- Mr. Paris tells me it's the witching hour. So we will call the special meeting of the Monroe County
- Capital Improvement Board for Wednesday, July 1st, 2026 to order. And I will ask Mr. Paris to take the
- role. John Weichardt, present. Doug Bruce, here. Jim Silverstein, here. Joyce Polling is absent. Galen
- Cassidy, here.
- and Jay Bear here. Slid home and slid safely home. You know that happened to me too. That happened to
- me too. Yeah. I assumed they'd have like crossing guards who would let us in when we needed to come
- in, but you know, I guess not. All right. We have a special meeting today. There's only one thing on
- the agenda and that's report on hotel RFP responses, JS held. So let me turn this over to Deb Koontz.
- I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with my own computer. Let me make it bigger. There it is. Okay,
- here we are. Okay, so on the Host Hotel RP responses, the deadline was the 30th, which was yesterday
- at four o'clock. We received
- Five submissions, Concord Hotels, Dora Hospitality, Garfield, MHG, and the Phoenix Downtown. Those were
- the submissions that we received by the deadline. Sorry, I gotta look at one thing here. Oh, okay. I'm
- so sorry I got mixed up there.
- You can tell she's a short timer. I said I looked the wrong file, but it's right. So yeah, sorry. That
- is today is the last day. For those of you who don't know today is the last day that Deb will be with
- us. So she's moving on. It's on another part of her journey. That's right. Another part of my professional
- journey. So we're kind of expecting some. Yeah, I get it. OK, so in terms of I reviewed the proposals and
- The first review is always about did they submit per our requirements, right? That's the very first
- cut that we're talking about. There are two submissions that meet the requirements of the RFP, and that
- is DORA hospitality and MHG. So you might be wondering, well, what about the other three? Why didn't
- they submit or why didn't they meet the requirements?
- I may need your help pulling it up, but I am having computer issues. Maybe they're turning me off. I
- don't know. Sorry for the interruption. Thank you, Cindy. OK, so we are on the next slide. The next slide.
- So the other three, our recommendation is that we do not interview these three because they did not
- meet the requirements of the RFP. And starting with Concord, they did not provide the 200 rooms that
- were identified. They also did not propose on the land that was offered in the RFP. Garfield did not
- provide a site selection, a development plan, or a financial plan. So there's really nothing to
- compared to they didn't meet those requirements. And Phoenix downtown did not provide a host hotel proposal.
- They provided a workforce housing proposal. So that I'll come back. That's our recommendation is that
- we will ideally recommend that you interview too. Obviously that gets some conversation, but I wanted
- to give you an update on the other activities. There's a lot of other supporting initiatives that are
- going on for the host hotel. So we'll go to the next slide.
- Environmental Phase 1 report by VET Environmental, it was received and it was provided to all the interested
- vendors, so they have it. A Phase 2 analysis is required, which is very, very common in downtown sites,
- to expect that the Phase 1 will result in the need for actual testing of environmental in Phase 2 analysis.
- So that is not alarming at all, that is something that will be the next step.
- In terms of appraisals, we have received one of the appraisals by Ategra. We are still waiting for the
- other set of appraisals and hopeful it will be coming this week. We're expecting it any day. On the
- demolition side, the Historic Preservation Commission did vote to release the demolition permit specifically
- related to two buildings that were designated as non-contributing. And obviously the plan right now is to
- through all the rest of the permitting and details to ensure that demolition bids can be sought and
- maybe as early as October 1st. And then on the leases, again, just restating what has been stated in
- previous public meetings about the residential tenant leases will end at the end of August and the commercial
- lease for Jeff's warehouse will end at the end of September. So our recommendation is to interview two
- hoteliers, Dora Hospitality and MHG.
- Okay, thank you. Can you go back to your slide of the ones that you're not recommending? Sure. Yeah,
- right here. I've had an opportunity to look at the proposals and we'll get those out to the other board
- members as well. The proposal by Concord, when it says it did not propose on CIB land offered in the
- RFP, the Concord proposal
- was one where they actually are proposing that they want to build on the College Square site north,
- which in our two and a half year journey thus far in trying to find a hotel, we know that we dealt with
- that two and a half years ago. So their response was not to build on our site, but to build on a site
- that we don't own that was not part of our proposal and that their intention was to use the CIB land
- for affordable housing, our site for affordable housing.
- And their proposal was for 160 rooms, 160 keys in a hotel. And we have been so specific and so consistent
- in our insistence that we have to have a minimum of 200 rooms. And then you can see the Garfield and
- the Phoenix. The Phoenix proposal was, as Deb said, was for workforce housing proposal. It made no mention
- of a hotel at all.
