Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming to the meeting today. It is August 12th, 2026. It is 12.07 PM
by the clock on the wall. And this is the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association meeting. Taylor.
Thank you. Welcome, everyone. We'll need to do a roll call. So I'm going to start over here. Sure. Michael
Hover, B-U-E-A.
Virginia Guthrie, BUEA. Kate Rosenberger, BUEA. Katerina Ka, BUEA. I'm sorry. I was finishing something.
No one said it had to be in order. Heather Robinson, BUEA. Cheryl Gilliland, Deputy Controller, City
of Wilmington. Paige Sharp, City Staff. Dee Delores, City Staff. Brad Whistler, BUEA.
Lisa Spinelli, VUEA. All right, great. Thanks, everyone. Thank you for being here. All right, Dee, what's
the first minutes, probably? Yep, first up is approval of minutes for July. Did anyone have any questions,
concerns, or corrections on that?
Motion to approve the minutes from the July meeting. Motion. A second. I'll second. All right. And if
we could do a roll call to approve, please. Michael Hover. Yes. Virginia Gutierrez, yes. Katerina DeCalle,
yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Remusler Rebstein. I was not at the last meeting,
so I can't tell you if they're record or not. OK.
Mrs. Benelli, yes. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. D, let's see. Actually, we have some financial
reports. Yay. Yay. All right. Gerald, take it away. Actually, I think I can give you a copy, so I'm
going to give you the first quarter one, and then my version for this.
All right, sorry. Yes, we apologize for the delay. I think we have gotten some of the banking issues
resolved. It's just very interesting that statements that were coming just stopped coming. So yeah,
and I don't know if they're actually coming now or if we're going to continue getting them. We're probably
just going to do a poll.
Just make sure that we have them. Whatever it is, we'll just make it work. All right. So I updated the
packet. So our Zoom user, I will tell you what has changed. And the overall number has not changed.
It's just like a category change. So you'll be able to follow along just fine. But I did print just
updated copies so that you would get
So confused. So we'll look at quarter one, which is the packet that says January through March. And
we'll look at the profit and loss first. So basically, it's the new year, so it's showing your income
is actually a negative because of a correction that had to be made, that it was posted in January, but
it was actually a 2025.
Corrections so it shows up on your financials as a negative and makes your overall Income show up as
a negative, but you actually earn twenty thousand nine hundred fifty one dollars and eleven cents in
bank interest for the first quarter Your Expenses for the administrative piece of it is also showing
a negative
because of that same correction that was a 25 error and got corrected in January. So we are showing
insurance expense of $7,059 and then program administration cost of $14,750. So your total administrative
expense is a negative at this point. For your grants, you expended $67,550 and that's broken down by
your arts and culture of $15,000 and education and entrepreneurship of $45,000 and education at $3,250
and your zone improvement grants is $4,300 to come up with that amount.
You brought in interest of $1,661.82, and that was from your CDs. So your overall net income is a negative,
and that is to be expected for a first quarter. Can you tell me what is project administration entail?
Is it like wages? So the project administration is the
the agreement between the city and the BUEA. That's the staffing of Cheryl and me and legal and all
of that. That is an annual agreement. The money got deposited incorrectly into a different account,
it had to get pulled out. That's why there's that correction that was made at the end of last year,
carrying over to the beginning of this year, and that's why it's negative. They've got process for this
coming year.
just it was quite interesting yeah I can see that okay we'll go to the balance sheet for quarter one
it's showing that your total assets comes to three million three hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred
thirty nine dollars and eighty one cents and as you can see it's broken out by each of your
accounts and your checking has that negative amount in it, which is sort of false because of all the
changes that happen to stuff. Your assets, I just want to make a note that everything, all of your,
all those RRF loans are still listed. DNI will be getting together in the very near future to
zero out everything that we need to because we've had a lot of, not a lot, but we've had some of them
have actually now made their final payment because everything was supposed to be due and then D has
agreements that still need to be finalized and it's just gonna be so much easier to do it all at one
time instead of here and there. It's like let's do it all at once now that the loan period is now over
And we'll just get all that cleaned up. So probably by at least my third quarter, or third quarter,
we should have it. Cleaned up and you'll, these all go away. And then get adjusted. So then you just
have your total liability and equity total of about $3,417,023.77. When you look at your budget versus actual,
You're going to see, again, this negative $50,022 because it happened in 2026, final lines, it's affecting
your 2026 budget. So your numbers are a little off, but in terms of
is you're just going to, you know, have to manually adjust by 20, about 29. I mean, you're going to
end up with $2,900 basically as your administrative total for expenses. And yeah, so it's very,
you know, it'll be difficult to explain it.
