Speaker 3: Good evening. Michelle Giles with the base we use in Community Development Department and we're here tonight, as you said, to hear four presentations from developer finalists for the West Midway Development Project in the Main Street neighborhood of Alameda Point. The 22.8 acre West Midway site is made available through the consolidation of the 34 acres of currently leased land and buildings occupied by the three supportive housing providers Alameda Point Collaborative Building Futures for Women and Children and Operation Dignity. This consolidation into a 9.7 acre site is part of the rebuilding for supportive rebuilding the supportive housing project at Alameda Point. It's called Reshape. So in May of last year, the City Council approved a disposition and development agreement for the Reshape project. And under that DDA, the city is required closer.
Speaker 0: I know. I'm so used to this. I think a little closer. Yeah. Okay, try that.
Speaker 3: Under the DDA, the city is required to make commercially reasonable, reasonable efforts to identify a market rate developer to construct and finance the necessary backbone infrastructure for the reshaped project. So on July 10th of last year, the City Council approved a request for qualifications process to identify market rate developer. And in August, the city issued the request for qualifications and it advertised regionally and nationally, and also sent our teams to an extensive list of potential developers. In September of last year, seven statements of qualifications were received and an initial review team consisting of City and Housing Authority staff evaluated them and recommended for teams to move on to the interview process. The finalist teams that you'll be hearing tonight. Our Catullus, Alameda Point Partners, Jamestown, Cyprus Equity Investors and Brookfield. The four teams were interviewed in October 2018 by a team of staff and a representative from Renewed Hope. We used a specific scoring rubric to test this fact in your staff report. Each team also met with representatives from the Collaborating Partners and Mid-Penn Housing their nonprofit housing developer to discuss phasing of the Reshape project infrastructure, relocation and their financing milestones. Tonight's special meeting is to give the City Council the public and the public an opportunity to hear from each of the developer about their qualifications to make this process as equitable as process as possible. The order of the presentations were randomly selected by the city clerk and each team will have exactly 15 minutes to make their presentation . We respectfully asked the City Council to hold questions until all of the teams have made their presentations. After council questions, public testimony and council discussion, staff request that council give direction on the next steps in their selection. The selection process, for example. A direction could range anywhere from requesting additional information about specific developer teams selecting two development teams to go to the next level of evaluation. Or tonight you could select one developer to enter into in any negotiations. So I'm happy to answer any questions. Now, before we go on with the presentations, if you have any.
Speaker 0: Do we have any questions of Miss Giles? Okay. Well, seeing none. Why don't we get started?
Speaker 3: Tell us, Tim. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0: Okay, so then first step is I could tell it.
Speaker 3: I'll do it for you. Okay? You can just tell me to advance. Okay, well, we'll get going.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mayor Ashcroft and members of council. My name is Sean Whiskey and I'm senior vice president of development with Catullus. And I'm joined here by several members of my team. But first, I wanted to commend your staff for running a very effective and efficient selection process. And we're certainly honored to be one of the finalists presenting tonight. So go to go to the next one, Laura. Okay. So in the next one. And so I'll just you know, we're we're a known entity, I think here we've been here working on the island with you for 18 plus years and excited to still be doing here, here. And so, but I wanted to give you a real brief background. I could tell us for some folks that aren't familiar with us and members at home. So we've been in in a master development capacity for over 30 years. We've developed numerous projects here in California and throughout the country. And we've also been involved in ten projects that are based re-use or government public private partnerships and happy to to talk more about those as we move through here. We are a TPG capital company that is important because they are a $17 billion private investment firm. They're a wonderful partner of ours. And all of our projects, including the one tonight, will be self-funded, which we'll elaborate on a little bit later. Alameda Landing and Bayport are certainly two Pride and Joy portfolio projects for Catullus and TPG, and we understand the importance of developer diversity. It was certainly identified as a as a key component. And and we wanted to point out that through these two projects, Bay Port and Alameda Landing, we've brought Warmington homes to the to the island . We brought tri point homes to the island. We're working with the new homebuilder out at the waterfront. Certainly Target Bay, Ship and yacht and three affordable home developers have all joined forces to build great projects out here at Alameda Landing and Bay Port. And we're looking forward to bringing one more out to the waterfront as we move forward with that project here in the coming years. So real quickly by the numbers, we're proud of it and we wanted to just run through this. So 873 residents have been completed, 197 of those are affordable involved. The construction of Ruby Bridges, School and Park, 300,000 feet of retail, which I think is also worth pointing out that several residents of the only two point collaborative site have worked at the shopping center over the years, and I understand that six are currently working there now, which is obviously fantastic. The maritime commercial component, which we've all worked on together out at the Waterfront, is is going through a redevelopment phase that's nearing as if you go out there today, you know, those buildings are well on their way to being transformed. We certainly have the waterfront phase, which we've talked about, and over $200 million in infrastructure to date and stalled out at the West End and another $50 million in infrastructure plan for the waterfront. So a couple other highlights that we're certainly proud of. Alameda landing a bay port, the first fiscally neutral project here in Alameda, a standard that is now set for all big feature projects here and the island as well as we launched the first transportation demand management program that's now seeing over 5000 boardings a month, which is impressive. And we're very proud that we've got we've upsized our bus twice and considering doing it now a third time just to handle the traffic. And we're also really working on some cross estuary transit solutions that we're proud of that will be part of the waterfront phase as we move forward. So one of our taglines, we're proud of a vision into reality. That's when we put it on all of our marketing brochures. And so 2012 Alameda landing look like this in 2018 it looks like this this is and I'm just happy to love these aerials the foreign afters. They're fun to show off. 2012 and 2018. So and we all have likely been out there and experienced the shopping center, the public art. Willie Stargell, Memorial Anchoring Star Plaza was was an idea driven by by folks that played baseball with Willie Stargell events and all. They brought the idea to us and we turned it into this plaza and public art piece. We think it's really important, the waterfront which all ships through here. So moving on to West Midway, we are a little bit different than some of the others tonight were before you and in a master developer role. We think that's really important, too. And it's really important to also to know that all of our project costs are 100% funded by us. We don't need a financial partner where all of our money comes from within or TPG. We will run this entire process from seeking community stakeholder interest. It's it's critically important to have that that outreach in building up the entitlements, all of the remediation, all the demolition, completing all of the infrastructure, and then executing a land sale RFP process, which we'll talk about here. In a minute. Our core team has been together for over 18 years here. Many of these names on here are familiar to you. I wanted to point out one in particular. Landsman sitting right over here. She's been with us for over 14 years. Been involved in all of these complicated projects and will be with us tonight as our project manager for West Medway going forward. And our consultant team. Some familiar names here, too, but couple that I wanted to point out. The community outreach piece is super critical. And so we felt one of our one of our first consultants that we added to the team was Becca Parata and her company to run a very effective community relations and outreach program. And one thing that wasn't part of our RFQ that we've added here, because we believe in the public art component of this project and know how important it is. So we've reached out and they have accepted the role of community arts programing and that's being and Janet from the max and they will be a big part of our community outreach as we look to implement a real strong public art component into West Midway and Alameda or Alameda Point. And this project of such a great historic story to tell, and we wanted to do it both in temporary and permanent art installations within this project so that the the business structure, the deal structure of this deal is critically important. So and it's a little bit different than than some of the others. And we're the city. And Catullus together decide the project's vision and its priorities. We build it together and we'll go out and execute that vision. And and Catullus earns a fixed return on our capital. So it's all known. That's the only thing that that we're expecting. And if there's any cash flow over and above that fixed return, that cash flow is split between the city and Catullus. And this ensures that the city is is involved in all major project decisions. And it's not just the entitlement on the upfront, but selection of the homebuilders, which, you know, in some cases that homebuilder process based on on whatever, whatever we decide together as our as our project priorities, the selection of the homebuilder might not be the homeowner with the highest bid. It might be somebody that meets some other qualities that are more important to the city and to the project. And Catullus is completely indifferent. As long as we have our our fixed return and we're. But we will be fronting all of the money. It doesn't matter to us if. If the project team, including the city, would like to make, uh, we'd like to make decisions that, you know, again, might not result in that is better of out of that process. So these couple, these couple of pictures represent a something that happened at our Miller Project in Texas, where these couple trees there are these old historic oak trees that are in different parts of of the project needed to be moved. Uh, seemed kind of silly but they're very important trees to spend the amount of money that we spent. It was a project priority that the city and the stakeholders wanted to do. So we found a way to do it. We wrapped up these trees, we rolled them over a mile to now they're permanent location. They're called the twinkle trees. And the city is is incredibly proud of it. So and we are too. And that matters that are a result of the steel structure and the project priorities that we built together with the city of Austin. So the West midway it build out. This is all in our package. I don't want to run out of time. So but this is the makeup of the residential units. Again, during the the process, the entitlement process, we would sit together with with the city, with the stakeholders, and we would build this together. There's been a lot of talk about commercial. How important is the commercial piece? We certainly recognize that commercial could be a big component of of the West Medway project. We've we've rattled off some of ours in our and our in our package in here, restaurants and food and beverage and production testing that's already out there. Now, that certainly could be enhanced fitness, creative office, assisted living, we understand that could certainly be if that's identified as a project priority, that could be added into. Again, it's it's all about managing revenues and expenses. And if we can make it work and it's a project priority of the city and the stakeholders we can deliver. And and certainly it's critical that the open space network here be the connective from Alameda point side all the way through this project, through the receipt project and through the Main Street neighborhood. And so those would be certainly project priorities as we begin the design phase going forward. So this is all about infrastructure and all about infrastructure and its execution. We understand what this project does. It unlocks the RESHAPE project for the collaborating partners. It's critical. That's what we've done here. We've spent $200 million to date delivering infrastructure and and we're proud of that. And we know how to do it. And and managing those sources and uses here is absolutely critical. And and so it's something that we've been very proud of over the over our last 18 years here, working on the island. We know your dirt. You know it very well. You know, there's this is all of the bullet points up here or the variety of different dirt types that we've run across out there, deep mud and liquefy, friable sands, undocumented fill with shallow groundwater, wharf reconstruction. Talk to us about the work reconstruction effort with our waterfront project. It's just been unbelievable. We've been through all kinds of different types of soil types out here, surcharging and wicking, all of the utility removal and demolition, the piles, supported buildings, all of the lightweight fill and you name it. We've done it out here. We've damaged buildings that are environmentally sensitive. We've removed the materials to two sensitive landfill areas. We've recycled and ground up. It's so much material and we've reused it in a base. We know how to do that. We've done it here. We've buried a few tractors along the way. This this is sitting knee deep in a bunch of bay mud. What's not shown here is, as this excavator is the second excavator that came around here in a little bit to pull this guy out and it's sunk to. So this is complicated. This is complicated soil conditions. But we've done it and we know how to do it. And and we'll bring that experience to out to West Midway. Certainly the backbone infrastructure, it is all it's it's complicated. It's not like building in Arizona or in Texas. This is a different type of dirt that takes a lot of experience. And we're proud to have had a chance to to work through it. And and what you see out there today is, you know, something that, you know, we're very proud of. A couple of relevant project examples here. I think these are we picked these two because they're under the same deal structure that we've proposed here. Our Miller Project in Austin, Texas, it's a 700 acre sites, the formal former municipal airport that serves Austin. It's two miles from UT, three miles from downtown Texas or downtown Austin, 6200 single family homes. 25% of these are affordable. I'd love to rattle off the awards that that Miller has won over the years. That certainly have been a great project for us. It's about two thirds of the work completed. And and I won't spend too much time on this, but it's it's a great project and but it's one that is built on this on the same deal structure that we're proposing today. A great community spaces, public art, open space is a huge part of this. It's a huge part of what we want to bring to West Midway. The Novus Innovation Quarter is a partnership with ASU in Tempe, Arizona. It's a 330 acre redevelopment site of of some, you know, underutilized university owned land that's currently housing a lot of athletic venues at at all build out. This will be 8 million square feet of office, multifamily, residential, hotels, retail and open space. Again, it's right up next to ASU. It's a project that's just begun. And we are underway with about $12 million in infrastructure. And and we. Are getting ready to start construction on the first hotel deal, which is a 259 Room eight story high place in Higher House Hotel and 170,000 square foot office. So these are the types of projects, again, that have been built under the same deal structure that are up underway and and thriving. And we're very proud of that. And thank you very much. I did it. I have a minute. 12 to spare. So how about that. I really appreciate the time and we're all here for questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Mr. was going to as we noted in the beginning, we will hear the presentations of all four development teams and then we'll take questions from the council. And I imagine there's public speakers as well.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Okay. All right. So next step is.
