at it I wanted Council to see a draft I
44:32
sent that to them today just so they could h i can get any concerns if
44:37
there’s anything we need to hammer out between now and next week uh and so you guys have seen that and we’ been
44:45
working on it so Shane’s seen it okay so my my question is a little more philosophical So Physical responsibility
44:52
lies with the chamber with the council not the chamber um
44:58
so you know it it seems that there’s going to be a a long string of people
45:04
involved in the viability of this project but ultimately the the financial
45:10
responsibility rest over here so you know I’m wrestling with that so let
45:17
me how can the council be assured that the facility is going to
45:23
be successful outside of the things you’ve already said um how can we be assured that the the
45:30
venue is going to you know be booked be viable and generate at least the minimal revenue and impact in the community
45:37
because the city assumes most of the risk here few million dollars worth yeah you do you do assume the risk but as
45:44
your bond council is going to show you that risk based on the growth rates and
45:49
things like that I understand you got to put the risk over here and then you’ve got to look at my responsibility to
45:56
secure the operator and then the operator only makes money if they sell tickets okay so the operator is going to
46:02
come under a contract and that contract is going to be a length of time that matches the contract of responsibility
46:08
for the chamber because I have to ensure that the that the operator is taking care of the chamber okay we’re going to
46:15
be paddling the same boat upstream and dog on we better be paddling the same all right that’s my responsibility and I
46:21
take that responsibility but for the operator and the booking agent to make money they have to sell tickets
46:27
and for them to book a venue and pay rent and not sell tickets is their is their responsibility so they have the
46:33
built-in incentive when they pay rent you better sell tickets okay they want to make money and
46:40
it’s just like within the industry you don’t want to be known as the operator or the booking agency that taint a
46:45
facility because then that’s going to have repercussions down the line on the other facilities that you
46:51
manage they got merchandise that they’re responsible for they’re entertaining want to sell
46:57
tickets Mark if you’re an Entertainer and you’re with a booking agent and that booking agent’s not selling you tickets
47:03
you’re going to fire that booking agent you’re going to go get somebody else okay so there are some Faith issues
47:12
there okay but is that not with everything that we Endeavor on whether we build another park that has swimming
47:19
pools and basketball courts and pickle ball courts we’re in good faith that the residents are going to utilize that that
47:25
people are going to come and tournaments that people are going to pay to have ball games there so everything we touch
47:31
has got an element of Faith built into it okay what I’m asking this Council to
47:36
do is to take advantage of the breath of fresh air that you have between a Chamber of Commerce and a city that says
47:43
we’re going to work together and we’re going to make this happen you’ve got a business Community
47:48
United behind this sir just for the fact that everyone here how many members do
47:54
you have in this chamber of commerce that so you got the board sitting out here
48:00
and they they they’re unanimous right now let me give you the today’s
48:05
number on our membership because I have went door too 526 members that I hit all
48:13
526 I don’t have enough in me to get that done but the ones that I have
48:18
visited with in your neighborhood over there uh-huh Jamie Gaston hits me every
48:23
time I go in there when’s it happening when’s it happening when’s it happening when’s your signs going to be ready so I put signs
48:29
up I think that’s contagious okay sure let me let me say something
48:35
real quick really good question Walter uh as a former former Parks
48:43
director one of the things that uh we kind of faced when I became Parks
48:48
director was the expectation of tournaments at Bishop
48:53
Park and there was a challenge there because of things that happened in the past and how
48:59
do we so basically what we had to do was we had to prove to turnament directors
49:05
who rented the facility that even if it flooded your tournament’s going to
49:12
happen okay and that took some time but eventually we built the relationships
49:17
with the tournament directors that now we’re booked year a year in advance as soon as we open the
49:23
weekends they’re booked okay um I I think so we there was a there was a
49:29
learning curve between the time Bishop Park was built and we got there a lot of
49:34
learning curve because we didn’t have at that point when Bishop Park was open
49:39
there maybe wasn’t uh anybody that kind of knew had those connections or
49:46
what I think where we had the difference here that gives me a lot of confidence
49:51
is between uh if the residents say yes on May 13th when this thing
49:58
opens the Chamber of Commerce has stepped up to say we will take on the
50:05
responsibility to build those relationships and connect ourselves with
50:10
the because at the end of the day Bishop Park’s successful because we have a great facility and good people working
50:18
there and and relationships with tournament directors that want to be there and so there’s a very in my mind
50:24
similar so we’ll have this this time between the vote Yes and when it opens
50:30
the chamber said look we’ll do the leg work to make sure we have the relationships with those
50:36
promoters and and and do that for the city uh and so in my opinion that gives
50:43
me a lot of confidence because we got people that will get out there and get that work done to make those connections
50:49
by the time this thing opens I expect it’ll be booked uh with these
50:55
relationships that will probably last for years because they’ll come here they’ll
51:00
they’ll they’ll have great experience and they’ll want to book in the fut so so to the mayor’s Point that’s kind of
51:06
how I thought about that question Walter Walter to the mayor’s point right now my
51:11
focus has been and it goes kind of to your question Jack a few moments ago we
51:17
have enough Talent right here in this County and we’ve got talent that you guys may not be aware of that’s in this
51:24
industry that has called me and said when can we talk we have enough talent
51:30
in this County to keep this facility booked with topn events and make money
51:36
and when you marry your local talent on those levels to a local venue they have
51:42
a vested interest in it that cannot be measured they want to see it successful
51:47
because it’s their name and their businesses that are now tied I also want you to go back and I want you to think
51:53
about another local venue that we have that has the same relationship between the city the commission and the Chamber
51:59
and the success of that venue Little Rock convention center and their their convention has the same relationship
52:05
with the chamber city of hot springs and the Hot Springs Convention Center has the same relationship with the chamber
52:11
successful venues in the state of Arkansas have that relationship with the chamber where the chamber serves in this
52:18
capacity and when they’re working together as we are right now all of those venues have been deemed successful
52:27
all right quick question okay the area that you expect visitors to come from
52:34
we’re not just talking Saline County what do you what’s your anticipation how
52:39
wide an area so what we’re looking at in my conversations with other venues their
52:45
total attendance roughly 35 to 40% of that attendance is a 2-hour Drive
52:51
outside of what we’re looking at as the Metropolitan statistical area bner
52:57
Saline Garland Pulaski little bit of White little bit of Lonoke that Metropolitan statistical area you know
53:04
just sitting under south of a million they anticipate 35 to 40% coming from
53:11
that and outside they will come up the two hours away for these types of venues and
53:17
events and and and I have to sit back and go that’s accurate because Council I
53:23
know what my my kids do I know what my my family does you know they’re in elero three or four
53:29
times a year they’re in Northwest Arkansas at least twice a year so I have to look at my own crew
53:37
and go they validate what I’ve been told by industry
53:44
experts great question I will share this with you and
53:49
I’ll close on this mayor if we looked at the amphitheater in Northwest Arkansas
53:55
my coners ation with my counterpart at their Chamber of Commerce open roughly 5
54:02
and a half maybe 6 months out of the year if the weather is good yes it is a
54:07
very high attendance facility okay but their global economic
54:13
impact was $23 million to their local
54:18
economy a little over nine of that was hotels and he affirmed yeah 35 to 45% of
54:28
the people that come to that will drive two hours and they spend the night which
54:33
makes sense in my talk with the operators they’re saying you’re looking at an event starting around 700 p.m.