Well, that'll just carry through. It's essentially $50,000 that we'll need to just kind of. Yeah.
So when you, um, cause it'll skew the, all of the membership fees for the full year, it's going to be
$50,000. So if we have $550,000 at the end of the year, then it would be 600, you know, it's just because
it's a $50,000 negative that we're carrying.
And as well as on your expense side, your management, you've got $89,073 balance as the budget. And
you're going to go over that because of this. Or actually, you're going to be under. Well, I was going
to say it will be $49,000 under because it's the opposite. Yeah, because in 2025. So it kind of washes
out, essentially, at the bottom line. OK. Yeah.
Okay, so yeah, so your budget to actual quarter one really doesn't have a lot of excitement, but you
have been handing out, you paid some bills with it, which I mentioned earlier. Your grants,
this is kind of, you can see the breakdown that you did, 11,000 with your Lincoln Arts project.
You know, your city arts program was $4,000. And then your education and entrepreneurship grants, you
get a $45,000 payment. Under education, you've got the Lemonade Day and the Resonant Scholarship. So
it's pretty straightforward. Again,
$4,300 under your zone improvement grants. So your total expense is showing $39,337. So you've started
off really quite well, which is good. Is that order one? No, it's two. And do you need to do your approval?
Let's just do them together if that's OK.
We can keep rolling here. Okay So your next packet and I'm gonna actually come over here to Brad is
it I'm gonna just let you see mine so I could speak from it. You don't mind Because this one actually
has one of the edits on it that D asked me to make because I did a mistake so under your profit and
loss for quarter two
you're gonna see $76,000 come in from the period of April to June. And that's from bank interest and
zone membership fees. You have expenses for quarter two and a total amount of $150,000. And that comes
from 30,000 from your arts and culture grants and 45 from your zone improvement grants and 75,000 from
your education grants. And that's where
there was a mistake in what I said previously. So the zoom user that was it on the first packet it was
under the seal grant. And so I corrected that. So it's under the correct school school grant from MCC
SC. So and so when you look at your net income for
quarter two, you have a loss of a negative income of $71,424.42. When you look at your balance sheet,
your total asset is $3,259,590.57, and you can see each of your bank accounts
That was as of June 30th. Again, all your assets are listed. They will go away next quarter. So your
total liability and equity comes to three million three hundred forty five thousand five hundred ninety
nine dollars and thirty five cents. When you look at your budget to actual through June 30th of
which is quarter two. Your total income has been $47,897.10 and the specific breakdown is listed under
expense for. Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Just for the clarification. So this is where we're seeing that
from that Q1. So the P&L for Q2, this 56,328 does not
than when we look at a year to date, because this is a year to date on the profit and loss, so 6306.51.
So that's where we're seeing that $50,000. Just so everyone is clear on that, that's where the difference
is. So we've actually brought in in-zone membership fees a little over $56,000, but that negative. So
just so everyone is clear on that, because that's going to be carried forward with us the entire year
since it was in Q1.
So, okay. Thanks, Cheryl. Sorry. On, I'm just looking at, this is January through March, right? And
budget for membership fees is $413,000. Yes. And what I'm looking at here is January through June, which
is the same. So does that mean? The budget's going to stay. The budget was all in Q1? No, the budget
is for the whole year.
