Speaker 0: Motion carries.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Next item is item 20.
Speaker 0: Report from Economic and Property Development and Development Services. Recommendation to declare the city on property located along Atlantic Avenue between South Street and 60th Street as surplus. Authorize the city manager to execute all documents necessary with the lab for the sale of the future development properties in the amount of 2.5 million and execute all documents necessary with the lab for the lease of city owned properties located at 5834 Atlantic Avenue, 5870 Atlantic Avenue and 5885 Lime Avenue and 5895 Lime Avenue districts eight and nine.
Speaker 3: Thank you. We're going to hear a staff report in just a minute. The reason we're moving this up as well is I want to make sure the council gets a chance to join me in thanking Mike Conaway, who is, as you all know, leaving us. And this is probably Mike's I know he does not want me to do this. And he specifically asked not to, but I just think it's really important that we know that Mike's been with the city for a long time and he's really committed himself. These properties and the selling of the properties and the dissolution of RTA could not have been hap could not have happened the way they've they've had it not been for Mike's work. He's been incredible with the Economic Development Commission. He's been a great friend to a lot of us. He understands real estate better than anyone in the city, and it's going to be a real loss to us. But we're just very excited for his his next adventure. So let's give him a round of applause, first of all. And with that, Mike, please, this amazing deal you put together here.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council. This item relates to the sale of former redevelopment property located along Atlantic Avenue corridor in Council District nine, including property that was previously approved for sale by the successor agency, oversight Board and State Department of Finance in Council District eight. Lab Holding LLC is a Costa mesa based developer of synergistic and boutique restaurant and retail destinations, focusing on historic preservation, environmental sensitivity, eclectic art and support of local and small businesses. The Lab Holdings projects include the Anti Mall, the Anaheim Packing District, the center and the camp. We have a few visions on the screen here of a few of the projects that the lab is has developed, and these include the Anaheim Packing District. A few visions from the Anaheim Packing District also includes the camp, which is another development in Anaheim. Again, a very eclectic and small business oriented development, and then the downtown Center Street and Anaheim as well. Having this type of a development as a village center concept in North Long Beach, I think will be an incredible economic impact for the for the area. And the lab intends to seek approvals to develop the former RDA properties into a North Village center, which has long been contemplated in the guiding documents of the North Long Beach Project area. Staff believes that the lab development will be a significant economic engine and a catalyst to additional investment and job generation and revitalizing the Atlantic Avenue corridor in North Long Beach. Purchase price is based on accommodation of fair market value for the for sale property in Council District eight and land residual value for the future development property in Council District nine. The land residual value applicable to the future development property in the long range property management plan allows the city to utilize an alternative appraisal methodology in order to reflect the land value necessary to support the contemplated project. This is not a city subsidy, but instead a calculation of the land value required to achieve project economics. The lab also seeks to lease government use properties, access to the needs of the new Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library in order to better activate these properties as well. The lab is prepared to proceed to acquire the property, with the city holding a promissory note through the entitlement and construction period, allowing the lab to generate a stabilized cash flow sufficient to refinance construction costs and pay off the note after 120 day due diligence period. The lab will acquire the property and begin its entitlement efforts so staff request city council declare the property surplus. Authorize City Manager to execute all necessary documents for the sale of the future development property and the lease to the government. Use property and accept categorical exemption. C 16 dash 190 in this concludes my staff report and I'm available for questions.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I want to just acknowledge Mike Conway in the last two months. He's, you know, successfully moved forward on helping the city to encumber every single former successor agency redevelopment lot in District nine. And I have to say, the fact that tomorrow is his last day, this is a this is a strong way to finish. This is a really exciting project. I'm really, really happy to see how he was able to use different techniques that were in the land land long range property management plan to incentivize three different types of properties for sale in District eight, the Future Development District nine and the government use to really prepare and situate a comprehensive development anchored by the Michelle Obama Library spanning two districts and really a representation of what we've been talking about for a number of years, the Uptown Renaissance. So I can't say this enough. This would not we would not be in this position without Mike Conaway. This is a very innovative approach. We did not know whether this could happen and we made it. We made it happen. So I'm really excited to take this vote tonight. I want to say that this is this is the again, the third of three developers on the North Atlantic corridor. So we voted to bring in West Linn two weeks ago. We brought it brought voters to bring in Frontier and now it's rounded out with the lab. And we I don't believe we could have found a better developer to complement what we're trying to accomplish here in District nine. So I want to acknowledge city staff one announced, acknowledge Councilman Austin for putting, you know, assembling all the for sale properties the way that they did. And I can't wait to see this exciting timeline that's spelled out in this in this motion. And I encourage my colleagues support this motion.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 8: Well, I, too, will be supporting this motion for obvious reasons. This is great news for for uptown, more specifically for the residents who have been waiting for many, many years for something to happen to make the north part of our city relevant. And this has been a long time coming. It has been it was very frustrating to sit here for several years. And and when the redevelopment process was unwinding and we could not do anything with those properties. To to work on the state led committee and to lobby in Sacramento. To. To get the Department of Finance to approve our land management plan. Once that was done for sale properties were in our storefronts were actually there was interest there was immediate interest in private developers developing those properties. And I can't think of a better, better developer to work on the North Village than the land holdings. I had the opportunity to to to welcome Mr. Shaheen Sadeghi, the the principal of the lab to to North Long Beach, and walked him around North Village. And he looked at other opportunities. And and today we have a deal in front of us that is a, I believe, a game changer for Uptown and for all of Long Beach. This will make our neighborhood stronger. This will make our city stronger. And so I'm happy to support this. And and congratulations again, Mr. Conway, for your efforts, your strong negotiation skills, being innovative to to make this this deal work. I think, along with the Civic Center, this will be a crowning achievement in your career. Thank you very much for your efforts. And I do encourage I vote as well.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 5: I want to just echo what my colleagues have already said. This sounds like a really exciting project. And I'm I'm very excited for my council colleagues who are going to be welcoming this new addition to their district. I've visited some of the venues that you put up there as I work in Orange County and fantastic. I think they're going to do really well in Long Beach and I support this 100%. And thank you, Mr. Conway. You are totally awesome. We're going to miss you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilman. Mongo.