Speaker 3: Aluminum Point Partners.
Speaker 0: Pardon me.
Speaker 3: The.
Speaker 0: Third point partners. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and council members. I'm Bruce Dorfman with Alameda Point Partners. And I want to introduce my team, Joe Ernst, also of Alameda Point Partners, Yvonne Armitage from a collaborative, Christopher Koester of SB Architects and other members of our team include our DDA counsel Stice and BLOCK Lane, Environmental and Bcf engineers. These groups all worked with us collaboratively on site A We were pleased and honored to be selected to enter into a public private partnership to redevelop City of Alameda Point in 2014. In the past four years, we've made tremendous strides to redevelop the base, leading to a construction start this past March, an event that our meetings have been waiting for for decades. In the next several months, the first phase of infrastructure will be completed and six city blocks will be under construction. The ferry terminal has been ordered. This is a huge development for us and for the community. These achievements haven't been easy nor straightforward by Alameda Point Partners, who has worked diligently, invested significantly, and engaged the city to overcome many unanticipated obstacles. Through the relationship we have developed with elected and appointed officials and city staff. We have accomplished much and we look forward to closing on phase two of site this coming fall. We believe that West Midway should be developed in concert with site A. This will allow these projects to be highly integrated and allow the plans and users to collaborate and not compete with each other. Given the nascent development available made a point, a competitive development could be detrimental to all. Although we don't disagree with the city's overall objective to engage multiple developers on the base, reuse development and in fact, on site we have six different developers that have been engaged on the various blocks. We believe there's a better way forward for the Best West Midway project. Specifically, we've engaged a different and award winning design team with significant local experience to create a new, yet coordinated vision. We're balancing the introduction with a new. We are balancing the introduction of a new design team with our significant, significant site experience that will allow us to execute quicker. Joe will discuss the Innovation District in his remarks shortly, but this idea would be a turning point in the job creation efforts on Alameda Point. We have already negotiated DDA with the city. We know the regulatory and permitting process. We have developed required relationships with the numerous agencies and with Labor, and we have the capital commitments and construction experience to move the West Midway project forward. Based on our site experience, we can execute on a shorter timeframe with lower costs. This provides the city with greater certainty. Now I'd like to turn it over to Joe once.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the Council. You know, from the start, we do recognize that a key goal of this project is to get this infrastructure built and to get the Collaborating Partners project underway and successfully completed. We will not lose sight of this, but we also cannot lose focus on our major economic development goals for Alameda Point, namely job creation. We have to use the land efficiently toward these goals because this land will go quickly. We need to continue to build on the innovation and manufacturing base that it is evolving. The question for many businesses, why come to Alameda? What is the value proposition businesses considering? Thank you. Businesses considering alameda have a different perspective on it than those that live here. Historically, we compete on low cost. That will not work at alameda point. Simply building for the sake of having space to lease using conventional design, placemaking leasing management will not achieve a broad, sustainable jobs base, nor will it generate the above market rents needed to support Alameda Point going forward. We can only look at Marina Village and Wind River to show examples where we have project sitting directly across from arguably the hottest office market in the country and we have 20% in nearly 100% vacancy respectively. We need to develop a brand at Alameda Point. In short, it says, If I bring my company here, it will be better. We have a better chance to succeed here. My company needs to be here. When pitching the plan for site. We sold housing as a means to an end, which were jobs as a catalyst. City primarily delivers people amenities, housing and the value from it to pay for the critical infrastructure. Where West Midway should continue to be a part of this chain of catalyst, it should be the next step on a path toward this major goal a good, durable, sustainable jobs base, which can also benefit the collaborative partners. So when I looked at the Main Street and Messed West, Midway plans their location, their adjacencies to what we were doing out there today. It creates a real opportunity and a create and it serves a real critical need. It presents the opportunity to create a true innovation district, its central location between our existing projects in the Adaptive Reuse District, our innovation businesses, other innovation businesses at Alameda Point and site a allow us to lever and better coordinate what these can bring. An innovation district is a place based development. Some of it's organic, some of it's engineered. It's combining a variety of assets to create a culture for innovation and collaboration. It is intended to replicate the success of spontaneous districts like Silicon Valley, the Mission District, but do so in a more dense urban mix, setting its economic gardening, a community proactively collaborating to grow a variety of innovative businesses and jobs and harvest those jobs and businesses for further expansion. At Alameda Point, the environment and physical space of the district must promote clustering and collaboration, and the district thus supports the brand. Come here and be better. Economic assets include a variety of organizations. This this district should include private entities for profit and nonprofit, and should include educational institutions and housing as well. The city will be an economic development partner with us as we go through this process. By way of example, Fremont, a large manufacturing, advanced and light lab hub, has developed a innovation district. They are our greatest competitor in this quarter for the types of jobs we want. We have to have a horizontal perspective and reach across many different industries, networking assets. These are different industry groups. We've been working with S.F. Made, among others. We have developed venture capital relationships. We are talking to various incubator and accelerator groups that would be necessary here for again, making businesses better. We should include social organizations both as beneficiaries and providers of services in the district. And we will be working with social capital so that we can deliver space cheap for some of these more cost effectively for some of these enterprises. This district should be mission driven, managed, executing the vision as a steward of the collaborative environment. And we have mission driven capital. Goldman Sachs is a partner of ours on this project, big investor in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They have a mission driven strategy for this very type of program. The physical place is very important. Attract, facilitate collaboration, create a competitive environment for these companies and attracting employees. We can best lever what we've achieved at Citi, what we've achieved in the Adaptive Reuse District for the benefit of West Midway. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to our planning team to talk a little bit about the place that is West Midway.
Speaker 3: Thinking on how to establish the.
Speaker 6: Distinct identity for the Innovation District. We're envisioning the central open space that would provide opportunities for collaboration. That would be a mixing ground and a common room where the cross-pollination of ideas can occur. All right. The open space will provide a.
Speaker 3: Quality working.
Speaker 6: Environment for the employees, but would also provide amenities for the residents of the surrounding areas and their.
Speaker 3: Visitors.
Speaker 6: By strengthening the connections and linkages with collaborating partners with Site A and the surrounding other areas, the innovation district would, through a complementary programing, help with an integrated, larger urban district.
Speaker 3: There will be plenty of.
Speaker 6: Opportunities for recreation. The space would be used before, during and after work hours. There will be plenty of opportunity for quiet social gatherings, but also for special events, for industry events or makers markets that could put the Mid West Medway project on the larger map of the Bay Area.
Speaker 7: The open space will.
Speaker 6: Create a distinctive setting for the Innovation District buildings so that these buildings can be quieter. They can be background buildings. The use of the engineering building pre-engineered buildings can reduce the costs of the ground improvements, reduce the construction costs and operation and maintenance costs while still delivering a high quality work environment. The buildings will be filled with light and be visually transparencies so as to engage the public with the work that is conducted inside.
Speaker 4: But these pre-engineered structures in the Innovation District can be simple but elegant and well executed buildings that integrate into the existing fabric at Alameda Points, but provide a fresh dialog with a new structure. Some say they.
Speaker 3: They could provide the.
Speaker 6: Opportunities for a mixed build businesses of different types for the combination of small and large and plenty of opportunity.
Speaker 7: For growth.
Speaker 4: And with flexible floor plans, these structures can be a hub for activity and creative businesses to innovate and create attracting investors or the public, which help bolster retail activities within walking distance of the site.
Speaker 3: They can provide.
Speaker 6: A wide range of opportunities for different jobs and different commercial activities.
Speaker 4: The buildings being open, plan and flexible create opportunities for enhanced engagement for entrepreneurs and startups with space to generate ideas and rapid prototyping to test these ideas in real time. Housing contributes to the creation of Innovate the Innovation District, providing a mix of all densities and types to fit a range of needs from small lots to multi-family . This housing will provide a mix of traditional and industrial character with innovative design and materials to blend the surrounding context and provide a transition from site a all the way up to the Main Street neighborhood. The design is yet to be determined, but our goals are to do so with community input. We want to integrate into and be complementary to the mix of users of our project team. And ultimately we want to create a pedestrian scale community that engages with, with and fronts residents on the streets. We want to create a walkable community where people can live, work and collaborate.
Speaker 5: So in closing, we firmly believe we have the vision to, one, deliver the critical infrastructure for the collaborating partners so they can finally get the proper home they deserve. We have the vision to deliver good jobs and the environment to sustain it. We've been active in this market delivering jobs for well over 20 years. We really understand how Almeida is perceived in the market and what benefits an innovation district can provide. We have the local critical relationships. The decision makers are right here, and we have strategic, strategic capital to make it happen. Both the infrastructure and the vertical. And, you know, with our Goldman Sachs relationship, we who you know, and their experience with the Brooklyn Navy Yard, we've even recruited a few a person recently from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to join our team and strengthening our ability to envision and deliver this innovation district. You know, our organization and team structure delivers this diversity where needed in the design, in the placemaking, in the job creation, in the capital. We are very diverse on those fronts, but we bring critical continuity where it's needed most. I think we are in the best position to move quickly. The wheel does not need to be created. We understand the agencies, the issues, the soils. We have good relationships with staff. We can move this project together quickly. And, you know, with that, I think, you know, product development projects have challenges. I think in the definition of development, it's probably in the first sentence. I hope, you know, through the course of Saturday that folks have found us to be very transparent in how we deal with challenges that we've maintained. The integrity of the project that we have not made egregious asks when it comes to resolving a problem that we we find a solution that meets the community's objectives. And we will continue to do that here. So, you know, we can hit the ground running. We are committed to the success of Alameda Point. We are committed to the success of the collaborative. We're ready to go to work.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And our next development team is. Is Jamestown.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City Council.
Speaker 0: Good evening.
Speaker 4: Good evening. I'm Michael Phillips, president owner of Jamestown. I'm here with Michael ORANSKY from Cypress Equities and Remi montano, our product project manager at Jamestown.
Speaker 3: Oh. So this is the two page one get. Let's sit and get it right.
Speaker 0: So we will reset your timer.
Speaker 3: Don't worry. Yeah. I only got two pages.
Speaker 4: Great. Thanks. Jamestown and Cypress Equities as a great deal of experience on Alameda Island and our collaborative partners on this project, Jamestown being a private equity firm with 10.1 billion in assets under management and have owned Alameda Southshore Center for quite some time and Cypress Equities. I'll let Mike so just can give you a little background.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. I'm Michael Torchinsky.
Speaker 8: I'm the founder and CEO of Cypress Equity Investments.
Speaker 5: Started the company back in 2001.
Speaker 8: With a vision of investing in and developing.
Speaker 5: In primarily multifamily residential.
Speaker 8: Projects. Since then, we have invested in and developed over approximately 12,000.
Speaker 5: Apartment units.
Speaker 8: Around the country with the value or the cost of over $5 billion. And one of our current developments is right here inside a in Alameda. We bought block nine and are about to break ground in the next 60 to 90 days on 200 apartments.
Speaker 5: I think maybe the first ones out of the ground on one.
Speaker 8: We also were able to invest in the infrastructure, the horizontal infrastructure of site and able to get that project finally going after a lot of years. And we're also co-developing a block 11, which will be another 220 units of site.
Speaker 5: So obviously, certainly putting our.
Speaker 8: Money where our mouth is on in Alameda and and in Alameda Point, when we looked at this RFQ, you know, what.
Speaker 5: Was very apparent to us is that we needed if we were going to respond.
Speaker 8: To the RFQ, we needed to team up with a best in class commercial developer for for this project. This commercial is very important and in the right commercial mixes is critical to the project. And so when we looked around the country and one name kept popping up and as the most really dynamic and cutting edge commercial developer around the country and that's that's Jamestown. And we met and we hit it off and formed our venture.
Speaker 5: And here we are all together. And I'll let Michael Phillips.