It's a YT. Oh, so this is just showing. So that budget number is the annual number. Exactly. It's not
relative to the period here. Okay. Yeah. So can you just maybe walk me through quickly on how that actually
comes in though? Because it looks like on this one we had $56,000 in Q2, which is much less than
One quarter's worth of the the annual membership fee specific. Yeah, it's so it's lumpy. I guess we
are. Yes. So the zone membership fees are different for each participating organization or member or
whatnot. So it is heavily weighted on the cattle at Novo Nordisk payment.
And so we are still waiting on that payment. And yes, I have been in contact with them. And yes, I am
not happy about it. So yeah, so the lion's share of that $413,000 for the year is one payment. So that's
why it looks very lopsided. Got it. And that's calculated as it's like a percentage of the deduction
that they get to claim? It's 20% of the total deduction. And that's, is that deduction like mostly payroll
tax deduction? It is actually improvement, so it's a deduction on the improvements of the assessed value.
Got it, yeah, so it's property tax, yeah, okay.
Thank you. Okay. All right. So expenses. Yes. So when you look at your total administrative expenses,
you've got that negative in there again of the twenty twenty eight thousand two hundred thirteen dollars
because of that fifty thousand. So you actually you in reality do not have a credit
On your grants, I did make one change. I originally put $4,000 in under zone arts grants, not realizing
that all that has been moved up to city arts program. So I made that $4,000 move up to city arts program from the
previous report I sent. So again, total dollar amount of $45,000 in expenditures for arts and culture
has not changed. Your total education and entrepreneur grants is $45,000. That's the same. Under grants
education, your total expense is $78,250.
Again, that total amounts, that amount did change because the $75,000 in the first submission that I
provided, it was listed under zone improvement grants. So that's where one change you will see if you
were to look back at the first version that I provided. So it is now correctly reflected
under the school grants. So your zone arts improvement grants total is $49,300 and you can see the three
different grants that paid out. So your total expenses end up being $189,337 through quarter two and
your income
is $3,311.93 for the end of June 30th. Did I lose anyone on any of this? Are there any questions?
All right, great. Good to see this, thank you.
Thank you for providing this for us and I'm glad you are very angry probably worked out. That's good.
Yes. All right. And I also come in for making some changes within the the way the expenses and some
of the deposits are recorded under ESD in their program because I reference that and it has
So when an expense or a deposit is made if the deposit ticket doesn't say what program or if I can't
figure it out I go to her list and she has refined that to Make it so much easier for me. So I appreciate
your work doing my hand Thank you Cheryl for that report appreciate it all right, were there any anything
else on financials will do a
approval of both Q1 and Q2. All right. We have a motion to approve Q1-2026, Q2-2026 financial reports.
I'll move that. Do we have a second? Second. Second. All right. And roll call. Michael Hover, yes. Virginia
Gethier, yes. Katerina Call, yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Brad Musler, yes. Lisa
Spinelli, yes. All right.
Thank you. Okay, Dee. All right. Woohoo! If I've used the right computer, sorry. This gets really confusing,
guys. So, open that. Yeah, guys, I was on vacation the past week, so I don't have much of a director's
report. You can believe that I was actually on vacation. What? I know, it's shocking.
So really it is just an update of where we stand year to date on our grants at this point in time. So
committed and dispersed for education. I think that's reflected in these Q2 reports for $78,250 with
a balance of $14,250.
Entrepreneurship, we have expended several more business economic enhancement scholarship. That includes
the grant that we approved last month. So the total community dispersed is $55,710, leaving a balance
of $290 in that category. That might be off.
No, no, that's right. That's right. Well, good job, guys. We almost spent all that money. In the arts
category, we have committed to disburse $30,000, leaving us with $180,000. I just asked her a quick
question. Yes. That does not align with this. For some reason, the art stuff just doesn't align. I was
just curious about that. There's $45,000 on the P&L.
here today. So I was just wondering if there's something maybe missing in there. There are some payments
that also carried over from 2025. Okay, so we have some 2025 payments. We do have a couple of 2025 payments.
I can clarify that in the next meeting if you'd like for me to do that. But yeah. Just because we just
saw this number and I'm noticing that. Okay. I will make sure that that's clarified in the next meeting.