Speaker 0: I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Conway for all that he's done for this city. It has been an amazing opportunity to work with you. The amount of knowledge and history of property and development and everything else that you have about this city is remarkable. And I hope that we'll see you back often because all of these things you started, there will be many ribbon cuttings to come.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Pearce.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I want to first just congratulate council member Austin and Richardson, Vice Mayor Richardson, on the transformation that you guys have seen in your districts over the last ten years. It's amazing. You guys talked about the Renaissance and it happened really quickly. And so great job doing that. And definitely, Mr. Conaway, you've been an asset to me in my four weeks here, and I just really thank you for being creative. You've set the bar really high. So good luck.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 5: Congratulations to my council colleagues in North Long Beach. I think it's wonderful that we'll be having this amazing new development. And I also wanted to extend my appreciation to Mr. Mike Conway. I remember years ago you let me run around the old public service yard and we created amazing opportunities for the Willmore and so many different communities . So thank you so many, so much for all of your hard years of work here in the city of Long Beach. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Just to close this out in the media, turn over to Mr. West. He's going to say something as well. But let me let me just say one thing real quick, which is really important. I don't think people in the public don't know, but we sold over 255 parcels of land. That's a lot of parcels of land. The city of Long Beach had one of the largest inventories in the entire state of California. And obviously a lot of those parcels you put together to make a larger parcel. But regardless of the process to go through the state's approval and Councilman Alston is totally correct. The working with the Department of Finance for the last few years to roll out the the sell, selling and development of these parcels has been probably one of the larger economic development efforts that city has done in the last few decades. I will say that if you look at the last few months, Mr. Conaway has led efforts to sell and to sell off, I think almost every if not every parcel in the downtown area now, every parcel in the north Long Beach area. And I think we may still have some left in central and maybe a couple in West. But beyond that, all of the downtown and all of the north and some of the central have all been are completed. And that couldn't happen without without Mike. And now what we're going to get is hopefully great projects. We think we will in all of these sites. I just wanted to say also one thing about this developer and this project. I think this is one of the most exciting things that happened in North Long Beach in a really long time. This if you know, if you're familiar with the lab holdings, if you're familiar with with the camp development or the anti mold development or the Anaheim Packing District, these are really creative and unique spaces in other communities. And the fact that these these developers want to work in Long Beach in a way that's creative and community centered is very exciting for for for the North. And this is this Lab Holdings megaproject, which is really a lot of smaller projects that they're building. A community will dramatically impact both District nine and District eight. I mean, there's properties right there along along that border. And so I want to thank them for investing in Long Beach and look forward to all of this activity in the next few years ahead of us, which will be pretty exciting.
Speaker 6: Mr. West Mayor, Councilmembers. This is just all about Mike. I've had optioning work with Mike since 2005 and I've learned a lot from him. I'm not going to go on and on about the fantastic stuff that he's done for our community. But I do want to say that if Michael Conway was a swimmer and he's not, he would have more gold medals and Michael Phelps. So there you go. And with that, to get to a transition, I want to recognize we're bringing on board an interim economic development and property manager director. She'll start tomorrow as well. Her name is Catherine McDermott. Catherine, if you could stand and wave. So Catherine comes to us from the port of Long Beach, where she worked for about 15 years or ten years. I'm not which not sure which. And then she went over to the Port of Los Angeles, and she was the number two executive director at the Port of Los Angeles for some time there. And she is a real estate expert, an economic development expert, lives in Long Beach. And while she's retired, she'll come out of retirement to go in Michael's stead until you replace a full time economic development director, hopefully in the next two months. Thanks, Catherine.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Welcome as well. Thank you. Without any public comment on this item, please come forward.
