Speaker 2: I think, you know, we're comfortable in Mongo. Did you want to move up 3 to 5.
Speaker 6: Please?
Speaker 0: I'm 32.
Speaker 2: That's.
Speaker 0: Report from Economic Development. Parks, Recreation and Marine recommendation to execute an exclusive negotiation agreement with Little Brass Cafe and the Grand Food and beverage for the maintenance and operation of concessions at El Dorado East Regional Park District five.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I'm really excited to hear an opportunity for those of you who don't know, 80% of the park land of the city is in my district. And while council members come forward on an annual basis in the budget process to ask for amenities for their parks, it is difficult for me to ask for amenities for all of my parks. And what I'm also working so hard to make sure that all the equity of the city is as represented. And so through that process, we started discussing what can we do for the parks to sustain themselves? And I'm excited to hear what the partnership between economic development and Parks, Recreation and Marine brings forward. And I think that in kind of setting the stage for those of you who don't know, our park has many, many individual visitors, but it also has lots of group events and functions and park permits are pulled. And so through this process, I hope to also find a remedy for some of the challenges that come with the number of park permits either pulled or permitted on a on a weekly basis. So I look forward to this opportunity with that city manager, please.
Speaker 2: Thank you again. First and second on. Is anyone. Okay, then does anybody come in on this item?
Speaker 0: There's no public comment on this item.
Speaker 6: I think public comment could come after the presentation. Oh, there's no one that signed up. Great.
Speaker 2: Okay, good. Good.
Speaker 4: Well, Councilmember and Vice Mayor, we would like to give a presentation. There's been some misinformation kind of circulating online, so we do want to take some time to really explain what this is, what it isn't, what the goals are, and what you're going to see over the next six months as we do an exclusive negotiating agreement with two firms to really test what's possible and whether this is going to be a very good fit for the park or not. So I'd like to turn that over now to John Keisler and Steve Scott to walk us through the presentation.
Speaker 9: Okay. Thank you, Tom. Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of the City Council. The item before you tonight is to enter into an exclusive negotiation agreement or DNA with Little Brass Cafe and the grand food and beverage, both from Long Beach. But before jumping into the specifics of the year, and I want to first provide a little background. So Eldorado East Regional Park is one of the gems of the city's park system. With close to 400 acres of natural beauty, the park offers something for just about everyone as parks and recreation professionals are. Objective is to provide our community with opportunities to be active and enjoy the outdoors. In the over 170 parks and open spaces that we have here in Long Beach. And the primary goal of this opportunity is about further enhancing our park visitors experience when they come to the regional park. We want our visitors to thoroughly enjoy their time with us in hopes that they come back for many happy returns in the park, but we don't presume to have all of the answers. So this Parks Concession and catering opportunity cast a wide net to see what concession offerings may exist out there. We didn't want to limit any innovative ideas, so we tried to keep the opportunity flexible in terms of proposed concepts. And through this effort, the city is looking to reactivate three existing vacant buildings to help better serve our park visitors. Because we are very early in the process, the action tonight will provide the necessary time for a thoughtful and collaborative approach to any park concessions. So a little bit about the park itself. Each year, El Dorado East Regional Park plays host to close to 1 million visitors who are there to enjoy the many great amenities that the park has to offer, such as walking, running and biking paths. Fishing and archery offer opportunities, a large and small dog dog park, bike rentals in the carousel, and train ride opportunities in the El Dorado frontier. This is in addition to our reserved picnic areas and overnight campgrounds in the park and of course, the Nature Center south of Spring Street. The park is also home to a number of special events throughout the year, from cultural celebrations to charity runs and walks in large company or family picnics just to name a few uses. Each year we issue over 600 permits for these events and smaller, smaller gatherings. So the goals of this opportunity are many, but none more so than trying to enhance the visitors experience when they come to the regional park. As previously mentioned, we use the solicitation as an opportunity to find out what new services are offering. Offerings are out there that can help us reactivate the unused park facilities and potentially generate additional revenue to the city. And it's important that these goals are balanced with the need of preserving the existing natural and idyllic park elements and do not negatively impact how visitors are currently enjoying the park. 180 day negotiation period will allow us the time to work towards ensuring that the progress in each of these areas is made. So just very quickly about the three existing vacant facilities, you'll see those on the aerial map before you. We have a which is an area to between Spring and Waterloo and then to facilities in the northern part or area three of the park. So going through each one of those very quickly are the first in area two is. Near the overnight campground. And it is a concession building that is close to 370 square feet and has previously been used as a concession building. Anticipated uses of this building would include such things as food and beverage, retail or other related opportunities that would help support the park users such as the overnight campers. Next slide. The second facility is the Golden Grove Concession Building. This building is the larger of the two concession buildings nearing close to 500 square feet. It is adjacent to the very popular Golden Grove Reserve picnic site. This would be a good area for such things as food and beverage, retail and other opportunities. And then lastly, what we're calling the lakefront in Area three. This is a thousand square foot building adjacent to what's commonly referred to as Alamo Lake, which was previously used as the park ranger station. And because this facility is more of an office. Facility or office setting see things such as office space or storage or even event planning and management would be good fits for this facility. So that very quickly is just some history about the park and a little bit about the opportunities goals. And I'm now going to hand it off to John who will speak to the the process utilized an exclusive and exclusive negotiating agreement.