But what we've actually disbursed this year is $30,000. For zone improvement, we have the business building
improvement, the accessibility modification grants that were approved last month. And I think there
was, let me just check again. Yes, and then the safety and security for friendly beasts. So we've committed
to disbursed $85,543.16.
And the remaining balance that we have is, I don't know if that feels right. $124,400.56. $456.84. I
think that I may have overlooked that number. I need to fix that. Does that feel right? Okay.
Yeah, I guess so. It feels like I should have spent more at this point in time, I guess. We have all
of our grantees at the bottom if you want to double check those numbers. We're spending money.
That's great. Thank you so much.
We're a couple of grants. We have a couple of historic facade grants that are coming to us hopefully
next month and a business and business building improvement grants from Merth and CFC properties. There's
just some more information that I need to get from them before I can present those grants. However,
Merth is having their grand opening on Thursday at 1230. They're having a ribbon cutting, so.
Highly recommend that you go see the amazing work that got done over there. It's a really, it's a really
beautiful restoration and expansion of the building. So yeah, Merth, it's in Fountain Square Mall. Yeah.
Yeah. So pretty excited about that project. That's at 1230 on Thursday. So I'm going to stop sharing
that. Does anyone have any questions about any of those things?
No. Wonderful. Okay. Well, with that, I'm going to turn it over to our new AD of the Arts, Paige Sharp.
Great. Thank you. Hi, everybody. Hi, Paige. Excited to be here. I started at the end of May and I had
actually consulted for the city in the spring.
It was fun. I really enjoyed it and I thought it'd be really great to do this work. So I'm grateful
to be in this role. So a little bit about me. I actually grew up in Indiana, in West Lafayette, so I
think you know where that goes. And I've actually, fun fact, lived in five states. So I've left and
come back and left and come back many, many times.
My career has been almost entirely focused on arts administration, so spanning almost 30 years. I studied
at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. So visual arts is my background. And I ran education
departments in art museums, also with a local arts council in Indiana, serving 14 counties,
largely rural. So I'm very familiar with the rural space. And then I was recruited by the Indiana Arts
Commission. I worked there for 11 years.
And I oversaw all of the programs as a deputy director until I left. And I thought, well, because I
just wanted to do something different. And I thought, well, I'll consult for a while while I look for
something else. And I really wanted to be back at the ground level. When you're with the state, you're
in literally that ivory tower. And so I was excited about facilitating a long-term change across the state.
But I really missed being at the heart of where things happen, you know, with the artists,
with the art, with the communities. So this opportunity to afford to that. And so it's good to be back.
And yet here I am still doing grant making, which is a lot of what I did with state government for like
16 years at both the regional and the state level.
So I come to you today on two different things, the first of which is funding recommendations for arts
project support from the 2026 cycle. There were a total of 78 applications, which was pretty monumental
for this program. Yeah, it was wow. It was like, that's a lot to sift through and download and oh my
God, can we get an online grant system? So that's a side conversation, but
47 in total were recommended for funding, 15 of which
we're recommending for BU-EA funding since they meet the specific criteria which is to facilitate activities
in the BU-EA zone. Each of them I have confirmed that indeed the activities will occur in that area
falling under one or more of the bullet points that you see in the memo provided to you, like facilitating
involvement in arts and cultural activities, et cetera.
From what I understand, there's $50,000 that's been allocated toward grant funding. And so the recommendation
today is for 31,000. So I'll be, you'll be excited to know that I will be coming back to you likely
in December for the operation support program. Are there any questions that I can address?
So, that is, here let me open this up real quick, sorry. We will be taking that out of, yes, the Loomington
Arts Commission projects and operations grants. All right, thank you. Thank you, it's nice to meet you.
Thanks for coming. She's got one more thing to,
to update us about. Yeah, I think we're going to need to update, aren't we? Right. We just need to approve
the funding via vote. All right. So we have awardees listed here, the totals for each individually,
and then we've had some other information that was provided. So if there are no questions or comments
otherwise, I would entertain a motion to approve the $31,000 in arts grants. Motion.