54:39
we’ll unload the facility between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. if you got a 2hour drive
54:45
and you had a few Michelob or whatever you had you’re getting a room and you know that already and you booked your
54:52
room that’s why these Hotel development companies are watching this because they know there’s opportunity with fresh
54:59
Capital coming all right thank you folks thank you Shane all right uh Tim we we did uh we
55:10
had several questions about um why not infrastructure and and Tim will tell you
55:16
this when I asked him to present this I said you don’t feel any pressure right
55:22
obviously Shane just presented this uh but I wanted him to feel the freedom to
55:27
say as Public Works director what if we went after uh use this 30 million for
55:33
infrastructure and be completely upfront and honest no holds bar tell us what you
55:38
think so first of all I need a different place on the agenda because I either follow Animal
55:45
Control I follow that like I don’t ever go first second like the mayor said so
55:50
it’s a little awkward standing up here saying infrastructure always needs money we always need to replace something this
55:56
and that and then saying I don’t really think this is the place to invest this money in um after continued
56:03
conversations and the planning we’ve done in house and the master plans and stuff we working on but
56:09
down so yes Shane I stole your graphic but I figur since this is what it’s
56:15
about I about and use it um so the sales and use tax is reappropriate to bond 5%
56:22
to go back into the system to build the you Str questions please ask May Joy
56:29
Jack or I am not the specific guy on that I’m just telling you what we’re looking
56:35
at um so Enterprise funds
56:42
uh here so when we’re talking about Enterprise funds what are we talking about so Public Works has three
56:47
Enterprise funds eight divisions um got water storm water and waste water I have
56:52
no idea where what miss that bullet point but and water Way St also houses water
56:58
b% so according to our adopted Bri 2025 budget they are departments that fund
57:06
themselves based off of rates fees um Plan reviews impact SE
57:15
so ideally we use that for daily operations and funding in the bond specifically the infrastructure fee that
57:21
you got pass over a year ago that is dedicated strictly to water
57:28
nothing we also have a special Revenue fund and that’s one out B that would be the streets department so it’s uh funded
57:34
by state turnback half cent tax 30% 1% tax it’s a
57:41
governmental fund but it’s managed by public this is all
57:47
straight so when we talk about infrastructure I’ll use the term hidden
57:52
cost right because 90% of it nobody sees in the ground or it’s hidden behind a
57:58
fan usually not the prettiest stuff to look at and keeps it in the ground keeps
58:03
it yeah for other Stu So Physical infrastructure that’s water P
58:10
Street water that kind of thing um money for infrastructure yeah we always need
58:17
it it is almost always cing but is this tax issue of bond issue the
58:25
proper use for that um so there’s in doing some little bit of research I
58:31
learned about social infrastructure and uh I had no idea what that was so I learned something so social
58:37
infrastructure is what transforms cities from collections of buildings and RADS to
58:42
community communities worth caring about which is schools restaurants Parks entertainment areas for people
58:50
together um so it’s just another type of infrastructure that is outside of what
58:57
you typically consider and you’ve heard us say all the time that sewer grows the city well sewer is also growing the
59:03
County right now um I think that we need an economic
59:10
driver that creates possibilities within Bran’s physical boundaries for potential
59:17
divers be hotels restaurants um and that that
59:23
experience or that economic driver needs to give people who come here families that live here a place to gather and
59:30
when they leave they have a positive experience that will spread the word and get more more
59:40
people I’m going start taking speaking lesson from Shane
59:46
too so drawbacks if you the voters choose you choose and the voters choose
59:53
to apply this reappropriated Pond money to
59:59
infrastructure it takes away from the city’s ability to borrow
1:00:08
um it will not increase sales tax I mean I should will not likely will not it’ll
1:00:14
go back into repairing what we have now or replacing what we have now for future
1:00:20
growth uh you’ll lose the power possibly paying it off early you lose the having an
1:00:26
asset you might be able to sell and make money um and then with that reduced boring power if you choose down the road
1:00:33
and 10 years 15 years you want to build something else but it’s going to be tied up in the infrastructure for 30
1:00:40
years the other part is um how would we spend it Bally at this
1:00:48
point we worked on a water master plan that’s adopted waste water master plan
1:00:53
that should be ready pretty quick water master plan that should be raised relatively soon feasibility study where
1:01:00
where do we dissect the money and put it towards where your return on the investment is
1:01:08
is worth it in the infrastructure world the other thing is anytime you add new infrastructure you’re going to add new
1:01:14
maintenance cost you’re going to have to add new Personnel new equipment so this this one big bucket of
1:01:21
money isn’t going to carry longterm goals for us
1:01:28
like I said we’ve been busy so water plan was adopted you guys were gracious
1:01:33
enough to allow us to spend 900,000 out the arpa for design that’s about a $12.5
1:01:38
million project when it’s all said and done or it also involves the South plane
1:01:43
also involves it’s a water tower and line
1:01:49
extension waste waste water Mass PL is still in draft one of the things we knew we needed to do was look at the station
1:01:55
five and a new design and rebuild it is the largest station in the city uh you guys gave us
1:02:04
1.5 1.1 million to go towards that
1:02:11
um water and waste water rates master plan uh we need to adopt both Master
1:02:17
water and the rates need to have the water master plan and the waste water master plan adopted C that before we fin
1:02:27
storm water storm water Master PL is in its final stages right now we should have that coming to you to
1:02:33
soon um again that’s working to improve STM Water Management existing one thing
1:02:39
I’d like to talk about storm water when we did this master plan we had them look at
1:02:47