Speaker 8: Maybe describe to you the commercial vision for the project.
Speaker 4: So obviously West Midway is essential in developing the statewide infrastructure for the reshot project and we as a as a sponsor feel like collectively we have the capital backing through our our fund structure and our own balance sheet equity and our ability to deliver the infrastructure through the total site to balance both commercial and residential. We think that our tenant relationships nationally lead or lend our to our ability to attract tenants to the site. We've been a market leader in terms of taking adaptive reuse projects and industrial sites and attracting innovation, economy, tenants, advanced manufacturing, 24 hour urban manufacturing zones. We, our team collectively has led about 12 million square feet and an adaptive reuse in the last ten years. Andrew Kimball, who's on our team who's here tonight, is actually was the lead on Brooklyn Navy Yard and brought Goldman Sachs to the table as well as the main tenants that are there today. We we have sort of prided ourselves in job creation as a key driver to all the things we're doing and creating jobs in the innovation labs. So we think as we move through West Midway, it's an essential point as one of the front doors to the community to do something that that makes a difference. But we're. Okay. Okay. So we believe in Alameda. We we accelerate commercial development. We do that through placemaking and activation. We do that through partnerships with with the community. We always deliver on our commitments. We have. We've been developing for 36 years in all 16 states in the United States, in all manners of of densities. We went through the 2008 downturn, as did many others. And as we look forward in Alameda Point and the future and the current sort of geopolitical situation, we think that being able to stand behind our commitment to deliver here and deliver in a dynamic way that helps builds jobs for the island is essential. And so that's something that we pride ourselves in. For the last 36 years. We're trusted partners to government. We've we've obviously led the adaptive reuse of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We also have worked with cities, both Boston and Atlanta, in major public private partnerships and adaptive uses. And and I thought to be a great partner to them. So we prioritize, prioritize, job prioritize job creation. As I said before, we took Industry City in Brooklyn from 1900 jobs to over 7000 jobs and from 150 businesses to 450 businesses in the last five years. 35% of all the workers come from the local community. We've had 300 job placements in our with through our job training lab, and we have 350 local internships and youth internships on the property. So our approach. I'll hand it over to Remi to give you a walk through the details.
Speaker 3: Great. Hi, everybody. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our approach to the West Midway project. So we have a few foundational elements to our plan. And the very first is that we want to deliver the infrastructure for reshape as soon as possible and complement APC's existing programs since we know they're doing so much already. Secondly, we want to catalyze large scale commercial development and make a really lasting impact on jobs across the educational spectrum. Third, our planning efforts will be really carefully considered with our partners CEI and site A as well as would be neighbors to ensure that the district evolves as an integrated neighborhood with shared amenities and a shared sense of identity. That's very important to us. In addition to a meaningful base of jobs, we anticipate community facilities such as a jobs training center like we have experience developing in industry, city, as well as possibly step up services for APC. Possibly a larger commissary kitchen. I think that might be useful to them or other services that we think would complement their facilities that they have planned for their APC site. And then lastly, but absolutely not least, we would build on Alameda Point's unique history that I think we all love so much and use our track record of enhancing brands through investments in Placemaking, which I'll talk a little bit about later as well. So in terms of the actual program, we would provide a robust mix of commercial products from smaller office condos to live work spaces to larger floor plate buildings to attract a really wide range of businesses and support entrepreneurship for about 400,000 square feet of additional commercial square footage. Back here we go. And on the housing side, we would also provide a large a wide range of housing types, including senior assisted living, in order to create a diverse, mixed income community that allows Alameda residents to build families as well as age in place. So in terms of how those uses would lay out across the site, we've done a little bit more thinking since our first proposal to you in response to your RFQ. And I want to share that this is very preliminary and conceptual in nature. And the whole idea is that we would want to work very closely with the community and stakeholders and the city in order to refine this plan. But we certainly want to preview it with you here. So the first thing that we thought about most was the public realm. And we would anticipate a network of streets and open spaces that create a distinct district, but that also create linkages to other sites around Alameda Point, probably most importantly, the ferry landing site as well as the Central Gardens. The uses, as you can see here in the different colors are distributed across the site to reinforce a sense of creative and an organic neighborhood rather than a series of distinct districts. And then the whole area is anchored by that building in blue. They're building 78, which isn't designated historic, but we think might be lovely to preserve and create as a community hub and job center. So our whole site is anchored around the re-use of that building. In terms of phasing, as I described before, our first priority would be actually delivering the infrastructure to reshape. So we have consolidated the townhomes in phase one there and the light gray on the bottom of the screen. But we've also included some commercial development on the other side of the site, so that as early as phase one, we're already activating the entire site. And then the other phases would happen in quick succession from there. But before phase one, what we really would anticipate is a phase zero in which we do some temporary programing to establish a sense of place while the DDA negotiation is is underway. So we would want to make the site an interim home to allow me points fabulous resources already potentially including Plowshares and other organizations. You guys have done a lot of great work here already. There's no need to reinvent the wheel and we can engage with those resources that are already here to create something fabulous on this site . And then we really think that West Midway has the potential to be the first property at Alameda Point to create a pedestrian scale environment with pop up activations while infrastructure is delivered. So we really don't feel like we need to wait for phase one for a lot of great activity to happen on this site. We believe that our strengths complement the work done to date by the city, the Alameda Point Partners and our community organizations. And we're really eager to get off the ground with this project. Here you can see a summary of our team. We think we have the expertize and the resources and the relationship relationships necessary to finance, construct, lease and operate this project. We have the company leadership who's obviously here today. Andrew Campbell, the CEO of Industry City, would be our economic adviser throughout the project and we're excited to work with him on that. And then the rest of us, you see here from Cypress and Jamestown, would be excited to be your day to day contacts. So as we think about possibly getting started on this project, a few questions came to mind for us and would probably be the first place we would start in terms of engaging with the city and the community. And some of those questions are what community process the city and the community would envision for this project. We'd really love to start thinking more about that. We also love to understand a little bit more about the specific aspirations for the site and how it would weave into the rest of Alameda Point, as well as how West Midway would catalyze more commercial development across the rest of Alameda Point and how it would really fit into the sites that are surrounding it. So with that, I want to thank you very much for your time and look forward to answering questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay, 3 minutes to go. Okay. Well, that would leave our our last team to present is Brookfield.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Madam Mayor. City council members, city manager and staff, and John Roden, the president of Brookfield Residential in Northern California. I thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2: For us to share our views, the ASM and.
Speaker 4: Qualifications for the West Midway Partnership. Our team will.
Speaker 2: Be led by Joe Guerra.
Speaker 4: Who is.
Speaker 2: Our director of business.
Speaker 4: Strategies, and will have the full support of our expert in-house staff. We have over 83 people in our out of our Danville office and 28 in San Francisco. Our team members range from.
Speaker 2: Development.
Speaker 4: Managers and design construction on horizontal improvements, vertical construction project managers. Onsite managers. Marketing, sales, community engagement and finance. We are all we are more than a developer. We're a general contractor as well.
Speaker 2: Which I think is important.
Speaker 4: So a complicated.
Speaker 2: Site such as this. And in general.
Speaker 4: When we're going through the design development process, our construction group is able to help better help inform the design component of it. Joe Guerra, the lead project manager, isn't here tonight.
Speaker 2: He happens to be a basketball.
Speaker 4: Coach for a high school basketball team as well. And they have a game tonight. So if Joe's not here, you get me and I'm happy to be here. So the the Brookfield Family of Companies offers a very wide range of disciplines, knowledge and expertize. We are involved in retail, commercial, institutional, mixed use, residential infrastructure. And it really all comes together here in San Francisco. Recently, we acquired four city development and around the Bay Area. We have a variety of mixed use projects that have over 6 million square feet of office, 4 million square feet of residential and 2 million square feet of retail includes Pier 70 and Stones Town in San Francisco, New Park Mall in Newark. Um.
Speaker 2: And we have a boulevard in Dublin which.
Speaker 4: Will actually show you in a little bit here as a great example piece. Um, also the opportunity to partner with you on West.
Speaker 2: Midway comes at a perfect.
Speaker 4: Time. Two of our other master plans are in the final phases. So a number of our planning folks in-house and construction team members have the capacity and would be more than happy.
Speaker 2: To be able to focus on this opportunity with you all. In addition, we have a.
Speaker 4: Partner in Urban Mix Development. Urban Mix has been a partner with us and we've had a longtime relationship with them over the last 15 years. Keith and Scott bring a lot of military based reuse experience as well from a forward in in San Mateo, Presidio in San Francisco, Hamilton and Novato.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell.
Speaker 4: Our own Marine base down in Southern California. Most importantly, though, Keith lives here in Alameda. He's been a resident for 25 years. He's a friend of mine and.
Speaker 2: He has the local perspective.
Speaker 4: Of you all. Keith has been on the board of the only two point collaborative as well for the last five years and will be helpful in planning and launching Reshape.
Speaker 2: Rosalyn Village in Santa Rosa is a very.
Speaker 4: Good recent experience that Urban Mix has with an RFP process.
Speaker 2: Coordinating with the local community.
Speaker 4: The County of Sonoma.
Speaker 2: And Mid-Penn housing.
Speaker 4: To coordinate the entitlements where they will actually be doing the development of 100 workforce housing there and is leading the entitlement process with the County of Sonoma. As you can see, Urban Mix and Brookfield share a common passion for creating vibrant communities.
Speaker 2: Under is our land planning consultant.
Speaker 4: Team member Barry will be up here sharing a little bit more about our vision and we'll talk to you a little bit bit more about his company. I think many of you are already familiar with him and your staff has worked with him in the past. The following.
Speaker 2: Is our family of.
Speaker 4: Consultants.
Speaker 2: Behalf, as I think they win, as you know, and.
Speaker 1: Everybody from.
Speaker 2: Gates and Associates, NGL and Woodley all are familiar with Almeida have.
Speaker 4: Worked here and have also worked with our teams. Boulevard. So there's the following video is a development in other development in Alameda County, it's similar to West Midway in that it includes delivering infrastructure and buildings to the army, the city, the school district, and includes a 14,000 square foot rec center. It includes complicated phasing, allowing the Army to maintain its mission, critical.
Speaker 2: Access to the facilities.
Speaker 4: Prior to replacement. Very similar to how we'll plan and.
Speaker 2: Work with the existing residents and users of West Midway property while.
Speaker 4: Also improving the new reshaped site.
Speaker 1: Walmart itself has some 250 homes ranging from. More traditional townhomes. Single family.
Speaker 3: Detached house. The land company acquiring this land was in a unique way. It was totally different than how any other developer has looked at acquiring. And before that process began in 2003 and 2004, when the Army first approached the city with the idea of taking a portion of the military base and converting it to residential.
Speaker 1: Commercial public uses. This project allows us the opportunity to bring in. How do you know we don't have any more energy as well in the way that. I think probably the most important part of it is the interaction between the participants and the U.S. military and civilian world to try to bring the crucial officials involved as a long standing relationship, the project to build and years to develop and design and negotiate. It was a very complex arrangement. Property is different for a variety of reasons. One of them is the sheer density of thought involved a lot of work city to understand the constraints that we have involved because with the farming the developer like us would normally find. By. So this program allows us to build comfortable for the military. We give land. Once we took the land. No exclusive opportunity for us, to be honest enough, with the horses from so far away from the buildings on the northern side. It's important that we have a team that the Obama team. Third class. Schools plans, administrative offices are also building. On steroids. Part equipment. Very interesting. We provide for the Army in one time, but it's been.
Speaker 9: Meted out to us in a very small piece.
Speaker 3: Just to get people outside, create memories and friendships. Make it feel like.
Speaker 10: You really wanted to create a story and experience the miracle of.
Speaker 1: Our modern community. You want to interact. How are they going to interact with the stuff that we're developing? But also. Provisions for electric cars in the home and public realm. So if your own mom doesn't want to work or even cars, you can actually park in the parking lot and charge. All. Our project kind of allows. The development. You should be in. They were really happy about the number. But the fact is we have to talk the network of dialog. The location of your job in the city to see this project put it all together and we got it done. The nice thing about the way we. Preserve. My help in the ballpark as it was built out in a neighborhood where people feel like people.