Second? Second. Second. And roll call for approval. Sure. Michael Hover, yes. Virginia Gutierre, yes.
Kettering to call, yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Right. Whistler, yes.
Melissa Spinelli, yes. All right. Great. Approved. All right. So we have another item. It's our arts
incubator, right?
That is right. So I come to the table to just request some minor changes to funding that was already
allocated. Specifically, it was $100,000 towards the arts incubator. From what I researched, $75,000
was going to go to construction infrastructure and $25,000 to professional development. So the modification
request is just $80,000 to construction and then $20,000 to professional development. And I'll explain why that
is a little bit different and also to extend the deadline for expenditure to the end of calendar year
2027. So this funding has been on the docket for a little while and I'll kind of lead you through as
to why that happened. So the arts incubator was put into a 10,000 square foot facility. It was leased
by the city.
And indeed that is happening right now. There are artists in there and it's the lease space and those
leases end the end of December of this year. But as the city sort of understood things and got more
quotes, I think they recognized that there was more financial need than there were available dollars,
in particular on the long term. So I think that's why it continues to have been on the docket. So when
I consulted in the spring,
And I partnered with Indiana University on a REDI grant. I don't know if you've heard about the REDI
program, but IEDC does. And one of the focus areas the city was interested in is finding a place for
the arts incubator artists, since this was not going to be financially sustainable. And so, working
with the city identified, the Showers Admin Building, which is just up the street, and it had already
gone through a lot of rehabilitation.
And so we focused on building studios on the street level, street lower level, a total of 12 studios.
And so the funding, the $80,000 would go towards the infrastructure again, which is construction of
those studios and ready grant dollars.
we're coming alongside to ensure ADA accessibility for the building as a whole in order to get it up
to code to ensure that we can have those incubator studios up and running. It was a much better location
because it's going to be in the trades district, which its focus is entrepreneurship. And the cool thing
I love about artists, and I've been working with artists for many years, particularly with professional
development programming,
one of which won a national award for its outcomes its first year. And that is artists love to create,
but also collaborate. And it's just organic conversations by running into other people. And they're
like, oh, we could do this together. And they do. And so I love the idea of them being in a space in
this building where the main floor is where offices are, where you have a marketer, a podcaster,
And the property owner is going to really focus more towards creative entrepreneurs, but they're also
going to be around a larger cohort of entrepreneurs in the trade district. Which is where the professional
development comes in. So to make sure that the creatives, not just in these studios, but across
the community and inviting regional as well, because that's where you can furthers those collaborations,
those relationships and opportunities. So that really becomes an incubator. And so luckily, we received
we being the collective we there was like, I think, a nine total partners in the application that was
submitted by Indiana University Research Division. So we were funded.
$3 million out of the $3.5 million request, which is pretty phenomenal. It was a highly competitive
program. There are 320 applications across the state. So go team, go. I was very excited about that.
So I was like, yeah, that's cool because I started this position. So now I get to finish it through.
So that's super great. And then those professional development dollars will come alongside.
Dollars that are going to amplify as well for just general support and so will be partnering with amplify
or partnering with IU innovates and working with the region as a collective group and it can go in whatever
direction we're going to really getting needs assessment and communication from the community so that
what we provide is is indeed what is needed and so. I guess really the request is just those modifications.
timeline and a slight adjustment 80,000 because the building owner felt that that would likely be the
dollars needed in order to construct those studios and who knows at some point maybe there's more maybe
there's less but I imagine it's gonna be more just toward it and I was like oh my
So there's a lot of dirt still in that area of the building, but we'll get there. I'm just really excited
that this is going to be a greater opportunity, I think, for career advancement for the folks that do
participate in the program. Any questions? Just the studios in general, are these for visual artists?