private other the city chooses to go fix those things at some point in time that
1:02:52
will become done our asset we have to figure out to fund maintenance on that there’s another additional cost even if
1:02:58
you do get it fix uh El streets so the pavement
1:03:05
pavement analysis was done a couple years ago well two years ago really so an RQ will be going out uh it’s under
1:03:11
legal riew right now to get a company in here that does the same thing as the other Master plans here’s the conditions
1:03:18
here’s a 5 10 15 20 year plan on either preventive maintenance
1:03:25
construction overload Etc um I can tell you just from very
1:03:31
high level cost if you gave me 30 million to do the rose right now and spend it on one R and that’s all and
1:03:37
that Rose life might be 10 years
1:03:46
so so I touched basically some of this already but the water and sewer rate study in the process the waste water
1:03:53
master plan infrastructure passed was passed just to fund Water and Wastewater
1:04:00
fonds and loans that were presented already that we already knew that they’re going to station 5 G
1:04:08
South the street turnback funds when we get the W streets master plan back I
1:04:15
would anticipate that we’re going to need to find a funding source to help our streets um
1:04:28
then we talk about how we fund projects we don’t typically fund a group of projects into one um South pl’s kind of
1:04:36
the exception and South plane in the line but the line needs to be done for South plan to be for the tower to be successful also um so you kind of group
1:04:44
those together we did out as separate projects the meters with one project Leo Circle which is uh nrd loan one one
1:04:53
project spring one project that’s n um South plane if hear about at the end
1:04:59
of month this month’s councel from about funding private funding so when we fund
1:05:08
nrd there’s aerate
1:05:13
of goals or you know uh there a whole bunch of stuff we have to do when you do
1:05:20
through private funding it’s usually a little less strous so we kind of pick and choose on which where we’re going to
1:05:26
go but the other part about nrd is there’s you can get low interest rate but there’s also things you can get some
1:05:33
benefits you can get from like including cyber security it might drop that interest rate a little bit lower or
1:05:38
other benefits uh so and then um the other thing about
1:05:46
nrds if we fund through them we can’t do any of the construction inhouse it all
1:05:52
has to be offed so if we come with a project that just a million dollars that we know we could do in house still that
1:05:58
outsourc that the some get pay them extra money like I said it’s a little awkward
1:06:04
standing up here telling you that I we always need money in infrastructure but uh speaking to other staff other people
1:06:11
in the industry it would be really awkward to mix Enterprise funds or Enterprise departments that are supposed
1:06:18
to fund themselves with something that’s supposed to be the sales and Ed tax and then limit the city’s ability in the
1:06:25
future possibly borrow money to do something else whether be build a park or building or police station or
1:06:31
whatever it would be questions
1:06:50
questions all right jack talk to us about uh you know all the history and
1:06:55
your uh we got our whole our team Jack here and our team from Cruz been working
1:07:01
with us for sometime now right over 20 years over 20 years 20 years I had
1:07:07
personally so mayor members of council it’s great to be with yall it’s actually yeah probably been longer than that I do
1:07:12
want to mention my teammates Paul Phillips is not here this evening but we have David DS and Su Susan Dumis with
1:07:18
Cru and Associates and of course as mentioned earlier Bond attorney Ryan Bowman who you all know who is part of
1:07:23
your financing team to help with this U with this transaction on your sales and use tax I wanted just to kind of give
1:07:30
you all a little overview of how this would work of course you’re going to the voters and there’ll be two questions one
1:07:36
question would be uh the permission to rededicate or pay off the O bonds the
1:07:41
2016 bonds 2016 B bonds if you were to not do anything today those bonds would
1:07:47
pay off in approximately December of 2028 the second question would be the new money piece which is for the for the
1:07:56
Bay facility and so this is called a rededication which is mentioned earlier you all done this three times and you
1:08:02
take the existing uh half cent sales tax as your bonds are paid off because that whole tax goes to pay off that debt it
1:08:09
goes straight to the trustee the trustee pays off the bond issue and so we’re
1:08:14
looking at a ballpark a bond issue size based on current market and the rates on this bond issue will be taxable rates
1:08:21
they’ll be taxable to the investor which means the investors that buy your bonds will pay income tax on their interest
1:08:27
earnings the reason it will be taxable is because the call date on the 2016
1:08:32
bonds is not until December 1 of 2026 that’s called an advanced refunding it
1:08:37
has to be done with taxable bonds and then the facility needs to be done with taxable bonds so that you all can do
1:08:44
everything that Shane had mentioned because if we’re tax exempt it has to be strictly for governmental purposes which
1:08:51
is you mean you can’t hire an operator you can’t advertise you can’t charge you can’t do all all that so one thing that
1:08:57
helps mitigate the higher interest rate because it’s taxable is the fact that this is a mandatory Redemption bond
1:09:04
which means the whole tax goes to pay off alone early so with that being said uh we’re looking at ballpark around a 42
1:09:11
million bond issue that would net the city $30 million in Project funds uh if there’s 0% growth in the tax
1:09:19
it would pay off in approximately 23 years based on the last 12 months collections if you you get 2% growth it
1:09:27
will pay off in 18 years if you get 4% growth it will pay off in 13 years
1:09:33
excuse me 15 years and if you get 6% growth it will pay off in 13 years the
1:09:39
six-year average growth rate on your sales and use tax has been 6.7% so you got a good range of 0o to
1:09:47
6% uh we are structuring this with a 1.2 times coverage ratio which basically
1:09:53
means for every dollar and payment that you have you have a12 in Revenue coming in and that extra money that’s what goes
1:10:01
into prepaid the loan every six months so this is something that the city of BR has done as we mentioned twice before uh
1:10:08
we anticipate probably a seven-year optional call date market conditions
1:10:14