Speaker 4: So we believe in a strong commitment in partnering with stakeholders to deliver not just a project, but a unique community that builds on the surrounding fabric to enhance the experience and engagement of your community. With that very. We'll talk more about the vision.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Josh. Good afternoon. Mayor. Council members. I'm going to beat the clock. Just a little bit about you. We are the city's master planners. We do peer review here. We've done a number of master plans. We work for you at Alameda Point before, and we're currently working on the A North-South housing site with HB running a community engagement process and master plan. So we're very familiar with the city, the context here. Is unique. The specific plan sets out goals related to mixed use and mixed income and also putting in the infrastructure for reshape. What's around it though is unique on every side. So the context and what we're going to be creating in terms of a vision need to take both of those things into consideration as the case. As far as collaboration goes, a lot of community engagement is already going on in the creation of both the specific plan and the RESHAPE plan. We don't want to reinvent the wheel. However, we know that community engagement is important here, having done it and will work with the city to define the correct process. What needs to be done as supplemental community engagement for West Midway? The vision. The vision starts with reshape to ensure that the supportive housing as we rebuild, we work with the partners and we care very much about this. But our commitment goes beyond this. We see this from a planning standpoint as an opportunity to integrate the broader plan for West Medway, together with a reshaped plan to create one community for all the residents. We work with their architects. We're going to have many architects. They have one architect, David Baker, to make sure that we develop a common architectural vocabulary. But most importantly, we'll work with the collaborating partners to make sure that the residents feel that they're part of one community. We support transit oriented development. We believe in transit oriented development. Mixed mobility is built into this specific plan, and we will make sure that as a cue, it's taken throughout our planning initiative. We have an opportunity at West Midway to create many levels of affordability from supportive housing to market rate. Our vision includes everything in between, including workforce housing and senior housing, and we have the opportunity to serve multiple generations from our children to seniors. As community should be. And that's a reflection of Alameda and the building types which are proposed and they'll be a broad mix are also a reflection of that. As we said, there'll be multiple architects. That's how Alameda was built. It has a diverse, very authentic architectural character. Sometimes that's lost in larger developments, but we're committed to creating that here. Mixed use. One of the things that makes Alameda so quirky and interesting is its mixed use. It's integrated into neighborhoods. Brookfield does this. We see West Midway as an integrated mixed use district and the Brookfield family of companies. This is one example. Playa Vista has done this in a number of urban context, adaptive reuse. We're committed to keeping Building 35. We've met with the preschool operator. We think this is an appropriate use if we can work out an arrangement for them to stay a local food and entertainment hall. This is part of our proposal. We've been working with Main Street Property Services, Craig Semel Myer and one of the great things about this concept is that we can work with the collaborating partners to create opportunities to use and buy food grown at ABC Urban Farm and an opportunity to work with collaborating partners to provide jobs and job training. Maker and start ups. Space and live work is part of what always seemed appropriate at Alameda Point. There are good examples of this type of use, like the active space in Berkeley on the left there. And we see this as an opportunity for entrepreneurs and startups to start out and then move out into site A and the the enterprise zone where more intense commercial uses were proposed in the future. But we think this is a wonderful neighborhood use. So in conclusion, we see this as the opportunity to create a vibrant urban place with authentic experience, as a place for a mix of generations. A place for shared workspaces. A place to socialize. A place, actually, that you and we would work and live a neighborhood first. And that's consistent with a specific plan. This specific plan saw this as a neighborhood first and then a commercial use the second. And we look forward to working with Reshape. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Josh with just under a minute.
Speaker 0: Talk real quick, quickly.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Westman. When we will be funded by our own equity, we don't need bank lending or other partners because of that. We've actually gone through the last recession and are actually.
Speaker 2: Building out a couple of our master plans that we did have through the recession.
Speaker 4: We have not walked away in a recession on projects here in the Bay Area. We are excited about the opportunity of working with the collaborating partners, the city and the community of Alameda to create a truly authentic mixed use and mixed income neighborhood in West Medway. Our experience with designing and construction of complicated multi-phase projects on former military property is key to understanding the urgency of the Reshape project and the need for infrastructure so they can begin building the new homes for their residents. Thank you for the opportunity to present tonight and look forward to your questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Perfectly timed at this point. I know we have public comment and and I know we're going to have a robust council discussion. Does anyone have pressing questions they want to ask now or shall we move forward with our with our public speakers? I'm hearing speakers, speakers, speakers. Okay. That's what we'll do.
Speaker 3: And did you know we still get 2 minutes because it's okay.
Speaker 0: So each speaker will get 2 minutes and let me call the first three so you can just edit your way out to the aisle if you need to. The first speaker is Jeff Miller. Mr. Miller is followed by Malika Chop, if I'm getting that correct. And then Michael Taaffe.
Speaker 4: Hi. Thank you. I'm Jeff Miller. I'm the CEO for the Alameda Boys and Girls Club. In my two minute I got here tonight, I want to share with you a little impact that could tell us has had with the Boys and Girls Club. I first came here in 2012 and I reached out to tell us. Sean Westerman came out and visited with me for a while. I knew that they were major sponsors of our events, and I wanted to get a better understanding of their relationship with the Boys and Girls Club. We had a issue come about where we identified that teens needed space at the club and they needed and we needed to do a better job of going out and getting the teens. What we were lacking was funding at the time I shared that with could tell us and Sean and they came forth and provided major funding for the Alameda Boys and Girls Club, which allowed us to hire a full time team director, implement programs. And we've been able to retain and build the teen membership. My 31 years with Boys and Girls Clubs, the one thing I do understand is, is that the little kids come to the club because the parents ask them to or want them to. The bigger kids, they vote with their feet. So we have to be on our game. What I can say is, is that we were averaging about 175 teens a year before we implemented the program sponsored by could tell us today we're serving 700 teens through the program and the retention is remarkable and the average daily attendance for our teens is remarkable as well, too. So they tell us is a great partner. They don't do it for recognition. They do it because it's right.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And then Malika Chope, did I get that correct?
Speaker 4: More like a.
Speaker 5: Shop.
Speaker 0: Like us. Sorry.
Speaker 2: Hello. Mayor and Council Members. First, I'd like to start by saying thank you because you approved the lease of our use of Building 35 this summer and we were able to get access at the end of August. In a short three months, we were able to totally renovate a building that had been vacant for some nine years , create immediately a middle income and high income jobs, and provide 60.
Speaker 4: School spots for children and families.
Speaker 2: In the area. We also serve a total of 4040 families right now, and in the next couple of weeks it will be up to 60. Many of those families actually use the ferry. It's been a key draw for that use of the space. So I'm here to put a few sticks in the ground.
Speaker 4: One is a stake.
Speaker 2: Of gratitude for making that space available to us and giving it some life in the community. The second stake is to say that we are committed to trying to have a long term positive impact on the community in that space. And also to say that I see you have many wonderful development opportunities with great partners that have all shared excellent qualifications.
Speaker 4: I do want to say that Brooks.
Speaker 2: Field, both Barry, Josh and Keith were the one group that reached out to us and had an active, engaging conversation. I've had some interaction with all of them and they seem to all have great qualities. But I did. I was excited about the fact that one of them was interested in preserving that historical building, which was previously the radio station. We've preserved all the architectural features of the building and we think we have a wonderful use for it. I think it's also extremely complementary to the long term use of residential and employment. Not only are we creating immediate employment in.
Speaker 4: The space, but one key concern.
Speaker 2: With families that are coming to Alameda is a way to get to work efficiently, easily, which is the ferry in many cases, but also to find high quality, great education and child care for their kids.
Speaker 4: And so we're going to be with the new ferry about a block and a half from.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Her next speaker is Michael Taft.
Speaker 4: Hello there, counsel. My name is Michael Taft. I'm the owner of subpar miniature golf, currently open, really square in San Francisco and formerly open on Park Street in Alameda.
Speaker 8: I'm here today to speak in.
Speaker 4: Favor of Jamestown LLP, who is my landlord and property manager at Gridley Square and was nearly my landlord at Alameda Southshore Center. Two years ago, Jamestown reached out to me and made an offer for us to open. A second location of our business is that they saw something special in us and they saw us out. I've never heard of a landlord doing that for a one off local business such as ours. Jamestown offered a lease that was mutually beneficial. And this has been our central growing central to our growing relationship. I know they want me to do well because when my business makes more money, they make more money. They backed up that sentiment then as we built out our Ghirardelli location by developing the space to suit our very unique needs. And after we opened it up, they continue to back it up by working with me on my business development and marketing, preparing the space, and consistently improving the already world class square to our mutual benefit . During all of this, Jamestown saw that we were struggling with a broken tenant landlord landlord relationship in Alameda. They had space at South Shore Center and offered yet another lease that was mutually beneficial. And the offer would have included another buildout suited to our, again, very specific needs. We would have carried through, but our tenancy was blocked by a current tenant that liked to throw its weight around. Jamestown, fought for us, and though they were not able to get them to change their mind, we never doubted that they were always in our corner. In summary, from purely a tenant landlord relationship perspective, Jamestown has shown that they are ideal. I believe I have experienced both extremes in how good or bad a landlord can be, and I'm happy to say that with Jamestown, things have never been better. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And I forgot to call the next three speakers, but they are in disorder. Tina Blaine, Janet, Corky, and Courtney Shuffler.
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, Mr. Ashcraft, and City Council members. I just wanted to speak for a moment about corporate citizenship and at Red Mix we have had the pleasure of being supported by two of the developers that made proposals here today, both Alameda Point Partners and Catullus. And I wanted to speak in particular about catalysis, very long time support of the work that we do in the community at rhythmic cultural works to support the arts in a variety of ways. But they've been a major sponsor of ours for a long time and really have reached out to us. A lot of employee engagement and presence at events and activities that we've sponsored here in the community. And it's not only a support of our organization, as you've heard Boys and Girls Club, but a number of nonprofits here on the island. So I just wanted to say that's meaningful and important, and they understand the importance of the arts.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Ms. Craigie. Craigie.
Speaker 3: Mayor Ashcroft and City Council. I just wanted to be here to say that as an artist, I'm really enthusiastic about the development on the point on this huge chunk of land that's so important to the city of Alameda. And I'm excited about the role the arts can play in conjunction with that development. Currently I'm in the process of envisioning Island City Waterways 2020, which I hope to stage out on the former Naval Air Station. And it's given me cause to learn more about the history and about what's going on there now. And I have to say, reading the city's vision plan for that chunk of land is for for a layman, really impressive, and especially the adaptive reuse section and including the Alamo Alameda Point Collaborative. So I would just like to applaud you for that. And as past island city waterways, it will be a vehicle to share and celebrate our unique history with the rest of the Bay Area. I'm hoping and in dialog with Oakland Dance Collective Odyssey Dance to incorporate them, which would be a huge visibility for the arts in Alameda. An example of how the arts can work with developers would be staging the gathering area of this of island city waterways at site A at the Seaplane Lagoon, which we've spoken a little bit to Joe Ernst about. And that would help to introduce visitors from across the bay coming in the new ferry terminal to see this wonderful new development, introduce him to the businesses and what what the point has to offer. So just to say, we need to share our history with all the influx of newcomers to Alameda.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Courtney Shipler, who apparently made it out of the mountains.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Good evening. I am a resident of Alameda Landing and we've been down there about three and a half years now. As you know, Cattell us was the master developer and is also developing the waterfront portion. So I've had the opportunity to engage with Cartel as quite a lot over the last couple of years and just wanted to speak to the level of responsiveness and community engagement that we've had with cartel us. They have come to our meetings to present on developments with the waterfront. When there have been questions about the shuttle that they've operated, they make sure that they come to the meetings. They're very responsive, literally on weekends. If something has popped up, that's a question or a concern of a resident. I get in touch with one of them and I'm usually not expecting a response until Monday, but I usually have a response within hours, which really says a lot about their level of engagement, their willingness to to put up with us. Sometimes this section of the community is going to be an important neighbor for Alameda Landing and for Bayport and will definitely enhance our quality of life. Catullus has shown the ability to innovate with regard to transportation, with the shuttle, with the water taxi that's planned for the waterfront development. So those are two very important things to enhance our quality of life in the West End. Additionally, Catullus, as numerous others have mentioned, is such an important community partner and they have supported Alameda Education Foundation, which I am on the board of. They have contributed to the development of Estuary Park, which we all can't wait for the next phase of that to be developed. But they their long track record, I think, really says a lot about their commitment to Alameda, their ability to make things happen here, and their sensitivity to making it a good place for the residents. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. And our next three speakers and you're all doing really well. Staying within your time limits are Michael McDonough, Doug Biggs and Rachel Campos Day. I've enough is enough.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Madam Mayor. I don't know if I've said that to you. Yeah, this is awesome. And the rest of the council and staff. I'm Michael McDonagh, president of the Alameda Chamber of Commerce. So this is an interesting place that I am today because three of the candidates tonight are chamber members. One of them is our landlord. And we hope that the fourth becomes a chamber member, especially if they do in their consideration. But so I'm not here to say and if I did, they would all kill me to try to recommend one or the other. But I am here to talk about the fact that we just need to choose the best project. And I think one of the things that may be under consideration as well, a couple of people already have projects in the nearby area and so maybe we should give it to someone else. I don't think that's really a great way to make the decision. It should be the best project no matter where. Maybe it sounds like they all have financial arrangements, so I don't think that we can make a decision based on financial decisions and certainly not on past history of such considerations because this is a project in and of itself. But of course, as the Chamber, we're very interested in jobs. It sounds like a lot of the all of the projects have mixed use, both residential and commercial, and I think that's a big waste. There is are we looking for more residents because we need more housing? Or can that area actually handle more housing? And what was the naval mandate about replacing the jobs that came out of that area when the bay is closed? So from the chamber standpoint, we would recommend you pick the best project for Alameda and the best project that provides the most jobs. It sounds like they're all wonderful projects. I don't know how you're going to make the decision, but I want to make sure that we consider the job aspect of what's going on out there.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Doug Biggs.