Speaker 0: Good afternoon, Mayor Garcia. Council Staff Attendees. My name is Tasha Hunter and I'm the manager of the Uptown Business Improvement District, and I'm going to see how many times I can not see excited up here or how many times I'll say excited. I'm very excited about this development. We all are. The community, the businesses, they've all been asking when it's going to happen. And so I think second to the day actually break ground. This is one of the most exciting times. And we look forward to the bid. Looks forward to working with Labbe to talk about what's going to happen in the future, how we can help them continue to protect their investment with talk about employment and marketing and being the liaison between the city and and the community. Let's see. Even though we have to move out of our office, we're excited. This is a great reason to have to move out of our office because they're coming in and we're excited to get into our new space and watch this process. Just want to say thank you to city manager, to Mike Conway, to Councilman Austin, as well as Vice Mayor Richardson in this whole entire process and including the bid. It's been five months for me in there and it's been a great learning process. So please vote yes and congratulation. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Josh Butler with Housing Long Beach and congratulations.
Speaker 6: To the ninth district in the eighth Council District. This is something that will be great for the community. I do want to once again want to point out that this is a the.
Speaker 2: Sale of surplus land and that according to the state law, the Surplus Land.
Speaker 6: Act and conversations I've had with city.
Speaker 2: Staff are we are to be prioritizing the sale of this property for affordable housing development.
Speaker 6: That doesn't necessarily mean that council.
Speaker 2: Or a staff has to select development for that property, but we ought to be reaching out to our affordable housing developers, notifying them of the property and accepting any bids and entering into good faith negotiations. If they do submit said bid, if their bid is not accepted, an affordable.
Speaker 6: Housing development is chosen. Such is not the case here. 50% of those units would have to be set at affordable rates. Now, the mayor has referenced the sale of 255 parcels. We would encourage the council to be proactive and reach out to affordable housing developers and put them on that priority list. We understand that it is incumbent upon the affordable housing developers to request to be put on that list. And to date, no developers have made such request in speaking with them. They are unaware. They are unaware of this. They are unaware that they need to make a request. And so as we are reaching out to them to have them put letters in or we would encourage the Council to be proactive and reach out to those developers and.
Speaker 2: Start moving forward.
Speaker 6: And honoring the Surplus Land Act and making sure that we're prioritizing.
Speaker 2: A major need in our community, which is the need for affordable housing. And I thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 9: Good. You click as the address. Let me begin by thanking the actually the city clerk for coming up with a new filing system that makes it very easily now. She, as most people may know, the agenda is up, posted on a table there. And it used to be on a paradigm that was very difficult to get inside of and look at all the details where the devil is often found. Now they have an easy thing set for tabs. You can do it. Development as I looked through that. To me, the biggest. Missing point piece. Is any analysis by our city auditor. Period. And I think that automatically raises a red flag. And what raises a red flag even further. Is the absence of a process where you follow what most. Municipalities, states, counties, governments do when they have excess property, they advertise it and say and essentially say, say, we're going to be selling this property and x date x tower. The guy with the biggest cashier's check that'll pass the bank, clear the bank gets it. Absent that, what you've got, you're dealing more often than not. Not always. More often than not with hankie, panky, period. So I would suggest. That the best course of action for this city, the most prudent course of action for this city that is heading already on a road to bankruptcy. Is to hold this off and wait for an analysis from the city auditor. If it's that good a deal. A few weeks is not going to rock the boat one way or another. You have a fiduciary responsibility to act responsibly. The data in front of you shows that you have no analysis from your city auditor. So unless you've got something to hide. Vote to hold this off until you get a report from the city auditor. And then follow the process most other governments follow. Advertise it for sale on the courthouse step, giving the sale to getting the property to the individual that comes up with the largest cashier's check. Absent that, some of you may be cashiered from your job. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Any other speakers? Please see nonmembers. Please go ahead and cast your votes.
Speaker 10: Councilmember peers.
Speaker 0: Motion carries.
Speaker 3: Unanimous. Thank you very much. Congratulations to Vice Mayor Richardson and council member Austin. We're going to go now right into our budget hearing, which is the start of the meeting and then the rest of the meeting. So let staff get ready for that.
Recommendation to declare the City-owned property, identified as North Village Development Blocks C and D, and classified as Future Development in the Long Range Property Management Plan, located along Atlantic Avenue between South Street and 60th Street, Assessor Parcel Numbers 7125-033-900 through -923, 7124-017-900, -901, -902, and 7125-034-900, -901, -902, (collectively, “Future Development Properties”), as surplus, authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary, including a Purchase and Sale Agreement, with The LAB, Inc., a California corporation (The LAB), for the sale of the Future Development Properties in the amount of $2,580,000; 

Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary, including one or more leases, with The LAB, for the lease of City-owned properties located at 5834 Atlantic Avenue, 5870 Atlantic Avenue, 5885 Lime Avenue and 5895 Lime Avenue, and identified as Government Use in the Long Range Property Management Plan, excess to the needs of the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library, Assessor Parcel 