really uh kind of dictate a lot of that but we’ll probably somewhere in that range which what that means is in that
1:10:20
time frame then the city has other needs and you want to use your sales tax to
1:10:26
fulfill those needs then you can go back and rededicate again at that time so uh
1:10:32
the tax collections have like has have like I said have grown dramatically over the past several years back in
1:10:39
2019 your half a cent generated about two little under 2.4 million uh in 2024
1:10:44
is about 3.3 million so it really has had tremendous growth so um one of the
1:10:50
things BR bonds as you all know have always been well received in the marketpl we see no issue with uh the
1:10:58
marketability of this issue and it will be a great project assuming you all take this vote to the voters and the voters
1:11:03
approve it so let me stop and see if there any questions any questions you
1:11:08
want to go through those percentages for more time about years sure on that on the projected payoff we have to 0%
1:11:15
growth 23e payoff 2% 18 years 4% 15E
1:11:23
projected payoff and 6% of 13e projected
1:11:28
pay Jack uh you said um current rate of growth seven and a
1:11:37
half years you would project that if the city had other
1:11:42
needs could do this again could take it’s an optional Redemption date every
1:11:47
bond issue has what is called an optional Redemption date we call it a call date and investors want to know
1:11:53
that they buy your bonds they’re going to want to know they going to receive that interest income for a period of year because they like the credit they
1:11:59
like the interest rates and so what that means is you cannot prepay the issue early I mean you could but it would be
1:12:06
taxable rates but you would not having to pay down by then so in seven years
1:12:11
your your scheduled annual principal payments will be made your mandatory Redemption payments will be made and
1:12:18
then very similar to what we’re doing now very similar to what we’re doing now let me ask you this uh I’m sorry I
1:12:25
should have ask you this earlier 2016 you might some of you might know this
1:12:32
were we in a similar position in 2016 uh that when we went back to the
1:12:37
voters for the Parkway and the fire stations I honestly don’t remember I mean I’m sure you were
1:12:44
the question is I do probably bet it was a current refunding as opposed to Advanced refunding because that issue is
1:12:49
all tax exempt gotta that’s probably the difference between the two because this one is not the end up next year so
1:12:56
that’s why it has to be tacked but if the city leaders at that time s and a half years from now with current growth
1:13:03
nothing new why way remember remember uh if if the city
1:13:10
leaders at that time said hey we’ve got some significant things we want to take
1:13:16
to the voters uh at that time we could oh most definitely and and the um the uh
1:13:23
if it is a current refunding in other words in that seven years your
1:13:29
refinancing portion of of our of our tax piece would stay the same but the new money piece could then be done as taxes
1:13:35
and bonds so would it be true that at that point if the voters approve this real
1:13:44
the refunding portion be done with tax not the facility ahead but the facility
1:13:50
would then be free and clear because it would be a completely new bond is that true that is cor it would it would no
1:13:56
longer have a bond issue attached to it okay that’s absolutely correct all right thank
1:14:01
you Jack you mentioned $42 million uh bond issue 30 million for the project
1:14:08
the only number you didn’t mention is the 12 difference between them could you just explain where that 12 is oh sure
1:14:14
the difference is one we’ve got to pay off the O bonds and the outstanding balance on that issue is 12 made 995 and
1:14:20
so what we’ll do is we will we will uh do what we call um net fund escro fund
1:14:26
so we’ll take that money we’ll take the interest payments and the principal payments till December 1 2026 we’ll
1:14:33
invest in what we call slugs which stands for state and local government securities it will earn interest plus
1:14:38
that principle make those payments and then on that date those bonds will be paid in full and then the other portion
1:14:44
is a Debt Service Reserve which we anticipate will be a half funded which would be 50% of the maximum annual
1:14:51
payment or we might even do a shity bond which would eliminate that we just have to see what makes the most amount of
1:14:56
sense and then I’ve estimated a cost of issuance which would include your bond attorneys your investment Banks your
1:15:03
trustee your escro agents U everything involved at about 1.52% that’s what makes up the
1:15:09
difference between the um the par Mount and the 30 million but now let me mention this if you all approve this and
1:15:18
we come back next Thursday in the ordinance it’s going to have a little bit of a higher number and the big
1:15:23
difference there is because we’re going to have a not to exceed number and so to protect ourselves for any unknown
1:15:31
interest rate movements or anything like that to protect ourselves we’ll typically size it with a maximum annual
1:15:37
payment on The Debt Service Reserve knowing fully our plan is to do half of that so we can always go down but we
1:15:44
can’t go up and I’ll explain that again and we’ll discuss that again and answer your questions next week but I just wanted to let you all know about that
1:15:50
it’s in other words it’s better to have it not need it than need it not have it you back thank you for your
1:15:57
question one more question Jack um you you submitted some numbers that were on
1:16:05
uh an earlier Workshop correct how if if council members need
1:16:11
to go look back at those details is that still pretty close to what you’re
1:16:17
talking about the only thing that changed is we added the projected payoffs based on the percentage growth
1:16:22
okay that that was it yeah that like I said the 2016 being right now has got a
1:16:28
state maturity 2040 projected to pay off in December of 2028 if you do nothing uh
1:16:34
we use the same yeah but and and we checked we checked in our interest rate assumptions we still believe are still
1:16:39
good today good I just say that in case somebody wanted to look at a specific attachment those were those were part of
1:16:46
an earlier Workshop sure and if there’s any questions I’ll free contact myself or or our partners of Cru that’s thank
1:16:53
you thanks help with oh you bet our pleasure thank you all for the opportunity to work with you all any
1:16:59
other questions all right allk thank you very
