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.