Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and consider an amendment to a proposed property sale that promotes an economic opportunity pursuant to California Government Code, Section 52201(a)(1); Adopt resolution approving the sale of property and finding that the sale will create an economic opportunity; and Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary to amend the requirements of a Purchase and Sale Agreement, with Atlantic and Artesia, LLC, a California limited liability company, an affiliate of Frontier Real Estate Investments, LLC, a California limited liability company, or affiliate (Buyer/Developer), reducing the purchase price from $2,100,000 to $1,100,000, for 601-685 East Artesia Boulevard/6600-6620 Atlantic Avenue, Assessor Parcel Numbers 7115-003-901, -902, -903, -904, -905, -906, and -907 (Subject Property). (District 9)
Councilmember Richardson. Motion carries. Thank you. Now let's move on to second hearing. Uranium ore to. Report from economic development recommendation received supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and consider an amendment to a proposed property sale that promotes and economic opportunity pursuant to California Government Code. Adopt a resolution approving the sale of property and finding that the sale will create an economic opportunity and authorize the city manager to execute all documents with Atlantic and Artesia LLC, reducing the purchase price from 2.1 million to 1.1 million District nine. Vice mayor. Council members decided tonight will allow the opportunity for a signature project at a key point in North Long Beach for the intersection of two freeways at Atlantic Artesia. Sergio Romero is going to give us a quick presentation on it, along with John Keisler. Thank you, Pat. We're really excited about this project. As Pat mentioned, this is a project at a key intersection, a city in a, you know, key kind of gateway into the city at the north end of our city. Back in 2016, the city issued an RFP for the vacant piece of property. It's a former redevelopment agency property that was assembled back in 2010, and the property has sat vacant since that time. Through that RFP process, Frontier Development was actually selected for the property purchase and development of the property at a price of 2.1 million. At the time, the proposed property consisted of two retail buildings and a freestanding restaurant pad. Over the past two years, the developer has been working with city staff, the community, the council district to entitle this project to the credit of our planning department. Over that period of time, the project has now been redesigned. The project will consist is a very different product today than it was started two years ago. Heavy architectural improvements have been made to the project. The site is site design is completely different. It consists of heavy landscaping, nice hardscape finishes. The site design has been modified to increase a new building, so in total for new buildings in additional, the developer is now going to be undertaking significant offsite improvements that were not anticipated back in 2016, including new sidewalk and trees around the perimeter of the property, improvement of the alley behind the site, lighting a new bust off and on traffic improvements and undergrounding of utilities. The project will have significant benefits to the city. We're anticipating about $90,000 in annual. Property tax from this project once completed. Sales tax will also be about 90,000 a year, and we're expecting about 75 full time jobs with about 350 construction jobs during the 12 to 18 month period that this project will be completed in the city. Share from the sale. This property is approximately a little over $200,000 due to the economic benefits of the project and anticipated project costs. We're recommending a price reduction from 2.1 to 1.1. That concludes our report. Happy to answer any questions. A representative from Tudor development is here in in the in the audience. He's hung around for the meeting, but also has been hanging around for the past few years, working with the staff and community. So I'd like to thank him and he's here for answering. Questions as well. Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Okay. We'll go to public comment. Please come up in a few minutes. We're having a long day on a night the evening. Good. You remember serious staff members. Nasty stuff on the metal. Will you please state your name first, please? My name is Gilbert Guyton. I am a resident of the North Long Beach area. I am opposed to the reduction in the price and the sale of this property located on 601. That 685 is Artesia Boulevard 6603 6620 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, California, 98. You're free. I am raising my voice in opposition to this agenda item because this development as designed now will be a detriment to the public health and the environment. To have a better idea of how much the city is going to gain based on the development, we are going to need to take in consideration the financial burden that will cost to this city, the implementation of health programs and services to treat illness and prevent diseases that this development will bring to the area. I understand the need of new businesses in the area and the good they may bring. I also know that implementing the right regulation and using the right tools for new developments will be the key in providing a sense of happiness and well-being for the residents of the area. Furthermore, bringing the community public health challenging challenges into the city development discussion will ensure good practices and equity for our most vulnerable communities. The purpose of this item is to benefit the developer for bringing in a public space for community services purposes. Since the project is not yet approve, I am asking you to wait for the project to be approved and use these benefits to ensure that public health is on the table of discussion to protect the health of the community that is already negatively impacted, but extra for external factors. These factors are well on display in the community health assessment from the Health Department. Since I have a little bit of time, I going to tell you that this development is also bringing three drive thrus and one fast food in the area that is already impacted by air pollution and fast food and is really close, less than a block from my high school and probably six miles from an elementary school and from middle school. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next. Good evening, city council, city staff and the rest of the people in the audience with me. My name is Kirk Davis. I am also ninth district resident. My residence is within to a 750 feet of this development and I am opposed to the reduction in price and sale of the property located at 6600 6620 Atlanta Avenue at 601 to 685 East Strategic Boulevard, Long Beach, California, and 85 to the Atlantic and Artesia LLC. The proposed development as designed will be a detriment, not a benefit, to the residential community. It looks like the city is selling milk before it has a cow. If a sale is being approved without the Planning Commission's hearing to approve the development requirements and approvals for the site, then reducing the price for the contemplated benefit should not happen before the project is approved. The terms of sale or inappropriate unless this is already a done deal and the Planning Commission hearing is simply for show, any support or opposition to the development is therefore rendered moot and the whole process is a sham. The developers basically looking for a handout because the city put demands on the development. It also seems a little fishy because in all of the productive and positive meetings with nine district councilmen and city staff, the community requested and were expecting a sit down restaurant, a bank and a community space. What girl was a translation? Now I see another fast food restaurant, a bank, three drive thrus, with two of them needing conditional use permit to be extended and a community space now with a kind of mini steel craft on the corner of Atlantic Artesia that for some reason the developers seemed to not know about as a condition from the beginning, since a project would be on schedule to be completed before any others, a precedent is being set that could be exploited by future developers in the area. I hope standards can and will be put in place to protect community health, since the area as a whole was negatively impacted, according to the Health Department's Community Health Assessment and bring in the fresh ideas are councilman and the community were expecting all along in the process. I know a lot of my neighbors are excited to see something done no matter what it is because we've been waiting a long time to see this light at the end of the tunnel. It may be hard to wait any longer, but the project will have a long lasting effect on our neighborhood. Successful or not as designed, the development is for commuters and does not seem to have that welcome vibe. To have me walk over and supported this constitute it. For the record, I am not against development of the site only as it is currently designed. I am asking for the terms of reduction sale to be tabled or postponed until after the final Planning Commission decision and thorough contemplation of public comment, especially as related to public health and overall neighborhood impact. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next. I see numerous record companies. What? Oh, excuse me, sir. Tom Carpenter. I'm with Frontier Real Estate Investment, where the applicant and the developer for the project. First, I'd like to thank the council for the time tonight. I'd also like to thank city staff as we've worked on this project. Like Mr. Ramirez has said over the past couple of years. It's been challenges that have come up and, you know, city staff has helped, you know, work through those issues. And, you know, the result has been a, you know, as Sergio, Mr. Ramirez said, a better project. So we're grateful for that. You know, when we started this process, we set out to accomplish, you know, a number of goals we got. With Councilman Richardson and his office. And, you know, there. Was, you know, uses identified in the RFP that we wanted to attract to the site coffee shop, a bank of sit down restaurant. We've worked really hard to bring those to the site. You know, we've always thought, you know, those are amenities that should be within the district. You shouldn't have to leave the ninth district to get these things as part of getting those uses. You know, we've subsidized those deals. We've done additional we've agreed to take on additional construction work for those tenants in order to get them to pencil on their end and attract them to the site. And we're really excited about the lineup that we have. We also wanted that community gathering place as referenced. Somewhere you can go, take the family, take a date, have a business meeting. We're really proud of the design that we've come up with on the corner to do exactly that. And then also, you know, raising the bar architecturally, we've worked really closely with city staff on that and we've really put a lot of money into the design. You know, we're we're all in as a company on the site. You know, we're putting our money where our mouth is in order to make this work and be sustainable, attract the types of tenants that we're looking for. You know, some of this is you know, we're we're early in the process as far as what's happening in the district from a retail perspective. Obviously, there's a lot of exciting things going on within the district and we're excited to be part of that. But you know, we're really that first development in and where we're trying to raise the bar and is doing so, you know, we're putting money in not only to the site, but also the offsite work that was requested by the city that was referenced by Mr. Ramirez. Again, you know, along the the project frontage, the landscaping all the way up to the 91 freeway and so on and so forth. So, again, we're really grateful for the time. We're excited. We have a planning