Speaker 8: Good evening, Madam Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name's Doug Biggs. I'm executive director of the Alameda Point Collaborative. I'm also like, Michael, going to duck the question and not pick a winner where we've met with all four of the development firms, we feel they're all four highly qualified to do their.
Speaker 4: Part and all.
Speaker 8: Four have a very good grasp of the situation that their first priority.
Speaker 4: Is us and we appreciate that, is getting the reshaped development moving forward and the infrastructure and for that. At the same time, we also.
Speaker 8: Appreciate that each of the development agencies.
Speaker 4: Or organizations.
Speaker 8: Have looked at value added as far as creating additional job opportunities.
Speaker 4: Revenue opportunities, space sharing opportunities with the collaborative to make it one, one community. And we appreciate.
Speaker 8: That. The one thing we will ask you is we cannot move forward until you move forward. We are waiting on this infrastructure to get started, the.
Speaker 4: Planning to get started for that before we can move forward.
Speaker 8: So we do ask that you make a decision as quickly as possible. We're at a good time now.
Speaker 4: For building housing.
Speaker 8: The state has come out with additional money and we want to be there. Get ready, be ready to apply for it. So I encourage you to move forward as quickly as possible on this decision. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And before Miss Compass Avenue speaks, my next three speakers are Karen Bass, Brian McGuire and Vince Smith. Those are both the next and the last speakers. If anyone wanted to speak and didn't take our two speakers live, it's not too late.
Speaker 3: Good evening. Good evening.
Speaker 10: Madumere. My name is Rachel Campos de Ivanov. I am a Western resident who knows Alameda Point very, very well. I've walked the streets every day for the last ten years with my dog and I have been intimately.
Speaker 3: Involved with the planning.
Speaker 10: Early stage execution of the project with this site. So I do.
Speaker 3: Know the Army two point Partners team well.
Speaker 10: I also know the opportunity and the vision that the site has and the city's vision that they have for economic growth. These aren't just numbers of units or thousands of square feet of commercial space, but it's absolutely crucial that we pick the right partner who can help us stand out from creating jobs and also supporting the existing projects that we have already underway. And so with that, I.
Speaker 3: Wanted to lend my my my support to the Alameda Point Partners team, enabling them to expand the footprint of the project, gives them the opportunity to create a coordinated.
Speaker 10: Approach between site A's, retail.
Speaker 3: And commercial, and also enables them to focus on the job development that is absolutely needed. So thank you very much.
Speaker 0: So thank you, Karen Bay.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Mayor. Council member. This is my first meeting since you've been sworn in, so congratulations. Really glad to be here. I'm here to support Almeida Point Partners for the West Midway Project. We are in the early stages of developing the final finger point and in my opinion, now is not the time to bring in new developers . We need. We don't need diverse developers, but we need diverse buildings. And that's what Alameda Point Partners has brought us. We are also 3 to 4 years away from a potential slowdown. And so I think we need to be strategic and use this time wisely to build on our successes, to build on what we already have. I made a point. What I love about their concept is the Innovation District. Over 80 cities have created innovation districts. Companies like Mattel, Energy Sail, Drone, Wright Speed, Kairos Energy, Astro Space. These are just some of the startups. They have created hundreds of jobs and an innovation district will create hundreds more. It will build a strong foundation for creativity, collaboration and expansion and closing. Our Alameda Point Partners is already mobilized at the site, and they spent the last two years engineering, designing, constructing, demoing. They have a strong knowledge of the site, and they will be able to mobilize very quickly and move right into the next phases of development. So I urge you to select Alameda Planning Partners. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Brian McGuire.
Speaker 4: Good evening, everyone. It must be nice to be courted and got to know a lot of good suitors here tonight. It's clear you guys have a really tough decision, I think. So obviously it's a big one. I think obviously getting the collaborating partners going as soon as possible has got to be, if not one, two and three , you know, the absolute top priority here. So, I mean, whatever it's going to take to get that job done, I think it's important. You've got a couple of developers that have a long history with Almeida and know the groundwork. I think, you know, everyone knows Joe Ernst and everyone knows Sean Westerman from Catullus. And, you know, they've been through it. They know the community really well. You've also got a couple other very what appears to be not that I'm qualified to judge, but very attractive looking groups and proposals from the other two applicants. But I think one thing I did want to mention just personally is that I hope when we do move forward with this, I know there's a lot of tricks and and details with how the unit counts work at the point and what units we can allocate. I'm curious to see if there is any single family or maybe even in the townhome style units that get built at site or at West Midway. How does how how would a to use figure into that could 80 would 80 use count as units. Because I know there's opportunities these days to build a to use into new construction single family homes. So I'd be interested to hear more about that. And hopefully the city is is thinking about these questions and whatnot as we go forward. But I wish you really good luck trying to figure this one out.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Vince Smith.
Speaker 4: You mean mayor and council? I am the founder of the 523 nonprofit Blue Endeavors Our Mission. We do ocean and bay conservation, restoration and education. So locally we work with Alameda High School students, middle school students doing beach cleanups, bay cleanups. We host our version of TED talks and events like our October fest at Southshore Center. We also do a lot of monitoring. Our eight year olds even go out and collect plankton and we monitor water quality and work with programs like the Wild Oyster Project. We actually are in multiple states. We are international. We started in Silicon Valley. The reason we came to Alameda is because of not only the maritime history of of Alameda, but also this really is the hub of marine innovation. I would encourage you, as you're making this decision, to to really factor that in as well. So we hear a lot about job creation, entrepreneurship. But what makes Alameda truly special is how much actual innovation does happen in this city. And so one of the things myself and a lot of people are always pushing for is also working waterfront access and that to be a consideration with all developers. Today I actually am here also speaking our land. The word is Jamestown. And when we moved to Alameda, we actually did have a difficult time finding a home here, even though we had a lot more support on the peninsula. I will say I haven't really had any interaction with the other developers, but from day one of talking to Remy at Jamestown, they immediately embraced us, our mission and since then have continued to work with us to really set up Alameda as the Northern California Community Hub for conservation, restoration and Exploration and education. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. All right. I don't see any other speakers left, so we will close public comment. And let me just say at the outset, before the council starts to deliberate, that I want to thank all four development teams for all the time and effort and energy you put into not only preparing to go through the process that brought you here today and you are the short list, but also for for meeting with us, I think. I know I've met with members of all four teams and and to thank you for all the good work you were doing in our in our area in other states. So and I will just say at the outset that we have four very impressive qualified candidates. So with that. What we're being asked to do if we perhaps just start with the the end in mind is we are being asked tonight to provide direction to staff on the next steps in the selection process. And that could include direction to enter into negotiations for an end to an exclusive negotiating agreement with the developer. And if I recall correctly, that would be for a years term with the possibility of a couple of extensions. So starting with the end in mind, how would Howard Council like to like to proceed? Do you want to talk about different elements of different proposals? Do you want to talk about different applicants? Let me know and we're going to be a little bit flexible on them. Time for comment. I mean, don't feel like you have to take your whole 9 minutes. But this this merits a full discussion. So you are uncharacteristically quiet, everyone. Okay. Councilmember Desai, when you.
Speaker 5: Thanks. I'll just, uh, address maybe one or two points. I think the nature of the RFQ process is such that it lends itself to want to know more versus, you know, from the RFP process, you come up with your nice designs and and kind of commitments that you're going to make and you know what kind of capacity you have to deliver. You know, there are a few processes. You know, you kind of saying, this is our company, these are our qualifications. That's what we've done. But the difficult part is in doing Alameda Point generally or even west of Main Street specifically, we have such as a city. Over the many years, we've had such lofty ambitions as to what we want to accomplish. And because we want to accomplish something very unique with regard to not just economic development, but a kind of social economic development where you're not just coming in and wearing your developer hats, but you're going to we expect you to partner with entities like the Alameda Point Collaborative and the other nonprofits there, as well as any of the innovative businesses that are in unique economic sectors. So to me, what that means is that I'd want to hear out, hear more how, you know, a certain number of entities would flesh that out. How would you work with people like the Alameda Point Collaborative? You know, what has been your experience and previously in working in this kind of environment and moving people from people from places of incredible economic and social need to to achieving their individual capacity. What had been your experience in working in that kind of environment? So that's that's why I think to me, it lends itself to wanting to not just choose one, but flush out more from others. So that would just be one area that I want to hear more about. And and I think the nature of the RFQ process is, is I can't really hear that.
Speaker 0: Okay. Who else wants to? So let me ask and interject a question. You want to know more? Would that be by narrowing the list down or you want to know more from.
Speaker 5: All or exactly by lowering the list down?
Speaker 0: By narrowing the list down. Okay. So do you have some criteria in mind?
Speaker 5: Well, definitely, you know, proven capacity in working in this kind of environment that we're setting up for the Midwest and West Midway and anything west of what I call west of Main Street. You know, for example, when we did Bayport and you know, pardon me when we did Bayport, we did it in a silo because we wanted it to be a residential development that's going to generate, you know, value that we can ultimately jumpstart. Alameda Point. Likewise, when we did Alameda landing, it was kind of in a silo. Likewise, west of Main Street. Ever since, you know, the mid 1990s, I think Alameda Point Collaborative had kind of in conjunction with their partners, have been kind of working in a silo. But now we want people at, you know, the developers and their financial partners working with these entities. So I wanted. So in narrowing down the list, I would certainly want to know more about, you know, who had demonstrated capacity experience in working in this kind of environment. So that would be one area.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Odie, would you like to go next?
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 8: Now I'll learn that for next time.
Speaker 0: That won't help.