When you talk about the collaboration piece, are these all
visual artists that are working in this space, but how do you envision like the incubator crossing multiple,
when you talk about artists, that's not just visual artists, obviously. It's such a broad swath. So
I'm curious, like, because I read the 800 capacity event venue, one of the challenges in the arts community
for is space.
whether you're performing dance or film and collaborations with that in music and all of that, it's
challenging to be able to find affordable space. You may get a grant, but then you can't afford to rent
the space and pay the musicians and the dancers. And so I'm just curious, how does that like play in
the incubator play into that? Questions. Yeah. And I really appreciate that. Thank you.
bring that up. At this time, we're really focusing on visual artists. There is, you know, the Trehan
study identified the critical need for affordable studios. And indeed, this is what this is. This is
a 10 year agreement with the property owner that we've already created like an MOU before, like during
the grant process to outline all these things. But I want to focus, I think, on visual artists with
these particular studios, because
There's very specific needs that they have, as opposed to audio, music. That's a completely different
lane. They're not going to want to be around a slop sink in paint, but they need sound needs
in an engineering studio of some sort. So that's a completely different lane.
of budget needs. And then there are myriad other disciplines. And even within the visual arts discipline,
you've got a lot of subcategories. You've got traditional arts, you've got contemporary arts, you've
got large scale painting, you've got fiber, you've got ceramics. So I figured, well, let's just focus
on this one. That's not ideal.
Ideally, we have artists from different disciplines and they're able to collaborate together. That's
where the professional development comes into play. That's where you also see a lot of collaboration.
When we talk about these particular affordable studios, this is what we have right now and what we're
focusing on now in constructing these, but it's like affordable housing. We don't just create affordable
housing and that's, oh, we're done.
And check off the box. It's a this and so right now Jane and I are also evaluating what studios opportunities
do exist in the city, and we've been networking and meeting with people. And, for example, Lauren would
the architect.
but he also has two studios available in his building, which who knew, right? And so we'll start having
those conversations and are there incentives that the city could put into place to ensure additional
studio spaces available. So while preliminarily I'm focusing, we're focusing on visual arts, but I am
like one person and I'm very focused ensuring that we're getting input from others. So we'll be working
collaboratively
to develop sort of the model and the paperwork, the call and all that stuff with IU as well as other
partners. And in the meantime, next week I have artists coming in to inform ideas on how we're gonna
construct this space. We've got a couple of different renderings, but we need their input. What are
their needs? That's my question was, I was interested to know the design of the space, asking,
if you'd be open to asking presenting organizations or festival organizations like Lotus, because we
interface with visual artists in a presentation style. So like if the, I'm gonna just give you an example,
the Broad Ripple Art Center in Indianapolis, they have their studios for like glass blowing and ceramics and
they open up to the outside and like a pavilion. It crosses into being able to host demonstrations of
studio artwork in with an event like the broader art fair, for example. I wondered if that's part of
what you're considering or if there's room for that kind of event presentation along with the studio
style models.
In the ideal world, yes. This space is not the ideal world, I don't think. It's an available space that
I was able to negotiate 10-year affordable studio terms for. And in terms of the build-out, one of the
key things was the higher priority was to be able to have a common area for them to communicate and
blend with one another. That may change based upon the input.
maybe they're going to prefer there at least is a carve out space for some sort of interactivity with
the community. So right now, this is kind of where my headspace is at. But I change all the time based
upon what other people say, because I think that's the heart of collaboration and community input. However,
the size doesn't really allow that broader
I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about with the Indianapolis Art Center. I've been there like
a million times. I bike there constantly because it's so cool, right? It's great. It's got all the outside
sculpture. And at this property, there's a big parking lot. I was just excited that they could enter
the facility right up just off the parking lot. To an artist, that's phenomenal. You got a big old canvas,
you get all your materials, and you don't want to be schlepping up and down stuff. You want to just
be able to get into the entrance.
It's smaller, it's more compact. There aren't going to be windows in each of the studios. But I think
12 studios in a community where there's a critical need, this is a really good start. So I'm happy to...
An 800 capacity venue is a really nice size for... We don't have a lot of venues in the city, like downtown,
that can hold 800 people. Right, yeah.
a lot of like in the hunt, like under 500 and then things over a thousand. And a part of that agreement
that I made with the property owner was free use of that top floor 500 capacity facility 12 times a year.