1:17:05
much all right um Thomas MIRS Bryant resident who’s spoken
1:17:12
a few times uh in our public comments um has been working
1:17:18
on an alternate uh proposal we want to make sure everybody gets a opportunity
1:17:26
to here I might to take one each there’s a little bit more one on there’s one on
1:17:32
each side state one um there’s probably a little bit more so if anybody else wants one I’d be glad to give
1:17:40
that all right so Thomas Mir y’all seen me before yeah
1:17:48
um just to give a little bit of background it’s hard to say kind of what I totally wanted to say in your normal
1:17:54
three minute public comment but um I have almost a decade experience in um
1:18:00
personal finance Financial modeling so this is kind of sort of what I
1:18:05
do um but this is totally for talking
1:18:10
about this tax the bond issue and sort of projected economic
1:18:17
growth um I I just wanted to say kind of apologize that some of this was didn’t
1:18:25
really it’s really hard to figure out what the actual payoff date is but um so
1:18:30
thank you for um the Mr gentleman from Stevens but I don’t think that really
1:18:36
affects this it just sort of moves the graph back and forth a little bit if you kind of understand
1:18:42
plotting um so I wanted to say is the data I’m getting for this the sources is
1:18:48
literally just the sort of economic projections provided by the mayor a couple of months ago I think uh about
1:18:56
beginning of December and then the rest of it any financial data from the city is directly from the um City Financial
1:19:05
reports so that’s the that that’s all I’m using for this so on your
1:19:13
chart I have three lines and we’re going to start and go through each of them and
1:19:19
this is sort of what I sort of predict or kind of think will happen based on
1:19:27
numbers I’m using a growth rate for the city of
1:19:32
3.9% that’s basically the historical growth rate ignoring 2020 and 2021
1:19:38
because like there was that big spike and then immediately just if you average the last couple years it just goes back
1:19:43
to 3.9 so I’m just treating on 3.9% growth I’m directly talking about I mean
1:19:51
I understand the city has all sorts of fees and um property taxes all these different sorts of Revenue sources I’m
1:19:58
only talking about in here usable sales tax revenue so that’s stuff that is not
1:20:04
servicing a bond or doing anything like it’s not going towards Bond servicing
1:20:10
interest Financial things so I just wanted to sort of those are like the ground rules that I’m operating
1:20:18
under so this is I’m kind of taking a different tact here it’s more of
1:20:25
what will happen not necessarily with the facility or the tax but there’s some other things that are in play on the
1:20:30
playing field that I think are really important that really sort of sort of influenced what I’m thinking should
1:20:37
happen so the first one the bottom line is do nothing nothing
1:20:44
happens you don’t we don’t do an election nothing or the election you know that gets voted down nothing
1:20:50
happens the bond goes away the sales tax is is reduced and we go down the problem
1:20:58
is and you all acknowledge this in the um budget is we’re obious going to be
1:21:03
hitting a pension fire and police pension shortfall I believe the number was like 1.2
1:21:09
million problem is is also there’s not really many ways to raise City revenues
1:21:15
or at least raise taxes except for a millage increase which in the budget
1:21:20
says it’s only around $415 I believe, and that still Lees a big
1:21:26
shortfall for the city to look at for Revenue sources so you have to have a property
1:21:34
tax rate no I mean you’re already really I mean 2.5% and then which you have no bonds or
1:21:41
interest so I estimate in 2028 please forgive me this doesn’t this
1:21:48
probably would have a bond payoff but in 2028 just projecting forward a few years
1:21:53
we have about usable sax sales tax revenue of about 19.2 million and that’s
1:21:59
still with having a shortfall and stuff but you would from a sales tax point of view you would have 19.2 million
1:22:07
estimate again Financial background past performance is not predict future gain
1:22:12
but we have like a long history of economic growth data for the city and
1:22:19
that’s just what I’m projecting that’s the bottom line do nothing here’s what I
1:22:24
happens going to hit that brick wall plus also we’re having an issue with um
1:22:31
police I think yall have already talked about this the state police increased their pay raise so we’re having we
1:22:37
probably would need to give a huge pay raise to our police to keep it viable for them to stay stick around so that’s
1:22:45
scenario one that’s just the sit back nothing
1:22:50
happens any questions about that
1:22:56
all right number two venue the middle line in the
1:23:02
chart the slightly less dark line 30 million to construct of course
1:23:09
we’ll have to pay for it with a bond but I would like to remind you
1:23:15
that that requires interest payments I’m modeling around because here’s the thing
1:23:23
we were previously paying in the low 2% interest because when we first financed these bonds it was much much much much
1:23:30
much lower um interest rate environment I’m sorry somebody in this room has probably refinanced their house and
1:23:37
you’re probably laughing right now compared to what interest rates you get so I’m looking at um from what I was
1:23:44
hearing from Miss Meer which again thank you for helping me um miss my are saying we were looking
1:23:52
at I believe around I was just using it’s about
1:23:57
3.75% so that would over the life of what I was projecting we would paid the
1:24:03
bond off given this economic growth numbers that for past we’ paid off around 8 8.3 years so we would be paying
1:24:11
a total of $5 million interest that is money that the city would never see
1:24:17
that’s just gone to interest just gone and that’s equivalent to about 12
1:24:23
total police officers a year that could have been paid for with that $5 million in interest so just wanting to put that
1:24:30
out there the other problem is the anticipated revenue is slightly only slightly above the pension cost with
1:24:37
optimistic growth so I’m using the um 1.8 million projected in total sales tax
1:24:43
revenue that includes the venue that includes um economic growth of the city
1:24:48
and so when I’m looking so that’s when you see this number at the bottom 20.9 that’s like all that and that’s sort of
1:24:55
the opis model from the um growth figures so you can kind of see that you
1:25:00