Speaker 8: I guess I was intrigued by my colleague's comments. I know he's gone through this a couple of times, right? You went through Bayport and did you go through site at that? You went through site also. So, I mean, it's kind of hard for us to sit up here and pick winners. You know, I, too, like want to know more than than we've gotten today. And some of those areas are around the finances. I mean, one thing I've noticed in these projects, and that's through no fault of the developers. So it's not a slight to them at all. But, you know, the finances always seem to, you know, change. And we don't know what's going to happen with the market. And, you know, we've had good times now and still had issues with two of these projects out there. So how are we going to do this with, you know, a negative forecast on the horizon? So I know some of them are talked about. You know, they're I look at my notes here where they have their financing. You know, they're funded by their own equity. I think there was one of those that said that, you know, one of them, Goldman Sachs, was a partner 100% our cost funded by them. So that's that's the important thing. You know, I think it's important for us to to know that, you know, what we see in these these pretty pictures right now, you know, that's not going to be what's there. And, you know, we've seen these projects from, you know, pretty picture phase to DDA phase to even, you know, amendments one, two, three, four, where it changes. So I don't want to get too hung up on, you know, expecting, you know, something that's in this picture. And it, you know, again, Tony, you've been doing this for a long time. And I think you probably remember back in the nineties, you know, we didn't envision this thing called innovation and, you know, incubator spaces. That was not what we were targeting. So we were targeting things like genetic companies and high tech companies, you know, and now we've moved. And, you know, that's where we're at now. I mean, is that at the top of the curve? And is some is the next big trend something else in five years? Because it could be more than, you know, more than time that we want to before this happens. So I'm curious to hear more and I like the fact that three of them actually have relationships with Alameda, you know, even even the Jamestown partner. I mean, they're the landlord, but the group that they're partnering with is actually doing some of the construction work. So and I know Brookfield has a really positive reputation. So I mean, I'll I'll hear more from my colleagues in my other 6 minutes, but, you know, I'm not ready to like pick pick one yet. Counsel, can I just add. But, but sorry, but cognizant of the two of the speakers said we need to do something quickly for Alameda Point Collaborative so I can be convinced, but I'm not quite there yet.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Avila And.
Speaker 10: Apologies for snacking up here. I'm six months pregnant. My baby has decided that morning sickness should come in the second trimester. But I think that there's a few things that I'm looking at. One of them is finances. I do think that making sure that the financial aspect of the projects is there, that it's dependable, that we know that the project is going to be able to come to fruition. I'm not so much interested in starting it right away as I am in making sure that it's completed in a realistic and accessible time frame. That's going to mean that we actually have housing units and commercial space that is ready for tenants, and that's what our need is. Our need is providing housing as soon as possible, not just for the residents at APEC, although that is a huge need and. So lately critical part of this project, but also providing additional housing units out there. Some of the things that I'm looking at is, you know, are we contemplating outside of the units that are being designated for APC? Are we providing housing at all levels? Are we meeting our regulation? And in 2017, in the fall of 2017, this council passed, I think the BIA called it the most restrictive universal design ordinance in the state of California. To quote them, I think so, they said. But part of that audience was really geared at a couple of things. It was geared at visit ability, making sure that the units that we're building for residential and also for commercial were visible, that people of all you know, all people could go and actually use the space and use it in a meaningful way and be able to visit friends and family who might reside there. That goes not just for the units, but also the connectors between them. It also goes to habitability and livability for folks who are disabled. And I think that, you know, what that ordinance said was that we want 30% of our units to have that. And so that's a key component for our new construction. And it's something that I know that this community cares about. And there was several meetings on it. And it's something that I, I would like to see more of and that I'm looking at. The other the other thing that I'm looking at and I think everybody who came out tonight at all, all of the finalists show that they're good community partners. That's great. That's something we want. I encourage it. I'm glad that it's happening and I'm glad that there's a continuity of it and people looking forward. But I also want to make sure that the connectivity kind of when we look at connectivity, it's not just with our community partners, but it's with the other neighborhoods in Alameda, not just in Alameda Point, but throughout Alameda. The point should not be the point that's over there. That's not part of the overall community. It should be part of our community. And it should we should be thinking about things of, you know, transportation issues. I'm glad that we're talking about pedestrian based design. Bike mobility is very important, and it's something that we've spent a lot of time on, especially when we have things like the ferry terminal out there. How are we going to make sure that we can create safe bike routes for the folks that are going to be living in these areas to those transit connectors, whether it's the the new ferry terminal, the existing ferry terminal. How are we going to get AC transit to do that last and first mile? How are you going to partner with us to make sure that we can meet those transportation demands that we need to problem solve around, not just in your neighborhoods that you're going to create for us, but among the neighborhoods that exist. And how are you going to help us get people on bikes and on foot through your neighborhoods and to these transit connectors? And I think that, you know, we heard a little bit about that tonight. I know that there's more information and what you submitted. And I think that, you know, those are the types of things that I'm really looking at.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Knox, wait.
Speaker 11: Thank you. I'll start by saying, echoing, it's clear that all four of the teams that were here tonight have strong ties to our community. It was pretty impressive. I can't remember how many of the speakers said, we have a hard choice. I was hoping that the presentations was going to make this an easier choice. If anything, it made it more difficult. So well done to all of you. I think I could probably go through all four of the presentations and point to things that I very much liked. I'm trying to remain mindful that at the end of the day, we're not developing a plan tonight. We're choosing somebody who can deliver a project, a project that is not designed in a project. So it's really trying to trying to see if we can come to a place where we think that we have somebody we'd like to move forward with. I do appreciate also that all of the teams highlighted our commitment to moving forward with the Army two point collaborative project. That project is decades in the waiting, and as Mr. Biggs mentioned, this evening, has to wait further until we make this decision. The city has been, I think, a really good and strong partner in the last few years in moving this part of the project forward so that we can move what we need to do for our made a point collaborative. But we have 500 who have been waiting over 20 years to move forward. And so I think to the extent that we're doing our fiduciary and and good government diligence, I think trying to find a way to get going. First, I have a couple of questions. I was wonder if we could ask staff to, of course, try to avoid asking for pride. But if somebody from staff. I have a couple of questions that if I could ask.
Speaker 0: Um, perhaps Ms.. Ms.. Giles and Ms.. Potter as needed. Okay. We'll have right back up. Okay. Your question.
Speaker 11: So I think, you know, we have we have a number of developers who have varying degrees of experience working in Alameda. And we've heard everything from we can just use our existing DDA partners to we have lots of experience in other bases, but maybe not so much local experience. I know that before this came forward, staff has done a lot of analysis on the financials, on the ability to perform, etc. And my understanding is staff, rather than asking questions I know the answer to, feels that all four are qualified developers that we could work for. I want to I'm curious from staff's perspective, because you are the ones who have to work with the developers on the day to day to get things done. How important in moving to Vice Mayor Vela's point, how important to moving a project forward through the process? Is that experience, that past experience? Where do you feel that all four of these have enough experience with development that Alameda is not so unique, that that's important?
Speaker 3: I would say that we're probably not that unique in our process for coming up with a disposition development.
Speaker 6: Agreement, going through the the.
Speaker 3: Planning process. I think it's all pretty similar in other jurisdictions. And I think we as a staff have learned a lot for how to push it forward with our our last couple of. Experiences with developers.
Speaker 11: Right. And then to the to the question that are the point that Councilmember Odie raised, which was definitely high on my mind in terms of I get outside of a lane I'm comfortable with in terms of capitalization and financing, etc.. We heard and obviously you wouldn't have brought it forward for teams that have financing to do this. Is it fair to assume that all four of these teams have the money in place and do not need to go find it? Or do they have partners who will then have to go to? Sometimes what happens is we have the money, whatever else, and then you spend 12 months or 18 months while somebody goes to the market to identify where that money's going to come from. And then it becomes a negotiation and then your project changes because all of a sudden the people who are financing it don't like exactly what's already been negotiated with the community. Where are we in terms of the four different teams? On how they're financing the project and how certain that money is?
Speaker 3: I would probably bring up our consultant who did some initial financial analysis. James Uh.
Speaker 0: Yes, I'm beckoning him up.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, I'm blanking on his name, but.
Speaker 0: James Edison. Mr. Edison. Yes, it's it's because we put you on the hot seat, but. Yes.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. Giles.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 0: Good evening. Do you want to introduce yourself?
Speaker 4: Yes. I'm James Addison. Will then financial services, also a resident. Mm. I've been working with staff on this and other projects. Tell me the point of the things. Animal shelter, lots of different stuff. And please let me say congratulations to all of you for I don't think I've addressed you as a the new council and nice to be working with you. So in answer to your question, in October, I put together a memo for staff looking at this issue of capitalization. Who's got the finances? Where's the money coming from? As you said, I think a staff is a the short answer is there's no reason to think that that any of them doesn't have the capacity in one way or another to finance it. The one distinction I think is important is is the difference between the ones that really have the capital of themselves versus the ones that have to go get it. Although I think that sounds like more of a distinction. It really is, because even the ones that are self-financed, they have an investment committee. And when it comes time to cut the check, they're going to look hard because, you know, I mean, yes, they have a contract to develop. But when it comes time to actually cut the check, they're going to look around and make sure that they're not walking into something because they've got responsibilities. You know, they're all they've all got fiduciary responsibilities that, you know, they fully intend to perform in every case. But as we've as we found at the base and at other places, you know, circumstances change. So I would say that the thing to look at I mean, I do think, though, it still is a significant distinction that, you know, when you're when you're going through the DDA process and when you're getting to your entitlements, you know , the ones that are self-financed cannot come to you and say, well, if we have this partner and they say we have, they're not, you know, they're going to, you know, that little that sort of two step, you get a little bit sometimes that we're self-financed. You can say to them, what do you mean you don't? You know, you're not. It's your money, as you said, in front of us several times. You're spending your own money. So we're expecting you now to spend your own money. So, I mean, like I said, that sounds like a big distinction. But the fact is that that in every case, you know, they'll can get the capacity. They've all got a record of performance. You know, the level of investment required here is something they've all performed on before. There's no reason that they can't do it again. They're all experienced. I mean, so in that sense, I think there's not really much to distinguish among them. You know, they're all capable and qualified developers.
Speaker 11: In terms of the ability to move forward quickly. Do you think that there's a distinction between those two self capitalizing versus having to go out?
Speaker 4: I don't think so in either case that they if they've got a yes, I mean, for example, you know, you've heard Goldman Sachs come up several times. I mean, Goldman Sachs they've they can move fast and they've got lots of money. There's no question of that.
Speaker 0: Right. And I think Councilmember Desai has a question on.
Speaker 5: The issue of financing and self-financing. Is it what is your experience? If someone is self-financing, might they have higher expectations of return and when they get the money? And could that have an effect on what we expect in terms of, you know, the money that we want, not just for infrastructure but for other public benefits? Could that be the scenario versus, let's say, someone who, you know, gets the money from from the markets, from Goldman Sachs? Right.
Speaker 4: So a big distinction there is the source of the money because whether it's third party or self-financed, that money in turn is from somewhere. I mean, it can be it can be a mutual fund. It can be family money, you know, a large family trust. There's lots of sort of structures which are more or less patient and more or less demanding in terms of returns. I think in my experience, the ones that are internally financed, that are using their own money are a little more patient. I mean, they think a little longer term, you know, they don't have someone who's whose only investment in the in the project is an investment. There isn't a sort of a larger picture of sort of long term ownership. You know, there are some differences in the in the candidates in terms of some that really, you know, they're in the business of financing, building and operating real estate. And that doesn't mean they never sell anything. But. I mean, they continue with it and they own it and they operate it. That's their business. And they they use the money to achieve that versus some of the others where their business is really to make money. And so they're a real estate operation and it doesn't mean they're fly by night operators. I don't mean that. But that's their business. Their business is to develop the property and turn it over to somebody else who's going to either on the vertical side or they sell homes. You know, that's that's how they and that's how they get their capital back. Right. I mean, they've got to they have to turn their capital over and use it somewhere else. You know, neither of those models is superior, I would say. The but they they do give a different kind of psychology of how they do their business. Thank you. Sure.
Speaker 0: Does anyone have a financial question? Yes.
Speaker 8: So on one of the proposals, there was a comment that they were going to the net cash flow after payment of the fixed return would be shared between the city and the developer. I mean, did everyone come up with that and only one of them shared that or.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't remember that detail from looking at the proposals. And to be honest, that wasn't I wasn't actually asked to evaluate that issue. I was asked to look at the financial capacity. You know, that's that's a fine thing to say. I mean, the devil's in the details there. And.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my follow up question would be, I mean, do we know what that rate of return is? You know, in the past we've seen it at like the DDA process during the price in terms of negotiation. But, you know, we don't we don't know if, you know, we just don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't know. I mean, that that rate can run, you know, a vertical developer who's just a builder might want to see in the low teens on their investment speculative, you know, some of the projects like other other based reuse projects might they might want to see in the twenties, which is, you know, pretty high. I don't think that number I don't think they're looking for that number anymore. And that's not to speculate. I'm not speaking for anyone here, but just that's the sort of general range of what I've seen. But what what they have in mind, I mean, that's something they would have to tell you. I don't know.
