A resolution approving a proposed Agreement between the City and County of Denver and Costco Wholesale Corporation to locate and maintain a retail and wholesale facility at Alameda and Zuni. (BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT) Approves a City Business Incentive Fund (BIF) contract with Costco Wholesale Corporation for $2 million covering a five-year period for performance-based criteria associated with renovation of buildings at the Alameda Square Shopping Center (Alameda Boulevard and Zuni Street) and opening a business service retail store in Spring 2016 (OEDEV- 201524655-00). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 1-11-15. The Committee approved filing this resolution at its meeting on 12-2-15.
Councilman Brooks, would you like for us to do with this? Thank you, Mr. President. I'm I'm calling this resolution now, for purposes of an amendment to change the contract number, to correct the date, Costco can begin petitioning funds and extends the maturity date so that the contract will terminate the last day. Costco can request the funds. Great. Thank you. So I will first check with councilmembers Flynn, Lopez, Ortega. I'm assuming you don't have issues with this amendment. Otherwise I'll come to you all for comments after we move forward then. Great. Councilwoman Gilmore, will you please put Resolution 933 on the floor? Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council resolution 933 be adopted. It has been moved and seconded. Councilman Brooks, your motion to amend. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council resolution 93 be amended in the following particulars on page one. Line 13 Strike City Clerk's Filing Name 201524655. Dash and replace the city clerk's filing number to 01525975 dash. It has been moved and seconded any comments on this amendment? I'm pretty sure those are for the overall bill. All right. Scene none. Madam Secretary, voting on the amendment. Motion to amend. Take a roll call. Brooks Clarke Espinosa. Flynn r Gilmore. I Cashman. I. Lopez, all new Ortega Black. I Mr. President. Hi. Madam Secretary, please collectively announce the results. 11 eyes. 11 eyes. Council Resolution 933 has been amended. Now, Councilwoman Gilmore, we need a motion to adopt as amended. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that resolution 933 be adopted as amended. All right. It has been moved. We need a second. Moved and seconded. Now let's go to comments. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I just had a few questions, actually. Go ahead and maybe Jeff can address them on. And we had a very good exchange today about a lot of the details, but I still wanted to bring out a few things. There is an existing tax increment finance agreement in place here, and the amount of that was $7.3 million. And it expires November 5th of this of 2016. Or 2015, 2016, and that was one of the reasons for the amended filing. Could you explain that? Sure. Council President Members Council My name is Jeff Romaine and with the Office of Economic Development. First off, I'd like to thank both city council staff, the city attorney's office, as well as City Council for making the amendment. It was a minor, but very important changes, as many of you may have already heard. And so to your question, yes, there is an existing tax increment financing agreement on the property that is called Alameda Square. It expires, as you point out, 11 526 2016. The way that we have structured the agreement between Costco in the city and county of Denver, Office of Economic Development is the incentive cannot be paid until the tip is expired. The reason is obviously we do not want to double incentivize activity at that site. And so upon that point, then we'd be the Costco would be able to receive the increment or not the increment, I'm sorry, the incentive. So they'd be able to first receive the incentive for the fourth quarter activity in 2016 and be able to invoices in 2017. So again, that was what the amendment for. And thank you, Councilman Flynn, for bringing that to my attention this morning. Thank you. And the tiff, the financing, will that be paid off? The thing that I know about Alameda Square, I remember I used to take my kids there to the organ grinder pizza place. And it's been and it's long been a difficult as Councilman Lopez will probably make note later. I've been a difficult area to keep businesses going. We've had various things in there. And the Lowe's, the TIFF was was adopted for the Lowe's project. Correct. Councilman Flynn, members of council, actually the tiff was with Brighton Corporation for the Development. Lowe's was the result in Venice was a tenant, if you will, because they came in as a tenant. Right. Whether whether or not the full amount of the 7.3 that's a that's between Durham, Brighton Corporation. What we do know for your information is, is the tiff expires on that date. In any tiff, of course, if the activity doesn't move forward in the increment isn't fully realized, that's the risk between whoever may be purchasing that debt or that or I should say, that bond. Okay. So I can't speak on behalf of the city, county, Denver. We would need to have Dora here to be able to talk about whether the $7.3 million in proceeds was fully realized through the tiff. All right. Thank you. That was going to be my question then. So thank you, Mr. President. I have anything else. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Lopez. I just have some comments. Go ahead. The. This is such a good agreement. And I am glad I was really thrilled to know that Costco was entering into negotiations with the city and looking at this site. And for folks to understand it's not going to be your typical Costco. So there's two things there, three things I want to say. First of all, it was it's been 20, 30, 30 years in the making to redevelop this site, to get the site activated moving forward. At one point, there was a Walmart that wanted to come there. Neighbors, businesses a new way push really hard back on the city. The it wouldn't play well with the the A's and business owners that were there. They usually bring in their own tenants. So it sat there for a while and then, lo and behold, Lowe's and a lot of folks came to the table and said, we can do this if we get the property owners on board and we can actually keep those local businesses there without having to to move them out or or buy them out. And so that's why you see that redevelopment there. So it has been definitely a labor of love in the making. The good thing about this is that though there's these Costco business centers is what it's going to call. They sell things by the pallet. So you know how you buy it by the by the mule load. Now you buy it by the pallet, right. So, you know, I don't know what I could do with that much Cheerios, but I tell you what, you're probably going to get a good deal. Here's the thing. Only I think they have one place in Carson, Salt Lake City, Chicago. And now Denver is the only places where they have these business centers. So they're going to it's going to bring a lot of jobs to the neighborhood. It's going to really bring that activity. We sat down, Councilman Clark and I used Councilman Clark, who we used to share that boundary. And now it's entirely in Councilman Clark's district and councilman in Council District seven. We sat down with him, said, look, we also have a food desert in this area. We don't have a grocery store. We used to King Soopers. The organ grinder used to be there. My stomach is hurt now. I want that again. We were able to sit down with them and said, Can you do some kind of Harvard? Can you break up some of those palates? That way you can have sales for regular sized household. Fresh fruit, veggies, things like that, breaking up some of these pallets. And they said, look, we'll come back to you on that. They agreed to. So not only is this is this a victory for economic development and just and really getting into that area especially over there involved there were where we do need that EC and that those economic drivers. But it's going to help solve part of the food desert now this isn't the only thing but so Councilman Clark and I are both shaking their heads and really happy about this because this helps address that issue. And, you know, you won't find that hidden here in this bill. That story won't be told in this bill. And this bill most likely move forward and that'll be it. And folks will see a Costco business center. But. That's the story. And I'm very supportive of this resolution and very supportive of this deal. Hopefully it moves forward with flying colors. The only thing I'm disappointed at is you don't get that dollar 50 hotdog in a soda, man. It's the best deal in town. And I still have the drive drive at it for that one. I'm glad somebody laugh. Thank you, Jacki. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Lopez, Councilwoman Ortega. Well, I just wanted to add my support for this particular ordinance moving forward. This did come to committee. We had a lengthy discussion about it. And I think, you know, some of the things that were shared by my colleagues about the benefits to the immediate community, but also to the greater Denver community. One of the things we learned is that this business center will serve many of our neighboring states as well, not just, you know, Denver Metro, but people will come in from Wyoming and maybe New Mexico and Utah to buy some of their things for their businesses. So, you know, we get those sales taxes. And I'm very confident that the incentive dollars that we're providing for this will be paid off in very short order. And thereafter, all of those revenues come to the city. So I'm pretty excited about it. I do want to mention that there's a strong Asian and Vietnamese presence in that shopping center and. Councilman Flynn and I were were at an event last evening, and I know from some involvement that my office had a couple of years ago. There's been some work to do, a statue in that park, and we'll all be getting an invitation to go to that unveiling, which would be sometime after the first of the year. So I just wanted to share that as well. So, Councilman Clark, congratulations to your community for lending this and to OED for making this happen. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to also voice my support of this project. This is something that the neighborhoods in that are now in my district are very excited about. It's going to bring 150 good paying jobs with good benefits. And I really want to thank Councilman Lopez for his work and collaboration on helping get that retail component, because there is a real issue with the food desert over in these communities. And I think that that's something that like Councilman Lopez doesn't top out on this bill, but is something that's critical to what's happening in this community . And I think that, you know, we draw lines in the city where council districts are. But that doesn't mean that we we are bound by them in one way, but in another way we reach across those lines and collaborate. And that wouldn't have happened without that piece of this wouldn't have happened without Councilman Lopez's involvement in this. So I just want to say thank you and encourage my colleagues to support this. This is something that's really important to Aqua Park and Verde in my district. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Clark. Any of the comments on Resolution 1933 as amended. CNN. Madam Secretary, welcome. Brooks I. Clark Right. Espinosa. I. Gilmore, I. Cashman Hi. Lopez I knew. Ortega I. Black I. Mr. President. Hi. Magic trick exclusively announced the results. 11 Ice, 11. Eyes Resolution 933 has been adopted as amended. Next one, I believe, was 948. Madam Secretary. Councilwoman. It was 925. Then the next thing I see on I right that. All right. 925. Councilman Flynn, what would you like for us to do with that? Thanks, Mr. President. Just have a comment. Go right ahead. Thank you. This is the. Thank you, Mr. President. This is the the resolution that sets the DPS meal levy for this year, for taxes for next year. And I didn't want the occasion to go by without letting people know that when they get their tax bill next year, that they should be prepared for these new mill levies