know we have like a 1.2 million shortfall it’s probably going to you know keep increasing over the years that’s not much more than the do nothing
1:25:08
approach for what this is so in other words it’s extreme risk that
1:25:14
economic growth doesn’t match expectations and that number will be lower so then you’re back again to
1:25:19
almost square one which is oh wait a minute we’re going to have a revenue short fault can’t do anything about it
1:25:26
because we’ve already raised the taxes to 3% and then you’ll still have to raise
1:25:31
you know property taxes or something like that plus all yall will have to have this extra responsibility of
1:25:38
managing this venue so that’s another sort of responsibility on top of what you have right
1:25:44
now so again it’s also it’s risk that the economic growth pans out yes it
1:25:51
could happen but you know like think about finances advising people what to
1:25:57
do and not and that sort of thing it just seems like a big risk to me that it might not yes stuff could happen it
1:26:05
buils and stuff but what if it doesn’t get all the way up you’re still hitting
1:26:10
that ceiling of stuff that you need so that’s what I’m projecting with
1:26:17
those this is again the optimistic numbers right here could be more a
1:26:23
little bit more I don’t really see that could be left so um and that’s again in
1:26:29
2028 I was projecting total usable sales tax revenue of 20.9 again remember that
1:26:36
5% 5% you’re not seeing it’s actually still at
1:26:44
2.5% so that’s what’s going on there does anybody have any questions about
1:26:51
that so it’s going on now it’s the Top
1:26:57
Line This is U my proposal so again I don’t want to be just a naysayer I want
1:27:02
to offer Solutions Alternatives and stuff like that I want really want to you know see the city Thrive and do good
1:27:11
so my it’s simple as this take that 05% sales tax that is financing the current
1:27:17
Bond and just reroute it to general fund now I’m going to be really open-ended
1:27:23
and I’m not going to make a um sort of proposal of what you need yall need to do with that I mean you could put it
1:27:30
into the pensions fleece raises and then use it to like pay off and the other half of it to pay off the um Bond early
1:27:38
this a workshop right yes so we can um I mean is that even
1:27:44
legal it’s a good question let let him
1:27:50
finish I mean again this is a very high thing I mean you could chop it up and
1:27:55
say this percentage goes to that that percentage to go to that and you know all in that stuff I’m keeping it try to
1:28:01
make it a very high level as possible it’s very open-ended so it also would instantly
1:28:09
increase sales tax revenue by 20% my my point with that is it’s like
1:28:16
with the economic benefit of the other venue you’re waiting for have to wait for it to be constructed which I
1:28:23
anticipate is like maybe a very conservative two years and then you have to wait for all the other anything else
1:28:30
to move in like restaurants hotels and stuff like that so this would be you
1:28:35
know as soon as possible it would just be like you like one month you’re down here
1:28:41
one month you’re just up 20% just instantly like that no buildings no
1:28:47
waiting for construction nothing um this is sort of like a
1:28:54
sidecar sort of thing doesn’t have to be done but I really want to put this idea out here this would probably be if you
1:29:01
were put on this on a ballot it would be a totally separate issue would be to um
1:29:06
not necessarily eliminate I think that’s probably a bit too strong but um
1:29:11
reallocate all the allocations of sales tax that are currently on the books from
1:29:16
previous ballot initiatives so it’s like you have this amount of eights for this department this amount of eights for
1:29:22
that department there might be a way of saying well historically this department
1:29:27
or that department is constantly in a shortfall this department is constantly in a surplus so it may be an interesting
1:29:34
thing to sort of audit that and kind of take this time while we already have we have a ballot issue and just sort of
1:29:41
reshuffle these things so we can more efficiently allocate funds that we’re already
1:29:47
getting if that makes sense so it’s it’s just I’m not saying this is what’s going on but it’s for example if police is
1:29:54
always getting more but fire is always getting less you could maybe combine those two so you can move them back and
1:30:00
forth instead of always having it stuck in these One funds just an idea it’s very open-ended
1:30:09
not saying hey move this to here but just putting that out there so if you were to do this with the sales tax and
1:30:16
this is talking directly to the council and not really sort of to like you know citizens perspective but this means it’s
1:30:22
like in the mayor state of the city you wouldn’t have to do any subcommittees or
1:30:27
anything else research for doing extra Revenue sources it’s just there it’s
1:30:33
just reallocate from away from a bond it done 20% there instant yes it
1:30:41
requires a ballot initiative but it’s a lot less effort than having to do all
1:30:46
that also we wouldn’t have to raise the property tax yall wouldn’t have to deal with u venue operators or contractors
1:30:54
are doing any of that kind of like paperwork supervision for the next who knows how many years it would take to do
1:31:00
that yeah and revenue would be available immediately from payoff of current Bond instead of waiting for venue to be
1:31:06
constructed in Upper running so U look specifically at the mayor’s state of the
1:31:12
city to address this would fund the cost of Pensions it could fund Police salary
1:31:19
raises to counter state raises it would also allow once this bond this other Bond is finally paid off you could allow
1:31:26
the city to self-pay for certain infrastructure without resorting to bond issues you could do like micro financing
1:31:31
of smaller projects on a much more agile approach it also keeps the property
1:31:38
taxes lower to attract homeowners and businesses because certainly one of my
1:31:43
things is I would like the city to keep these base costs for businesses for
1:31:49
homeowners as low as possible to make it attractive to like why not Brian
1:31:54
so I’m just estimating in 2028 sales tax revenue would be 23.1
1:32:01
million instead of these other two numbers so I’m going be use car finance guy and
1:32:08
say which of these numbers looks better any questions about that yeah any
1:32:17
questions thank you for presenting an alternate idea I appreciate that you’re welcome I think you asked about legal we
1:32:23