- Um, I certainly support, um, you know, the recommendation, having looked at all of the proposals and
- agree with the recommendation. So I guess what I would ask, why don't we see, do any of you have any
- questions for Deb about her review or J.S. Held's review? Pardon me? Oh yeah. Jim, Mr. Whitlatch.
- Yeah. So I just had a comment on the Concord hotels. I don't think it was specifically affordable housing.
- I think it was for mixed use housing, something to that effect. So it wasn't necessarily just affordable
- housing. Yeah. Thank you. So any questions?
- that you have about JS Holder's review. If not, what I would ask is if we have a motion to accept the
- recommendation, and then we can have discussion about the motion. So do we have a motion to accept the
- recommendation to forward Dora and MHG to the interview process? So is there a motion to that effect?
- I would move that we accept
- J.S. helds recommendation to interview Dora Hospitality and M.H.G. as potential hoteliers. Okay, is
- there a second? Second. We had a couple of seconds, so it's been seconded. So now we have a motion on
- the floor. Is there any discussion about the motion? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Paris, would you take the role?
- John Weichart? Yes. Doug Bruce? Yes. Jim Silverstein? Yes. Jay Baer? Yes. Galen Cassidy? Yes. All right,
- thank you. So we've had the recommendation. We know whom we're going to interview. And that moves us
- to item number three, comments from board members. John, before we leave that, there is a next steps.
- Would you like us to identify the next steps after this? Well, I was going to do that. Do you have a slide?
- Okay, you know what? You know, Deb, knock yourself out. This is it. Overdelivering to the finish. Actually,
- I was going to turn it to my associate, Jason, since he is going to be taking this forward, give him
- an opportunity to go to the next step. So this is a delegation. It really is a delegation and really
- the proverbial handoff. We should all recognize the baton is officially being passed.
- So here we are. Fantastic. So just real quick, my name is Jason Laird. Was that a motion? I'm sorry,
- sir. I am a senior vice president with JS Held located in Indianapolis. Very happy to be on this project
- with you. So what follows after today, there will continue to be analysis and follow up over the next
- almost two weeks. What we'll do is we will schedule
- interviews with the two hoteliers for July 8th. And then we will follow up with a hotel evaluation group
- meeting on July 14th. And you can see the members that will participate both from the CIB as well as
- the visit Bloomington and CVC with final consideration by CIB at the July 15th meeting.
- lot of work to happen over the next two weeks. Thank you. You're welcome. Just a quick question. I think
- the interview group and the evaluation group is the same group? No, no. The interview group will be
- the board, the full board next Wednesday on July 8th. So we will all be involved in the interview process.
- And then we will ask the hotel evaluation group then to evaluate what they've heard in the interviews
- and the proposals and come back with a recommendation. The groundhog nature of this, groundhog day nature
- of this from two and a half years ago was throwing me off. Yeah, yeah. I haven't seen this movie. Yeah,
- I know. We've been going back and forth about that quite a bit about wanting to make sure we're consistent
- and follow the same process that we did two years ago. All right, so your slides are over. Your work
- here is done.
- Yeah, comments from board members. And let me just, again, thank Deb. It's been two and a half years.
- She's offered wonderful advice and counsel. The fact I haven't always taken it is not on her.
- It's on me. But she's been critically important to this process and our project. And I appreciate that
- personally. And I appreciate it as a member of the board. Any other comments?
- Next meeting, special meeting on July 8th, one week from today. It says TBD to be determined, and I
- have a schedule. So let me tell you what it is, the timing and the schedule, and then we will get that
- out and get out public notices, obviously. So on July 8th at 12 o'clock, from 12 to 1230, we will schedule
- an executive session, and we will meet in the Rogers room.
- And we may or may not need that executive session. But what's important about that 12 to 1230 period
- is that Talish is going to provide lunch for us. So whether we have an executive session or not, we
- want to use the 12 to 1230 period set aside for that purpose. At 1230,
- we will begin our public meeting in the Rogers room. So we won't leave the room because from 1230 to
- one, we are going to review and discuss how we're moving forward with the interviews that will begin
- at one o'clock. So the public's invited to come in and listen to that and listen to us talk about what
- we're going to do moving forward at one o'clock. At one o'clock, we will interview Dora Hospitality.
- We will schedule Dora Hospitality for one o'clock and we will schedule HMG for 2.15.
- So that will be our schedule for our special meeting of July 8th. And then we'll get all that information
- out. And then our next regular board meeting is July 15th. So that concludes our business for today.
- And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.