Speaker 6: Could we first dove into. I know there's been a lot of misunderstanding online about the word retail. We're not planning to put in any big store or chain or anything else you're talking about maybe perhaps selling water and Eldorado Park or Eldorado Park hats or something.
Speaker 9: Things that could help enhance the park user's experience. And so something ways that they're already using the park, things that would help enhance that experience. And so you gave a couple of perfect examples. You know, other things could be, you know, things such as. Each monocular is for birdwatching or things like that. And those are what were envisioned when this opportunity.
Speaker 6: Well, I appreciate that because the misinformation out there that we're going to open like a yoga store in the middle of the park where there's going to be mats and yoga pants and things like that. For sale to the public is just a complete misinformation that has no factual basis. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Vice Mayor and members of the City Council. So I'm going to finish up with a little bit.
Speaker 9: About the actual process.
Speaker 4: And the council member touched on this first. First, we always want to identify the opportunity objectives. And in this case, the opportunity here is the existing footprint.
Speaker 9: So this the sites that Steve just mentioned.
Speaker 4: You know, we wouldn't exceed the existing.
Speaker 9: Footprint of those sites and we would look for ways that we could we could better activate those.
Speaker 4: Buildings. So what we do in economic development is we typically will engage a.
Speaker 9: Local broker who has.
Speaker 4: Contact with potential.
Speaker 1: Vendors.
Speaker 4: Or tenants that that could provide the services.
Speaker 9: They were able to to market this site.
Speaker 4: And this opportunity to approximately 200 potential concessionaires. And and that was over a period of about 30 days. So this was an initial outreach just to see who might be interested and what their qualifications might be, what ideas that they had. And from those 200 concessionaires that were reached, there were a number of on site tours.
Speaker 9: Review of the of the opportunities with the commercial brokers that.
Speaker 4: We had engaged from the city. And we ultimately received.
Speaker 9: Two proposals.
Speaker 4: From local businesses who are interested in proposing for the sites. Now, of course, during that 30 day period, there were a lot of unanswered questions. Ultimately, to really delve into a business plan, potential vendors would need to take a look at the engineering, what the building's conditions are, what kinds of investment might be needed to to activate those buildings. And so that takes time. And so what we're asking tonight is ultimately for the city council to allow us.
Speaker 1: To move forward.
Speaker 9: To to work with those two proposers.
Speaker 4: Who we, our committee, believe were qualified, but needed some additional time to develop some really sustainable and successful proposals.
Speaker 9: This typically takes about 180 days. That will allow for us to also.
Speaker 4: Conduct some survey. Of course, existing park users.
Speaker 9: Are.
Speaker 4: Our first customers. We want to make sure that we understand what their needs and priorities are. We also want to review the sustain, you know, the suitability.
Speaker 10: Of those proposals.
Speaker 4: So all the things that were just mentioned by the council member, the concerns that we've heard from the public. We want to incorporate those into our evaluation of the final proposals. And then ultimately, if we are.
Speaker 10: Able to.
Speaker 4: Find a really.
Speaker 10: Successful.