Speaker 8: Okay. Thanks.
Speaker 0: Okay. Any other financial questions? If not, we'll thank Mr. Edison for your time. Thank you. But I believe Vice Mayor Knox White has another question.
Speaker 11: I have one last question. I don't know which.
Speaker 0: Staff member you can flip a coin and see who wants to come back.
Speaker 11: When I ask it, and then you can decide who's the right person to do it. But but this process started sometime in September with submittals. There has been a, you know, I'm glad we're here, but there's a lot of you have had the information for a long time. Mr. Edison's done his analysis. I would like to hear from staff as to whether they have any ideas of which developer they think meets the needs of the of the community. If they were to have to make a recommendation, which is often times where this goes, what recommendation? And I'll ask you to show your work in doing so.
Speaker 0: And do you notice no one is jumping up to answer that? So whoever loses the coin flip, please. Temporary. Miss Potter, it's you.
Speaker 8: Hi. Rose up hill.
Speaker 3: Good evening. I'm Debbie Potter, the city's base for youth and committee development director. And it is true that initially we had a process that was outlined in the staff report about how we were evaluating the the proposals, the request for qualifications and the submittals that we got back. And we did convene two panels. Ultimately, the final panel went through a process of ranking all of the proposals. We had a criteria matrix that we used an evaluation matrix which was included in the staff report so that the Council, as well as the public, can see the evaluation criteria that that was used when the panel met . We. We were prepared to make a recommendation to the council. It sounds this evening as if the Council is interested in more information about all of the proposals. However, if the Council is interested, we can absolutely share where staff's recommendation was. If that's what the Council would like to hear, I just don't want to. If there's a desire to seek more information from all of the proposal proposers, I don't want to get necessarily sideways of that process.
Speaker 0: Actually, I'd like to have my comments before we get to that point. Councilmember de SAC.
Speaker 5: Let me ask a question on that point. So what would your recommendation be then? Not in terms of who to select, but how to proceed?
Speaker 3: What I have heard. I know the mayor hasn't made her comments yet, so perhaps she would like to weigh in. But today, you know, so far what I've heard is that there is a desire for more information and how to balance that desire for more information against a desire to move quickly, because the Reshape project is dependent on us selecting the developer and moving forward with those negotiations. Okay.
Speaker 0: Okay. So with that, I would thank you, Miss Potter. I'm going to make my comments. So I'm going to wait for the door to be closed so we can have some quiet. Okay. Okay. So everyone who's coming in now, we're still in the middle of the meeting that started at 5 p.m., so you'll have more space, I think, to actually sit. But if there aren't too many of you, you can come in. Otherwise, we. It's better not to be standing in the aisle. Thank you. I don't think we're too far away from starting, so I come for you. Okay, so my comments, this is a tough decision. We can unanimously agree on that. We were, on the other hand, elected to make decisions. And they're mostly tough because the low hanging fruit has already been been picked. And so this is the directions that I would take. And I have to admit, I'm extremely intrigued to hear what Miss Potter would tell us about the staff's perspective. But I will also share that initially that was the process that staff was going to come forward with the recommendation to the council to approve any and a and moving forward to negotiate an exclusive negotiating agreement with one development team. I felt that that was more appropriately a decision to be made by the council, that the input should be heard by the public. And I appreciate the way this process has played out so far and any way it goes. I think we've done a great job staff in bringing this to us and great candidates. So here is my, my, my thoughts. I know all four of these teams. I've spent a lot of time talking to them actually over the years and going out and visiting projects even out of town. For some of them, I feel that at Alameda point it is time to diversify just in the way that you would diversify your investment portfolio. It's good not to put all your eggs in one basket. And especially as has been noted, more than once, we are heading toward an economic downturn of some sort. We just we know we can't keep going up, up, up in the trajectory trajectory we've been in. And we know that there have been challenges. I think, Mr. Ernst, from our middle point partners, said, you know, challenge must be in the definition of what a developer does. But I feel that we heap even more challenges on developers that are currently completing projects in Alameda, and that would be Alameda Point Partners and could tell us and I will hasten to say I agree with everyone who highlighted the contributions that these developers have made to our city. I acknowledge that. I appreciate that. I also expected of anyone who comes here to do business and develop. I expect whoever you are, you will be a good community partner. I don't feel it is a criteria upon which to base the selection of this very important development team. What struck me about the two newbies, if you will, but not really because they're working in some way, shape or form in Alameda or have in the past. Is that Jamestown's emphasis on job creation the example of of the industry city in Brooklyn, New York. It was something that they talked to me about when I met with them and also that they want to do a job job training center in addition to the job creations that they want to do. They want to have a job training center. And this is very important not only for our residents at Alameda Point Collaborative in the whole Reshape neighborhood hood, which I think most of you in the room understand is the combination of Alameda Point, Collaborative Building Futures, Operation Dignity and I. So I'm I'm very intrigued by that. I also think that Brookfield is worth taking a closer look at. I appreciated them saying that their vision starts with the reshape opportunity. They want to create a feel of one neighborhood being a part of the other. And they also looked at the opportunities for job creation that makerspace and startups could eventually move on to our enterprise district, which will be maybe the next phase we start to work on. And and both both of these developers talked about a diversity of housing that we want to create, not just housing for families, but also housing for people to be able to age in place. And if I'm recalling correctly, I believe they both talked about doing a. Living facilities. I will very quickly echo what my colleague, Councilmember Otis, said. This was a request for qualifications. Staff purposefully did not do a request for proposals because that is where you get the pretty pictures. We got a shortened version tonight, but at this point we are only selecting a team or teams to move forward, to negotiate, to begin. It would be a one year process, one year and maybe a little more with some extensions of working out an exclusive negotiating agreement, what it would look like to move forward. I, I think we almost can't make a bad decision. I feel from my perspective, it's time to get maybe some new perspectives, but also with track records of what they've done in other areas. So my proposal would be in council, see what you what you think would be that we ask staff to work with these two teams to get more information and answers to the questions you've raised. But I want to hear from my colleagues. Who wants to go first? Councilmember Desai.
Speaker 5: I'll go first. You know, to me, the both cartels and Alameda Point Partners have demonstrated their abilities in a difficult environment that Alameda has. And I know that obviously the other two developers and their teams are incredibly great developers and you've done wonderful projects. But all I know is that at the end of the day, ABC took the time to hammer out a DDA that really took into account community needs. And and while I wasn't there when certain issues had arose, I was very supportive of the Council's actions that you took in furthering the DDA along. Likewise, cartels cartels has been around for so many for several decades now. And and I think there's something to be said about about the work that they've done in the city of Alameda, in the base conversion process, particularly. I mean, I really appreciate, you know, the the expertize that the other partners bring. But I have to go with what I know. And these guys have proven themselves. So I would encourage us hammering out or fleshing out issues that are of interest to us with to find lists. My my and I was at my mind is APEC in Qatar. And then after coming back, then we'll select one person who will enter into it in a with.
Speaker 0: And just for clarification, you've said APC, which is Army two point collaborative. I think you may now be the point partners. Okay. Our next speaker. I'm not looking to volunteer.
Speaker 7: I made eye contact, so I did. I mean.
Speaker 8: I've been listening to everybody. You know, I think there are valid points made by all of my colleagues so far. I do think the two new people that haven't worked in Alameda as much, you know, do bring an attraction to us. But on the flip side, you know, they haven't worked there yet, Alameda Point and developing our naval base. And I still believe even though I think one of the speakers said we're not that unique, I think with staff it is kind of unique, you know, because we have our own soil. We have our own community. You know, we have our own process. So I don't want to undervalue that experience. I also am cognizant of of the potential risk of putting all your eggs in one basket. So if I personally is still not ready to narrow it down. So I'd like to hear from the two AP and can tell us if they are moving forward, you know, how they would mitigate that potential risk because that that could be an issue. But I don't want to undervalue, as my colleague Mr. Daisuke said, the work they've already done in Alameda, an experience that they they've they've gleaned from that work. So I'm not ready to pick two. I'm sorry.
Speaker 0: Okay. Who's next? Vice. Maybe that's why I'm dead. No. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Speaker 11: I'm struggling with. I guess I'd like to I'd like to hear more from the three of you and maybe.
Speaker 7: Councilmembers about.
Speaker 11: It, because all three of you have said you're not ready to to move forward. You'd like to hear more. I'd like to hear more about what is the the dove in them. I'm not I'm not clear what what we're at what direction and specific things we're asking that are not in the in the reports that we got and whatever else. I don't have any really. I personally don't have any burning questions. I'd like to hear more.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 0: I think. Villa, do you want to add something before we hear from my colleagues? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 10: And this may get to Vice Mayor Knox White's question, but one thing to get to my point earlier about, you know, I want to see the project actually be completed. I want to see it's not just start. I want to see us finish and I want to see it flourish. I would like to know specifically, are there any projects that have been performed here in in the Bay Area or here in Alameda, where any of the four have been involved, where there have been significant delays? Because to me, that's a track record that I would like to look at. Have are there any projects where there have been significant delays, whether it's in the negotiations portion of it or it's in the the actual project construction portion of it? And what were those delays? Were they hold ups based off of labor issues? Were they hold ups based off of financials? Were they hold ups based off of some sort of deliberation between a couple developers trying to figure out what's going on with the project? Those are the types of things that I want to know because we have a number of projects that are currently also underway. And I think if we are going to look at folks, that's part of their track record that I would like to know about. I also think that there's a reason that the city decided to not hire a master developer. And part of that was to have a bit of diversity out at Alameda Point so that we can make sure that these projects, if there's some sort of issue that comes up with one, that it doesn't impact the other. It's not to say that I but I also expect that whoever goes in there is going to be working among the various projects that are going in. So, you know, I think, at least from my perspective, I'm willing to and I think we should move forward with two tonight. But I have seen catalyze complete projects and actually get them done. Here in Alameda, I'd be willing to consider them as well as one of the other newer applicants. But I do want those questions asked and answered in full about, you know, any significant delays that have come up.
Speaker 0: And I would just interject a comment on that. I that's certainly, I'm sure, information we can determine or find out about what projects have had delays. My only caveat would be there are so many reasons unique to a project that could cause delays that I'm not sure. Well, that's information we can gather, but then I'm not sure how much weight it would be fair to assign to that. So just something to keep in mind. I think it.
Speaker 10: Depends on the nature of the delay.
Speaker 0: If it could. Let's see who had the hand up. Councilmember Desai, just quickly.
Speaker 5: Vice Mayor Knox White had asked, well, what do you mean, Tony, by like, you know, wanting to hear more information? I think that was the gist of your question. So here's an example. You know, what we're trying to achieve at Alameda Point, west of Main Street, we all agree, is something unique with regard to not only economic development, but social economic development in the way in which we're integrating the Alameda Point Collaborative, I call them homeless collaborative into the mix of things. So what I would want to see in talking with two people is how do you flesh that out? How, you know, a what is your experience in working in this kind of, you know, this kind of of a vision and B, you know, what kind of projects had did you have that move? You know, people on to, you know, gainful employment, career pathways, etc. because and then see, you know, what do you envision doing with regard to bringing to life the whole desire to better integrate the Alameda Point Collaborative and their different nonprofit partners in the Reshape program? That's what I mean. I mean, I think on paper, you know, we all see this as a, you know, geographically reshaped project here. You got you a west with me here. But at the end of the day, we don't want people just walking by each other. You know, we want maybe the the incubator space has dedicated space for for people who are, you know, trying to, you know, achieve economic security. It's that level of thinking that I want to see.
Speaker 0: So Councilmember Rody.