So we will have that available to us. And I'll be renegotiating with him and bringing IU to the table
to make sure that their input is also heard. Because I just was like, well, what else can we add to
this to make it meaningful for the community? And it doesn't always have to be an event or a performance.
Lord knows it could be some sort of art fair if it's
Tenable for those who are going to be the users for it So it's nice that we have that available to us
at least 12 times a year because it's you know It is intended to be a revenue driver for that building
owner Yeah, any other questions So I think we need a motion to adjust the
So just how the full the $100,000 allocation will be used. And then you are also asking for a timeline
shift to the end of 2027. So I think what this will do will approve the shift and how the funds are
going to be used. But then this will just be part of our budget for 2027 as well. So it'll essentially
get approved again for
2027 budget, it'll be in there. Okay, so do we have a motion to approve the allocation shift? Motion.
Second? Second. Second? All right. Roll call. Michael Huber, yes. Virginia Gethheri, yes. Katerina Call,
yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Brad Whistler, yes.
Approved. Thank you, Paige, for all of that information. And you're off to a bang up start here with
all of this. Thank you. Hi. Do you have anything else for us today? I do not have anything else unless
anyone has anything for the good of the order. I have one thing that I love that they're doing affordable
art spaces.
And I think something we potentially we could look at too is the BUEA having a grant program for affordable
commercial spaces that is just very similar to that, but includes all commercial spaces for like little
startups or whatever that are doing cool things and can't necessarily afford a rent, a regular commercial
rent in the zone.
So like pop-up sort of situations or subsidy or? I don't have the guidelines or requirements. I can
think about it. I think it's just me wondering. I know some of us on city council have talked about
it that we do affordable housing, but we don't really do affordable commercial space and just like we're
missing. I just talk about like, where am I supposed to take like shoes that need to be fixed? You know,
like we had one on
Washington and they left and it's just like I don't feel like that type of service anymore can like
afford this own So just an idea that is We have the mill is supposed to be that for Information based
businesses don't have anything for space businesses that need any sort of you know sort of physical
And they've got some opportunities or some examples in Fort Wayne. I'm from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and
there's actually, I think it was the GE, is that right? The old GE building? I believe, one of the old
factories downtown, it's now an incubator. And it's mainly restaurant, but it's pretty impressive.
It's huge, like two levels. And then there's one in Indy.
Actually, I feel like it's around downtown, around IUPUI. I don't know. But those are mainly restaurants.
But yes, to your point, it's so cost prohibitive to create. And you might just want to explore a food
cart or a crafter station. And you don't want to have to necessarily go to the farmer's market. And
you want it to be seasonal friendly. So I think that can be good. But looking into that, because I have
friends that are in there,
it still can be kind of costly and they do hold you to certain, which you have to if you're running
that space, but there are certain requirements, right? I mean, it's not just like, try it out for six
months. I mean, you do have to kind of be strict on like three or five years. We have the kitchen chair.
So we don't necessarily, even though that's not really walkable or transit oriented, but I think we
don't necessarily need a commercial kitchen build out potentially because folks can go there and rent
kitchen space, either hourly or as their own physical space. But yeah, Detroit has pony ride that is
small makers that I think would not want maybe their own space necessarily. But right, you can go there
and get an iron work spoon, you know, you tend to like what it's very cool. There are a couple of people
I've spoken to that have been kind of working on some of these
this kind of project where it's kind of some service-based sort of things and more retail and product-based
sort of things because, you know, the restaurant situation is, that's a whole different beast, you know.
But yeah, I mean, it would be great to have cobblers. It would be great to have, you know, tailors and
things like that where, especially in a time where people are starting to reuse things as opposed to
going towards fast fashion or, you know, we're not being as disposable because our income isn't disposable.
So having those things, it's really interesting. I'm happy to look into it. Thanks for bringing it up.
I like to just, it doesn't have to be in the trades, but I'm like, can we put the trades in the trades?
What are we doing over there? Happy to explore. Yeah, interesting. All right, thanks everybody. Thanks
everybody. Appreciate it.