Speaker 4: Solution, we would bring that proposed solution forward to the Parks and Rec Commission, who.
Speaker 9: Oversees our.
Speaker 1: Parks.
Speaker 4: And also we would bring that recommendation to the City Council for final approval.
Speaker 9: And if if we're able.
Speaker 4: To to reach an agreement. So so ultimately, what this step.
Speaker 2: What this.
Speaker 4: Action is tonight is not an.
Speaker 10: Approval of of.
Speaker 4: Any vendor.
Speaker 1: Or any.
Speaker 4: Terms for proposed use. This is not an approval of a business plan. In fact, this is just the approval for staff to move forward to conduct these surveys, to do some due diligence.
Speaker 9: To take a look at what the potential park users.
Speaker 4: Want.
Speaker 10: To.
Speaker 4: See out there, and then to bring back in the next hundred and 80 days or less, we hope some ideas for the Parks and.
Speaker 1: Rec Commission.
Speaker 4: And then ultimately something that everybody can stand behind to the city council at the end of the period. You know, the goal ultimately is, is to really activate our existing buildings, our existing resources, in a way that provides better services and amenities for park users, and hopefully do that in a financial, financially.
Speaker 1: Sustainable way so that.
Speaker 4: There's not any additional cost to the city or the taxpayers. So with that, I'm actually going to wrap up my part of the presentation and we'd be happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I appreciate this proposal. For for those of you who don't know, we're undergoing $7.5 million in improvements to Eldorado Park this year. A lot of those have been pieced together over time from different grants and opportunities. But there's still another 20 to $30 million of need at the park. And these three facilities are on the list of need. And I don't know that there will be a time where it makes sense to make such an investment in these buildings. I think the better use of the funds is for improving our bathrooms and our lakes and our ponds and our pump systems and the irrigation and our sports fields and other things that are at Eldorado Park. And so for that, to be able to take the burden off of the city to find a way to solve these issues would be great. I think that the community input I've received, as you may have noticed, I was surprised that we didn't have public comment or individuals signed up. I've talked to dozens and dozens of residents on this item and. I think that the two things that I find very, very important is that we want to preserve the park and to do that. Potentially one of these facilities could be a part of that process. Many know that there is a process to get a permit and you go to the Parks and Rec department and you pull a permit. But a lot of our park users who are required to have a permit do not have a permit. There have been safety concerns in the past. We didn't know who were using certain areas. And many individuals don't pull a permit because they don't leave the park in a appropriate manner when they leave. They leave behind trash and debris. Whether it's an event or a family party. There are issues with some of the vendors that bring bounce houses in. We do our best to enforce the rules, but if there isn't a consistency of a vendor over time, they have less of an incentive to really preserve and protect our park. And so for those reasons, I think it'd be great if I saw one of the. Slides, discussed events and reservations. We already have so many events that happened in the park. If many of them could be kind of funneled through one of these vendors who we have one consistent, ongoing vendor that our special events department would work with, then we don't end up having things such as golf carts left on the bike path and other things we've experienced in the past that have been really a deterrent to a positive park experience. If we had one vendor in the park that rented all the bounce houses, we have complaints sometimes about loud noise. If perhaps you want to have noise or music in the park, you have to write your sound system from the vendor in the park and the system doesn't go above the decibels allowed in the park, things like that. And I recognize a lot of these asks are are going to need to take place over time. And so I'd be very supportive of hearing some kind of pilot program for this summer that eventually could talk about a bigger investment. Because when you walk the buildings and the current condition they're in, we're talking about thousands, if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment to repair these buildings. And so I want to make sure that we have the right fit with the right vendor who's really open to embracing the park and all that it's capable of becoming. So thank you for bringing this forward. I hope my colleagues will support it.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Councilwoman Jenny Piper, coming on this. I see. No further comment. Please cast your vote. You.
Speaker 1: Low on mango.
Speaker 2: One girl kept on mango.
Speaker 0: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: All right, please. Now we move to item number 26, please.
Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary to execute an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement (ENA) with Little Brass Café, of Long Beach, CA, and The Grand Food & Beverage, of Long Beach, CA, for the maintenance and operation of concessions at El Dorado East Regional Park.  (District 5)