commission on December 20th, and we're you know, we want to get under construction as soon as possible, you know, early next year and get this out of the ground and, you know, have a be a good amenity for the community, create jobs, sales tax revenue and so forth. So. Appreciate your time again. Thank you. And let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilman Woodson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So just a few comments here. First of all, Kirk and Hilda, thank you so much for coming down and contributing believe in democracy. You guys, the two of you are probably one of the the, you know, best voices for the coalition for a healthy, healthy north Long Beach. You've been there since the beginning. Dynamic, dynamic team, the two of you. So thank you for for bringing these forward. And you know that we've had numerous conversations. We're going to continue talking about the future and the public health of North Long Beach. I want to refocus, though, on what this project is. This project gets us, you know, we set out years ago with a vision, and that vision was to bring a bank to District nine, where that's the only district we know. Bank Atlantic Avenue, which is our vision, is for it to be our main street. This is the first project off the gate, you know, out the gates on Atlantic Avenue in Artesia. And, you know, Atlantic Avenue doesn't have a coffee shop in RFP, was a bank, a coffee shop, a sit down restaurant. And what are we delivering? A bank, a coffee shop, a sit down restaurant. And we're very proud of that. And we're doing it in a way that we're stepping up the architectural standing architectural standard in the area. Sure. Banks that are not connected to a grocery store or shopping mall, they require a drive thru ATM. That's just a part of it. Wouldn't happen if we didn't have a drive thru ATM. The project on the breakfast side of the street. So you know, Starbucks is going to want to drive through if it's on the breakfast side of the street. So these are just things that come along with the project. And not only do we get the sit down restaurant, we got two additional restaurants as a part of the shipping container style plaza that we've created, similar to Steel Kraft right there in the heart corner of Land and Artesia. So all of these together comprehensively. Yes, there there's some trade off. On the drive thrus. And I just I'll say publicly, I don't love drive thrus. And you're absolutely right. If there was a way to do it without it, I would support it. But there isn't. And the historical context here is that the last two councilmembers in District nine have both attempted to develop on this site. It's a very difficult site to develop. You know, I've talked with Val about his experiences with the developer he worked with. I've talked with Steve Neal. I was there when we worked with Prime Store on the site, but we have the right developer. Tom, you've done a good job and we look forward. I love that you're eager to get this, you know, to break ground this march. And so we we we're not going to I mean, we're going to do what the community asked us to do and deliver on the site. And we'll make sure that we continue the same architectural standard that it carries all the way through the rest of our development. Thank you, city staff, for making this happen. I think one other note, you know, you said this, Sergio, but I'm going to lift this up a little bit. The 200 K that the city won't receive as a part of making this investment. We receive 90,000 in property taxes and 90,000 sales taxes the first year. It makes itself up in one year what we invest. So this is a smart economic opportunity we've created by making these improvements the site. And I think we should continue to think about how we make a small investment today and recouping a fairly short amount of time that will have a long term effect on our communities. That said, I encourage I vote. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Pearce. Thank you. Okay, fine. I'd like to say a few words about this, you know, this development, because I think that if if my colleague, Councilman Richardson, is supportive of this project, I think we should all stand behind economic development recommendations. You know, sometimes people fail to say that there are certain, you know, communities in pockets in their cities which are avoided, that these kinds of projects added value to these communities. You know, they stimulate an active, you know, in the activities, you know, the corridor that they usually come with public amenities, you know, uptown is really transformed . And I know that if not if but when this project comes to fruition, I will definitely go check it out. Thank you. Councilman, could I please. Now I have a vote. I like to weigh in a little bit. Oh, sure. Councilman Austin. Oh, okay. Thank you. I want to just live my support to this development at RTG in Atlantic. Our Northlanders community has had much time over the last, I want to say ten years or so to dream about what the corner or that intersection should be. And I'm glad, like most I think are glad to see something finally happening. And I'd like to congratulate Councilmember Richardson, but the entire community in the ninth District who has really pushed to make that happen. The the economic development and impact is all positive. Local jobs will be created. And obviously, I think we need to also consider the fact that this is a youth center where there's a high schools close by, where there's a lot of pedestrian traffic, the traffic. And so hopefully we are looking at our our vision zero approach to traffic safety is that studying that intersection as well . But again, I'd like to just just lend my support to this item and look forward to moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. And Councilman Austin, can we please have a vote? No roll call. I. Austin is an I Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilmember Pearce, Councilwoman Price, Councilmember Supernanny. Hi, Councilwoman Mongo. Vice Mayor Andrews I. Council Member Urunga. Council Member Richardson.