didn’t do any of this without the vote of the people of course is that what you’re talking about well I’m just saying taking the bonds and putting it
1:32:29
into a general fund no no no you could I mean it all have to be a ballot
1:32:35
initiative it couldn’t the council couldn’t do that without the Public’s of sorry if I wasn’t clear on that but this
1:32:41
is um not doing another bond this is letting the bonds expire and just have a
1:32:47
straight .5% sales tax directly into City funds so it’s like redirect ing from
1:32:54
Bond servicing and going back instead to a sales tax directly into City
1:33:00
accounts even that Bond measure when it’s Sunset so does the tax sure so any reappropriation or renewal of the tax
1:33:06
would be a boat of the people to reinstate the 05% of course that would
1:33:12
be in part of this um issue thank you I have a it may not necessarily be
1:33:19
but the the 12 million that we’re talking about is left on the bond how long for if we if we did the do nothing
1:33:27
there’s still $12 million out there that’s got to be paid at some point so sir what was the time frame 2028 2028 is
1:33:35
when that would actually be yes sir so I mean I think a lot of the issues that
1:33:40
talking about done so I mean I guess my counter to
1:33:48
that would be to um have some other kind of ISS on the
1:33:54
ballot initiative where you would like refinance just that last portion to pay it off like quicker or
1:34:02
something thank you I got I got one question here on number two you said Council have extra responsibility of
1:34:09
managing the V yes contradict kind of what Shane said
1:34:15
so but you’re still the counts it’s owned by the city you’ll still have to be checking up on that you’ll still have
1:34:21
to be you know you know checking in on that running I mean watching it and things like that that’s still extra
1:34:28
responsibility well that will be our new diligence yeah thank
1:34:35
you I appreciate uh you sharing uh
1:34:40
engaging with uh with your city I think it shows your love for the city I think one of the things as we’re kind of
1:34:47
talking about this um the the residents of br shown a
1:34:55
willingness to reallocate right Bishop Park was a a heavy
1:35:02
lift uh it added half cent sales tax for a specific purpose and they and the
1:35:09
residence of Bryant showed that hey you bring us something that we really believe
1:35:15
in we’ll keep that going okay and I think that’s one of the that’s part of
1:35:20
the big question and and what as mayor I’ve seen and heard from people in the
1:35:29
city is that you brought us something we’re really excited about even though
1:35:34
we we’ve had to kind of change some directions we like what you’re talking
1:35:40
about with this half s i don’t haven’t heard and wouldn’t
1:35:47
entertain as mayor a ballot initiative that wasn’t
1:35:52
like that was a half cent towards general fund I think
1:35:58
this this half cent sales tax Bryant residents have shown a willingness to
1:36:04
talk about and reallocate for something a specific project Bishop
1:36:10
Park the the parkway um fire stations and some other
1:36:16
it’s very specific and I think part of that is that they have control
1:36:23
over this right that that we’re bringing something to them that they get to say
1:36:29
yeah we like that do that or no you’re you’re not on the right track and if
1:36:35
we’re not on the right track they say no and it goes away so I I I I really do
1:36:40
appreciate your time and your effort but just as mayor I would say I wouldn’t be
1:36:46
willing to put this kind of uh initiative on the ballot because I don’t
1:36:52
think it’s anything Brant residents would would be for or would even would even pass okay again I’m not necessarily
1:37:00
saying general fund I’m saying is like being very open-ended I’m just saying there’s all these other funds you could
1:37:06
do whatever you want water waste you know everything it’s just more of there
1:37:12
is this option thank you I appreciate you coming forward and presenting
1:37:17
that uh yeah Jack mayor sorry I want to CL clarify one thing from your question
1:37:23
in 16 that’s we’re doing the same thing that we’re doing now uh in 16 the 16a
1:37:28
bonds were refunding an issue and it provided funds for Park and Recreation that was done with taxable bonds they
1:37:35
paid off early because they paid off first and then the second series was used for fire improvements in for
1:37:41
streets so I just wanted to I to make sure answer so we’re we’re kind of continuing the same pattern BR residents
1:37:48
have said yes to in the past that’s exactly right I just wanted to than you
1:37:54
thank you anything else thank you guys for uh your time any questions comments
1:38:01
from
1:38:09
Council yeah public comments any other public comments before we go again
1:38:14
tonight was about making sure you had plenty of information I think we
1:38:21
delivered Chief men face tells me we have Rick Rick
1:38:28
Wilson thank you may I appreciate yes sir yes sir please go ahead and sign
1:38:34
just a few things I would like to add to um to to assist in all the detail that
1:38:41
Shane’s been inundated with and he certainly has because our company’s been involved
1:38:47
in three of these projects in various locations around the country we also are
1:38:53
of the national independent venue Association I think that happened kind of by default they pick up artists
1:39:00
booking and promotion companies food and beverage uh operators at large
1:39:06
developers General Contractors uh specialty architect firms and we become
1:39:14
members by virtue of our being involved in some of these projects to variety of
1:39:20
degrees and so company also because I guess kind of
1:39:26
word got out we’re going to be a semar on this project we’ve been inundated as well um it was kind of interesting that
1:39:34
U kind of once uh once Walton’s left on the project it’s I mean the phone rang
1:39:41
emails to our website we were getting 10 12 15 a day is there an opportunity for this that of course Nea uh the national
1:39:48
independent venue Association reached out to us quickly and we just to just send information over to Mayor and
1:39:57
chamber and of course that we just we just inundated chain with information I
1:40:02
saw it building up on him um and he had meeting after meeting and zoom after
1:40:09
Zoom uh I don’t know how he kept all of his other obligations going every day but by virtue of all the information
1:40:15
that we just send him or forward the folks on to couple little things of
1:40:20
interest that I’d like to point out that Shane mentioned and you asked about the U the value of of these