Speaker 8: I guess to the vice mayor's point, I would like to see a little bit more financial data. I know we're not going to get pro forma based on fees and you know how much you're going to sell each unit for. But kind of compare what, you know, what each team is looking for as far as the finances. And you know what the bottom line is going to be for the entire project. I do think it's important, as the Councilmember Vela mentioned, about delays. But, you know, every developer has delays. So, I mean, maybe I mean, I don't want to prejudice what anyone's thinking or prejudge, but, you know, maybe people are thinking in their heads. Well, we've had delays with the two developers we know. So let's try somebody we don't know because we never had delays with them. Well, I'm sure they have delays in their projects as well. So it would be interesting to know that I understand the desire for diversity out there, but I don't think we should exclude or punish someone and not give them an opportunity to provide more information just because they have done something out there. And, you know, I will say for a catalyst Bay Port, very successful like Melia said, you know, they get things done site A and a we may complain or have some feelings about how long it took, but, you know, that was a 25 year, you know, project. I mean, this was not something that this would have been done. This was easy, would have been done already. So I think we have to recognize the complexity of city and appreciate the work that the developer has done to get it to this point because no one else was able to do that. So it may have taken longer than we wanted. It may have cost more than we wanted. We may have had done more DDA amendments than we wanted. But, you know, we have shovels in the ground and we have infrastructure getting put in the ground. So I would like to see, you know, some more if there if there's some ways that these developers think they can mitigate the issue of not having diverse developers and putting all our eggs in one basket, I'd like to see that. But, you know, on the flip side, those that haven't been out there and done anything, I'd like to see, you know, what they think it's going to take to get them up to speed. On what it takes to develop at Alameda Point. Because from the two people that I've heard from that have done it, it's not an easy thing. And we do have some idiosyncrasies that I think need to be paid attention to. And that my last thing was should that I lost my train of thought on the last thing. Well, give me a minute to come back to me. Okay.
Speaker 0: Speaking of speaking of minutes council, we have this rule that the previous council imposed where we all have 9 minutes of speaking time. Some of us are getting kind of close to that limit. But with a vote of four council members, we could vote to suspend that rule. But bearing in mind we do have a cast of thousands, I think, waiting in the wings. But just so we for housekeeping reasons, shall we suspend that rule? Anybody want to make a move? So. Mr.. DE So just so you know, you have a minute and 50 seconds left.
Speaker 8: I actually remember what I was going to say. So I'll.
Speaker 0: Say that if you want to use up some, you do.
Speaker 8: Then. I mean, I think we also have to look at the cohesiveness. I mean, one of the downside risks of being the master developer ourselves is that we risk, you know, having patchwork and it doesn't look like the entire base is one community and one Alameda. And, you know, I'd like to I'd like to see how we make sure that happens.
Speaker 0: Okay. Um, yeah. Uh, Vice Mayor Knox White. Do you have any opinion you want to share?
Speaker 7: I mean.
Speaker 11: It all is. It sounds like people want to come back. I guess. I guess the question is, do we want four to. I've heard right in terms of a process.
Speaker 0: So I would urge counsel, maybe we can discuss it, maybe even developer by developer. It is not easy discussing you all in front of you because we don't play favorites. We love all of our children equally, but not to your children. But you know the concept. So I but I also think we owe it to these folks who have spent so much time and effort and the people out at the reshape neighborhood to not kick this can down the road. But Mr.. Are, you know best thinking to at least narrow it down to two. I do not think we need to come back with all four again. But I'm that's my humble opinion.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I concur.
Speaker 0: Okay. So if may I stay with you for a moment then, since you made eye contact, Councilmember Vela, if you were to, are you thinking narrowing it down to two or you've got one or what do you think?
Speaker 10: I think two is fine, but I would like to articulate specific questions that we're looking at.
Speaker 0: We hold that thought. Do you want to start with the two you have in mind?
Speaker 10: Well, I said this earlier. I'd be happy to move forward with Catullus and one of the other new applicants. It's worth exploring what their proposals are and what they're looking to do. I do think that this isn't the last piece of Alameda point or anything else that's going to be developed.
Speaker 0: Good point.
Speaker 10: And I do want to make sure I do want to make sure that none of our applicants are discouraged from this process and thinking that they won't come back. Because I do want to make sure that they all understand that they are important partners. And I think there's going to be other opportunities.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. And we'll come back to the questions part. So anybody else want to throw out their if? Okay. First of all, you're holding up two fingers. No, no.
Speaker 8: I'm trying to make I kind of did. Did staff want to make their comment that they suspended when the mayor needed to speak or not?
Speaker 4: Certainly.
Speaker 8: And I'll just preface it. I mean, if I was to have to narrow, I would probably want to pick one from the existing and one from the new. But that's just.
Speaker 3: So from my from staff's perspective, it's really at the council's pleasure. You have a process that you're setting in motion and or at least is under discussion right now. You have a series of follow up questions that you want to to have us work on. And so, I mean, we're happy to, but I also don't want us staff to interfere with the process that counsel is currently discussing. So I would really defer to the counsel on that. But since I'm up here, I have one suggestion that you might want to consider if there are going to be a if it's going to be narrowed or not. And there are a series of follow up questions that you, the council, may want to develop. The council may want to think about a committee of the council that would work with staff and work with us to develop and refine those questions and then come back with a recommendation that may help on balancing the timeliness with the desire for additional information. So that's I.
Speaker 0: Like that suggestion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Potter. Okay. Are you up next? Do you want to do you want to wait? Because I can call in someone else.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think I'm here. I'm there. But I'll listen to what someone else wants to say.
Speaker 5: I really said mine.
Speaker 0: So. So remind me, Councilmember.
Speaker 5: You said I'd like to move forward with Catalyst and Alameda point on partners and the specific areas like to flesh out or kind of honing the kind of what I call the socioeconomic development.
Speaker 0: We'll get into the further questions. And I like Miss Potter's idea of the subcommittee. Yeah. The vice mayor knocks. Right.
Speaker 11: Assuming they were going to move forward with two. I mean, just because I can be open, I probably can be open to changing at least one of these I want to call it, you know. From the cartels presentation. They know the dirt that really grabbed me. And if anything, from from from that team, I think they have shown that they know how to get things done and and and have once, once, once, once they got the, the an alignment between their product mix and and their project that things move forward very quickly. You know, on the Army to point partners, I really, I, I just you know, they have team members who have who have shown over and over and over again that they are able to move projects forward and places. We're very successful. People in town have not. I think if we were going to choose, if we needed to choose to, I think I would probably lean towards engaging our partners due to that. Let's see, Jamestown. I, you know, I, I they're probably the ones I feel the least familiar with. But I do appreciate what they have done, what they've done at South Shore. And, you know, I appreciate that Remy, who sits on our economic development, strategic. Commission Counsel. I can't remember what it's called right now, but yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and when she does the, the point of view in terms of how to develop jobs, I think is really important. And while I guess for me between Jamestown and Brookfield, if I if I was going to choose tonight, I would probably choose Jamestown because of their jobs focus. I feel that I like what Brookfield is bringing in terms of I feel like we would get a slightly smaller project. But I think being led by a residential builder, their presentation was much more focused kind of on that residential side. And while they talked a little bit about jobs and whatever else, I think that that kind of that commercial development is good. So if we were going to only move forward with to allow me to point partners in Jamestown would be the two that I would choose. I'm just not still sure what questions I would ask to. Help narrow that down that we don't already have information.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Village, did you want to add something?
Speaker 10: Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to. I'll be direct. I think my what gives me the most heartburn with two point partners is the affordable housing aspect of it and the issues that have come up relative to, say, with a couple of the projects that have come through. And I know that that's not necessarily through any fault of their own, but we are going through another round of the cap and trade on the Eden housing portion and with the funding for the Reshape project being a key issue, I do worry about that and where we're going to be spending resources in terms of cobbling those funds together. So I do that. That's my concern and what I'm taking into account when I'm looking at those decisions. I think AP has done a great job of finding finding a pathway forward on on a number of different things, and I applaud them for that. But I am still worried about how we're going to make sure all of the affordable housing gets built that we've we've got planned.
Speaker 0: And and I will say that I very much concur with the vice mayor. I'm the former vice mayor. Councilman Rivera on that. On the other hand, I've been around long enough to remember a project that we all hoped would come to fruition called Clif Bar, and it didn't. And that was when Catullus was at the helm. And they found that the the condition of the underlying wharfs was just such that they didn't feel it was economically feasible. But you I mean, if you know anything about the history of development here in other places, you have to be flexible. You have to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. And I think the best thing to do is to put a good team in place. I could go with Catullus in Jamestown if I think it's kind of intriguing to go with a known quantity, if you will, in a not so known. Although I would encourage people to read up on Jamestown in the materials in our staff report.
Speaker 8: Councilmember Ody Okay. I guess it's time to make a decision. I thought I would throw a monkey wrench in until I heard the vice mayor. I still think there's some value in the experience that Alameda Point Partners brings for the work they've done on. And you know, that missed application and cap and trade, that was not them. I mean, that was one of the affordable housing providers. So, you know, they would be they would probably make my short list from the the two groups that have been working out there. And, you know, Jamestown has worked in Alameda. I mean, that people that would tip the scale for me that, you know, we partner with them. They are in our community already. And, you know, Cyprus is actually developing, which is block nine in block 11. So I mean, they do have some experience out there. Their partners have experience actually in this land, in this soil. So, I mean, those are the two I would go to if I had to narrow it down, you know, one on one that I'd like to hear more on the risk mitigation and then one that's on the new side.
Speaker 0: The two were.
Speaker 8: Jamestown and AP.
Speaker 0: Jamestown people.
Speaker 8: When I used eight and a half minutes to get there.
Speaker 0: And that's okay. Okay. I'm doing a little tally here. I think I see James Tan on. When? Everyone but councilmember councilmember decide. Okay, so could we agree that on our short list will be Jamestown? Speak out loud, people. It's so hard to picture. Okay. Okay. So okay, then let's figure out. Okay. Do we? Someone do the math, dude? We were three and two.
Speaker 8: I read us AP two. Good. Tell us. Well, three could.
Speaker 7: Tell us.
Speaker 8: Because you put both on there.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. So, Councilmember Vela, are you at it for the second one or you could tell us. Yes. Could tell us. Vice mayor.
Speaker 11: Partner.
Speaker 0: How many partners are correct? Um, one. Okay. Councilmember Councilmember.
Speaker 5: So I was EVP and could.
Speaker 0: You get one vote, my dear? Oh, we've already. We've filled the one slots. Okay. Yeah. Council member, Odie.
Speaker 7: AP.
Speaker 0: AP.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm ready. I'll go with AP.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 0: All right. I will say we have three for AP and I could go with either. So we I think that we have reached the decision that we will have two development teams to answer for the questions that we will ask staff to pose to them who would like to be on the subcommittee to to formulate questions.
Speaker 8: Me and.
Speaker 0: You. How about. Well, how about I'm hearing Councilmember de SAC. You said a number of times you'd like to have some more information. Would you work with Councilmember O'Day? Sure. To work with the subcommittee. Okay. Miss Potter, there's your son. Is that okay? I agree with that. We don't need a motion. Okay, so have we. Have we fulfilled our obligation to give and receive the presentations? Give direction? Is this good? Okay. And again, a heartfelt thank you to everybody who participated. You are all winners. No, we're we're so happy to have your interest in our community. And as Councilmember Vela said, don't go far because we've got more work to do out at that former naval air station. So I am going to conclude this special meeting, but I'm also going to give our council I hate to start a meeting late. I apologize to everyone in the next item. We'll talk twice as fast. But we we've been up here sort of since five. We need a little break. So the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Everyone will be back in 10 minutes. 740. I'm starting. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 0: If everybody could find us. See, we've kind of changed the cast. And a first, I want to just start and say my apologies for everyone who here for the regular meeting that was supposed to start at seven. We had a meeting that started at five, but we are picking a development team for the next phase added Alameda Point and it just went a little later. So my apologies. But with that it is now. Well, it's even 739. I said we'd start at 740, but we're starting because we've kept you here this long. So I would like to call the special joint meeting of the City Council and the successor agency to the Community Improvement Commission for February five, 2019 to order roll.
Presentations by Four Developer Finalists for Development of the West Midway Project at Alameda Point (22-Acre Mixed Use Project, Construction of Backbone Infrastructure, Up to 291 Residential Units, including Commercial Development) and Provide Direction on Next Steps in the Developer Selection Process. (Base Reuse 819099)