1:40:29
properties uh I a few days ago uh one of the guys on my team in our real estate
1:40:36
department fville in our company asked them to look into how are these properties um that we have been involved
1:40:43
in how are some of these guys um the value of their properties
1:40:49
proceeding are they Rising like pretty much everything in America these days
1:40:54
uh what’s going on with the values is it operator driven is it real estate based driven what is it so I just have two
1:41:03
uh two projects of interest you might find this interesting the House of Blues
1:41:08
in Houston Texas were involved in in 2018 and 19 it was built and finished in
1:41:15
2020 has capacity of 2,000 I think it’s it’s also has some portability to it to
1:41:21
increase it to 2200 um that cost project cost on that uh
1:41:27
total out at 46 million uh that in 20124 was sold to a private Equity Group
1:41:33
called mua and it paid 65 million for it and it’s continued to operate and I
1:41:40
think they intend to expand it by vertical four additions The Moody a very
1:41:45
popular location in Austin Texas where Austin City Limits moved its old venue
1:41:51
to uh that one pretty fascinating Place uh started out in 2021 when it finished
1:41:59
uh it started out with a capacity of 3,000 and now interestingly it’s down to
1:42:05
2,200 they’ve made modifications by I guess some of these operator types and
1:42:10
booking Guys these artists kind of prefer the type the compactness of bringing those in a little bit if I had
1:42:16
my guess I’d probably say they added additional food and beverage uh for income purposes
1:42:24
uh that facility was bought enclosed in January 24 by a group led by Matthew
1:42:30
mccon and they paid $135 million for that proper the national independent venue
1:42:37
Association has asked us to pass on to Shane and we have or we
1:42:44
will uh that they have a waiting list of a variety of type of operators some of
1:42:50
these facilities are operated as it turns out by mult M operators some have a food and beverage U contract some have
1:42:57
a booking and promotions contract some have a marketing contract some have a building and maintenance and facility
1:43:03
care contract so they have a waiting list for these and we’ll send that over and that waiting list is 311
1:43:09
companies the the words out in at Nea they know now there’s a potential coming
1:43:15
about one day of facility in Brian Arkansas and so this uh this group will
1:43:22
just continue to increase and uh we will ask them to remove us from their
1:43:28
notification calendar and our website we will add begin to add
1:43:34
yours another interesting tidbit the cost of the uh the factory in
1:43:40
Chesterfield Missouri that is so incredibly popular and very recently completed that chains dived in NE deep
1:43:47
ons uh this facility it’s 52,000 F feet has has an
1:43:54
adjustable capacity of 2400 to 3,000 uh the hard and soft construction
1:44:00
costs on it about $25 million came out to about $481 a square ft it sits on
1:44:07
12.1 acres has an adjustable base stage of 60 ft deep up to 120 ft
1:44:15
width this property uh some of my construction team
1:44:20
a few months ago uh I signed some guys our team our director of construction and two of our project managers who live
1:44:27
every single day with finding materials and sub trades and operators of a
1:44:32
variety of type to support our construction activities asked them to take this facility contact The
1:44:39
Architects see if they get set of the plans they did and asked them to do a mck construction cost up on that forest
1:44:46
for central Arkansas and interestingly enough we came back and we just took it
1:44:51
we didn’t take their exact exact square footage we ped it down to 50,000 so we
1:44:56
could get averages they had some very peculiar um room addition aspects to
1:45:02
theirs that we really didn’t know what it was E before uh and we came back to a cost of around
1:45:08
$457 a square foot that puts us if we if in fact we repeated that and I’m not
1:45:14
suggesting we would it’ be more up to the architect design team certainly than us um albeit we’ll have a seat at the
1:45:21
table of that um we see that this if if you compare that to 50,000 sare ft and
1:45:28
you do the addition I think T has some professorial type information and support of number similar to that this
1:45:34
puts us in the 22.5 to $24 million range for hard and soft cost so that’s I just want to put
1:45:42
that out there that uh we feel like this we’ve said all along the mayor asked can
1:45:47
you build this for $30 million we’ll build a $30 million facility as answer that question and I think we’re well
1:45:53
within that you asked about profitability and can it profit I want to add just one tidbit it’s just I live
1:46:01
in Hot Springs I don’t have the I don’t have the luxury of living in Brian I wish I did maybe I could move someday
1:46:08
but if I were just a citizen uh and and as a councilman you asked that question
1:46:14
I for one would be saying because I would have the opportunity to visit that facility then it is a success we’re all
1:46:21
going to pay sales tax your citizens tourists and visitors up and down Interstate 30 alike so we’re all paying
1:46:28
for it from that from that extent just by that standard it’s been met a success
1:46:36
already questions than thank
1:46:42
you questions thanks everybody a lot of work went into this lot of research a
1:46:48
lot of time a lot of phone calls thanks everybody for their hard work thank you
1:46:53
Council for your time uh between now and Thursday if you got any questions
1:47:00
whatever you need to dive deep into details we’re here for you all right that let’s adjourn thank
1:47:08
you
Bryant City Council will hold a workshop meeting to consider several items on Thursday night. Topics include a proposed Entertainment Venue, a Bond Review, a Bond Structure Analysis, and an Alternate Tax Proposal. Read the full agenda below.
The meeting will be Thursday, February 6, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. The public is invited to Boswell Municipal Complex – City Hall Conference Room, 210 SW 3rd Street in Bryant.
AGENDA:
Call to Order
Old Business
New Business
City Government
1. Entertainment Venue Project Update – Shane Knight – CEO Greater Bryant Chamber of Commerce
2. Review of Bond Funding for Infrastructure Improvements – Tim Fournier – Public Works Director
3. Bond Structure Analysis – Jack Trumper – Stephens Inc.
4. Alternate Tax Proposal – Thomas Mears – Bryant Resident
5. Public Comments
Adjournments
See MySaline’s full list of Saline County events at www.mysaline.com/events.
